keeping your composure

Hey everyone,

i just wanted to get everyone's opinion on this subject. how does everyone handle winning streaks, times when you are losing etc.?

i know when i get on a roll, everythings great, but soon as i get a bad hand, everything seems to roll downhill. my friends tell me my body language changes and my whole attitude does a 180 when i lose. how does everyone keep their composure during up and down streaks?

recently, i have been on a bad streak and it's rough. thank goodness i don't play professionally. it really shot down my confidence to the point where i had to get away from playing live for a while.

that is something i have to work on and over time, i will learn to handle myself better.

any opinions or stories any1 would like to share?

are we talking live here?

I only tilt online, dont know why. When im playing live I think I only tilted once and that was just over a run of horrible cards and then I won a $500 pot when I flopped the straight against someone who called my all in with the higher end of the straight draw and he missed. After that I calmed down and went on the best run I have ever had live.

online is a whole different story and I tilt pretty hard at times, I have gotten a lot better with this. This forum helps a lot because you can see you are not alone and that everyone goes through these strings. Really there is nothing anyone can say to stop you from going on tilt. This is something you have got to do for yourself and if you cant get it under control then you will never be a winning player.

the thing is when you tilt you play horrible and you dont realize it till its too late, you play way too many hands to try to get up to even. I have gone through this and I have caught myself saying " as soon as I get to $500 I will go back down .25/.50". This is a horrible way to think.

I get really frustrated online when I am getting bad cards, or rivered a lot. I just made a thread on here about it actually lol. I just usually call a fellow power player up and bitch about what happened. But I am actually very good about keeping my game controlled. I never just throw it in to try to make the quick buck. If anything I play a little tighter when I am having problems. But I am a SNG player only. So maybe it's easier for me to keep my cool, because all I have to do is survive.

Emotions, usually the one thing most of us are unable to control. Number one reason therapists make a good living. How bad I tilt usually depends on the circumstances or value of the game. After my stack takes a bad hit, I keep telling myself over and over again, I'm gonna come back, and win this whole damn thing. Having come back more then once, like everyone else probably has, I play tight with premium hands only, and usually remove bluffing from my game. Hopefully I recover enough to get back to my normal game. Online or live, I do the same.

when im losing (like right now) i just try not to play much or play nothing that will hurt my bankroll ($1 MTT's, freerolls, play money tourneys), and just not play too often, take a break of sorts.

when im winning. i play all the time. never stop until i start losing.

I'm kinda like storm on this. Online I tilt, and I tilt bad! I sometimes yell and curse!! I guess because I'm in my home and the only person that can really hear me or see my actions is my wife. I feel bad though, she probably thinks I'm taking it out on her.
Live I just make jokes about it and keep my cool.
Sometimes I really hate playing online, because my laptop is so easy to open back up after a really bad run, and lose more. One time I basically got screwed and lost a really big pot by some donkey and he took what I had at the table so I stopped playing. Stupid me, as frustrated as I was, I opened my laptop back up and lost the rest of my bankroll.......

i agree 100% except when i go on tilt, its live. its so easy to read my body language after a bad run. even though i realize this, sometimes emotions get the best of you. there have been times when i'll say if i don't catch a good flop or get good cards, i'll get up from the table. i always try to break even at least, but it is a horrible way to think like storm said. thankfully though, i don't crazy where i empty my bank account to break even.

Read Zen and the Art of Poker.

is it anything like a tale of two cities? i hated that book.

I don't think you would hate it at all.

in that case ill have to pick it up.