Tilt problems

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Kilay Netherlands. Jun 29 2009 17:30. Posts 1960

So, here it is. My biggest leak of all and I've been trying all kinds of stuff to get over it and I've gotten a little bit better at it but I still tilt way too hard. Fortunately enough I often am disciplined enough to almost insta-close session and try and cool off. But that doesn't really cut it. Before I close I often get a few hands in that I play tilted and at times this can become very costly which obviously hurts my winrate a shit-ton.

Now I was reading Myth's post the other day at Edzwoo's blog and he explained how a winrate can easily drop to a break-even/negative while you are more than capable enough to beat the stakes by little mistakes adding up and stuff. Now I only play 25NL and 50NL and I think this is my biggest problem. I am actually quite amazed how I can sustain a 3 ptbb/100 winrate with how hard I tilt at times even over a large sample size. This sample size even includes several occasions from about a 12-9 months ago where I didn't even have the discipline to close down my session and just started tilting away buy-ins and wouldn't stop before I lost like 2-4 buy-ins on top of what I was down.

Now I obviously know this is extremely bad, I am even ashamed of it a little but the only way to improve on things is by being honest to yourself and trying to improve instead of just acting like it never happened. Now I am just asking for advice around here how other people that may have had big tilt problems improved on discipline and maybe got a way off getting back into a relaxed but focused state of mind very quickly.

I think for people to hopefully give good advice, I should explain my tilt since I don't think it's completely the same as the regular tilt. The thing is, I don't tilt (much) when I get a bad beat. I know I got in the money good, I am annoyed that I lost, sure but I don't play any worse. I am able to go, whatever, got in good, percentages, long run, all will be good.

The times I tilt and when I tilt badly is because I didn't get my money in good. Even if it's at occasions where I post my hand, link it to people or whatever and they tell me it was a cooler. I am always wondering, could I have folded, did I make mistakes on previous streets maybe even. And then the moment I found out I made a mistake, I start tilting... BAD !! I am big perfectionist, always have been in other aspects of my life and this totally gets me going. I think of myself, that I am not allowed to be mistake. I ask myself to do everything I do in a (near)perfect way. Now you obviously know poker is a game without perfect information hence you will always make mistakes. After that, you can ask yourself the question if the mistake was avoidable or not. Often it is, sometimes, it wasn't.

This is the hardest part for me. I have an extremely hard time identifying the mistakes I couldn't have avoided. I'm pretty much very result oriented. Whenever I get my money in bad, I always think of myself as making a big mistake and start hating myself. I don't have the confidence to say, well, that was unlucky but I played it perfectly even though I got it in as a 30/70 dog this time.

I could ramble on and on about this but I guess this pretty much sums it up and so, I was wondering if anyone has any good and solid advice on this and maybe can help me out a little. From own experiences or whatever.

Thanks in advance, Kilay

0 votes

J012SR United States. Jun 29 2009 17:46. Posts 9

Working on this aspect myself. I think I'm on tilt atm actually.

If you don't like the results of a bad call, try putting his whole range that you expect and compare equities.
If you don't care about getting sucked out on, maybe you won't care if you were ahead of his range anyways too? It's a pretty similar mentality.

Have a stove open and try it, or mark the hands and stove em later.

As for me, I like ice water and a good bitching. I enjoy bitching at the players, helps me stay a little more tiltless.

Man, I've been break even at 50nl for the last 8k hands (lol) but it's SO annoying watching the money fly around unable to play and just everything feels like it's going backwards. Bluffs called, nuts folded to, etc.

barbieman Sweden. Jun 29 2009 20:32. Posts 2132

I have a tilt problem as well, but it doesn't matter as long as I have weed. If I've had a bad session or a bad day I'll just smoke and get happy and all negative feelings will go away. If I don't have weed, I can't reset and I carry the memory of the bad session/day with me to the next session/day. Which is annoying since I don't have any weed atm . Weed is essential for my pokering.

barbieman Sweden. Jun 29 2009 20:37. Posts 2132

I have and always have had a short attention span and difficulty concentration at times. I don't smoke a lot of weed, just once a day and it's usually the last thing I do. I Smoke a bong and watch a movie or some series and then I'll go to sleep. And when I do this, I can stay focused and concentrated for long periods times and I almost never, ever tilt. I'm like 1/10 tilt prone when I can have this routine.

For me weed is the savior.

Last edit: 29/06/2009 20:38

killThemDonks Canada. Jun 30 2009 00:23. Posts 2681

On June 29 2009 19:37 barbieman wrote:
For me weed is the savior.