Poker Strategy

A Cure for the Tilts by Tom Murphy
We've all gone on tilt at some stage. Some people may not have even recognised it but it happens to just about every player at some stage or other. The trick is early diagnosis and quick action.

Online the tilts can hit hard, you have few emotional outlets, the games zoom by and you don't have the interaction with your fellow players that you have offline that might let you blow off steam. Online, no one can hear you scream!

So what do you do when some baboon nails his inside straight on the river? Smash the monitor? Shout at the kids? No, these things won't help. In fact probably the best thing you can do is the one thing you don't feel like doing and that's to stop playing poker. If you are susceptible to the tilts, then you should take a break, get a can of soft drink, hug your husband or wife or kids, realise its just a game of cards and that such things are inevitable. Honestly the best solution to the tilts is a great big hug!

I played with Chris "Jesus" Ferguson after the WPC in a €1000 freeze out of No Limit Hold'em. Now, this guy has 9 WSOP bracelets and is, for my money, one of the best all round players in the world at any card game. During the evening he took a horrific beat for a chunk of his stack. This beat is bad, its runner-runner territory! Chris looks utterly and completely unfazed, taps the table and mucks his cards. I was amazed, I asked him how he could do that, I mean it was a dreadful call by his opponent who was drawing nearly dead and his answer was instructive "I play up to 10 hours a day sometimes, if you do that for as long as I've been doing it you get beat like that every other day. It's no biggie."

Mental discipline is important in this game, and shaking off bad beats is a big part of that. Online you see 90 hands an hour on average. A runner-runner inside straight draw (one of the worst outdraws I can think of) is only about 67-to-1 against. How long do you think you'd have to play to see that happen? Not that long! You need to internalise that and be able to see the bigger picture when you get outdrawn. Aces will lose to Kings 1 time in 5!

Keep an objective view point on things. There are situations you can control and situations that are out of your control. You can't control the cards you get, but you can control your reaction to them. Often repeat folding until you hit something good can be a great antidote to being on tilt.