Three elements govern poker.

One of these three cannot be controlled in any way - it is the element of luck. It is by far the most influential one; that's why everything only counts in the loooong run.

Luck is very important, because it allows horrible players to win sometimes and thus come back to lose and lose and lose, always dreaming of the one time they won.

Then there are two elements that can be controlled. Elements that can be trained and improved:

Skill and mental attitude.

These two make the difference between a winning player and a losing player.

And here is what I just don't get:

While your mental attitude is by far more important than your skill, almost all posts on 2+2 deal with the latter. What gives?

Every move that you can learn in the forums or on the training sites, every one of them has its advantages and disadvantages. Every single move will backfire at times, and when you take all contingencies into account, each move gives you only a tiny edge. But if you have 6 players at a table, and one of them has an edge of 2% over the others, he won't get rich.

Small shortcomings in skill won't make anybody a losing player. It's the big mistakes that create the revenue for the winning players. It's tilt.

After playing prudently for hours, a player is hit by a bad beat. The very next hand, he angrily risks his remaining money on a -EV chance and gets stacked.

That's where the money comes from. And that is what makes the difference between the winning player and the losing player. The winners take the bad beats, shrug, and move on. They don't make things worse by pushing all in with the very next half-decent hand.

But if you say this, all hell breaks loose, as if it is in any way insulting. Why do the players insist that their superior skill wins them the money? Why can they not admit that it is their superior (superior when it comes to poker) mental attitude? What gives?

The answer is cognitive bias. When you go on tilt if you were to recognize you emotional condition and determine it as a separate experience from your normal consciousness, and realize that you are in fact not operating under your normal motivations, then you would be aware of what your normal motivations and thought processes indeed are and should be able to discern between them and access them accordingly as you would any other mental faculty. If one were to actually comprehend it while it was happening to them then they should be able to override it, if it is indeed a smaller portion of their total umbrella of thought. Since the actual essence of tilt is the absence of this awareness, it becomes inescapable through merely trying to conceptualize it out of its instance. And while indeed some of the community may be to blame for placing more value in technical aspects; its lack of discussion is probably due more to the lack of effect discussion would have on prevention of tilt, since prevention of emotional disturbance is concerned with the motivations of whatever emotion has overwrought the person, which are manifested by the unique sensitivities of the affected person. The root emotion must be dealt with if understanding is to be achieved.

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I disagree. We all have been on tilt at some times, and I vividly remember a few instances where I knew that I was making a horrible move, but was so angry about the beat that I had taken before that I decided Fate owed me. I was on tilt, and I knew I was on tilt. I just didn't care at that time.

And I am sure that top players can avoid that. They are human, too (or so I was told), so a bad beat makes them angry, too (I hope). But they don't get carried away. So let them come forward and tell us how to do that instead of talking about cold 4 bet for the 1000th time.

@ Lego - seriously, mate, you are wasting way too much time on letting the world know that you dislike my ideas. Just move on.

I thought I was on your ignore list ????

And I could swear I've seen you make this exact post before.


Yes players who can control their tilt will make money from other players who can't when those othe rplayers are on tilt.


But even when players are playing their A game some people's A games are better than other people's A games and to varying degrees of separation as well. So yea some people will make money from other players because they are more skilled.

Which I do not deny. But it would not be significant in the long run.

And no, this is not the exact same post. I told you before (comprehension is a lost art) that I modify my ideas whenever I get reasonable feedback. That's the whole point of a forum - present ideas, listen to other ideas, come up with better ideas.

Define significant.

No need, was the wrong word. Obviously it would be significant.

But the money won from players going on tilt ever so often is more than the money won from players who do not know all the tricks, but at least keep their hair on.

Edit:


Whoops.....Double post.

Well it doesn't matter how much someone goes on tilt if you aren't good at poker.........if player A sucks ass at poker he's still not gonna be a long term winning player even if he never goes on tilt and a lot of other people do sometimes.





Personally I think more of good players' profits comes from their edge against lesser skilled players than comes from times when their opponent is tilting..........and I think it's a very good bit more too.

Money comes from mistakes.

Mistakes can come from many different places, INCLUDING tilt.

Money also comes from giving odds to draw, not value betting when ahead, paying off when behind as well as MANY OTHERS. (all of which are skill related)

But you also refer to the same players in one line as "they suck ass" and later as "lesser skilled players". You can find that quite often. I guess everyone agrees that it is rare to find someone who "sucks ass" at your table. Most of the time you have to deal with players who know the basic skills that Snozynoze mentions.

Heh, you "should" be able to override it. If you can see your tilt and your separation from your normal calm, then still choose to hold on to your emotion and allow it to control you then you obviously have your work cut out for you. While still identification is undoubtedly the first step you still have to have the wherewithal to see the big picture and make the right choice.

But this is in response to your wondering why the community doesn't discuss it more, and I still attest it is because of exactly what you have touched on; theory and rhetoric does little to change your priorities (as in choosing rationality over emotion)in the moment, seeing as it's a choice unique to each situation and each tilt.

I stopped reading OP when I saw this:

I dunno what you're talking about. I find plenty of players whose A game is a little worse to medium worse to a lot worse to oh my god they suck it's so much worse...than my A game.


It's not hard to find bad players.

Still the thread gets back to skill. I find that after a few "bad beats", people hitting three outers on the river, backdoor fds against top two pair, etc.. in short order, it doesn't make me want to shove all of my chips in pre flop with the next decent hand I pick up. Rather it leaves me questioning the strength of my game, and doubtful of any cards. The best defense I have against this negative mental attitude is to quit playing poker for a week or so, preferably before I lose too much money from "tilting".