Every poker player experiences a bad beat from time to time. Some players here at Juicy Stakes Poker or at any other poker room online or on land fall into a state of tilt if they have even one bad beat. For others, it takes several really unlucky hands. Finally, many players never tilt.
This is the extraordinary result of a good mindset. So, let’s explore the causes of tilt and the best mindset for poker and all other activities that cause some people to tilt.
Have a Positive Outlook
Easier said than you, you say. But even if it’s not easy to have a positive mindset, it is vitally important to train yourself to stay positive. There are many areas where we can control our emotions and maintain a positive mindset.
For example, if we have a bad experience at a restaurant, we can tell people about it on social media without calling anyone a name and vowing to never go to that restaurant again.
Try to Reach the Top People
Sometimes, the upper management people in a large company are not aware of the mistakes a lower echelon employee made that cost you money or simply annoy you a lot. Write to the company, call them, and if that doesn’t help, you might enlist the help of a local newspaper.
Sometimes the upper management people are simply not aware of everything that goes on at the lower levels and it takes a newspaper with its long reach to get to the top managers and solve a problem.
This could also take a long time. One of the truisms about tilt is that as time goes on and we get on with our lives, the experience that caused the emotional distress fades.
In poker, cultivate that emotion: that even the effect of a bad beat will fade over time. Better to pay attention to the next hand than to wallow in the mire.
Staying positive is often hard but success at staying positive has rewards of its own!
Internalize Poker Truisms
We already spoke about the fact that a bad beat will fade over time. Another truism is that bad luck is inevitable. The best players can dictate when they will have bad luck and live with it. For most of us, bad luck comes at inopportune times.
Still, accepting the inevitability of bad luck is a big step in avoiding tilt. Tilting is a reaction to extreme frustration. Bad luck causes extreme frustration. Every poker player experiences bad luck and therefore, also experiences extreme frustration. Thus, a major key to avoiding tilt is to decide how you will react to frustration.
Most Players Have to Learn How to Control Their Emotions
Most people react emotionally in a stressful moment. It is always easy to let ourselves go in a stressful moment. So, as we mature, we should be learning how to control our emotions when an emotional response is not conducive to a good resolution.
Poker players have lots of moments that can trigger an emotional response and we all have to learn how to do so at the poker table.
One excellent way to control our emotions is to simply take a break. Go out for a short walk. Bake a cake. It takes just a few minutes to get a cake in the oven. Then you can go back to the game and the smell of the cake as it bakes will surely put you in a better mood.
Set Realistic Goals
It is the unrealistic goals that cause casino players, especially at land-based casinos, to overbet and to spend too much time on the casino floor.
In poker terms, assuming that you are playing at relatively low stakes, you might set a goal of winning a small amount of money. In return for that small win, you get the enjoyment of playing poker. So, a realistic goal for poker is to hold your own financially and to have a great time playing.
Playing poker becomes a challenge in itself and accepting the challenge makes playing the ultimate goal. This has the effect of reorienting your emotions towards enjoyment even in the face of bad luck.
Become a Better Poker Player
Another poker truism is that all players either improve or become less good at the game. It is rare for a player to stay stagnant over time. If a player does not improve, they will appear to have regressed in comparison to others who are constantly studying and improving.
Tilt is the enemy of improvement. In order to get better at poker, we need to internalize the fact that experience and study will make us better. Then, the inevitable bad beat will come along and a player with a positive attitude who is always trying to improve will say to themselves “I can learn from this”.
In this way, the way away from tilt is paved.
Improve at Poker by Asking Yourself Questions
We have seen that getting better at poker is a major step in the direction opposite of tilt. Then, we need to know how to get better at poker. One way is to ask yourself as many questions as you can think of.
- Did I play the hand correctly?
- Did I play too long after I was already tired?
- Did I get overly frustrated and start staying in hands that I should have folded?
- Did I see all of my and my opponents’ outs?
Be a Player
We live in a society where being a victim is praised. In poker, being a victim leads to losses, frustration, emotionality, and all of the negative responses we hope to eliminate. Be a player. A player knows that for every lucky card, there will be at least one unlucky card.
Poker is as much a game of luck as it is a game of skill. If we cultivate victimhood, we will overreact to all of the negative things that happen and we will shrug off the positive things that happen.
A poker victim has an impossible task trying to get better. Getting better at poker requires that we always act the part of the player and never the part of the victim.
Think Creatively and Inventively
This is the last step. It is really hard to think creatively and inventively. Most people cannot think in this way, while other people seem to think like this all the time. To some extent, creativity and inventiveness are built in, but it is also true that a lot of people improve in these areas.
The best way to begin thinking creatively and inventively is to go for a walk and look around and try to see what could be done differently. Did someone park poorly? You can’t change the way they parked, but you can think of how parking could be reorganized on that street to make it easier for everyone.
Thinking Creatively and Inventively in Poker
You might not invent anything that will last forever, but you might create a mood at the table that can last long enough for you to win that pot. Ultimately, your goal in poker, in financial and ego terms, is to win the majority of the pots you stay in for.
Avoiding tilt is a super important element of winning pots.
Juicy Stakes Invites Poker Players to Join
We offer several variations of poker, including Texas Hold’em and Omaha. We have a wide range of stakes levels. Players here often comment that they had a great time playing poker with us.
