Tilt spells are very difficult to deal with once they have begun as it is the nature of the tilt to cause a loss of control. Tilts, like aggression, are part of homo sapiens make up and cannot be eliminated altogether. But fits of aggression and fits of tilt cause us to run amok for a reason. They are always triggered by an event, bad news, bad bruise, a gross insult, or any other fardle as Hamlet would call it, toying with his bare bodkin. Discomfort is the main catalyst to bring on an instant fit of aggression – discomfort such as pain or a really, really empty stomach.
Everyday life does not necessarily require you to know your aggression triggers by heart and be able to curb your fits of mild rage against poorly placed items of private furniture. Poker does. To be a self-possessed cucumber-cool poker pro, you must be closely familiar with the circumstances of your personal reactions. You must literally be able to list your triggers, from the minor to the major.
Once you learn to do this regularly, you will be able to effectively say to yourself, even aloud: “Alright, this is precisely the kind of dumb good luck on the part of an aggressive “moron” which starts inching me ever closer to a tilt – look out. When that happens again, I will not tilt; I will recognize it and relax; I will play cool straightforward poker for some minutes.”
Every player needs to be able to admit that poker is not a game where you will always have full control, so you must learn to maintain control as best you can. Good poker players do not expect to win every single hand, this blind belief leads to feelings of inferiority, general disillusionment, and depression no matter what the endeavor. What the good player does expect is to enjoy the challenge of the game and be challenged himself to constantly learn how to more keenly observe his opponent’s behavior and level of skill and how to further sharpen his own technical skills.
If you concentrate on the type of behavior as explained above, you will direct your energies toward the positive and keep in control to the extent that you can count to ten when that ultimate button is pushed instead of flying off into the irrational.
Some of the common triggers are:
Overall discomfort such as hunger or lack of sleep. Because these are not really instances of extreme torture, these can be overcome with introspection about the problem and how it is related to the emotions.
Bad mistakes: poker is a highly competitive sport, which perhaps makes it hard for players to forgive themselves; artists, most of the time, it seems, are somehow less hard on themselves, perhaps because to any practicing artist rough drafts and revisions are an obvious and necessary part of the otherwise more or less satisfactory creative process; any good artist will proudly admit that before they managed that amazing line they had to erase and rewrite pages’-wroth of limp, turgid verbiage or that before they had finally written that one true masterpiece of their career they had to write a series of “serious” well-meaning flops. You should not numb yourself to self-criticism, but you should be sufficiently immune to it to learn and improve from you own mistakes without plunging into despair.
Of course, there are numerous triggers, too numerous to mention here. But if you are aware of your own hot buttons and what pushes them, your stupid mistake will become just a little bad one, your speed up in play will become a recognized trigger to the high anxiety that will surely follow, and that loss to a mere novice will not bother you so much when you realize he will just go somewhere else and lose the farm. Keep it all in perspective and you will be able to, if not conquer, control your tilt.
The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Rakeback at NoiQ Poker and Rakeback at Minted Poker.
