RushPoker: Full Tilt Poker Table

Learning To Control Tilt At The Poker Table

Many coping methods fail you when it comes to poker tilts, since the very nature of the tilt is to loosen control mechanisms. Aggression is an intrinsic part of human nature and can't be eliminated even by the most self-disciplined among us. However, there is always a reason behind running amok, there is always a trigger that leads to acts of aggression: hitting your finger with a hammer, an insult, bad news or some other fardle, as Hamlet would call it, while contemplating his bare bodkin. The most common inducer to push one into immediate aggression is discomfort, like pain or pressure.

We do not live everyday making a list of what caused our aggressive behavior and forever etch the list in our memory. No, when aggression hits, we pound the floor with our fists. Poker demands that we do become aware of our hot buttons. In order to be that cool, self-confident professional, you must be acutely aware of the events leading to your reactions. You should be able to draw up a list of things that push your buttons and sort the list from minor cause to major cause.

If you can do this as a matter of course, you can catch yourself and say to yourself, even out loud: "Okay already, this is the type of serious good luck on the part of my moronic opponent, which pushes my tilt button - beware. Should that idiot do it again, I will not tilt, I will understand and calm down. I will not lose my cool and I will play the best poker I know how."

You will be able to admit even as you maintain control that in poker you do not have full control and that you, a good poker player, play poker not because you expect to win no matter what - precisely the kind of blind ideals which lead to disillusionment and despair when they collapse in any field of human endeavor - but because you enjoy the challenge of doing your best against the specific odds of the game: a combination of chance and your opponents' skill.

Such behavior is most likely to expend much of the energy which would otherwise build up into uncontrolled aggression and thus to maintain enough control over yourself to take a few deep breath when that ultimate trigger comes and to remain in control of the situation.

A few common triggers are:

General discomfort, like plain hunger or insufficient sleep: since we are probably not talking about any exceptional circumstances - like poker under torture - even sleepiness and hunger can be curbed if the person is introspective enough about the problem and his immediate purpose in relation to it;

Really bad poker mistakes. As you know, poker is one of the most competitive games around, which adds to the self-flagellation resulting from playing a hand badly, when you knew better. Be like the writer or painter who have performed so many rough drafts and sketches and thrown them all away, or rewrote or repainted, that they are accustomed to rejection and are much less hard on themselves because of it. They know that success is waiting for them if they just keep striving to write a better novel or paint a better picture. Either of these artists would gladly tell you that they threw out wads and wads of paper while finally achieving what they knew they had in them all along - a best seller and a painting that hangs in a fine gallery.

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.