How to best control yourself when you're on tilt.

It's hard to keep control when you're on tilt, especially when you have less experience playing poker. How can a player on tilt control himself? What sort of mindset should be have? What should he always keep in mind?

this is the simplist question ever. How do you control yourself when you go on tilt? stop playing


next question.


the question should be how do you control yourself so you don't go on tilt? That would think of it as a long sitting of poker. Dont think of it as how much you just lost, think of it as how much you lost over say 10k hands, if you are still down alot then you need to plug some holes.


I used to go on tilt alot but now I have learned from experience to control my emotions much more. Alot of people go on tilt but if you let that control all your emotions your bankroll is as good as gone. do yourself a favor and get up, take a walk, or do something else besides poker.

If you still find you cant control yourself then poker might not be the best game for you, or at least cash games are not. Try tournaments where if you go on tilt least you only lose you buy-in and not your bankroll.

I will admit quite freely that I have a pretty bad temperment playing cards. I tend to get really frustrated, even angry. It is something that I have been really trying to work on. Stormswa was right about one thing, the best thing to do is to stop playing, do something else.

When I get tilted, I like to go to the gym. Not only are you not playing poker, but you are working out some of that aggression. Not to mention it is good for you from a health perspective.

If you are in a tournament and can't just walk away for awile, then sit out for a few hands, go get a coffee (or a stiff drink )

I just tilted 30% of my bankroll away, for the past 2 weeks. Ok, bad run of cards too. AK meets AA, set meets full house, opponents sucking out on the river with a flush draw(I bet the pot btw, he just doesn't want to leave).

I like the gym too. It keeps me mentally alert and stops me from thinking about bad beats and bad runs.

One good way, go back to ABC poker for the next 10 hands, or fold the next 10 hands.

Last night I had a horrible run. My AK lost to AQ when 3 8 9 J 10 came out. I got knocked out when someone called my reraise against my AA with middle pair and hit on the river. My 10's lost to 9's, and my K's lost to J's.

The only thing that that you can do is ask yourself if you got you money in right and made the right plays. I know that in the situations above I did just that so I didn't get to upset. I try to play small enough stakes in reference to my bankroll to where I don't get too upset (tough to do sometimes) about the money, I am more worried about my decisions, and in the cases above I feel I made the right decision everytime.

Bad runs like the ones last night to me will happen but when you get your money in right and make good decisions, more often then not you'll be on the right end of the outcome.

My technique for handling tilt goes along with my OCD habit of recording my hands and how I played them. When i hit a streak of 3 or 4 chipstack choppers, I (as said before) sit out and auto-fold. Then I check my hand history. Its amazing how many of the hands I had have had the notation for sucking out on my opponent. It puts the luck factor back into perspective and lets me get back to the game, tightening up, usually, but without the feeling that , "The card gods have forsaken me."