Tilt - Part IV: Coping With It

Sooner or later, it happens to almost everybody. You find yourself on tilt. It really doesn't matter why or when it happens; the important issue is that you're responding to your emotions, not your intellect. If you recognize when you're on tilt, you are way ahead of many players. They can be completely off balance, but not know it.

Even if you recognize your condition, you may not fully accept its implications. Pride and denial of reality can keep you from seeing how badly you're playing or make you underestimate your competition. You may realize that you're not at your best, but think that – despite being off balance – you can still beat this game. Of course, if your play has really deteriorated, or if the competition is tougher than you think, you can take a real bath.

Part I of this series (Jan. 30, 2004) made that point, and it can't be repeated often enough. Perhaps you are so superior to your competition that you can still beat them, but your risks are much greater than your opportunities. You may win a little, but you risk severely damaging or even destroying your bankroll.

You also may recognize that you're on tilt but think you can get over it quickly by taking a walk, playing differently for a few minutes, calling someone on your cell phone, or whatever other change you like. Perhaps your "cure" will usually work, but when it fails, the consequences can be disastrous. Once you start down that slippery slope, you may just keep sliding faster downhill. Because the risks are so great, the smartest choice is always to go home.

Enough on that subject! If you won't go home, at least take some steps to minimize tilt's destructive effects.

Perhaps the stupidest words in poker are, "I've got to get even," and countless people have said them. When you feel that way, you are in danger of turning an unpleasant loss into a catastrophe. You can get further off balance, play more poorly, and perhaps go to a larger game or the craps table, desperately trying to get even.

David Sklansky addressed this issue in Poker Gaming and Life (Page 20): "So many otherwise good players … play badly when they are losing. The basic problem is that they can't be content with getting back just a portion of their losses for that session … They want to go to sleep a winner, and if they don't, how much they lose doesn't matter."

The money you have lost already is gone, and you should try to ignore it. Concentrate on your current prospects. If you have a realistic chance to win, stay. If not, quit. But even if you play, do not push too hard, trying to get even. As you have read countless times, it's all one long poker game. Tonight's results don't matter that much; only the long term really counts.

Far too many people who are on tilt tell everyone how they feel and why they feel that way. They hope for sympathy, but give away information that comes back to haunt them. They whine about bad beats, say that they are playing scared, or growl, "Since they beat my good hands, I'll play trash." The effect is obvious and extremely destructive: They tell people how to adjust to them.

They aren't listening; in fact, they don't even exist. Your cards are always going to be random, and praying or any other ritual such as squeezing your cards or changing decks will accomplish absolutely nothing. If you find yourself taking silly actions, hoping to "change your luck," stop!

Recognize that you are being irrational, and that it will cost you money, perhaps a great deal of it. Push those thoughts from your mind, and focus all of your attention on the only thing you can control, your own decisions. Your most important decision is not how to play the next hand. It is how to regain your psychological balance.

Get away from the table and try not to think about poker, especially those bad beats. Your break can be enhanced by exercising, meditating, listening to music, calling someone on the telephone, watching TV, discussing other subjects, or almost anything that shifts your attention from poker.

If you can't help thinking about it, do not focus on the bad beats or how much money you have lost. Concentrate on the way you and the opposition are playing. Try to remember exactly how various hands were played. What did you do right and wrong? How are the others playing? How should your strategy be changed?

Since tilt, especially its wildly aggressive form, is so visible, the better players will see it and adjust their strategies. My last column described some of these strategic changes, and you must counter them.

A good adjustment is to change tables. The new opposition doesn't know that you've been on tilt, and changing tables can help you to regain your balance. It also separates you from the people who gave you bad beats or otherwise upset you, and it could act as a short break, especially if you get dealt out for a few hands.

If you can't or won't change tables, you must counter the adjustments your opponents are making, If you've been too aggressive, your bets and raises will not be respected. If you've been playing scared, they will try to run over you. Recognize what they are doing and adjust your own strategy.

Both forms of tilt cause large deviations from the proper strategy. Playing scared prevents you from protecting your hands and getting the full value from them. Playing too loosely and aggressively is just throwing away your chips.

Don't try to be too "creative." Perhaps you could normally make fancy moves on these players, but you're off balance and don't have either your usual judgment or the right table image. Stick close to the formulas. If the book says fold, call, or raise with certain cards, do it. To adjust to your table image, overcorrect a little from your previous play. If you were playing scared, be a bit more aggressive than the book recommends. If you've been too aggressive, be slightly too conservative. But, don't overdo it.

From a psychologist's perspective, the central gaming problem is denial of reality. Most people deny the realities that most casino games are unbeatable, and that nearly all cardroom poker players lose. Denial is especially severe when the topic is ourselves. For example, most players do not play nearly as well as they think they do.

Denial is strongest and most dangerous when you're on tilt or experiencing any other form of emotional disturbance. Every mental health professional knows that many disturbed people don't know that they are unbalanced, and that they often won't take their medication because they think they don't need it. The same process occurs with tilt. The more off balance you are, the less likely you are to realize it. For example, people have told me they have tried to warn friends that they were on tilt. Even if the signs were obvious, they usually rejected the comments. A few of them became quite hostile. "I'm fine. I can beat these jerks. Mind your own business." Of course, this overreaction showed how much they were on tilt, but they didn't want to hear it.

You probably don't want to believe you're playing badly for emotional reasons, but nearly everyone does it occasionally. If your attempts to regain your balance are not successful quickly, accept that it's not your night, shrug your shoulders, and do the only intelligent thing: Go home!

Alan often plays at royalvegaspoker.com as one of its team of experts. You can order his book, The Psychology of Poker, through Card Player.