How do you tilt?

[Holgininho]

Throughout my short poker career I have been thinking quite a lot about tilt. I read an interview with Stoxrader some time ago, where he stated he never tilted. On the other hand I've seen lots of posts from people, even very good players, describing how they go bust tilting at high stakes.

I've never taken shots at higher limits on tilt, and I have never wanted to. So, for some time, I was confident I wouldn't tilt at all (at least one thing I had in common with Stox ). Naturally I realized that wasn't the case.

Now I still think I'm not prone to tilt, but I certainly do tilt - it just isn't that spectacular and expensive. When I tilt I might raise with 65s from the Hijack, or 3-bet the flop with air just "to take a stand" against an aggressive check-raiser. Or I might actually play to passively and give free cards because I am afraid to be check-raised. But there isn't much more to it.

Now I'm interested in other people's tilt tendencies: Are there actually players among you, who don't tilt at all? Players who tilt quietly just like me (because you seldom read about them)? Players who turn into maniacs when on tilt? What do you do against your leaks?

Thank you.

[iponnet22]

thats the million dollar question right,,,,I believe everyone tilts just on different scales

I have been able to get my tilt under more control as I move up in stakes, because thats the only way to win....but I still tilt especially after I make a couple buyins I always give it right back because I feel like I will end up ahead so why not make a bluff at this big pot against the super nitty nut pedaller....

just 3 days ago I droped 3buyins NL200 pushing on flush draws and overplaying TPTK....and bluffing at pots...and have been doing everything to get it back, almost got it back but went on a down swing and now I am regretting big time about the bad plays I made to drop those BIs.....I can easily douple my winrate if I dont ever tilt, I wish there was something I could do but I am afraid there isnt...

I hear people say if you exercise and keep in shape it helps with tilt control, but that IMO works the opposite because exercise will increase testastrone and send you on monkey steaming tilt after a bad beat, this may have something to do with my problem because I keep in decent shape.

The only way to control this maybe to do some sort of spiritual/psycological mind exercise that no poker player has discovered yet.....or you may have to be born with the ability to control tilt/tough situations..

[Silvershade]

I think ultimately this is a matter of confidence, if you know on both the intellectual and emotional level that you are playing superior poker even if you happen to be losing on that particular playing session then I think you can avoid tilt.

Knowing intellectually is pretty straightforward and can be accomplished by simply analysing your game. The emotional side is harder though, you really need to be used to winning at all levels to get this kind of emotional confidence. Perhaps if you have insecurites even with an exemplary winning record you wont have this kind of confidence.

Tilt I think is essentially based in our own fear that we are not actually good enough to succeed, perhaps whatever success we already have is actually the product of luck. Get past the fear and i think you can get past the tilt but so long as the fear remains the tilt is always just a few bad beats or bad plays away.

I cant control my tilt at the table when playing Holdem, for me the only solution is to stop playing for a while as otherwise I find myself almost expecting to lose in unlikely ways which tends to blunt the necessary aggression from my game.

Interestingly though I dont have a tilt problem playing 7-Stud or PL Omaha, I would guess that this is essentially because I started both games well enough to build confidence as well as skill early on. This has lead to a situation where if a hand or session goes against me I am unphased as I fully expect to win over the longer term. I've had downswings in all 3 games but in Holdem they have been more frequent and more brutal and I think at some level I doubt my ability in that game at this point in time even though I can see intellectually that a lot of the losses have been due to freakish runs of bad cards. I also wonder if part of the reason is that Stud ore Omaha beats are never as hard to swallow as Holdem beats because you simply can't usually get the kind of killer advantages in any single hand in those games which means that the expectation of winning any specific hand is somewhat reduced.

[bocasas]

when i go on tilt usually i became a maniac, luckily i`m intelligent enough to recognise it so after a hand or two, if I don`t calm myself down, I stop playing till the next day