Switching From Online to Brick-and-Mortar Poker: Part III Will You Go On Tilt?

Some online players believe that I exaggerate the danger of going on tilt in brick-and-mortar (B&M) games. They’ve said, “I rarely went on tilt while playing hundreds of thousands of hands online. Why would I do it in B&M games?”

That reaction is based on an unrealistic assessment of their own self-control and an overly narrow definition of “tilt.” You may think that “tilt” means that you’re crazily throwing away chips, but I’m using a broader definition: “Tilt” means making mistakes that you wouldn’t normally make for emotional reasons.

By that definition, everybody occasionally goes on tilt, and some people do it frequently. They may never three-bet with garbage or make ridiculous calls, but they make small, subtle, and uncharacteristic mistakes because they feel angry, disappointed, hopeful, bored, and so on.

Believing that you’re too disciplined to make emotionally driven mistakes is just part of your natural tendency to overestimate your own abilities. Most players believe they play much better than they really do. They ignore or minimize their disappointing results or blame them on bad luck.

In fact, countless losing players insist, “I’m a good player, but terribly unlucky.” That’s why people tell so many bad-beat stories. They are trying to “prove” that their problem is bad luck, not bad play.

Denying reality is especially common concerning emotional reactions. We all want to believe that we are too rational to make emotional mistakes. This form of denial is extremely common and visible. You’ve certainly seen people so badly tilted that everyone at the table knew it, but they insisted that they were playing well.

B&M Games Have Too Many New Frustrations

Tilt is caused by frustrations, especially unfamiliar ones. You’ve learned how to cope with the online ones, but B&M games have 14 new frustrations:

• Much slower games
• Players’ mistakes that can’t occur online
• Dealers’ mistakes that can’t occur online
• Much higher costs
• Inability to play your preferred game
• Noise and other distractions
• Excessive socializing
• Pressure to control your body language
• Pressure to read opponents’ body language
• Pressure to get information you were given online
• Much higher stakes
• Much larger swings
• Much looser games
• Much worse beats

My previous columns discussed the first 12. You can read them on CardPlayer.com. You may be able to handle any one, two, or three of them, but the combination of so many can overwhelm you.

Some of the first 12 have more serious and pervasive effects than No. 13 (much looser games) and No. 14 (much worse beats), the topics for this column. For example, the most common complaint online players make about live games is, “They are too %^#*& slow!”

They are slow every single hand, and the house takes its higher rake (and perhaps a jackpot drop) from every pot. Some games are looser than others, but virtually all games are looser than their online counterparts. Plus, bad beats occur infrequently — even in the loosest games.

The slow pace, higher costs, and other frustrations have much greater effects on your results than loose games and bad beats. They can directly cause tilt or increase your vulnerability. I’ve put loose games and bad beats last because their effects depend partly upon your reactions to the other 12 frustrations.

Triggers and Vulnerability

Loose games and bad beats can be triggers for tilt. A “trigger” is anything that can cause a disproportionate reaction, and the effects of triggers depend very much upon how vulnerable you feel.

For example, if you’ve been on a huge rush and are ahead four racks, you will probably shrug off a bad beat that costs you a rack. However, if you’re down three racks and have been card dead for an hour (which is only 30 hands), losing half a rack with the same cards, opponent, and situation can put you on tilt.

Very loose games inevitably have larger swings than tighter ones. They should be more profitable because your good hands will win larger pots, but those good hands will also lose more often. With all those opponents, someone will draw out on you again and again.

Even if your net profits are higher, the larger swings will be stressful. Since you can’t multi-table, you may play for much higher stakes than you did online, so the swings and stress can be much, much greater than you experienced online.
The psychological impact of losing a pot does not depend entirely upon how much you lose. Your reaction also depends upon why you lost. Losing because somebody made a mistake will often increase your frustration.

For example, if you get all in preflop with pocket aces against pocket kings, losing is bad luck, but it’s not that painful. Neither you nor your opponent made a mistake.
If you have aces, raise to five times the big blind, get called by six people, flop top set on a ragged board, make well-sized bets on the flop and turn, and then get felted by someone who started with 7-4 offsuit and rivered a gutshot, the pain can be excruciating.

Of course, your pain may be eased by knowing that you played your hand well and that you should get your money back from such a weak player. What’s more, because you’ve played so many hands, you’ve certainly had lots of bad beats.

Despite that knowledge and experience, you may feel intense pain. If you do, that pain can cause a wide variety of mistakes. You may play bad cards to “get even” with those idiots, you may kill your action by raising too much to protect your made hands, or you may make many other mistakes that you wouldn’t make if you weren’t angry about that bad beat.

Final Remarks

Don’t kid yourself about your emotional control. You’re not a perfectly programmed computer, nor can you play like one. You have many emotions, including ones you don’t want to admit.

Denying reality about your feelings does not make them go away. In fact, it just increases their destructive effects. You can’t control your emotional reactions until you accept and analyze them. Learn how you react to all 14 frustrations (plus any that I did not mention).

Constantly ask yourself:
How do I feel?
Why do I feel that way?
Are my feelings reasonable, or am I overreacting?
How are my feelings affecting my play?
What can I do to make my decisions more rational?

Those questions are not easy or pleasant to answer, but if you want to play your best, you have to ask and answer them. Future columns will help you to do so. ♠

Do you often wonder, “Why are my results so disappointing?” Ask Dr. Al, alan[email protected]. He is David Sklansky’s co-author for DUCY? and the sole author of four poker psychology books._