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Don’t Leak Money – Don’t Tilt

You know from learning about postflop play that much of your profit comes from exploiting tilting players. The reverse can be true if you aren’t careful- other players could profit off of your tilt. How do you like the sound of that? You probably don’t. If you don’t mind the thought, stop reading here. You aren’t a poker player, you’re a gambler. No use learning strategy in that case. If you want to leak-proof your game however, read on. Strengthen your mind and watch your strategy become impenetrable.

Why tilt costs you money:

Tilt as it is most often understood is a temporary state of high emotion, which affects a player’s ability to think. I’m going to redefine it here to include any state of mind that is sub-optimal. Any mindset that is not conducive to analytical poker thought is tilt.

Obviously from that description, tilt is unprofitable. After all, the crux of your strategy is exploiting the fact that other players don’t think at the tables. How can you exploit that when you yourself aren’t thinking properly?

Tilt will cause you to make all sorts of decisions you normally would not. For instance, tilt tends to cause players to chase more unprofitable draws. Another symptom is overvaluing marginal hands. While top pair no kicker was once an unplayable hand to a grinder, the hand becomes gold when on tilt. The tilting grinder slides down the often irreversible path of irrationality. Click a mouse, lose a house. That sums it up nicely.

One of the most dangerous things about tilt is that often, it can affect a player so dramatically that he won’t even realize he’s on it. Tilt by definition induces a lack of thought- when you aren’t analyzing play at a table, you aren’t analyzing yourself.

You are tilting when…

1.    You are angry:
Did you get sucked out on? Did you lose a buy-in because of it? A lot of players can’t handle that. Opponents making really stupid plays and still coming out victorious can be a major annoyance. Anger clouds judgment, and makes a good player become a tilting, bad player.
2.    You are drunk, or high:
I feel like I shouldn’t even need to explain this. If you are drunk, you are tilting for the duration of your drunkenness. Same thing if you are high. You simply can’t think as rigorously or clearly under the influence of drugs or alcohol as you would be able to otherwise. Don’t play drunk or high. You wouldn’t drive drunk or high. Same thing.
3.    You are depressed:
Yes, depression. A lot of people suffer from it. These people don’t think clearly. Depression can increase irritability and anger levels. If you think you are depressed, get help. Helping yourself to get happy will help your game. Why would you put money at risk when your thoughts are constantly clouded? Playing while depressed simply doesn’t make sense.
4.    You are busto, or close to it:
If you don’t have the money to fund your poker playing, please, do not play. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can play rationally when they are short on cash. I mentioned a saying earlier: “Click a mouse, lose a house.” It’s light-hearted, but very relevant. There are horror stories of players losing everything they have trying to chase their losses.  Don’t play with more than you can afford to lose. Money shortage will be a constant burden on your mind (subconsciously). You won’t even know the burden is there, but it will be. Your play will be sub-optimal. Playing under funded is playing on tilt. Don’t do it.

Avoiding tilt continued in the next post.

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