Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
Anyone else get that voice in your head from yourself saying you should leave the table and game as following the rubbish you are seeing or constantly losing, knowing tilt will be on you soon but you never listen and it happens?
Yeah I get that a lot but I never learn from the same mistake even though I am right every time. I should really take my own advice sometimes...
You should try to distinguish between the situation where you are unlucky, and the situation where your own leaks are greater than the other players at your table. The former situation will just require patience to recover from, the latter will get you more in trouble the longer you go on. Just accept that some players are better than you, and find a better table, or stay and learn to beat them, but expect to pay for the lesson...
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 2387
Tilt is every poker player's enemy, and the fact that you have a "voice inside" giving you instructions is a good start. Before I start any session I actually take a couple of minutes and ask myself the following questions. Based on an honest answer and assessment of those answers I will then decide what games I will play (MTT, SNG, cash, Stud, Omaha, casino), as well as how much money I am willing to potentially lose during that session before requiring a "cooling off" period. Those questions are:
How tired am I? How sharp do I feel? Is something bothering me? Am I in a pissy mood? Are there distractions in the room? Can they potentially increase while I am playing? If I get unlucky how will I react? At which game do I think I will perform best at? If I go on a downswing, how much am I ready to lose before shutting down?
Emotions and distractions can affect our decisions and our concentration so we have to be aware of that. Tilt is especially bad in cash games because cash games is really all about capitalizing on other player's mistakes. When you don't feel like you're playing your A game, go down in stakes and try to just play for fun. Cause poker should be fun. If you're feeling pressure/stress at the stakes you play, then maybe it's too high.
Joined: May '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 2219
Indeed, but there is another side to this and that is when you are playing and running well and you have the same thoughts.
Take five minutes ago I was running really well on two tables and was up £11 and that thought popped up since I was up loads, was playing really well and had not received any bad times or beats yet and instead of stopping I carried on as I was in high spirits and why leave when I everything was going so well, even though I had that voice telling me to stop? Got set rivered by some fish chasing a flush draw with K8s OOP(standard) and as usual they hit something to beat me when the pot was big. Ended up losing £6 when I should have been up. Oh well this game caters to the bad players anyway.
Maybe I should listen to myself since this seems to be a trend now regardless of how well I am doing. I did leave after that beat and loss though..
Joined: Aug '14
Location: Germany
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 766
Hello man,
I know exactely what you mean. But I often play tournament poker and not cash games, so even if I know I should leave the table and would be willing to do that, I just can not, because the tournament goes on.
90% of my poker time it is the same with me. And as you added - even when winning! I am just alike and to be honest - I DO NOT LIKE IT *hehe*
Even when I do win (cash games, tournament, sng) I am sooo damn high in spirit that I simply continue playing instead of calling it a day. Guess what the result of this is??? Right, lost all my winnings by the end of my playing
Pressing thumbs that you will improve on your issue
Joined: Sep '10
Location: Australia
Age: 48 (M)
Posts: 227
Posted by mahdrof: Tilt is every poker player's enemy, and the fact that you have a "voice inside" giving you instructions is a good start. Before I start any session I actually take a couple of minutes and ask myself the following questions. Based on an honest answer and assessment of those answers I will then decide what games I will play (MTT, SNG, cash, Stud, Omaha, casino), as well as how much money I am willing to potentially lose during that session before requiring a "cooling off" period. Those questions are:
How tired am I? How sharp do I feel? Is something bothering me? Am I in a pissy mood? Are there distractions in the room? Can they potentially increase while I am playing? If I get unlucky how will I react? At which game do I think I will perform best at? If I go on a downswing, how much am I ready to lose before shutting down?
I like this very much Manhdrof, This is something i should ask myself regularly
Joined: Aug '13
Location: India
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 21
I have also same problem. Dont know when to stop playing in both cases of wining and losing. I have just set some rules for myself of bankroll management.
Edited by ammytyagi (07 December 2014 @ 06:03 GMT)
Joined: Feb '10
Location: Romania
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 137
Posted by Phisix: Anyone else get that voice in your head from yourself saying you should leave the table and game as following the rubbish you are seeing or constantly losing, knowing tilt will be on you soon but you never listen and it happens?
Yeah I get that a lot but I never learn from the same mistake even though I am right every time. I should really take my own advice sometimes...
i am not shure if this could be called a tilt . i do prefer to call addicted of gambling becouse when you loose and keep loosing you prefer to keep playing , probably on higher limits to recover your loosing , so this is gambling. is good to settle in your poker room , a number of buyn in wich you can loose /day , in this way you will never go broke .
Joined: Mar '14
Location: Japan
Age: 49 (M)
Posts: 8946
Quotes About Temptation
“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.” - C.S. Lewis
“There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.” - Mark Twain
Joined: Feb '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 59 (M)
Posts: 5712
We all get that voice in our heads! The difference is which voice it is and what notice we take of if! The voice that says, "you are playing rubbish and should walk away" is the voice to be listened to. The voice that says, "you are doing really well, walk away" is the voice that should not be listened to. If you have a downturn, the voice will soon tell you that you are rubbish and should walk away!
Joined: Jan '12
Location: Tunisia
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 664
I absolutely hate that damn voice ! raise ALL IN! MOVE TO HIGHER STAKE to recover your losses ! there are the luckiest guys ever and so on with those voices. But controling my tilt helps me in my other thinks like controling emotions especially anger in critical real life situation or staying calm in exams
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
Never good when that voice takes over. Doesnt happen often, but when it does it ends up in a disaster, in the same way most of the times. I get angry and reraise all in, with some silly hand, waiting to get lucky like the last guy, that won the hand against me with rags, but I fail
Joined: Feb '14
Location: Bulgaria
Age: 43 (M)
Posts: 48
The most important thing is that you must never listen the voice! In the opposite case, when you listen to the voice, it will run away just before getting you out of trouble.
