A form of tilt

I discovered something last night. I have always noticed that I pick up more pots than normal when I am winning. That is, when I am winning, I seem to play better. What I noticed last night is that I play worse when I am losing. I don’t lose because I am playing badly but rather the outcome of the first big hands tends to determine how I play. I don’t tilt, per se…but I guess this is a form of tilt. When I lose a big pot I tend to sit back, say “that sucks” and somewhat disengage. Whereas, if I win I en-gage and sit forward and watch everything closely which tends to allow me to pickup pots I wouldn’t have when they are up for sale.

Last night started as a continuation of a previous losing session. Somehow I camped it out until I won an AI PF AA hand. By this time I was down several buyins though. At that point I became excited and managed to get both tables to > $100 (at $25 NL). [only two full tables were in play on the site].

This self discovery has been a long time in coming. The first part is now solved….recognizing the problem. Now I just need a way to counteract it and maybe figure out how to engage before I start my play. I just thought I would post this so that others that may have the same behavior could hope to benefit and maybe recognize it in themselves.

This is definitly a form of tilt because an outcome of one hand has negatively swayed your decisions for future hands.

I think this is all too common for almost everyone too. The only thing I can suggest is if you notice yourself becoming unengaged in a session - take a break, long enough so that your tilt goes away.

I find this happens to me as well. I think partly it is due to the fact that other players treat you with more respect when you have a big stack e.g. $80 on a $25 table and become more call happy if they see you losing hand after hand to bad beats; when I am running 'hot' I seem to be able to take down a lot of pots without showdown. It is obviously more complex than this as the dynamic round any table is a very subtle thing!

I have no real solution yet as to how to turn a slump around; to be honest if I am a few buy in's down now and not 'feeling it' I'm big enough to say 'well it just ain't my night' and try again later when the cards warm up. Poker is a long term game and I really go to pot when I start to play 'catchup'!

If you're losing then trust me, you're playing worse than normal. Yes you may get unlucky or whatever, but it goes beyond that. Good decisions over the long term will be rewarded, and bad decisions the opposite. Recognizing when you're off your game and leaving the table is a very underrated part of a poker player.

Originally Posted by aislephive

If you're losing then trust me, you're playing worse than normal.

Originally Posted by aislephive

Good decisions over the long term will be rewarded, and bad decisions the opposite.

One session is not long term. You can make all the right descisions and be losing. You can get allin preflop with AA twice and get cracked for 2 buyins. Later you can Get a flush and lose a sizable chunk of your stack before you realise you are up against a higher flush. This isnt playing badly, it's just coming up against hands which happen to beat you this time. If you can carry on playing well when you are losing then there is no reason you can't carry on playing. It's only if losing makes you play worse that you should walk away.

Originally Posted by aislephive

If you're losing then trust me, you're playing worse than normal. Yes you may get unlucky or whatever, but it goes beyond that.

I believe, that is what I was saying. I am saying that I was playing badly because I disengage and therefore my reads (and therefore my decisions) are not as good as they should be.

I think this happens to some to degree to everyone. I don't know exactly what the correlation between level of play and results are, but I believe they are correlated to some degree long-term. You don't really know what level you'll be at until you actually start playing. You're more likely to be playing well if winning, and you're more likely to be playing poorly when losing. Of course sometimes you're just sucking out and winning or getting sucked out on and losing, or getting no cards or whatever. The trick is to figure out how you're playing based on how your play, not on how much you're up or down. This can be hard to do in the heat of battle. Yeah, you might be able to turn it around it the same session, but all things being equal you're likely to play better if you start fresh, even if that just means a short break.

Personally, if time permits I like to play longer if I'm substantially ahead and shorter if I'm substantially down. Even if I'm playing well and losing the losses have some effect on my state of mind and I'd rather be safe and stop playing then lose another few buy-ins figuring that out. Poker will be there in an hour or later that day or tomorrow. If you can't quit for awhile that's a problem in itself.

This is a conservative approach but it works fairly well for me and has helped prevent any huge -BR swings for quite awhile.