Avoiding Tilt in Poker

Ah, the tilt. If a poker player claims never to have stared faced down the barrel of an upcoming tilt they are either lying or they haven't been playing long enough. This doesn't mean of course that everyone has gone on tilt before, some people have great willpower and take their losses as a loss and leave it at that. To be a strong poker player, it is very important to treat your wins and your losses in the same manner with no emotion. You play the game the same way you did after taking a tough beat as you would after winning a huge hand. All poker pros are not tempted by tilting after a bad beat as they are very seasoned and you should be to.

You must understand that you can't win every hand your in, even if you are heavily favoured. Hands which usually make people go on tilt are hands that you were the favourite or at least thought you were until you were rivered and you lost a big chunk of your stack. Bad beats are going to happen. Face that fact right now, I'll say it again if your brother players cards, if your mother plays cards, if your grandma plays cards We all have bad beats sometimes. It is an inevitable effect of playing texas holdem, or for that matter any kind of poker.

Since we are assumingly (most of us)are in the game for one purpose to make money, it would make sense that we would play accordingly to maximixe profits. Now let's say you are up $100 off of a $100 deposit, and you take a large blow in a NL game and your stack is down to $120. You've lost $80 in a hand where you were sure to pick up $200 when you went all-in on the flop and had a 10 to 1 advantage. And that fish! He sucked you out on the river right? Well stop right here. This is a classic opportunity for a new player to start tilting. They just lost too much money on one hand that they should have won and they are angry.