What is your negative thought process during play that starts the Tilt?

quick

quick

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This post is inspired by Jared Tendler (Mental Game of Poker)'s concept of Injecting Logic. Often times we feel like we're losing hands we should win, or missing draws too much, or fearing the worst outcome in hands. And often times these negative thoughts are in fact signs of incoming tilt. Injecting logic then helps us identify the thoughts , label them, and then refocus on the hand rather than let these silly thoughts change our way of playing during the session.

That said, let's share some of the negative thoughts that start to rear their ugly heads during our gameplay and see if we share common triggers to tilting (or even just triggering to going to our B or C game quality of play).

So for me, a big negative thought (that still rears it's head from time to time) is when I continue to miss big draws but seems like others are always hitting them (this flawed always or never black and white thinking). So I'll be playing and getting odds to call or shove and just keep missing. As it happens more and more while watching other players call horrible odds with junk and hit their draws my mind starts saying "It's got to be rigged or something or it's got to me something wrong here with the RNG, why do i NEVER hit my draws but they ALWAYS hit their draws!" Which if not checked can lead to playing looser or calling with worse odds "because if they can do it I can too!" And then still miss or worse hit my bad draws and reinforce this bad style of play based on illogical thought processes when deciding the next action in a hand.

So how do I inject logic into this negative thought?

For me personally, I remind myself these things happen in live poker when I play too. It happens it's absurd to cry it's rigged or something is wrong with the RNG because I mean come on...it happens live. In fact I remind myself I've seen the exact same spots live happen. Multiple times. So that's logical. Then I also remind myself that they don't always hit and I don't always miss. Sometimes I hit sometimes they hit. And finally I refocus and remind myself to remain patient and stick to my game rather than trying to push the action to "get back what I should have won" which is also flawed negative thinking as we are not entitled to any pot in poker until we're shown to be the hand winner or we get everyone to fold to us.

So what's your negative thoughts that come up during play that feel like they drive you towards tilt or even changes in game play?
 
BigRedRooster

BigRedRooster

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All in. Pocket: AA AKs AK AQs KK. 100% lost. What can be thought processes? ****ed!

LOL, just finished a tourny where I lost with AA JJ AK in four hands all to someone ( the same person) winning from nowhere on the river.
 
poliaris747

poliaris747

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The best tips about the tilt problem in the book "The Mental Game of Poker" , I reread this book very often!
 
playinggameswithu

playinggameswithu

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yea common tilt thoughts in tournaments are:-Hurry this tournament up I don't want to waste 6 hours just to lose to coin flip.
- Low chip stack not going to win this tourney.
- I am already invested in might as well go all-in see what happens.
-I am suppose to be winning odds running bad, start making obvious mistakes.
- The opponents are better than me I will never win.
It goes on and on...you really have to be cold and logical to win. Although you don't run well you will never get close to final table.
 
A

always2away

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The more bad beats that occur in a compressed period of time leaves me questioning probabilities. Which is crazy cuz, ya know, math.Sometimes I back off of poker for a few minutes to a few days to reset my thinking.
 
BigRedRooster

BigRedRooster

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The more bad beats that occur in a compressed period of time leaves me questioning probabilities. Which is crazy cuz, ya know, math.Sometimes I back off of poker for a few minutes to a few days to reset my thinking.

I may just do that. Because I do know the maths, albeit I am new to the game.
 
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