Like many others I suffer from tilt and I feel many other deficiencies in my mental game. I feel I play decently and are observant until I either am a big winner or start losing a buy-in or two.

I recognize many patterns in myself:

- The anticipation of a big pot makes me less rational, I concentrate on the possibility of a large winning and even if something is telling me the opponent range might be too strong I will take an obviously mistaken course of action.

- This is multiplied by circumstances such as losses

- I can see there is a strong trigger in my ego, feeling stupid for making bad moves makes me angry

- I am very attached to the results and where my current bankroll sits, waiting for the time I can declare I'm a winning player (I'm at most a breakeven one)

As I am starting to play live with larger amounts of money on the table, I can see that there is a lot of work that needs to be done on my mental game, first and foremost. I know that part of this is helped by studying the technical side of the game and so I am doing some of that.

But do you have any suggestions on techinques and exercises to improve in this direction? Do you keep a journal and would that be helpful? What are good books, with practical advice to improve one mental game, detach from results and control tilt?

I think having certain money set aside and maybe investing.. plus money to treat yourself from winnings to buy yourself thing syou like or for activities you enjoy

My life-roll is completely separated from my poker bank-roll and the two things proceed on separate paths, what I earn in life gets budgeted etc.

Play smaller stakes. If you're getting emotionally invested in pots, you're playing too large. Ignore what you've made so far or even what you've earned/lost for the session. Keeping going down stakes until you no longer care, even if it means playing 1¢/2¢ online.

Yeah having a huge bankroll for the stakes you play helps. You get less attached to the result.

"When my will is thwarted, when I don't get my way or what I want in say, particularly obnoxious fashion, and I feel frustrated ... the test is to maintain decision making and not to overreact in negative ways." Say some version of this to yourself. Taking a walk from the table, 10 minutes or so, can also be ideal, and very powerful.

This is good advice.. tilt almost always comes down to losing money you couldn’t afford to lose.

I like to assume my buy in is no longer part of my bankroll once I buy in. I even delete the funds from my accounting until I cash out. That way I get used to the number I have.

So not only should you buy in smaller where there’s less emotion involved but you should assume when you buy in that money is in play and can be lost at any time.

If I’m up and I start thinking about the money in front of me I know it’s time to wrap up the session.

Basically up or down once you start thinking about your stack as real money you should be done with your session imo.

I luv the part about not considering the chips in play as part of the bankroll, and I even extend this to 5 or 10 buy ins off the table. A good gimmick for the financially conservative.

First, there is no 100% cure for tilt, unless you're an android, or Vulcan. As humans, we are affected by both the dopamine rush of winning a big pot and the frustration of losing hand after hand where we were the favorite, or seeing, after the fact, that we should have known to fold to that moron that just felted you. So what else is there? Clearly, there is something, as we know there are others that can maintain their cool, over time, in a poker game.

That something acts like a vaccine for tilt. It doesn't eliminate it, though it may look that way to an outsider. It is both simple and complex, easy and hard at the same time. However, it does take effort ... a lot of effort.

It's called knowledge. Knowledge from studying the game, knowledge from experience. Knowledge to the point that you know with certainty when a play was right, or wrong - no matter the result.

Yes, it really is both that simple and that hard.

Once you have the knowledge it's all about mental game and pre-session routine. Personally I like good sleep, a meal, exercise, relaxation before a session. All this builds up my patience and anti-tilt reserves and staves off irritability better. If you've recently had a bad life experience you will probably be off your game regardless of pre-session routine though, but some are better than handling these events than others. YMMV.

Wow, man. It seems you both nailed something critical to the discussion that I've believed for a long time but never really stated full out ... but then you kind of rerouted from what I expected.

When you said "Unless you are an android or a Vulcan" I wanted to stand up and cheer. Because this is the exact point at which this discussion is often at loggerheads. A person who fancies themselves a super computer, aka, "I could never make a mistake in algebra/calculus" type attitude, well, their whole approach to the game tends to be analytical, mathematical, logical ... and included in this is denying emotion in my life. Well, when you raise the specter of the classic Vulcan, Spock, you are raising this emotional issue even more than the complete knowledge issue. See? By saying the person is trying to be Spock or an AI, you are saying, "sans emotion." But no one is sans emotion, and this approach to try to be is a fail.

It isn't knowledge that prevents tilt. It is choosing to act in accordance with your knowledge, not letting your emotions overrule your knowledge. Again, an expert player with a tilt problem can answer test questions about the best strategy even while acting directly in contradiction to that knowledge. Discipline to act according to one's knowledge is the antidote to tilt. It's almost like saying when someone totally loses it and beats their spouse, they just need more knowledge about human rights, non-violence, decency, etc.

When a person is road raging it isn't that they don't know the speed limit, tail gating safety, the defensive driving procedures. It's that they don't give an F in that moment, under the sway of emotions like frustration and anger. Knowledge doesn't solve the tilt. Control of the emotions does. Isn't tilt by definition emotional? So then I say, knowledge of self rather than knowledge of the game is far superior in avoiding tilt.

Well, I submit that you're not applying the full extent of the knowledge many of us have achieved.

I don't beat my wife just because I have the knowledge that it's wrong. I don't because I know it would hurt her and by extension me. I have the knowledge of the consequences. Consequences that I know I don't want. Now I'm not perfect and I do have a temper, so yea I get mad sometimes. However, knowledge allows me to keep myself in check.

So, please spare me the excuses, because that's all they are.

Excuses for what? Being human? Being emotional? Tilters know tilting is bad for them, yet do it anyway. It isn't poker knowledge that saves them from self-destruction. It really isn't.

You're missing the nuance from my initial reply. I did start with the fact that there is no 100% cure for tilt. Also, though poker specific knowledge is very important, it's not the only knowledge you need - I also said knowledge from experience. Doctor, doctor, it hurts when I do this! So, don't do that.

When you engage in behavior that results in something you don't want, then you need to teach yourself not to engage in that behavior. Why? Because you know it's not what you really want.

All that said, I believe that some people don't really care about playing well, but really care about the perceived sympathy they can get from others for being a victim. In which case they are getting what they really wanted. At a basic level, they really do know what they're doing and will come up with all kinds of excuses.

I agree enthusiastically especially about getting what they really secretly wanted. Yes, they know what they are doing at some level, so, again, it isn't knowledge they lack. And how in the world would poker knowledge help this issue?? "Know thyself" is the key to it.

But it is knowledge in the end. It starts with poker knowledge and knowing what a particular situation will typically produce - this is no small thing and seems to be massively underrated. So, if you know you're a 3:1 favorite, then you also know that 25% of the time you will lose. So, it becomes easier (not necessarily easy) to deal with.

So, yea, I agree it's heavy on the "know thyself". However, without poker knowledge, you don't actually know what was right and what was wrong.

I see these descriptions that people tilt because they "couldn't believe" their aces got beat. Meh. Everybody knows that aces get beat. And when you don't know what the sound or unsound play is, tilt doesn't even apply. Tilt means playing poorly in spite of being able to play better. If you are ignorant of sound play, poor play isn't tilting. I realize by now we are mostly agreeing but there is still something.

Here is a classic example of tilt:

A player running and losing badly straddles a pot UTG, gets raised, looks down at 4-J off, and calls the raise out of position. What lack of knowledge is instrumental in this tilt? Or is it just pure emotional acting out in spite of the fact that no lack of knowledge caused the behavior?

I have limited time right now, but this reminds me of a side story.

I was playing a 1/2 in a little 3 table room and had folded. The guy next to me called pre, called the flop, called the turn and after being bet into on the river showed me pocket 3's (zero connection on the board) and said, totally seriously mind you, "I can't believe I didn't hit a set".

Meh. Come on. He wasn't serious. That can't be taken literally ... and is either facetious or humorous in some way. And if he did believe it, he's so ignorant he could never tilt. Again, tilt is playing poorly when you know the game to some reasonable degree, and obviously, somebody who thinks they are 1:4 instead of 4:1 to hit a set isn't tilting, but just ignorant. So meh to it. 99+% he's joshing just making an outrageous comment, < 1% he's that clueless.

First, it's a side story. Second, I believe he was serious. Third, lighten up dude.

And so Barry Bonds comes up and grounds out, and someone says: "I can't believe he didn't hit a homer." And we take this literally as if the guy thinks Bonds homers way more than he doesn't. Oooohhkay.

The dumber a poker player is, anyway, the more unrelated his decisions are to tilt.

great line. that is some of the best advice i've heard, as someone who has played a long time. there is so much truth to this. i remember hearing one of the high stakes cash guys talk about letting go of the feeling of losing, in other words, like coming to terms with it and trying to just accept it. but this is obivously hard for small stakes players who might be playing with money that is otherwise supposed to support their day to day life and bills. but on the flip side, if you want to have a shot at "real money" then you almost have to move up and start risking more, which means coming to terms with big pots and large losses.

And it's not just the size of the stakes but the player's temperament about winning or losing, and his/her "psychological" bankroll. Regardless of wealth level, some are far more emotional about and uncomfortable with losing than others. I knew a wealthy horseman who bet $2 across or to win on their horses, saying, "I don't like to lose." That statement carries something heavy about being risk or loss averse way above the norm or typical. For instance I had a big issue with emotional over involvement even though I was playing considerably under stakes that I could "afford." I see this as more a psychological than bankroll issue for some.

You need to play a proper technique; not just some, but a lot of it. Every time then you will look if you did as you should, and any time you make an emotional decision, you will be aware you made a tilt decision.

Tilting itself will decrease with experience, some thinking of the reasons and accepting the reasons as no good for tilting; there is about never a good enough reason for tilting, as it won't help any; the tilt comes from the thinking and that's where one needs technique, and experience.

The reason for the bad decision should go to rest by understanding it is a nonsensical reason. With the technique, you move your gaming more to a technical arena, and the experience takes care of the rest. You will learn about the reasons for this and that tilt as you get more experience. Pretty much every tilt reason is nonsensical for that amount of tilt, and a milder still making a wrong decision is replaced with a more educated technique and more experience - how long are you going to keep playing wrong then?

Mental training and tilt things do not come up that often for the regular and experienced players, as it is a process of learning, and the skill is not there when starting, but one needs to pass through a long line of experiences. A better technique and more experience much cover the whole mental training and tilt issues.

It is like a recreational more likely telling bad beat stories where a higher caliber player talks about (very) long run statistics. The bad beat stories pretty much correlate with the tilt stories. The way out of it is in being technically better and more experienced.

If this is true, what do you think causes people to tilt when they know better?

Shouldn't the financial incentive alone be more than enough to deter people since our brains are so hardwired toward reward?