Inducing Tilt

Ray Cooke’s “It’s the Worst Play in Poker” which is featured in Card Player magazine, is one of the many articles out there, albeit a well-written one, pleading for a stop to the berating, and ultimately, the chasing away of fish. It immediately brought to mind a couple contrasting incidences of a baby shark attempting to induce tilt on his opponent.

The first story takes place at LA’s Hustler Casino. It was at a $1/$2 No Limit table. I was there with one of my buddies and neither of us was doing very well. However, he was significantly worse off than I was that night and he was visibly steaming. This was before the hand came along which serves as the starting point for my story.

My buddy picked up the hand and raised big preflop. Five to ten times the big blind. Like I said, he was steaming and wanted to make his money back by running over the table. One guy calls with position. Then before the flop hits, my buddy (the tilter) announces, “Screw it. I’m all in.” The flop comes 9 high and the other guy calls fairly quickly. Turn is an X and the river is another 9. The caller flips over A-9 for trips. Immediately my buddy mucks his cards and laces into the guy. He calls him a donkey. He says that he had a high pair and that the guy sucked out. These were the nice things he was saying and he continued berating the victor for the rest of the evening. It was so bad that at one point when my friend left the table for a minute, I considered apologizing on his behalf in hopes of relaxing the table some. I also wanted to keep the object of my buddy’s scorn around for he was a loose passive calling station and I was both embarrassed and afraid that he was going to leave. (Instead I opted for cowardly silence but that’s not the point.)

Anyways, later that night, I questioned my friend as to just what in the hell he had been doing. He claimed that it wasn’t tilt. Instead it was his strategy to work on the guy so he could get a big payoff later. One that didn’t come I might add. My friend also admitted that he had lied about his cards and only had high cards instead of the high pocket pair.

The second story also takes place in LA but this time it is at another friend’s apartment. I was playing my friend (once again a different friend than the one in the first story) in a series of head’s up poker tournament. We did this often and for low monetary stakes. However, while the cash is low, the respect and bragging rights were what really was at stake.

In the early tournaments, I had been doing well and had probably won three of the first four. After I had won the last one, my friend made a comment about how I had one it by sucking out. I, of course, hadn’t sucked out but that didn’t matter. He had made a calculated comment knowing that I was more than a little sensitive when accused of sucking out. Seeing that his comment had had the desired affect on me, my friend and opponent just picked at it. Made an occasional comment about sucking out but didn’t berate me or make a huge scene. He was content to let my own mind and not his talking stoke the flames until it was a wild fire. Meanwhile, he won three, four, five tournaments in a row just by taking advantage of my impatience and distraction.

One of these strategies worked out well and one didn’t work well. That’s not saying you should never perform the one that didn’t work. It was only one example and as for deserving the fish, sometimes fish need to disturb the other fish to survive. (Note: I’m not claiming my friend is a fish, just that he was on that particular evening.) However, if you look closely at both of these styles, pros and cons immediately jump out.

The Loud, Obnoxious Berating

Pros -

1) You can change how multiple people are playing without expending more effort than if you were trying to change how one is playing.

2) You release some of the steam that is fueling your own tilt.

3) You are creating an opportunity to make more money.

Cons -

1) You are risking scaring away both the target and others at the table.

2) You are going to make others at the table play better so that you won’t notice them.

3) You are looking like a prick and others are going to think less of you for it. Even your own companions if it happens too often.

The Sly Stoking of Flames

Pros -

1) You won’t scare away the fish or others at the table.

2) You maintain a good table image despite your maneuver.

3) You are creating an opportunity to make money.

Cons -

1) You need to understand someone very well to know what will make him tilt.

2) It’s much more difficult than the berating method.

3) You can only tilt one person at a time.

Obviously I prefer for people to use the second method to the first (as long as its not directed at me) because it doesn’t risk scaring the fish away and because it doesn’t upset the table nearly as much. However, like I’ve shown both have their flaws and their merits. There will be times when you can’t use the second method because you simply don’t know your opponents well enough. There will also be times when you are fighting for your poker life and have no option other than to resort to the first method. All I ask is for you to practice restraint with the first and only use it when there are no options left.

As for why my friend made what I feel is a poor choice that night, I need to point out a fatal flaw that my friend and seemingly many others make when resorting to this method of abuse. My friend tried to tilt a loose and passive calling station. A fish. Why would you try to logically change the way someone is playing when by definition he is someone that should be easy to beat? If you are going to tilt someone, choose someone that you can only beat if he/she is on tilt. Don’t just lash out at any old Joe who bad beats you, It is a waste of reputation, time, and talent to try to tilt someone when you don’t need to.