How do you control yourself?

Unfortunately I have a anger problem when I lose a big pot/game to a much inferior hand in poker or if some donk is playing badly.

I know I look like an idiot when I start swearing and arguing in the chat, because when I see other people do the same and I'm not involved, I laugh to myself and think how stupid they are..

I don't want others to look at me like that but its so hard to keep it in when its so easy to start swearing in the chat lol.

I don't want to disable chat...any other have to deal with the same issue?

I get angry when the cursed river card haunts me time and time again.

But aside from that I remind myself of other lucky hits I get at a table and remember that if its full then nine times out of ten I am going to be at the blunt end of that luck.

I tell myself, calm it Kermit, its a game of chance.

You just have to realize that when your a 70/30 favorite your supposed to lose 3 times out of 10. Nothing in poker is a sure thing unless you've got the nuts. Stick to your game plan and keep reminding yourself that your a profitable player and that you made the right decision.

My first couple of weeks playing I too had a huge anger problem, derived from a deep seated inner competitiveness. I would take a bad beat and tilt for a couple hands before calming myself down. Sometimes it cost me big. However as strange as this sounds, what truly has brought my head down to earth and calmed me was the notion that my money is not going to some faceless business, but rather people like me, who probably have seen their share of bad beats and lucky donkeys. Now when I play, I merely get a little grumpy, but I try to put it behind me asap because I know if I start playing angry poker, I start losing money.

Get a book and write down all your good beats that you have when playing.

When you get a bad beat,open that book and remind yourself the last time you got lucky and gave some other person a bad beat.

It hopefuly will remind u that u have had your share of luck and keep u from tillting.

Hope this can help,it sure helps me.

Lazmansa

I can usually shrug off bad beats on line. But, when playing live it's much harder. I suffered three horrible bad beats in a cash game at my local casino yesterday. In all three, I was over a 90% favorite on the river. The same guy administered two of my bad beats, hitting a 5 outer each time. I do take some pleasure in knowing that he will eventually donk off all of his money to someone...I just wish it had been me! I also take some comfort in realizing that I made the right EV decisions, even if I lost. It's all about winning money in the long run, not winning individual pots.

Turn off your computer if you tilt that easily. Or you could just wait because eventually you'll say something really stupid, someone will report you and then they'll disable your chat for you.

I have a anger issue too and I do suckout on occasion actually playing freerolls or low buyin tourneys it seems the only way I cash is to get suckouts.Know some people call it luck. My problem seems to be that my paranoia makes me think its the site because in the long run of playing with bad players if I play better I will be ahead. But some of the boards that come up seem to make me think there not random.....AND NO DAMMIT IAM NOT GOING TO WEAR NO DAMM ALUMINUM FOIL HELMET!!!! MONSTER HANDS CONTINOUSLY MEANS MONSTER RAKES TOO.....

Ah, self-control. The problem is not your anger (we all get angry about bad beats) but how you handle that anger. You must consciously choose not to react badly and practice losing with class. Maybe expecting to lose would dampen the blow when it comes?

Why get angry? If you are a superior player, as you say , then just sit back and wait for your chance to take the donks down....it should be easy money playing with people who have no skills.

chuG does the exactly same I do when I lose with AA AK or something like that.. I remember the times that I got lucky and won on the river. That's a good example to try.

I will always remind myself that I should be happy the donk called, because most of the time he's paying me off huge.

personally i say u need to get up and take a bresather for a few. go outside get some fresh air and recoupe urself. but also like the other thread replies mention we do give back the same to others. just remember if u are playing right and not donkish dont worry about u will get urs in the long run. keep ur head up high and keep marching forward. tilt will only kill ur game. remember we are playing for money so be strong.

No I do not get angry,I realize I can be beat any time.If I lose a hand,or tourney,I just say,oh well,I played my best and thats all I can do,and I go find another game.I dont even know who beat me 5min later.
Somebody is abusing me in chat,I may reply once and thas it..I will leave,or if they continue with obcene chat,I just eport them,I do not have time to waste being mad,or wasting my time chatting with a nut...

I don't get angry when i lose a hand i think I should have won; but I do have to "try" to remember very few things are 100% certain in this game and get up from the computer for a few minutes and "walk it off".
I find turning the chat off to be a great help.

just cuss a little while. i cuss, and yell at their avatar on the monitor...hold out my arms and say "WHY??? what made you think THAT hand was worth THAT much to even see the flop?" but i usually don't say anything in chat, even if i get a "lol" or "donk" or something thrown at me. when i've got something like AK and they've called the whole time because they made 2 pair with the 66 in the community cards and their jack they had...and my K hits on the river, and they say "suck out jerk, you won't last long, idiot"...sometimes i don't mind asking what made them call a standard raise with a J7o...i mean that's not really a suckout, not when their hand is pretty weak like that

I might express some frustration at times when I lose to a really lucky suckout. I get even more frustrated with myself when I call down a hand that I already feel is ahead of me. But I never let it out in chat. At most I'll type a '?' in the chatbox. Most of the time I'll actually type 'nh!' and let everyone consider if I meant it sincerely or sarcastically. That's actually kind of thereputic in a way.

If you let someone, even a donkey, know they've put you on tilt, it will become almost irresistible for them to needle you and take more shots against you. Never let 'em see you sweat, take everything in stride, and know that if you're playing superior to them you'll be ahead in the long term.

Poker is a game of patience and self control.
The best person to tell you how to deal with your problem is you.

Maybe stand up and breathe? Or force yourself to count to 10 in a slow and calm manner?

The more experience you have at the table, the less insulted you should feel by bad beats. They're not insulting. They're not malicious or attacking you. They're just a part of the game. I guess what I'm saying is that maturity in the game gives you, the greater your tolerance/acceptance of the bad that comes along with the good.

Another way to look at is is to compare it to all the times you won too much. That is, when you get your $100 in as a 2:1 favorite, and win you collect $100 when equity-wise you should only get about $66.67 of that. Win two of those 2:1's in a row and you're up $66.67 more than you should be (not that there's any "should," as you are not entitled to a win).
So really, at that point it'd take a $100 loss in the same circumstance to even you out "should-have"-wise.
But again. You're not entitled. Sometimes you flip a coin and it's heads a dozen times in a row. But over the long term it'll have tales a dozen times in a row, and when you look at a million coin flips, percentage-wise it'll be 50/50. (Probably not a dead even split, but always rounded to 50%/50%, unless the coin is faulty).

OHMMMMM OHHMMMMM......you need to get into more of the Zen of poker and realize that nothing is guarenteed unless you have the absolute NUTS of the board and that you can not escape bad/donk players as they are not only in freerolls and low limit games but some have big money to burn also.just knowing that they Rarely make it to the money or a final table in a tourny is some satisfaction and most times they will be paying into someones chippies stack , tho it still burns when you take the hit.Never let a obnoxious player bait you into going off your game by takeing the time in responding to them ... if you don't have something nice to say or respond to its better to say nothing at all.

I don't care. I consider my buy-in as money spent, and if I win; it's a bonus. As for cursing in chat, use Lincoln's method. Lincoln wrote angry letters to people, and did not send them. Type whatever you want in the box, but don't hit send.

I'm not doing any of this... I play poker at it's best. When I win, I win. When I lose, I lose. Everyone has to lose and I understand that, I never steam for money I lost...

Get a punching bag and kick and punch the shit out of it!

Great advice, and it's very true about experience. Play 250,000 hands and then allow yourself to rant in chat. I guarantee that after that, you won't rant in chat.

The OP is a real sore spot for me personally, and the other night I had the perfect example of why:

I was playing a double stack ring game, and there was a person at the table that spewed off FOUR HUNDRED BB's with bad bluffs and bad calls. Well, eventually he got it in bad and stacked someone when he hit a gutshot straight draw. The loser in the hand started in on this guy calling him names and whatnot and guess what, the guy left the table.

Thanks a lot for making the ATM machine leave the table. This guy was just giving away money.

I then searched for him and he sat at another table and did the same routine, calling 5 bet shoves with 64o for example. He lost, reloaded, lost, reloaded, then won and someone started in on him and he left THAT table.

Why on EARTH are you trying to make the "bad" players leave the table?

If you want to rant, fire up the bad beat thread and go at it, or PM someone, or get a buddy on MSN or aim or whatever and vent away, but don't do it at the table, it's costing you more than you can fathom.

FU BAD BEATS

try medatation here is 1 method take ten breaths inhale slowly as long as you can closing your eyes hold for a second then slowly exhale opening your eyes it will either calm you down or send you to sleep either way you stop tilting win win

LOL......this is awsome.

I did my best in cash games when I lost my chat (for going nuts against a person calling thier whole stack with a gutshot straight draw on the river - the only way they could make the call on the flop was to know what was coming - they didn't get the gut shot until the turn - anything else was just a stupid play - they had to be able to see the cars). Oh, it was in a sat rebuy for the $530.00 sunday million. I won a spot. And lost my chat. LOL

Hit your wall like ZZ did - or - get it out of your system and go off on someone. I think you can do it once a year.....they shut mine off for 90 days. It was worth it!!

Please tell me you're not serious...

play MJ's man in the mirror

Buy a stress ball?
That must work...

There is some bad beats you just cant hold your self .. ive been chat banned twice now @FTP and now they are saying one more time and i will not be able to chatt again..
Really , sure it's unecessary to insult etc but when ppl are typing like "haha you suck" after they drawn you out and you Conter whit different insulting words .. BOTH should get banned .. although right now i feel like im in kindergarden writing this haha!
But i promised my self not to say anything insulting in the chatt and keep my self calm .. so far so good , not been chat banned for 1 month i think !

Absolutely precisely! They are everywhere! I hope on average and big limits them is not present?! Because of such donks i smoke as a steam locomotive!

ive lost my bankroll because of tilt everytime on ftp about 3 times already. i lost my bankroll on AP about 5 times bc of ap / ub blackjack unwinnable. it happens to me also i broke my last laptop bc of a few hands that were such garbage like aa vs kk blind SB vs BB and jj flop j33 girl had 33 blind vs blind. i smashed that pc lol. guess i hv anger issues also.

I do my best to prepare myself for bad news especially on FTP. When it hits badlyI usually just say to myself, “ figures” , a give a sarcastic, NH. For those at the table with ability, they understand and for the rest who cares.

I keep my cigerettes out in backyard, I also have a stick that i beat the crap out of patio chair.

other than that, the river will always reward that crazy push from the **** at any site. My anger has lost me many a hands after a bad beat.

I have learned ( easier said than done ) to not tilt an stoop to the, pray for a suckout after pushing ( to many bluffers )

well, there's been a range of advice on here. It seems to range from become a Monk and just chant some shit to beat the shit out of anything that happens to be nearby.

I used to get wound up about things. I personally reckon the main factor in dealing with bad beats is age. I'm much more calm now at 34 than I was at 24. But shit, that's 10 years, not very helpful.

If you're a reader or can become one, then the best advice I can give is to read:

The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger.

It's a great book. Basically reinforces the fact that ... well, shit happens.

And them some.

G