 ‘Tilting’
is a term used in poker
to describe the way a
player changes his or her game
due to the effects of
suffering a bad beat. If
a player takes a bad beat,
they can be
described as ‘going on
tilt’ if they
subsequently play
differently to the way
they would usually play. In a
nutshell, ‘tilting’
is simply a word to
describe poor play due to
frustration at the poker table.
There
are many things in poker,
apart form bad beats,
that will potentially set
you on tilt. If you do
not catch any good hands
for a long period of
time, you can easily
become frustrated and
start to play with any
rag hand that comes your
way. If you find yourself
folding to your
opponent's
shown bluff, then once
again you can become
irritated and allow your game to deviate from the norm. In addition, if
you notice that you would
have flopped a monster
but decided to fold
pre-flop, this can also cause
you to alter your game
for the worse.
There
are different degrees and
varieties of ‘tilt’.
Some players have the
misconception that going
on tilt means going all-in
with any old hand pre-flop after taking a bad
beat, just to vent your
frustration. Although you
may see this occasionally
happen at the table, there are
many more subtle forms of
tilt that should not be
ignored if you want to
improve your game.
Every
time you enter a pot with
an opponent because you
are looking to even the score
with them because of the way they previously outplayed you or lucked out, you are going
on tilt. You may elect to
play more pots with a
certain person in an attempt
to outplay them on
following streets,
possibly because they had
taken some of your money
in an earlier hand. Every
time you do this you are
effectively on tilt,
because you have to ask
the question: "Would
I be
playing so many hands
against this person if I had no problem with them?"
Furthermore, you are
unnecessarily risking
more of your money if you
constantly try and
outplay them with the
worst hand. Always
remember that in poker
that you are looking to win money, and
not pots.
A
typical and possibly the most
common form of tilt is to chase draws.
If you are faced with a
decent size bet against
your flush draw, yet you
willingly call without
the correct odds, you are on tilt. After
all, would you have
called the same bet if
you were in a rational
state of mind? No matter
how close the odds were
to being in your favour,
if you still call in an
attempt to make your hand
when you normally would
fold, you are not playing
you’re A-game. It is a
commonl reaction for a
player to chase after
money that they have
lost when on an unlucky streak; therefore this
emotion lends itself
nicely to the structure
of a drawing hand in
poker.
The
reaction to chase money
that has been lost can
cause you to play higher
stakes and play out of
your bankroll and ignore very important bankroll management rules. This is
especially dangerous as
not only are you playing
at stakes you cannot
afford, but you may well
be coupling it with the
typical ‘tilt plays’
as mentioned above. This
magnifies the severity of
your tilt as you put
yourself in a position
where you could
potentially lose a great
sum of money that took
you a long time to earn.
The vision of being able
to claw back all that you have
lost or possibly turn a
profit at the higher
stakes clouds your mind
to rationality, and more
often than not you will
find yourself in an
unhappy position in the
end.
Evaluation
Successful
players have the ability
to offset the effects of
tilt, which is why they
are capable of being winning players at the end
of the day. Going on tilt
is especially dangerous
in pot limit and no limit
poker, because of the
potential that most or
all of your chips are at
stake in any given hand.
You can spend hours
making money through good
play, only to lose it all
in one hand because you
went on tilt. Never
forget that money saved
is money earned. The more
money you save yourself
from losing, the more you
can add to your total
winnings at the end of
the day.
For
further reading about how
you can offset the
effects of tilt, read the
article: ‘Overcoming
Bad Beats’.
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