Tilt to MTT
How do you deal with tilt in tournaments? I have a PROBLEM, when I am a chip leader or top ten after losing some chips, I go on tilt and want to quickly recoup. Although the stack is working and promising, but often I don’t even get into prizes. How do you deal with tilt?
It's a great question and it has more to it that then two lines might let on.
Tilt tendencies is tied up with expectation and disappointment. If you ever want to get both enjoyment and profitability from poker, you need to be able to work on your mental game. When it comes down to it, tilt is the equivalent to a toddler's temper tandtrum. Boohoo, you didn't get what you wanted when you wanted it. Life is so unfair, etc.
I'm not trying to belittle you. I was once in your position...more than once!
But once you get a few hundred thousand money hands under your belt, one hand is just one hand -- even if you had a huge stack and your Aces got cracked out by a clown shoving 72o. Getting control of your head is essential. THIS is where your wins come from. Your head
tells you what your range is. Your head tells you when your pot
odds are in your favour. Your head tells you when someone is trapping you becuas eyou've been paying attention to the game.
When you tilt, you're just focussed on one moment and you forget all thoser that came before and aren't really focussed on those which follow.
So how do you get tilt free?
Here are some ideas:
1. Reduce your excitement when playing. Do something else at the same time. Take notes. Watch the play of the hands you've folded. Watch the table the chip lead is playing on. Or play additional games...but not so many that it raises anxiety/nerves/tension.
2. Meditate. Breathing exercises.
3. Take anger management training/counselling
4. Play LOTS of poker...getting used to the fact that poker is about executing your strategy. The outcome of individual hands is not relevant when you are properly bet sizing (NOT OVERVALUING) and playing a strong range relatively aggressively, making sure not to
bluff call stations and rocks. If you are consistently playing strong poker, the wins will exceed the losses, even when these outliers hit us and we lose a pot that *should* have been ours.
5. Play online with friends and have a discord running.
a) This is useful both for playing against them -- e.g. in a home game -- because if you tilt you lose friends...so you're motivated to keep your cool.
b) Also useful when you aren't playing against each other directly, but simply playing poker and watching each others games whilst you play your own. Now, you must not give advice on a hand in progress, but discussing plays after the fact and learning from each other is great for improving your game, but also helps to keep you acting like a child.
6. Get some perspective. Unless the tilt you're talking about cost you more than you can afford, why does it matter? Go spend a few hours a week donating your time to a charity, or join th board of directors for a charity, work in a soup kitchen/food bank, etc. getting some perspective can make unpleasant hands seem more trivial and less serious.
7. get more exercise. poker is a pretty sedentary pastime. Getting fit will help your mind and body.
8. Eat better. Eating healthier makes your mind and body healthier. When you have balanced diet you have fewer spikes in sugar, insulin, adrenaline, cortisone, testosterone, etc. levels in your blood.
9. Find time for another hobby which makes you happy. Finding enjoyment outside of poker has helped my mental state and hence my mental game immensley. My poker buddies have also become my golf buddies. Getting out once or twice a week has improved our fitness, patience, and general levels of wellbeing.
10. Discipline. There should be consequences for losing your temper. If you do this at work, you lose your job. If you do this at home, you lose your spouse and family. if you lose your temper at poker, that should be it for the day. You are simply not allowed to continue. if you do it two days on the trot, you are done for two days.
Finally, I would ask you whether getting control of your tilt really is of interest for you. You see, I hear a lot of people say "I wish...X...". But as with most things, wishing doesn't work. Hard work is what works. There are rarely any magic solutions that make everything perfect. Instead, change tends to be small, incremental and persistent. If you want to learn a new skill...this approach is required. If you want to perfect and existing talent...it takes work. You want to be the best at something? GRIND!
All the best on your poker journey!
Regards,
JT
