How do you cope with making a terrible play?

[loonychune]

It seems like tilt is most often induced when a player plays his hand in the right way but still loses.

I feel like you can overcome this by realising "that's poker", or that "you made the right play" or whatever.

How do you stop beating yourself up after making the wrong play? I'm actually steaming after not extracting value from a player whose range was really polarised to stack-off hands (i flopped a boat and flat called the flop after he 3bet pf).

Do I say,

"It's 10NL, i'm here to learn and I will learn from this... there's lots more money elsewhere at this stake." ?

Or do I force myself not to play another hand of poker until i've done say, x hours of theory?

The first option seems the obvious choice. But there's an argument for channelling the anger into something constructive!? (So long as it's channelled and not swept aside)

I just don't want to keep thinking about this spot!!!

[bjsaust]

I used to spend ages agonising over these spots. Then Fnord advised (a few times I think), that everyone plays one or two stinkers per session so just accept it and move on. Be forgiving of yourself.

[LawDude]

Well, I suspect it's like any other tilt issue. If you can move on and play good poker, you should. If it interferes with your ability to play your game, then you probably need to take a break for awhile.

[RML604]

Kind of similar but not, I once folded AA on accident, and two guys after me got it in with QQ and TT. I was pretty pissed at the time b/c I was playing awful and on a huge downswing, and I was really tilted after that hand. But then I realized that even if I had won the 2 BIs, what difference does it make. Obviously it sucks, but in the long run it's irrelevant.

What's important is that you realize you made a mistake, you double check with others to confirm that it was a mistake, and then next time when in the same situation, play it correctly.

In the long run, the extra $ you would have won in that hand is completely irrelevant. Never forget that poker is all about the long run.

[Stacks]

Well, the thing that tilts me the most is also bad plays. Bad beats/coolers, I can usually brush aside and deal with it (although not as often lately due to other pressure). However, when I make a seriously bad play it tilts me to no end. And because well I'm not all that good, it happens quite frequently unfortunately. It isn't quite the same kind of tilt in which I start to spew everywhere. Instead, I just constantly dwell on the situation and wonder why I believed that was the right play.

This seems like what your going through, and the above seems like what step your in currently. I suggest.... studying. Find out what you did incorrectly, and try to understand what caused you to believe the decision you made was correct at the time. Also realize that no matter how good you are, you will never play perfect. Nearly every decision in poker is some form of mistake. This is because you are working on limited information, therefore the decisions you make aren't always 100% accurate. It could be as small as a betsizing error in which you missed $1 of EV, by choosing a different betsize than what was ideal. Also you could misinterpret villains range in many situations, or mis-adjust.

You are going to make mistakes! It's a fact, and you must live with it. However, what is going to separate you from many others is that you are going to study and put forth numerous amounts of effort to learn from your mistakes, so that in the future you can play as near to perfect as possible. Will you actually ever reach that plateau? No, but it won't stop you from striving for it.

That is all.


Also... Wow, this was a corny ass poast!!!

[loonychune]

Thanks for the brisk and informed responses!

I was waiting for "just go take a bath and play again in an hour".

I have already torn the hand to bits so now it's just a matter of moving on. I quite like the "you're entitled to - and will - make mistakes" mentality since I know i'll put the work in afterwards I just don't want to dwell on one instance and one buy-in.

[kb coolman]

I used to spend ages agonising over these spots. Then Fnord advised (a few times I think), that everyone plays one or two stinkers per session so just accept it and move on. Be forgiving of yourself.

If I only make a couple of stinkers per session, I'm pretty happy. What I had to learn is that I wasn't just making a couple of bad plays, I was making several. I was only concentrating on the ones where I lost the pot, and not on the bad plays that I sucked out (which I realized was happening a lot more than I thought when I really started reviewing my sessions).

I've also realized that it's just common to be down a BI before I start making earning any money in any particular session. I used to get freaked out when my session started down, which led to bad play. Now, I just settle in, play my game, and leave the table if it's giving me trouble.