Poker Tilt - How Playing with Emotion can Ruin your Results

What is “tilt” in poker?

When a player is playing below his or her ability due to anger or frustration, that player is said to be “on tilt”. The term originates from pinball machines; where tipping or shaking the machine too much will cause it to shut down and forfeit the game.

Much like the pinball world, being on tilt can be one of the most costly aspects of a poker player’s game. When decisions are based on impulse and emotion, rather than logic and reasoning, they’re much less likely to be good ones… and in poker, making bad decisions equates to losing money.

What typically puts a player on tilt?

Tilt comes in different forms, and different poker players are set off by different situations. Some common things that frustrate most poker players include taking a bad beat, making a bad decision, and watching an aggressive player run over the table with constant raises.

The last item in that list is something that many poker players may not recognize as tilt. But any time game-related factors cause you to make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, you are technically on tilt.

Overly aggressive players have a way of getting under your skin, and some players become angry or frustrated towards them. They start playing out of the ordinary, in an effort to teach them a lesson. While this is a more “socially acceptable” form of tilt, it’s tilt nonetheless, and can damage your financial results if you’re not careful.

How tilt can affect your game

The most obvious effects of tilt occur in the short term. Frustrated players will typically enter more pots, or become more aggressive than normal. Their thinking is … I have to make up for my mistake, or play catch up from that last bad beat, so I’m going to outplay my opponents with brute force.

While many poker players are familiar with the short term effects of tilt, it can also have a longer-term effect on your game if not kept in check. For example, if you find yourself pushing too hard to chase away drawing opponents because you’ve been the recent victim of some bad suckouts, you’re probably experiencing the after-effects of tilt. While this might seem like a good solution to ending suckouts and bad beats, you’re actually helping your opponents to play better by not letting them make the mistake of calling with improper odds. In this respect, you’re actually extending the after-effects of the tilt you were attempting to rid yourself of.

So how can I avoid (or lessen the effect) that tilt has on my poker game?

For emotional people, completely avoiding tilt is not typically an option. Even at the professional level, you’ll find players who cannot avoid tilting altogether. You can however, lessen the effect that it has on your play.

Some players advocate walking away from the table when you’re running bad. Others would say that depending on the severity of your frustration, you should probably just quit for the day. These are good ideas if you’re really steaming about something that just happened, as you’re not likely to return to a calm, rational state anytime soon.

However, if you truly want to lessen the effects of tilt, you should really learn to view poker in a different light. Poker is a game of skill, but it’s also a game of luck and random chance. Many players simply cannot accept this, and continue to let the game anger them when random chance comes knocking on their door.

In the game of Texas Holdem, you’re rarely more than a 3 to 1 favorite in any situation. Thus, one out of four times, your opponent will be rewarded for making the wrong call. This can be frustrating, but it’s still part of the game. It’s the part that makes it exciting. It’s the part that makes people stand up when they’re all in. It’s the part that gives you stories to tell. But most importantly, it’s what keeps you profitable. If the worse player never won, bad players would never play this game to begin with. You would spend your time slugging it out with other good players, and you’d find yourself at the mercy of the cards and the rake.

Once you learn to accept the fact that bad decisions and bad beats are part of the game, you can move on to more important uses for your poker brain. Being (and staying) prepared mentally, as well as figuring out how to lessen the effects of tilt will allow you to further the gap between yourself and worse players....which will ultimately lead to higher profits for you.