Tilt is a concept most poker players are aware of, but the effect it actually has on their bottom line is realized by few. When you lose your composure at the poker table due to a bad beat or two, this is called Tilt. When another player gets under your skin it can happen, causing you to make plays that you wouldn’t normally make. These plays not only can cost money but sometimes a lot of money. At a casino or card room, if you lose control, thankfully it’s only at one table at a time, so you can maybe calm down and regain your composure after a few hands. When playing six to eight tables at once online, what then?
Faster dealing and multi-tabling are a couple of the advantages afforded to you when playing online. It is possible to play ten or twenty times the amount of hands that you could using live play. When you’re playing your best this is a great way to make money, but it can cost you a fortune when you’re on tilt. In a live game, if it takes you ten minutes to calm down you will generally tilt for three or four hands. Sixty or more hands can be seen in ten minutes when playing online. Chances are if you are tilting for sixty hands you will make more mistakes and lose more money. Instead of gradually calming down when this happens poker players tend to become more agitated causing them to lose more money. The cycle is hard to stop once it starts because losing more money will cause you to stay on tilt or become worse and so on. How can these situations be identified?
Some degree of tilt is probably experienced when a normally tight solid player begins playing fast and loose. The number of hands lost in a row is another thing to look for. You may not realize you’re on tilt, but if you are spewing chips, you better do something fast to calm down and stop the bleeding.
Taking a walk, as easy as it sounds, or taking a ten minute break, can help you regain your composure. The problem is, if you stand up every time you lose a big hand you’ll spend more time walking than playing poker. Tightening up and paying close attention to your game is a more realistic solution. Talking to yourself, as crazy as it may sound, may help plays make more sense after losing a big pot. If you ask yourself, “Does it make sense to raise with Ace Four Suited under the gun?”, and your answer is no, then you should probably fold. You can also fold a few borderline plays that you may otherwise take a chance with. You may be surprised at how many mistakes you can save yourself from just by talking to yourself.
Whatever the answer for you is while on tilt the most sensible thing is to do whatever works for you to get your head back in the game. Your bankroll may take a big hit otherwise, especially if you’re multi-tabling.
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It is surprising to discover how thoroughly our basic functions sometimes control our conscious minds. Scientific studies have shown that mice and pigeons, and recently other animals such as cuttlefish, can be taught to react to a specific arbitrary sign with a specific set of behaviors: animals learn to expect food at a sight or sound, and learn to receive food by manipulating a lever, ringing a bell, or pecking a certain spot. Through habituation, they are conditioned to consistently believe that specific phenomena or actions regularly lead to the same specific results.
Moreover, additional experiments show that once an individual is thus conditioned, it will not learn what to a more developed mind, such as ours, may seem a variant of the same. That is, once a cuttlefish learns that a pink circle means food is coming and a blue spot means no food, it will take any additional color to mean no food. It has no capacity to interconnect new phenomena and allow hitherto inexperienced possibilities.
Having thoroughly mastered one condition, he blocks his mind to any other possibility, even though there may be strong indications there is one. Think about your own experience. Have you ever been jolted into a sudden illuminating thought that had never occurred to you before? Like maybe the group of intelligentsia running our country have no more capability to do so than you do?
Sometimes a bunch of good players will discuss at lunch the hands they had just been playing and somebody might say how surprised they are the guy in seat 4 hasn’t yet folded, he had been playing so terribly. Upon which another player might add smugly that, yes, and he has a huge tell on him, only to discover that besides one more player at the lunch table nobody else seems to be in on it. Swearing each other to secrecy, these two share their discoveries in somber undertones and immediately discover that each had in mind a completely different thing: the first one noticed that every time 4 has a good hand, he makes his bet and closes his hands in fists on the table and never does it otherwise than with a good hand; the other player noticed that when 4 has weak cards, he fidgets with his chips after placing a bet, never touching the chips otherwise.
So that the terrible player in seat 4 has at least two tells to betray him, but each pro has only discovered one. But where is written that there is never more than one tell to discover? Both of the better players had discovered sure tells and that surety blocked their superior minds from registering any additional clues.
This phenomenon is important for the successful poker player to take note of. The best players can be distinguished by their curious and active minds throughout the play. They keenly observe and classify according to importance the traits of their opponents and use them to their advantage.
The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Absolute Rakeback and Minted Poker Rakeback.