On Tilt: Chapter 2 - Softening the Blows

***In chapter one of this guide, I stressed the importance of understanding how exactly tilt affects you. This installment’s focus is on ways to prevent and reduce the effects of tilt. We’re talking pre-tilt here.***

It is said that some pros can lose millions before they go on tilt. Obviously this isn’t the majority. For most of us, it’s far less. Might even be play money. It just isn’t practical for everyone to expect to have a mental six pack that can take one gut busting punch after another. Thus, like a good boxer, you must learn how to avoid the big blows as well as strengthen yourself to get up off the mat when you do get hit with one. With that said, here are some ways to protect yourself.

1) Exercise.

Jamin recently offered this advice in a post and in conversation with me. I will attest. It is solid. I don’t care how you do it. Sit-ups. Running. Sex. Whatever is accessible and/or works. The key is to sate the dog in you enough so that it doesn’t go rabies on you when someone hits that lucky straight card on the turn five minutes after he hit a river flush.

2) Table Risk.

Quick. Which do you think is easier to handle? Losing one hand or losing 20? Now what if I told you that it could be easier to lose 20? Well it is not some miracle drug. Nor is it some dubious home remedy. It just is a simple concept that is really hard to actually follow. It’s called “PLAYING WITHIN YOUR BANKROLL”. If you are playing within your bankroll limitations, you can lose 10, 20 times in a row and while it will hurt, you won’t be on life support. I won’t lie. It will hurt a lot, but play outside it and one or two suckouts followed by a round of tilt is liable to “kill you.” At least, until the bank account god can add some more money into your poker account. As both Jamin and I can attest, while playing higher stakes and making more money sounds like a good idea, all it takes is a couple bad hands for things to start spiraling out of control.

3) Reminders.

Keep reminders of your success easily accessible. For me this is one of the many ways that poker tracker comes in handy. I pull up my profile and sort my hand history by how much I won. I see something like “+$12… idiot called all in with a gutshot. +$7… guy had second pair.” Etc etc. Then I don’t feel so bad. The $20 I just lost seems small compared to the sum of all the other times that people were stupid with crap hands. And these are just the hands where they were all in or called on the river. Imagine how many other times they called a couple big bets just to fold on the river when they had nothing and there were no more cards to come.

4) Clear head.

Don’t play when things in your “other” life aren’t going well. This only compounds the problem of tilt. It’s hard enough handling bad beats when that’s the worst thing going on. Imagine that instead of saying “Damn I just lost “X” money” it is “Damn my dog ran away, my girl left me, I’m failing my class, and I can’t win a stinking pot! What’s the point?” I’m sure you can imagine how easy it is to lose control here and blow all your money in frustration/self pity at the poker table.

5) Situation Management

The best advice I can give here is simple. In some ways it is a sum of all the previous advice. The best way to stay out of trouble is to avoid those situations where you can get yourself in trouble. In other words, don’t play with fire. And especially, no matter what else you do, don’t play with money that you can’t afford to lose.