[Closed] HELP! Tilt is killing me!

Hi Jonny,
I think tilt is one of the hardest leaks to get over for any serious poker player. I find the important thing is to be able to laugh at bad beats. If a player calls my all in with 52o and flops a full house I laugh (sometimes out loud) and shrug it off. You have to develop an attitude that means you are pleased when you play well rather than being pleased when you win hands.

This also applies to marginal situations where you get coolered. For example if I make a resteal against a particularly aggressive opponent with AJo and he snap calls AA. It is important to be able to realise that you played the hand perfectly rather than being annoyed that you were behind in this single situation.

That is my simple advice, simply redefine when you are happy and you may find tilt easier to avoid.

Smileyphil.

sound like a kickass responed :-)

+1

Really important tilt tip: NEVER EVER GO TO HEADS UP TABLES ON TILT. Especially if you don't know what your doing.

I think you need to find out what is really causing the tilt (might sound simple). It could be that you feel bad because you lost a large part of your bankroll and you're thinking in money terms. I think then it might be an idea to have a more conservative bankroll so when you have a downswing it doesn't seem as bad. Obviously you'll here the usual stuff like people making bad calls will make you money eventually but I'm sure you already know that. I also think if you are confident you have a solid game it makes it easier to deal with these situations, when you start doubting yourself it goes downhill from there.

Originally posted by GunFlavoured
I think you need to find out what is really causing the tilt (might sound simple). It could be that you feel bad because you lost a large part of your bankroll and you're thinking in money terms. I think then it might be an idea to have a more conservative bankroll so when you have a downswing it doesn't seem as bad. Obviously you'll here the usual stuff like people making bad calls will make you money eventually but I'm sure you already know that. I also think if you are confident you have a solid game it makes it easier to deal with these situations, when you start doubting yourself it goes downhill from there.

Yeah GunFlavoured has a good point.

Your tilt is probably money related, offset this by a more conservative bankroll.

You will get beaten by junk hands regardless of limit you play because a good player will tilt another good player by busting thier AA KK etc with 3 7 2 5 or 27.

The trick is not going on tilt of course, so as GunFlavoured post eluded to don't let 1 pot affect your bankroll regardless of the bad beat. If your bad beat affected your bankroll (and I'll exagerate here) .0000000000000001% would you care so much?

Or another emample if your AA was busted by 5 2 and you lost a total of $15 but your bankroll was $789,989.00 (again an exageratin) would you care so much? Would you go on tilt?

yeah tilt is by far my biggest leak too.

Originally posted by Smileyphil
...
player calls my all in with 52o and flops a full house I laugh (sometimes out loud) and shrug it off. You have to develop an attitude that means you are pleased when you play well rather than being pleased when you win hands.
....

Smileyphil.

i have to admit i started to use that..

to laugh it out really helps..

i guess to laugh out the sadness but still..

any way to say something out loud really helps to "send it away.."

+100000

i really recommend that...

Hi everyone.

Thanks for the responses. They've been extremely helpful. Yes I have realized that my tilt is money related. I didn't think it was because I haven't deposited my own money and while playing the micros even large losses were quite small. I had previously been following a conservative BRM but broke that to take a shot at NL50 with only 35BI. I think that tilt came into play because that was the fastest I've ever lost that much money. I think NL50 is just out of my comfort zone for now.

I'm planning on returning to the tables in another day or two at NL25 or NL10. I'm going to do my best to think in terms of bb and BI and not $$$. I'm going to laugh at bad beats and not let them bother me. I'm going to strictly follow a stop loss and if I'm feeling like I could tilt I'm sitting out right away. If I tilt again I'm going to take a few days off again. These last few days I got to play some golf and go snowboarding which was really good for my mood. Thanks again everyone.

Cheers

Oftentimes I will feel unsettled after a bad play, or bad beat. I will tell myself that I am going to calm down and play tighter/smarter/whatever.

At those times, I have myself convinced that things are going to go better from that point forward, but then something happens and I go on tilt.

It's best not to sweet talk myself into better play. At that point it's time to shut things down.

I thought I'd share this in case OP might have the same issue.

Nav

Tilt is your best friend and your worse opponent...
if you are money oriented as other people said you should go with more conservative bankroll management...
what I do when i get bad beats, one after another, I stop and than go trough all the PS print outs and my hands... you ll easily notice where you go one tilt... if I have played my hands according to PS articles than i easily relax, i know i played my game, and if i want to continue playing i make sure that the print outs are there next to me... you get your game flow easier on the track and start making profit...
EXAMPLE:
i got soo much on the tilt that i lost 75 Big Bets yesterday (my limit is 20), but than i sat out, checked my hands (a lot of them were really bad played) and compared them with PS print outs, sat back with the print outs (bit angry still) but followed what they said, lost another 10 BB, by river draws which was OK, but than all started to move up, earned some 25 BB back...

I guess having the print outs and following them, when you want to play after the tilting and calming down helps a lot to me

cheers and GL at the tables

Originally posted by jonnyquest
Other than a break what else can I do?

Stop leaching and learn to play real poker? If you are prone to tilt I suggest SNGs.