How do you recognize when you are playing “on tilt”?

Question

Whether its from a series of bad beats or comments made at the table, sometimes we start playing on tilt, and let our emotions get the best of us. This leads to sloppy play, poor decisions, and problems in general.

What are some ways to stay aware of when this is happening, and avoid it from coloring your decisions?

Are there known recommendations, from poker writers such as David Sklansky, Lou Krieger, or Doyle Brunson, about the subject?

Answer 1

When I'm tilting I start to open up my range of hands wider and play them badly out of position.

I also start shouting at the screen after bad beats.

I start to chase hands against people that have given me a bad beat, trying to get revenge.

If I notice these things I stand up for a minute have a stretch compose myself and get back to it. I dont tilt for long these days.

Answer 2

Before making a big decision, try asking yourself if you would have made the same decision at the beginning of your session. If the answer is no, ensure you can convince yourself that you are using tells/flow/something to change your decision from what you would do "in a vacuum".

Answer 3

When you normally think through hand ranges but you suddenly stop thinking about hand ranges.

Answer 4

This would differ from person to person.

If I had to generalize it I would say you are playing on tilt when "You are making decisions with no sound reason."

Being on tilt can also be physical:

Is your heart rate increasing? Do you feel like you are breathing harder?

Emotionally:

Are you angry? Do you emotionally feel like you are a yo-yo?

The best thing an individual can do is to examine the times they are in tilt.

Ask the 5 whys you were in tilt. What did you feel like while in tilt? What happened once in tilt? What got you out of it?

Once you can recognize what gets you into tilt you can avoid those items. For instance bad beats happen and If they out you in a tilt state how can you avoid that? Would it help if you accept that a bad beat is part of the game and it is just probability.

If you cannot avoid something that will put you in a tilt state maybe you can developer a technique to help once you are in tilt. For instance if it is a bad beat then take a hand or 2 off. Find something to take you out of tilt like breathing slowly, getting some water.

Try to keep notes on what brings you into tilt, what happened once there, what did you do to get out if tilt. Review it often. Look at it and try to make small changes too get yourself out of being in tilt and help avoid it all together.

Answer 5

Playing "on tilt" is playing while thinking with your emotions instead of your head. To avoid tilting, concentrate on your thought process throughout the game, and think all of your actions through. When you notice that you are no longer doing so, you are either on tilt or otherwise distracted. At this point you should take a break until you cool down and are ready to focus again.

Answer 6

Tilt is defined by betting patterns, not so much mental state or emotions, etc. People can be completely lucid, irate, arrogant or in any other form unusual to that specific player and still make the optimal play in each situation, which by definition makes them not tilting.

The most common forms of tilting are when a player changes their typical betting patterns in hand playing frequency, bet amount, raise/call frequency or depth of play (i.e. staying in or folding earlier or later than they normally would). All of these parts of play will change naturally as the game goes on, for instance people will get long runs of decent hands resulting in a natural change of hand playing frequency. In order to identify tilt, you have to determine if the player thinks they are playing correctly or if they know they are abandoning correct play for some other reason. People who think they are playing correctly are destined to lose all the time, people who know they are doing something off beat are tilting.

Answer 7

My experience is that I'm on tilt if I make a decision that I know to be suboptimal; for example, I know that I shouldn't make a call but do it anyway. It can be hard to tell, but if it feels like you're playing looser than usual, that's a good sign.

Answer 8

I can think of two tell-tale signs:

• Is your heart racing? whether you are excited because you are doing well or poorly, you might want to take a breather and calm down a bit.
• Are you starting to get personally invested in a particular player? do you feel riled up? do you want to teach them a lesson? do you get a rush from their misfortune? Again, you might want to stop and re-evaluate your priorities.