Tilt: Introduction
Players who tilt will fail in the long run
No psychological aspect of poker has a greater impact on your success than your susceptibility to going on tilt.
The many aspects of "tilting" will
be the subject of this guide. We will abstain from any further
introduction, as anyone who has played the game is familiar with the
problem of "tilt".
The topic is real. It's a subject you can't avoid,
if you want to take poker seriously. Once you have reached a certain
level, your poker career will depend on your ability to manage this
aspect of the game. If you are prone to going on tilt and cannot manage
to keep yourself under control, you'll end up making very little
profit, if any.
Am I exaggerating? Not at all. The ability to
manage a tilt phase becomes more and more important as the technical of abilities of the players becomes more equal - which will be the case once you have reached the middle limits.
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TILT A player on tilt is in an emotional |
Once you can no longer depend on the technical
superiority of your playing compared to that of your opponents,
variance and its accompanying swings will become a bigger part of the game.
Your mental strength, that is, your tilt-resistance and the ability to keep a cool head under pressure,
will grow in importance. To put it short: your psychological
disposition/attitude increases in significance.
Clearly, a player must work on developing the
psychological and mental aspects of his game. This development goes
hand in hand with your own personality and characteristics. How you and
your
opponents handle your personality and personal weaknesses make up one
of
the most fascinating aspects of poker.
Tilt - The other side of poker
Even if we wish it were otherwise: our impatience,
temper, emotional ups and downs, despair, fidgeting, lack of
concentration, fear, etc. become more pronounced when we are
stressed.
This is the other side of poker, the one you won't
find in any glossy flyers. There are plenty of players whose
vulnerability to tilt doesn't just hurt their poker game, but crosses
over into their private and social lives, compromising them and even
putting them in danger. This then robs them of a good outlet for
getting away from the stress of sitting at the table and turns into a downward
spiral.
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Tilting can affect your private life |
How has this subject been dealt with by the "poker public" so
far? The answer: it has barely been addressed at all. Some seem to have
a deeply rooted attitude that psychological problems are a matter for
women and children. We see poker dinosaurs like Doyle Brunson on TV
telling anecdotes from his half-century long career of poker sessions
(some illegal) accompanied by snipers on rooftops, where players
literally risked their necks to play. Isn't a problem like tilting pretty
small in comparison? Someone who has seen Brunson on one of the many
televised poker shows might think so after seeing such a
performance from a personality who has reached such an evolved level of awareness that it takes more than a few bad beats to shake him.
The same applies to poker stars of the second
generation with decades of experience, such as Ted Forrest or Barry
Greenstein. You hardly ever hear about how they deal with tilting in
their daily poker life. But the truth is, these stars have to deal with
this problem, too. There are players who manage tilting well enough; on the
other hand there are some big names, who, even after many years and
much success, live on the brink, as a phase of tilting threatens to do some lasting
danger to their bankroll.
Just knowing how to play your cards isn't enough
The worldwide poker boom has brought more attention to
this problem. Tilting is no longer just the "vocational disease" of a
few insiders, something unknown outside of poker circles and not
interesting, perhaps even inconceivable, to outsiders. With millions of people
now playing poker worldwide, it's an issue effecting millions of people.
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| Without self-discipline there is no success |
As your interest in the psychological dimension of the game
grows, you'll come to realize the importance of the psychology of the game.
You will see the need for practice and/or the need
to examine yourself in light of these psychological aspects. This is
nothing new in other sports, such as golf and tennis.
Just knowing how to play your cards isn't enough.
Psychology and self-management become more and more significant for
your success. In high stakes poker, the psychological aspect of the game
has left the technical aspect in the dust.
Aside from profitability and bettering your game,
there is another important side to the matter to take into
consideration: with the large audience that poker has today, it is
important not only to counter criticism and prejudice arising from within your
own circle of friends and family, but also to speak up to lawmakers,
who might try to restrict or over-regulate the game. People are quick to
support restrictive measures when told told by experts that from a therapeutic or social point of view, millions of
people, friends, husbands and family fathers are in "danger" of tilt.
I decide what puts me on tilt
Once the significance tilting can have on your
poker life is clear, a second question arises: Is there anything you can
do to keep from going on tilt, or is susceptibility to tilting a matter
of personality, meaning you are either prone to going on tilt or not? And if
there is something you can do, what?
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Anyone can change |
I assume that people are capable of changing themselves for the
better, especially in their thinking; often we have no influence over
outside forces. I can't influence the cards I get or chose who sits
down at the table... But I can decide how I will react to the situation.
To borrow from Klaus Kinski (who said, "I decide who offends me.")
"I decide what puts me on tilt."
Those who have thus far in life been more
concerned with their external development may feel anxious about taking
these first steps and confronting their own psyche (which is quite
normal; since late puberty and the early age of adulthood are marked by
intensive exploration, introspective phases often come later in
life). Out of fear of what might happen, they choose to avoid taking this step
and instead give their technical play another fine tuning. But remember, it's
for a "good purpose", namely your own spiritual well-being and the
well-being of your bankroll.
"It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.“
(Nelson Mandela, 1994, in his inaugural address)
With that in mind: Give it a try and see if any of these suggestions can help you manage tilt phases.
I've designed this guide to cover different causes for tilting in individual articles, concluding with
possible remedies and tips for dealing with tilting. These will generally count for all
aspects of the game, not just the specific topics of the articles.
Tilting is a complex subject: topics and typical problems often discussed in the forums are summarized for starters.
If you have any comments or feedback on this
article, please post it in the forum. If, for example, you know of other forms of tilting, I can comment on them as well.
And now it's time to get started. Enjoy!
About the author: Robert Langer is a psychological
consultant, coach and trainer based in Saarbrücken. He also teaches
Psychology at a large German school for alternative medicine, and holds
lectures and seminars in NLP, conflict solving psychology and
psychological typology.
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