When you're feeling a little.... off

MemphisGrind

MemphisGrind

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I feel like this is important to post, and mainly I felt like writing this because I haven't posted a new thread in a while. So here goes....

I feel like a lot of the poker community especially those that mainly play free rolls or at the micro level, either feel like they are the most unlucky player alive, or constantly have a mindset similar to this "how can that donkey beat me every single time."

I get it, you take a bad beat at the worst possible times, and it just feels like every bad beat that you have ever took in your life swells back into your brain, and all of sudden you're not just mad at this one particular bad beat but the culmination of ALL your bad beats you ever took, and it seems like they are all this one persons fault or that this ALWAYS happens to me.

This is a terrible mental error that needs to be fixed. If it's not you will never make it to the next level of your poker ability. Tilt will consume your mind. If your emotions are too high you make poor poker decisions because the brain prevents you from being able to think straight. No one controls this loss of higher brain function you may have often heard it referred to as the "fight or flight response" where your strategic thought processes are out the window and your pretty much left with your "instincts" or actions learned at what is called unconscious competence.

So since you can't control the fact that your emotional system shuts down your ability to think then it's imperative that you control your emotions BEFORE reaching your emotional threshold. Having a clear mind before you play, having goals, and a clear strategy even a warm up and cool down routine before the start of your session are all important to the success you will have. If you take a bad beat and feel like you are getting close to your emotional threshold. Take time to get yourself back to ground zero again before continuing. You can even have tilt that has come over from another session on a completely different day.

I wish you all the best on your poker journey and hope that you can find peace. Good luck.
 
Misaki

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well. The problem with many players is that they play a lot and don't learn anything. I am a member here from 6 months, I play CC freerolls for fun and all the time I see same faces who make same mistakes every day. If you are not able to take effort to learn something about poker theory, make your game more solid then you will not never able to control your emotions. Those things are connected. Because if you feel that you work, your game is profitable then you won't focus on such aspects like "omg I lost aces 10 times in row, omg every time I hit a set someone hits a straight ". People don't even focus about if their game is good or not. They focus only on "unlucky" factor. And next truth is that most of their plays is just bad. It's just easy to blame everyone about your losses, but not your skills. If some guy doesn't know poker fundamentals then he is not capable to work on his mindset in my opinion. If you have some knowdlege and you know which direction you should take to be a better poker player then you can work deeply on your mindset area. Like warm-up, flow during a game, meditation, breath techniques, diet, and many other things. People say that poker is not for everyone. I think that when someone really wants it , desire it to be a successfull poker player then he is able to play at least at nl100 and earn decent money. But it requires a lot of work.
 
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I've been learning to start taking a mental note of my winning hands, not just my losing ones. It's a bad habit to only recognize when you're getting sucked out or in a downswing. For instance, I recently was dealt back-to-back aces, which was followed by another pair of aces a few minutes later. This was the offset to the massive drought I was in before, and I recognized it.

Also, I'm taking note of why I'm winning my hands, to help improve my game. In short, I'm finding the positive, not just the negative, aspects of the game and it helps me keep my cool better than before.

Anyway, thanks for the post, man. I look forward to reading more from you. :)
 
MemphisGrind

MemphisGrind

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I've been learning to start taking a mental note of my winning hands, not just my losing ones. It's a bad habit to only recognize when you're getting sucked out or in a downswing. For instance, I recently was dealt back-to-back aces, which was followed by another pair of aces a few minutes later. This was the offset to the massive drought I was in before, and I recognized it.

Also, I'm taking note of why I'm winning my hands, to help improve my game. In short, I'm finding the positive, not just the negative, aspects of the game and it helps me keep my cool better than before.

Anyway, thanks for the post, man. I look forward to reading more from you. :)

I appreciate that! you're definitely heading in the right direction. Always good to hear from you. Keep up the good work, and I wish much success for you!
 
dbchristy

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Thank you for your post. very good read, and I totally agree. When Im am running bad, its always good to be humble and get back to basics.
 
greatgame230

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Hi, first I want to say that this is a good thread, yesterday I had an event not similar to the ones you described but that gave me the same effect, that is, I fell on tilt, the hand was me with 22 in position BB a player MP makes a raise x2 I do a miss click and by deconcentration instead of call I fold, I just had a mental slip, of course, the first card on the flop was a 2, was a Sit & Go 6 turbo NLH until then was leader with 4 remaining players, but I got angry and fell on tilt as I mentioned, my question is how to recover at that moment as I erase the hand of my mind and not make mistakes that I end up costing the sit at least 2 place
 
MemphisGrind

MemphisGrind

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Thank you for your post. very good read, and I totally agree. When Im am running bad, its always good to be humble and get back to basics.


Thank you for your reply! I agree :)
 
MemphisGrind

MemphisGrind

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Hi, first I want to say that this is a good thread, yesterday I had an event not similar to the ones you described but that gave me the same effect, that is, I fell on tilt, the hand was me with 22 in position BB a player MP makes a raise x2 I do a miss click and by deconcentration instead of call I fold, I just had a mental slip, of course, the first card on the flop was a 2, was a Sit & Go 6 turbo NLH until then was leader with 4 remaining players, but I got angry and fell on tilt as I mentioned, my question is how to recover at that moment as I erase the hand of my mind and not make mistakes that I end up costing the sit at least 2 place


So are you saying that you tilted because, (after already folding and seeing that had you called) you would have won the hand?

If this is true this is called being "results oriented" and there is NO place for this in poker

Whether it was a mis-click or not you folded the hand, so whatever happens after you fold effectively shouldn't impact your mood or decisions any more. You folded and as far as you are concerned that was the correct decision.

You can go back later after the session and "study" that miss-click and at that point remind yourself to be more aware of your actions while you play, but that is AFTER the session not during.

Your question is how do you recover.

The answer is, you need not let it affect you in the beginning. Last thing you want in poker is to be a Mental Game fish.

If you did take that plunge into tilt world accidentally but forgot about it and have TRULY erased the hand from your memory you should be good to go, but more times than not people think they erased it from their memory but a small bit of it is still their festering up. If this is an ongoing problem there is problem a deeper reason psychologically that you need to figure out.

As described in my OP above if it does affect you it will alter your decisions as the game continues and even possibly into future games.
 
Jammen

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I have been thinking this very same thing, about my own game. I recognize that when I make a bad read and make a call and then suck out. I chuckle a little and think wow got lucky. On the other hand when I make a good play and get someone to make a bad play and then I get sucked out on, holy cow watch out, I am red hot and thinking I’m so unlucky. Need to stay even keel and figure out what the correct play is. And understand variance will always go both ways. Good read though!!
 
eberetta1

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It might have been a while since you posted, but you still have beast mode writing skills. The world is a better place when you write.
 
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xy23

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I'm not exactly prone to going on tilt as much now but that was a very, very insightful read.
 
Tbone461

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Whenever I take a bad beat I take a moment and try and reflect on all of the bad beats I have put on my opponents. If you think about it, it all evens out.
 
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You have to be calm and patient.
 
blueskies

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Generally if I find myself getting angry after another one of these guys get lucky on the river I shut things. This method used to work, but lately on a terrible run I've tilted a few times.

No matter how hard you try, everyone has a limit. You just gotta try to cut your losses when lady luck (aka online algorithm) has it out for you. Wonder how can a 2 outer beat you on the river 5 times in a day? It's online magic.

Online's rigged there's no doubt about it. You just gotta find a way around it.
 
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