In Trouble for Tilting

One poker player telling another about 'tilt' might very well have the mood of talking about cancer or some other life-threatening disease. It's dangerous to the point that poker tilt could pose a serious threat to your playing poker as a whole.

It's a fact of life when you play poker but that doesn't mean that it's inevitable. After all, tilting in poker is merely a state of mind that's sparked by a string of losses. Avoiding tilts in poker simply needs you to understand that tilt starts with you. When you lose a lot of chips and you begin playing aggressively - usually throwing caution, rationality and basic strategy to the wind - in an effort to recoup them, you're on a sure road to a tilt and, consequently, more losses.

It's not really the tilt that's the problem; it's the unreasonable, risky and emotional playing that goes with it. When you try 'solving' the problem of several bad losses with illogical playing, you only cause more trouble for yourself.

Tilts don't begin until you begin throwing your poker chips away by betting and playing like some unpracticed rookie. You can avert further damages to your chip stack by changing your mindset. Shift your focus from the chips that you have to regain to the chips that you stand to lose by playing stupidly.

When you lose a string of hands and a lot of chips have been bled from your chip stack, your first priority should be damage control and not immediate recovery. Tell yourself that you've already lost enough and that your losses must end there. There's a big risk that you won't get back your chips, but it's a sure shot that you'll keep whatever chips you've got left by changing your mindset.

If you feel like you haven't been winning at poker for the past several hands, take a break and step away from the playing area or from your computer. Take your mind off your losses and off the game for an hour or two. Staying at the poker table or playing a few more hands will worsen your mood and, consequently, your game. Before you go back to playing, review your basic poker strategy and refresh yourself on your poker card counting technique. That way, you'll be thinking about how to play logically and methodically when you get back to playing.

However you view them, tilts aren't about luck or chance. Tilting all boils down to you and how you manage losing at poker.