ITH Poker Forum

[Willem]

A very interesting article about tilt: http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/issue40/index.html

The guy (Jared Tendler) is also an instructor at Stoxpoker where he made a couple of very good video's.

(Disclaimer. Articles at 2+2 magazine only stay online for 3 moths or so. This article will most like disappear at the end of this month.)

[janeg]

lol... I love the 'Note from Two Plus Two' at the end of the article. Can't wait to read MalMuth's 'simple solution'

[Bluedaq]

I wonder if Mason Malmuth has ever tried to get into a fight with someone its not easy.

[Misunderstud]

I tend to agree with the 2+2 demurral. IMO tilt has nothing to do with threat (unless you're badly underfunded) and everything to do with frustration.

It's not an affliction from which I've ever suffered (though I've experienced plenty of frustration). Whether such frustration manifests itself as tilt probably has much to do with a player's personality. Nutjobs will immediately throw a few toys out of the pram and then forget about it; anal retentives like me will just keep taking it on the chin and then get grumpy for a few hours.

Either is unpleasant, of course (the latter more so for Mrs Mis). Personally, I find the process of losing (i.e. while I'm playing) worse than the fact of having lost (i.e. looking at the numbers afterwards). I've been using tiltblockers lately, which has made the playing process much nicer and the post-session fallout much less severe.

[janeg]

Jared is not talking about just physical threats but about feeling threatened. Emotionally your body/brain reacts to a non-physical threat the same way it does to a physical threat.

If you examine why you feel frustrated you'll probably find it's because you're afraid of something. You might fear you're being bullied, or, if you've lost a few hands in a row, start fearing you're not as good a you thought, or, if you've had a number of bad beats, that the cards are against you, etc.

Frustration may simply be your way of responding to fear. And fear is how we react to threats, real or imagined.

[mconstab]

I've been using tiltblockers lately, which has made the playing process much nicer and the post-session fallout much less severe.

Using a tiltblocker has certainly had a postive impact on my game also. If I suffer I pretty hefty beat now it literally takes me all of 5 seconds to shrug it off and put it out of my mind.

After studying sports psychology at university it's clear to me that the mental approach is THE key aspect which differentiates the elite from the very good.

[Misunderstud]

I'm not talking about physical threats either (I know about fight or flight ).

I simply believe that bad beats or runs generate frustration rather than fear. The cause is the same; the emotion different. Either might in turn generate tilt, anger or some other reaction.

Coming up against a better player might generate fear - fear that they will take all your money - but bad beats, if recognized for what they are, or variance, if the concept is understood, surely cannot be regarded as a source of danger.

The only fear most regular poker players have is of going broke (or, I suppose, if you're a professional, of not earning enough) but, as I inferred earlier, if you're sufficiently funded, that's probably never going to happen (and, if it did, would be very much a long-term phenomenon rather than the result of a tilt-inducing bad run).

There are, of course, occasions when this might occur in the short term - an occasional player hoping to make a quick buck, for example, might well panic and tilt. But that's really not much different from doubling up on red or black when you lose at roulette. It's a gambling reaction rather than a specifically poker-playing one. Jared's audience is likely to be rather more savvy at the table.

[Misunderstud]

After studying sports psychology at university it's clear to me that the mental approach is THE key aspect which differentiates the elite from the very good.

Just the crap from the not-so-crap will do for me

[Willem]

The main point he makes is that once your emotions reach a certain threshold, you will lose the ability to think. And when you lose the ability to think, you are just playing on instinct. Whether these emotion come from being threatened physically, or from getting angry/frustrated at the table is not the issue here. The brains' response to these emotions is.

For example: We all remember being stuck but a large amount of $ and not being able to quit. If you were able to think, you would realize that you're not playing your A-game and should therefore quit. But since the emotions run to high, you can't think straight and continue playing.

If you happen to have an account at Stoxpoker, his video's are definitely worth watching.

(And I don't actually use tilt blockers anymore. When you play HU, you'll still know if you look at villains' stack. And blocking his stack not an option since you need to make some adjustments when he is almost all-in.)

[Misunderstud]

Though I hesitate to say it, I'm pretty much in agreement with Malmuth's rejoinder, in which he goes a long way round the houses to say, basically, 'if you understand the game, you won't tilt'.

[the_hawk]

I am doing far too much agreeing with Mis lately (and i hesitate to agree with malmuth ever) but i think he has it right. The original article was a bit babbly for my taste. Incidentally mis when you're taking about "nutjobs" do you mean in the ith forum sense or more generally? If it's the latter i am definitely one of them

The trick is to make the toys hit the floor and forget BEFORE THE NEXT HAND IS DEALT. Works well for me

[Misunderstud]

I am doing far too much agreeing with Mis lately

Don't worry - it won't last

Incidentally mis when you're taking about "nutjobs" do you mean in the ith forum sense or more generally?

Generic.

If it's the latter i am definitely one of them

Or maybe genetic . . . though I admit I had you down as a pragmatist.

The trick is to make the toys hit the floor and forget BEFORE THE NEXT HAND IS DEALT. Works well for me

Which I think this shows you are, at heart.

[janeg]

I'm not talking about physical threats either (I know about fight or flight ).

I simply believe that bad beats or runs generate frustration rather than fear. The cause is the same; the emotion different. Either might in turn generate tilt, anger or some other reaction.

I think the two, frustration/fear, are related. People get frustrated when things don't go their way and part of what fuels the frustration is a fear that not only are things not going their way at the moment, things may continue to not go their way.

I don't disagree with Malmuth's disconnect theory; but I do think it's an oversimplification. If tilt disappeared with understanding then the majority of top players would never tilt, and that just ain't so.

[Taardvark]

Though I hesitate to say it, I'm pretty much in agreement with Malmuth's rejoinder, in which he goes a long way round the houses to say, basically, 'if you understand the game, you won't tilt'.

This doesn't explain Hellmuth, Matusow, Andy Black, and several other well known pros that for all their talent and poker knowledge occasionally cannot hold in the tilt monster.

I would say that all these players KNOW academically that they shouldn't tilt but psychologically they cannot control it. They even know they are on tilt, going on tilt, etc and cannot stop it.

And again, this seems to have the same limited take on tilting, which is the steaming aspect which is the most evident one ("Matusow blow up", etc).

[Misunderstud]

Though I hesitate to say it, I'm pretty much in agreement with Malmuth's rejoinder, in which he goes a long way round the houses to say, basically, 'if you understand the game, you won't tilt'.

This doesn't explain Hellmuth, Matusow, Andy Black, and several other well known pros that for all their talent and poker knowledge occasionally cannot hold in the tilt monster.

I would say that all these players KNOW academically that they shouldn't tilt but psychologically they cannot control it. They even know they are on tilt, going on tilt, etc and cannot stop it.

And again, this seems to have the same limited take on tilting, which is the steaming aspect which is the most evident one ("Matusow blow up", etc).

Well, perhaps more accurate to say that the better you understand the game, the better able you should be to control tilt. It's obviously a lot easier to say ho-hum when you've just lost a $10 pot than a $100k one. No matter how strong the camel of self-control, there'll always be a straw that breaks its back.

There may also be other psychological elements involved at that level - pride, for example. Loss of face there is perhaps for some a bigger blow than loss of $$$, and if a player is underfunded in inner confidence (as opposed to surface bravado), the fear factor might well come into play. IQ, which doesn't necessarily parallel talent, might well have something to do with it, too.

But anyway, those scenarios aren't really relevant to the majority of online poker-forum members to whom the discussion is addressed. We can just log off when we get fed up - you can't do that at a WSOP table.

To tilt requires that you cross one of two thresholds: either the 'unfairness' threshold or the 'bad loser' threshold. Understanding the game raises the first, but the second is rather harder to manipulate and will be much lower in some than others. (Back to the camels again.)

IMO, the fundamental point is that tilting is simply a way of avoiding responsibility for losing. This is why understanding is key: the better you understand that losing is part of winning, the less responsible you feel for your losses.