Contrary to what you might think, tilt can come in many different forms. While many
poker players these days have 8️⃣ accepted that tilt does exist and can negatively impact
their game, most of them probably don’t realize just how many 8️⃣ ways it can affect
them.
Tilt can have a detrimental effect on your poker game whether you’re winning or
losing, and 8️⃣ even something as simple as distraction can lead to massive tilt – quickly
followed by significant losses at the poker 8️⃣ table. For more in-depth information on how
to deal with tilt at the tables you can check out this handy 8️⃣ Tilt Management
Guide.
Here, we’ll break down the 6 types of tilt you may experience and give you some
guidance on 8️⃣ how to break away and readjust. Let’s get started.
Victim tilt is an
extremely common form of tilt and pretty much 8️⃣ all of us are very susceptible to it.
When you experience a bad beat or have been having a bad 8️⃣ run of cards it is very easy
to fall into a victim mentality. These thoughts are typically something like
this:
“Nobody 8️⃣ is as unlucky as me, I’m the unluckiest person in the world!”
Or-
“Why
does this always happen, I can never 8️⃣ seem to catch a break!”
While deep down you might
understand in theory that these statements aren’t true and that 8️⃣ everyone experiences
the same amount of luck and variance in poker, it can be extremely hard to break away
from 8️⃣ this kind of negative thinking at the table.
The reason we tend to do this is
because we don’t want to 8️⃣ take responsibility for our circumstances, so we pass off the
blame on circumstance and chance.
We’re basically saying to ourselves that 8️⃣ our poker
results are due to bad luck or misfortune and have nothing to do with our own skills or
8️⃣ the skills of our opponents. While luck can obviously play a factor in individual
hands, it affects everyone the same 8️⃣ and cannot be controlled, no matter what we
do.
Blaming our results on just ‘being unlucky’ takes the responsibility of our 8️⃣ results
away from us and puts it on sheer luck instead. If we just tell ourselves we’re unlucky
we don’t 8️⃣ have to focus on improving at poker, and get to just complain and whine
instead.
Because of this, we must focus 8️⃣ on the actions we can take that will have a
positive effect on our results. Watch Pokerstars Learn videos and 8️⃣ put in the work off
the tables, and you’ll be more focused on the decisions that you make instead of 8️⃣ the
outcome.
We’ve definitely seen revenge tilt before, even from some of the biggest names
in poker such as Phil Hellmuth! 8️⃣ This form of tilt comes about when one specific
opponent keeps getting the better of you at the table. Common 8️⃣ signs of revenge tilt
include phrases like:
“I can’t seem to win against this guy!”
Or-
“Why do you always
just have 8️⃣ the nuts?”
While we all know that we definitely can win against that player
and they’re probably just getting a 8️⃣ little bit lucky, we again find ways to detach
responsibility from ourselves and blame it all on luck.
Maybe they are 8️⃣ just lucky, or
maybe they’re outplaying you. Either way you end up feeling like you must seek revenge
against that 8️⃣ specific player.
Emotional attachment to your nemesis at the table will
cloud your judgement and affect your ability to make optimal 8️⃣ decisions and stick to
your strategy. Players will often ramp up their aggression trying to win a big pot
against 8️⃣ their enemy, which can then result in big losses and more
frustration.
Emotional decisions are basically never bound to be the 8️⃣ right decisions in
poker, so if you’re feeling revenge tilt towards a certain player it may be best to
change 8️⃣ tables or at least take a short break to gather your thoughts and recenter your
emotions.
Have you ever felt like 8️⃣ you’ve lost the concentration or motivation to make
optimal decisions at the table? You aren’t affected when you lose, and 8️⃣ you aren’t
affected when you win. You just feel nothing at all.
This is an extremely dangerous
state of mind to 8️⃣ be playing poker.
While it’s good to focus on making optimal decisions
and detach yourself from the short-term results, being completely 8️⃣ dissociated from
winning or losing leads to “button-clicking” or just taking actions with little to no
reasoning behind them.
You may 8️⃣ find yourself in an extreme form of autopilot, randomly
going all-in with no thought behind it, or calling just to 8️⃣ see what your opponent
has.
Players deep into dissociation don’t care whether they’re right or wrong and they
don’t care whether 8️⃣ they’re making a good decision or a bad one. They are completely
detached from reality.
If you find yourself feeling this 8️⃣ way, you must take a break
from poker immediately until this feeling goes away.
If you don’t, you’ll likely wake
up 8️⃣ from your disassociated phase with a disgust for the game of poker, as well as a
diminished bankroll.
Take a break.
When 8️⃣ asked about what tilts them the most, many
players say they aren’t bothered when they get sucked out on, or 8️⃣ are dealt a bad
beat.
What hurts them the most is when they make a mistake.
We can sometimes feel like
we 8️⃣ aren’t allowed to make any mistakes, or that we’re better than everyone and should
never make simple errors. However, the 8️⃣ fact is that we’re human and we will always be
mistake-prone to some degree.
Setting realistic expectations for yourself is very
8️⃣ important, because one mistake can send you spiraling into tilt if you aren’t careful.
The more study we put in 8️⃣ off the tables the less mistakes we’ll make, but even the best
players in the world can still mess up 8️⃣ from time to time.
Dwelling on your mistakes for
too long won’t help you avoid future mistakes, and could instead lead 8️⃣ to the opposite.
Continuing to beat yourself up for an error actually increases the chances you’ll make
another mistake dramatically.
If 8️⃣ you find yourself still dwelling on a mistake that
occurred several hands ago, it might be a good idea to 8️⃣ take a quick break and allow
yourself to think through what happened away from the poker table. Running a full 8️⃣ hand
breakdown can be a good way to understand what happened and what you can potentially do
differently in a 8️⃣ similar scenario going forward.
Once you have had time to move past
your mistake you can return with a more confident 8️⃣ and focused mentality, instead of
beating yourself up over it and knocking your confidence.
This one may come as a
surprise, 8️⃣ but tilting is not just for losers. In fact, winner’s tilt can be just as
harmful, if not more harmful 8️⃣ as other forms of tilt, because it’s much harder to just
walk away from.
We’ve all heard a story of a 8️⃣ player who got lucky and won a massive
tournament for lots of cash, just to blow it all over the 8️⃣ next few months and end up
losing money in the long term.
When everything is going right and you’re on a 8️⃣ massive
heater, it’s so easy to get extremely overconfident in your abilities. After all, you
can’t seem to do anything 8️⃣ but win.
If we aren’t careful with how we handle our emotions
while winning, we can often get swept up in 8️⃣ the emotions of success.
Players suffering
from winner’s tilt will typically become overly aggressive at the table, play stakes
that are 8️⃣ too high for their bankroll, and sit down in games where they’re probably not
a winning player long term.
This is 8️⃣ all well and good while you’re getting lucky, but
once variance swings and you inevitably stop catching good hands, the 8️⃣ tables will turn.
You have to focus on sticking to your bankroll strategy, playing correctly at the
table, and making 8️⃣ the correct adjustments based on the information you have.
Just as
you shouldn’t attach too much meaning to a downswing, you 8️⃣ also must be careful not to
get too attached to success. Swings are a major part of the game, so 8️⃣ stay consistent
with your habits and study routine and make sure that your decisions aren’t being
overly affected by the 8️⃣ results of your previous sessions – win or lose.
This is the
most underrated, but possibly the costliest tilt of all. 8️⃣ Elite poker players can also
suffer massively from this one, even if they have conquered every other form of
tilt.
Distraction 8️⃣ tilt refers to the ever-tempting call of social media, video games,
movies, multiple tabs and other vices that distract you 8️⃣ from the task at hand. Some
people have even more subtle symptoms of this form of tilt, such as daydreaming 8️⃣ or
going into autopilot mode.
Not giving poker your entire focus while you are playing
will cost you money, plain and 8️⃣ simple. If you’re scatterbrained and unfocused at the
table, this could easily lead towards you making suboptimal decisions.
Distraction is
extremely 8️⃣ detrimental to your poker game and puts you in a state of autopilot or lack
of presence at the table, 8️⃣ which leads to a higher chance of making mistakes. Then those
mistakes lead to mistake tilt (number 4!), and the 8️⃣ vicious cycle of tilt begins.
Put
your phone in another room, close all your tabs, turn off the TV and focus 8️⃣ on playing.
This change alone could go a long way towards increasing your winrate.
Coach
Bahman:
Bahman Zarghami is a mindset and 8️⃣ performance coach who has helped poker players
and other high-performing individuals achieve their full potential for over 7 years. He
8️⃣ is the head mindset coach for Raise Your Edge as well as the lead mindset instructor
here at Pokerstars Learn.
To 8️⃣ learn more about Bahman and some detrimental issues most
poker players struggle with (and how to overcome them), check out 8️⃣ this in-depth
interview with him where he tackles some of the biggest problems you’re likely to face
at the poker 8️⃣ table.
