First off, I am just finishing off the latest from Aaron Davis, "The Poker Blueprint" which is a rare book in that it includes thoughts about microstakes online cash poker, and I will post shortly my review of it on this blog.
2nd , and I make no apologies for stating the complete and utter obvious, and because it’s such a huuuuuuuge big thing, please please avoid tilting if you possibly can. I tend to avoid prescriptive advice in this blog, (happy to leave that to others) and keep any advice here more as descriptive.. Except for tilt.
Because tilt, it’s the biggest killer of bankrolls, even more destructive than plain ole baaaad play for all but the very worst players, so a) don’t do it, and b) so I’m gonna talk about it a bit more.
Tilt is like an addiction….no matter how bad it is, no matter how bad you know you have it, no matter what people tell you, you can only fix it if you actually want to do it yourself. Until you make that step, doom will ensue. Tilt isn’t like not being able to fold AA on a 678 non rainbow 4 way flop facing a reraise. After a certain amount of hands, a little bit of reading, and a smidgeon of common sense, only the aforementioned uber baaad players continue to get it in with that.
No...Tilt is a red mist that affects otherwise talented and knowledgeable players, and raises its head at you as you think you begin to realise all the injustices of the universe, and how they point themselves toward your sorry little poker world. Your boat was cracked by quads 1 time too many matey, and now its time to fucking whine. And since no one can hear this whining, its time to do it through the bad beat jackpot scenario of simply proving your own thesis by example (eg 3 betting any two cards). The illogic of it is irrelevant, because you are gorging on the drug of tiiiiiiilt. And with one bad beat after another, the pure fix of it spurs you on to more and more horrendous plays, pronounced even more in the unforgiving NL environment that we play.
Now I have said before here, and I will repeat, no one can help you with this addiction, so forget about watching fancy vids, finding some formulaic book or whining in the forums. Just like any self-abuse, therapy begins with your own secret soul, the place where no one else goes, and thus only you can fix. That first step, the hardest, the most intimate, the least understood, only your solitary naked self, without your mum, your friends, or doctor, can make it with you.
Now the purpose of my post is not to help you manage your crappy tilt problems, because, as I said above, I CANT DO THAT, ONLY YOU CAN.
No, the purpose of this post, and the beauty of the mercenary, selfish, cruel world of poker, is to help you to take advantage of others’ tilt, and thus take their money.
Example of tilt coming up. 1st hand I am just observing, having folded, but mister big time nit playing 12/9 over 200 hands gets had by a loose fish who calls his 3bet with AJ and sucks out v said ubernit's AK….loose fish proceeds to leave the table to a torrent of abuse by stacked ubernit. We were only 3 handed and now we are heads up, me and the angry ubernit. Seems like someone might want to do some chip donating....
2nd , and I make no apologies for stating the complete and utter obvious, and because it’s such a huuuuuuuge big thing, please please avoid tilting if you possibly can. I tend to avoid prescriptive advice in this blog, (happy to leave that to others) and keep any advice here more as descriptive.. Except for tilt.
Because tilt, it’s the biggest killer of bankrolls, even more destructive than plain ole baaaad play for all but the very worst players, so a) don’t do it, and b) so I’m gonna talk about it a bit more.
Tilt is like an addiction….no matter how bad it is, no matter how bad you know you have it, no matter what people tell you, you can only fix it if you actually want to do it yourself. Until you make that step, doom will ensue. Tilt isn’t like not being able to fold AA on a 678 non rainbow 4 way flop facing a reraise. After a certain amount of hands, a little bit of reading, and a smidgeon of common sense, only the aforementioned uber baaad players continue to get it in with that.
No...Tilt is a red mist that affects otherwise talented and knowledgeable players, and raises its head at you as you think you begin to realise all the injustices of the universe, and how they point themselves toward your sorry little poker world. Your boat was cracked by quads 1 time too many matey, and now its time to fucking whine. And since no one can hear this whining, its time to do it through the bad beat jackpot scenario of simply proving your own thesis by example (eg 3 betting any two cards). The illogic of it is irrelevant, because you are gorging on the drug of tiiiiiiilt. And with one bad beat after another, the pure fix of it spurs you on to more and more horrendous plays, pronounced even more in the unforgiving NL environment that we play.
Now I have said before here, and I will repeat, no one can help you with this addiction, so forget about watching fancy vids, finding some formulaic book or whining in the forums. Just like any self-abuse, therapy begins with your own secret soul, the place where no one else goes, and thus only you can fix. That first step, the hardest, the most intimate, the least understood, only your solitary naked self, without your mum, your friends, or doctor, can make it with you.
Now the purpose of my post is not to help you manage your crappy tilt problems, because, as I said above, I CANT DO THAT, ONLY YOU CAN.
No, the purpose of this post, and the beauty of the mercenary, selfish, cruel world of poker, is to help you to take advantage of others’ tilt, and thus take their money.
Example of tilt coming up. 1st hand I am just observing, having folded, but mister big time nit playing 12/9 over 200 hands gets had by a loose fish who calls his 3bet with AJ and sucks out v said ubernit's AK….loose fish proceeds to leave the table to a torrent of abuse by stacked ubernit. We were only 3 handed and now we are heads up, me and the angry ubernit. Seems like someone might want to do some chip donating....
$0.50/$1 No Limit Hold'em Cash Game, 2 Players
Hero (BTN): $134.15 (134.2 bb)
BB: $94.55 (94.6 bb)
Pre-Flop: Hero is BTN with 6
K
I am raising any 2 against this guy.
Hero raises to $3, BB raises to $10, Hero calls $7
Ubernit insta 3bets. Its only the second time he's done it in 87 hands. It's got tilt written all over it and I know he wants to extract revenge on me, the git that's been stealing his small blind for 15 orbits. K6o would be thrown away quickly v an uberbit even with my button, and heads up. Normally I would let his likely AK have it and carry on stealing. But it looks like he is tilted, probably with a weaker holding, and frankly, my cards no longer matter, but my being in position after the flop is everything.
Flop: ($20) J
7 8 (2 players)BB bets $15, Hero raises to $124.15 and is all-in, BB folds
Great flop for me. No broadway cards.Tilted nit insta bets, no pause, no thought, just click. But I think his range is in fact any 2 cards from his timing tell. And facing an all in bet, there are only 3 hands he can have in my view that he can continue with, AJ, QQ, KK and AA. Even tilted nits don't make spite all-in calls with bottom or middle pair in 3 bet pots, and my shove is going to show a nice profit in the long run against an opponent cursing in the chat box about his terrible opponents.
Results: $50 pot ($0.50 rake)Final Board: J
7 8Hero mucked 6
K (high card King) and won $49.50 ($24.50 net)Happy days..
Nice bluff at the end of this post if a little risky. Very nice description of tilt...like a drug. I wonder if some players really are addicted to losing. That really is great news for the rest of us. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI challenge you to come up with a mantra for my recently posted writing contest. Something on the subject of tilt would be nice...and you seem to be an expert.
http://pokernomad.blogspot.com/