Random Poker Thoughts

Tilt spells are very difficult to deal with once they have begun as it is the nature of the tilt to cause a loss of control. Tilts, like aggression, are part of homo sapiens make up and cannot be eliminated altogether. But fits of aggression and fits of tilt cause us to run amok for a reason. They are always triggered by an event, bad news, bad bruise, a gross insult, or any other fardle as Hamlet would call it, toying with his bare bodkin. Discomfort is the main catalyst to bring on an instant fit of aggression – discomfort such as pain or a really, really empty stomach.

As we go through our day, we do not think about the causes of our immediate aggression. So we are not able to cope with the triggers of our aggression because we do not understand which buttons are pushed to cause such raging behavior, so we pound our heads against the wall. In poker you must understand what throws you into an instant rage. To be a well-controlled, disciplined, cool player, you must know well the situations leading to your reactions. It is a requirement for the cool player to identify his triggers, from the smallest to the largest.

If you make a practice of this, you can cope with tilts by calming yourself down by words, counting to ten, or taking a few deep breaths. And promise yourself that when it happens again, you will identify the trigger and relax. Now, you can play that cool, professional hand of poker you knew was in you.

Every player needs to be able to admit that poker is not a game where you will always have full control, so you must learn to maintain control as best you can. Good poker players do not expect to win every single hand, this blind belief leads to feelings of inferiority, general disillusionment, and depression no matter what the endeavor. What the good player does expect is to enjoy the challenge of the game and be challenged himself to constantly learn how to more keenly observe his opponent’s behavior and level of skill and how to further sharpen his own technical skills.

By behaving as in the above example, your energy will be spent in a positive manner and you will have less to expend in the negative behavior of building up an uncontrollable aggression. You will have more energy to put toward the task of maintaining your equilibrium so even if you feel a tilt coming on, you can keep your cool and be in control of yourself and your game.

Some likely triggers can be:

Overall discomfort such as hunger or lack of sleep. Because these are not really instances of extreme torture, these can be overcome with introspection about the problem and how it is related to the emotions.

Bad mistakes: poker is a highly competitive sport, which perhaps makes it hard for players to forgive themselves; artists, most of the time, it seems, are somehow less hard on themselves, perhaps because to any practicing artist rough drafts and revisions are an obvious and necessary part of the otherwise more or less satisfactory creative process; any good artist will proudly admit that before they managed that amazing line they had to erase and rewrite pages’-wroth of limp, turgid verbiage or that before they had finally written that one true masterpiece of their career they had to write a series of “serious” well-meaning flops. You should not numb yourself to self-criticism, but you should be sufficiently immune to it to learn and improve from you own mistakes without plunging into despair.

There are many, many other triggers to be aware of, any of which, can be coped with as long as you can identify them. Become aware of what puts you on the defensive (yet another tilt trigger). It may be stupid mistakes (think bad instead of stupid), loss to a terrible beginning player (who probably goes on to lose everything in another game), fatigue, lack of focus, tedium, fight with girlfriend/boyfriend, one too many or one not enough, etc.

The author is a full time online poker player and makes the majority of his income from his online play and rakeback at Players Only. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.

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Tags: card games, entertainment, fun, Gambling, games, Poker, psychology, recreation, sports, tilt