Hello,

I'm releasing some new software very soon, the website is at www.tiltdemon.com but thats not in public beta yet for a few days but in the meantime im releasing a program that connects to your holdemmanager database and tells you how much you would have won/lost if you applied a stop/loss system and stopped playing when you:

Were losing -$300 (or any amount you specify)
Were winning +$300 (or any amount you specify)
You reached 1000 hands (or any amount you specify)
You played for more than 1.5 hours



Now the idea for this came from my own tilt issues, im not a bad tilter as in i dont play while drunk, or shout or roar or throw the cat at the dog or anything but when im on a losing run too often it turns into a shocking 6+ buyin downswing simply because i stop playing my A game and im continuing to play the rest of that session at a -bb/100 rate. However much i knew i was tilting i couldnt stop and kept going until i won something back, this occassionaly worked but more often than not the opposite happened and i turned a mole into a mountain.

I did manage to restrict my games to 2 hour sessions which helped alot but i still have trouble stopping sometimes specifically when im down as i hate finishing on a negative. I know from reading various forums this is a big problem for alot of people so i decided to start this project.

Quite ironically i also find that when im up a couple of buyins im actually playing -EV which was a surprise, its not something i was even aware of but in heinsight i do tend to take more risks and also lose interest when im running good so i do advise checking your bb/100 when your up 2,3 or 4+ buyins as you maybe surprised.

So the idea of this saving calculations software is to let you experiment and see when your 1) wining/losing 2) playing for long periods or 3) playing alot of hands per session if your bb/100 is good or bad. It should tell you whether its profitable or not to continue playing in those situations so feel free to try it out to see if its a leak. btw a session is defined as any group of hands where there was no consecutive break of more than 1 hour between each hand. I set it at 1 hour because i really feel this is the minimum time you need to forget about the last session and feel like your starting fresh.

You can download this software via the website www.tiltdemon.com/savings.html



The site is still under construction in other areas but the savings calculator should work fine. All the instructions are at that site. As you can see below it highlights each session that exceeded our limit, shows the start and end time of the session, the hand that triggered the exceed, the total hands played after the exceed and finally the total lost/won after the exceed in $ and also bb/100 which is basically what we would have won/lost had we had a stop/loss system in place.

Now i'm not saying you should just stop playing for the day as ive heard people say if i stopped playing everytime i had a downswing id lose a fortune on rake, thats not what im saying, if you can play through a long or losing/winning session and the calculator shows your making close to the same bb/100 you make on average then its fine to keep playing. But if your win rate is still positive but only half your normal winrate by rescheduling and doing something else like bringing the dog for a walk and then play poker after an hour break you should return and be able to double the bb/100 rate compared to the winrate you could have won had you continued to play when you weren't on your A game. If your running at a negative bb/100 when you exceed any of those limits then its certainly a big potential leak assuming the sample size is reasonable. I'm sure there are cases due to family commitments or work commitments where your poker hours are limited but for the most part we all have some leeway in when we can play to a certain extent. Whether you want to continue to play when your losing money is up to you, if you don't want to continue to lose then read on.



The Solution

Now if you find your bb/100 is suffering when your exceeding one of the stop/loss limits then the best way to eliminate that leak is to stop when this happens. However the compulsion to keep playing and recover losses is extremely difficult to overcome for a lot of people. If your one of those people then the software we will be releasing should be a big help.

Now this software isn't groundbreaking, many respected posters and poker players have written tons of articles on how tilt can affect your game, this software just makes it easier to stop. Im sure there are some players that will have no use for this software as they have already conquered tilt or there tilt isnt directly related to long sessions or losing session but i know for myself and many others out there it is a big problem.

Basically what our software does is track your win/loss, hands played and time played. You configure a stop loss that you want to stop playing when you exceed that figure, that could either be an amount won/lost like -$300 or 1000 hands played or 1.5 hours played.

When you exceed the applicable stop/loss our software will allow you 4 mins to close your tables and if you don't close down within that time it will automatically close the poker client. (you can specify which username and pokersites you can be excluded for)

Now i know some sites have a 12 hour exclusion or week long exclusion but our software aims to give you as much control as possible, if you feel you need 1 hour break when tilting then you set it to 1 hour, if you need 3 hours then set that, as soon as that time passes it will allow you to play. This is extremely important for players who rely on rake and want to be able to exclude themselves but come back and play again when tilt subsides.

If you attempt to play before the excluded time it will not allow you. We've put in place a lot of controls that prevent you bypassing the lockout by changing the time/changing databases/trying to uninstall etc while still allowing you to continue to use your computer interrupted. There are possibly situations we haven't considered but well catch those during beta and patch them up but our main concern is that its not easy to bypass but if there was a program that couldn't be stopped or killed somehow then it would be the ultimate virus so we obviously don't want to create that but most average PC users will find it extremely hard to bypass this to the point the exclusion period will probably be over before they get near to figuring it out.

Again you can choose the site your locked out, you might have a separate account you just keep a few bob for playing tournaments in, if so then don't add this site and if you tilt and get locked out you can still blow off a few bob on the other site. Our aim is to give you as much control as possible.

Theres other details on the website if you want to check it out further and if you want to beta test it please visit our forums www.tiltdemon.com/forum and look for the beta testers thread.

This version is only compatible with Holdem manager however well have a poker tracker version available soon too.

I dont post too much on this website other than when i was working for Holdem Manager but im sure if you ask any of the Holdem Manager guys theyll vouch for me and i used to post on the Irish poker forum alot under dvdfan and im sure theres a few guys there too that could vouch for me if your worried about downloading from a newbie which i know is a concern for any poker player. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=416

Id be very interested to hear what trends people are finding with the savings calculator or if they're are any bugs, heres my findings but i'm sure depending on your tilting tendencies other peoples may differ a lot

At 100nl over 100k+ sample where i ran over +5bb/100 for the total sample
stop loss (-$300) i was -2bb/100
stop loss (-$250) i was +3bb/100
stop loss (-$200) i was +6bb/100
stop loss (-$150) i was +6.7bb/100
stop loss (-$100) i was +8.7bb/100
stop loss (-$50) i was +8.5bb/100


stop loss (+$300) i was -2.5bb/100
stop loss (+$200) i was -2bb/100
stop loss (+$150) i was +0.57bb/100
stop loss (+$100) i was +1bb/100
stop loss (+$100) i was +2.5bb/100

So in my example its pretty obvious the more i win the poorer my game becomes (as i mentioned due to being overly aggro and willing to gamble more and also i feel i lose interest/concentration rather than when im breakeven or losing a small amount and trying to turn it into a winning session i concentrate more but i just didnt realise the extent of this before this calculator) and also i can play good up until i lose 2 buyins, after that point i suspect i begin to feel frustrated as ill struggle to make it a winning session and start to drop my levels, however been aware of this might help me that i know when i reach the -$200 threshold i need to compose my concentration or stop playing and possibly set my limit at -$250 and keep an eye on how i do between -$200 and -$250 and if i continue to run at +3bb and dont improve then its better to decrease my stop level to -$200 as i can play better than 3bb/100 when im concentrating fully and ironically i seem to concentrate better when i have a small loss and im trying to turn it into a winning session.

Now that was during a time i felt i controlled tilt by restricting my sessions to 2 hours max most of the time but i hadnt realised how obviously + or - 2 buyins were effecting my winrate, previous to that i often played 2-5 hours sessions. So you should use a similar approach to find the threshold where your win rate starts to decrease. You can also use the time and hands feature as well as this can be very useful too.

After we've completed this project and added as many useful features as possible we plan to move onto a more complicated Tilt Prevention tool where it imposes a lockout based on actions. Each bad action would incur a pretilt point, you then decide what each action costs, so calling a 3bet with 67s vs a tight 3betting villain = 1pt and calling a 4bet all in with AT vs a tight 4better would result in 3pts, when you reach 4.5pts then the software locks you out. You get the picture but the idea would be to prevent tilt before you get to that 2-3 buyin loss, or before you start getting tired and stop concentrating, so if there is enough interest this is something well start to develop in the near future when we've completed the Tilt Demon Development fully.

Ill be away for a couple of hours but ill try to respond to any questions later when i get back

first and awesome piece of software having just been on the worst downswing of my life.

Ive fixed up the links as there was a problem with them, sorry about that

Apparently i cant edit the post now so ill put the links here:

www.tiltdemon.com
www.tiltdemon.com/savings.html
www.tiltdemon.com/forum
www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=416

Also just to point out the current software just tells you how much your losing/winning if you had a stop/loss system in place, we'll be releasing the main software which will work in the background and which prevents you from continuing to play on the poker sites you wish to be excluded for when you hit your stop/loss, it then locks you out for a time you specified usually 1-2 hours.

Maybe would be a good idea to introduce an easily acessible "TILT" button, which closes all the tables and shuts down immediately the poker client when you hit it.

Sometimes im on tilt and i know it, but i just keep saying "well i will play another hand and then close all the tables", but then im too much absorbed by the game (and the tilt) and keep playing again and again and tilt more and more.

Another cool feature would be that when you hit the TILT button and the client is closed, you would be denied to re-open it for like half a hour...

just some suggestions, keep up the good work and thank ya.

Yeah i know that feeling and its a great idea and certainly something that can be added, just in case you didnt know you can specify the lockout time, so you'd go to settings and choose what your limit is lets say -2.5 buyins, then you set how long you think it takes for your tilt to subside lets say 90 mins, now when you hit a loss of 2.5 buyins (or click on the Tilt Button) then youll be locked out for 90 mins or whatever amount of time you specified in advance.

Also note that changing your database, uninstalling and reinstalling the poker client or trying to uninstall or kill the tiltdemon processes wont bypass the lockout, also changing the time etc also wont bypass it, we want it so it takes alot of effort to bypass it without hindering the users experience of their PC. The thing is when your forced to stop youll be pissed for a couple of mins and will probably make a few futile attempts to bypass it and then give up, after a while youll just get more and more used to it and you should also be able to narrow down where your tilt starts by analyzing things in the calculator and possibly increase your tolerance since you can recognise it before it starts as youll know once you tilt you cant continue to play.

When completed youll have the option to get locked out based on $won, $lost, time played, hands played, Tiltbutton and well also have the option to select 2 or 3 options for eg

1) Lockout if $won > 300
2) Lockout if $lost > 250
3) Lockout if time elapsed > 2.2 hours

And it will lock you out whenever it exceeds either of those 3 first

Weve also plans for a really advanced version if the demand is there for it:

Set stop loss based on pre-tilt points. The plan would be to add lots of filters like

3bet
Called a 3bet
4bet
Called 5bet Push
Double Barelled
Raise flop and call push
Call flop push
Called river check raise
Called river raise etc etc etc

Basically every stat HM/PT has available. Now well also allow you to set ranges and hand strengths. Examples

Ranges
ATo+, 55+,KJs+
JJ+,AQo+

Then hand strenghts
Top Pair weak Kicker
Top Pair Top Kicker
Trips
Full House
Flush draw
Combo Flush Draw and TPTK etc etc etc

Then you setup a filter like this:
Where faced 4bet = true && all in preflop=true && range NOT EQUAL TO AQs+ TT+ $$ villain's 4bet % IS LESS THAN 7% and villains sample size is GREATER THAN 500

or another example on the flop:

Where facing flop raise = true && hand strength flop = LESS THAN TPTK and Draws LESS THAN Flush and Villain Agression Factor is less than 1.9 and villain raise flop LESS THAN 9% and Villain Sample Size GREATER THAN 1,200 && Call Raise = true

Then if these conditions are met while playing, Tiltbuster will apply Pre-Tilt Points, you then set whatever amount of filters you want and also set a stop/loss limit for pre-tilt points so you might set it to 3 and when you make 3 pre-tilt points your likely to be playing sub-optimally and so you get locked out before you make another mistake and continue tilting thus preventing tilt. Its up to you how many tilt points and what filters you define, generally youll try and indentify situations while reviewing hand histories to see where your making mistakes tilting and then add those scenarios to the filter to avoid you continuing to make those mistakes. Well also provide a bunch of templates to choose from aswell to save you starting from scratch.

Ill make a video of the actual software in action in a couple of days, were still working on some bugs at the moment so it will likely be a few days, then well take beta testers although its a pretty simplistic program so shouldn't be too many problems

Sorry didnt noticed that the lockout option was already avaible.
Thank ya for considering the tilt button idea, a manual tool like that would be very good for players like me, because i find that some days i can lose even 4-5 buy ins and still be playing my A game, other days i lose just a couple of buy ins and the tilt come (try to think when you are in the middle of a big downswing and you tend to start the sessions already predisposed to tilt, in those days even a couple of standard beats will drive the blood to your head! ).

Also, im not an hard tilter, im fully conscious of my state when im tilting, but like i said is hard to stop when you have 12 tables opened and the hands come in a continuous flow.

So i would prefer having the option to not use (just) the automatic block, but instead a manual tool which can allow me to translate in reality with a simple mouse click what is looping in my head: "stop ****ing playing, NOW!"

Anyway the idea of this program is really interesting, im waiting for the video...

looks good but I can't connect to my HEM database for some reason...
right name, right password but still doesn't work any ideas?

What error are you getting, did you install psqlODBC as per the instructions on the website: vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Its very quick and easy to install that

Step 1)
First verify if you have psqlODBC installed on your computer as this is needed to run the program.

Windows XP: Go to control panel > Add & Remove Programs and look a program called psqlODBC, if it is installed skip to step 3 otherwise follow the instructions in step 2.

Windows Vista: Go to control panel > Programs & Features and look a program called psqlODBC, if it is installed skip to step 3 otherwise follow the instructions in step 2.

Step 2)
Go to http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/odbc/versions/msi/ and click on the latest version, at time of writing it is psqlodbc_08_04_0100 but any of the latest version will do fine. Then choose a mirror to download it from, extract the files and run the installation. Its a small download and very easy to install, just choose the default options and choose next until it finishes.

If your still having issues let me know the exact error your getting or contact me on info@tiltdemon.com

Hi morny

yes psqlODBC is installed.

The message I get is "[microsoft][ODBC driver manager] data source name not found and no default driver specified"
I still run XP pro

When you checked was psqlODBC installed, if so can you go to Control Panel > Add Remove Programs and go to psqlODBC and click on the "click here for support information" link and it should tell you the version no: eg 08.04.100

Can you tell me which version you have so i can verify that this version isnt compatible and then remove that version by clicking on remove/uninstall and go here:

http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/odbc/versions/msi/

And download the latest version 08.04.100 then reboot and retry and let me know if it worked. Ive tested this on XP with 08.04.100 so if you confirm older versions dont work i can update to tell people to install the newest version. This is usually installed with .net framework 2.0 so you may have an older version

ty Morny and sorry,

I had the wrong ODBC version

I also just realized your soft is for cash game only I play HUSNG.

Shame that every software tend to be for cash game. U would think that an anti-Tilt software would cover HUSNG (one of the most tiliting form of poker)

Thanks again for the fast answer.

Hi,

Yeah i dont play sngs/tournies myself but i presumed that it wouldnt be of much use to add sng/tourney support for 1 main reason.

The software locks you out, when playing cash games it gives you 4 mins to play out before the blinds hit you but with a sng you might be playing 9 tables and half of them might not finish for 30+ mins so it would be extremely bad if the software locked you out if this was the case. Once i came across this problem i felt tournament/sng support wasnt workable and didnt give it any thought.

Id be pretty confident if there was a calculator that measured your ROI% it would show similar results to what my cash one showed, when your on a losing streak your ROI% will decrease because this is the time your more succeptible to tilt, also if your the type of player when on a heater thats gets too aggro and goes on auto pilot due to over confidence youll probably also see your ROI% decreases AFTER youve gone through a heater, the old Well im well up today so i can afford to gamble mentality kicks in.

If you could think of a workable solution where my software could successfully stop you from playing and if there is support for it id certainly consider adding it. I guess the first step if there was support would be to release a calculator that checks your ROI when your playing for longer than x hours, or ROI after playing more than x tournies in a session or your ROI when youve lost x tournies or won x tournies and if alot of people found their ROI was dropping similar to the cash situation then i guess some sort of stop system would obviously save you money in which case i might be able to come up with something.

My initial thoughts would be to come up with a way to stop you entering any more tournaments for x mins after the last one was played but id imagine this is quite difficult but maybe not impossible. Like i said if there is some support for it id look into it. Maybe start a thread on the suggestions area of the forum www.tiltdemon.com/forum and if there is support ill look seriously at a solution.

edit// Another possible solution might be to display a message saying "limit lost exceeded" or "limit max time played exceeded" please dont start any new tournaments and if you do we can detect this and shut the client down. Now for sngs players that would be fine, im not sure if it would work for tourney players if they have pre bought into a future tournament thats starting in 30 mins for example. So if you did try to play another tourney it would close the client down and you cant play so it would be pretty stupid to do this, although many people may not like this solution?

OMG the animation is awesome

EDIT: I'm playing husng too and I think your program could help us... HUSNG are hu cash games played with short stacks and with increses blind every x minutes.... that's all

download it, trying it now
add that stop loss function, i'll buy this for sure

stop loss (-$300) i was n/a bb/100
stop loss (-$250) i was +20.66bb/100
stop loss (-$200) i was +2.11bb/100
stop loss (-$150) i was -2.9bb/100
stop loss (-$100) i was +0.33bb/100
stop loss (-$50) i was +0.53bb/100

stop loss (+$300) i was n/a bb/100
stop loss (+$250) i was -12.06bb/100
stop loss (+$200) i was -3.75bb/100
stop loss (+$150) i was -4.63bb/100
stop loss (+$100) i was -4.52bb/100
stop loss (+$50) i was -0.66bb/100
hi, can you tell me what those number mean?
sample size 150 000 sample size