4:44am: Everyone can agree that there’s a specific course of events in poker that would cause them to “tilt”. For each person, that course of events and the threshold for tilting are different but the lowest common denominator is that we all tilt in some, way shape or form. Let’s be honest, we’d all be winning players if we could learn to control our emotions and not tilt, right? It’s a good thing I don’t have to answer that question because tilt will always exist for a couple of reasons (a) losing money never feels good, and (b) there is so much injustice in poker.

“How on earth can I stop from tilting?” That’s the magic question to which we’d all like a magic bullet. What is the secret to not getting angry after a bad beat? How can one reasonably be expected to control his/her emotions after a runner runner disaster for a large chunk of their bankroll?

If I could answer that question with 100% confidence, I wouldn’t need to play poker because I’d set up shop in a nice little office and play counselor all day long. My client list would be nearly infinite, as you could imagine. But seriously, I will do the best I can to put it into perspective for you and help you avoid the downward spiral, mind consuming seige that is tilt.

First off, in order to answer the questions above, we need to establish a concrete definition of tilt. For all intents and purposes, we will define tilt as “a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy.” In fact, it almost helps if you define tilt as a temporary illness. Much the same way doctors diagnose a disease, we must diagnose the symptoms of tilt. The key here, however, is to diagnose these symptoms in the early stages so that these feelings don’t permeate into your game. This involves you being brutally honest with yourself and identify when you’re in a state of tilt. If you find yourself checking just three of these ten symptoms, then you’re probably tilting:

- An immense feeling of frustration and anger towards both the player and the game itself
- Strong desire to exact revenge or spite your opponent
- Complete loss of patience in the game you’re playing
- Trying too hard to win each hand dealt
- Second guessing every single decision made
- The concepts of table image and logic have gone totally out the door
- Chasing draws without proper odds
- Sudden bursts of unexplained and illogical aggression
- Overvaluing marginal hands
- The inability to press the fold button

All of these things can be detrimental to your game, or even worse: destroy your bankroll, or even — depending on the situation — ruin lives.

So let’s put a stop to it already, or at least try. Here are five simple suggestions from me to you that will help you stay off tilt:

1. Always, always think long term. Poker isn’t about winning the battle. It’s about winning the war. If you’re a winning player, there’s absolutely no question your results will return to form over time. Why is this so hard for people to see at the time? If that is the million dollar question, then the million dollar solution is: TRUST THE MATH. A good example of this is the swingy phenomenon of coin flips. Literal coin flips, that is. If we flip a coin 100 times, it’s completely within reason that it lands on heads 75 times out of 100 when of course the odds are exactly 50%. Let’s take that same coin and flip it 900 more times, totaling 1,000 flips. This time, heads is only slightly ahead of tails (513 to 487 - 51.3% to 48.7%).  Going even further, let’s flip the coin 10,000 times. This time, the number of heads outcomes are eerily close to the number of tails outcomes — (5,023 to 4,977 - 50.23% to 49.77%). Point being, as the number of flips increases infinitely, the closer the percentages will gravitate towards either other, eventually totally leveling out at 50 percent within fractions of decimal points.

It’s important to just recognize that when you’re running bad you are just caught in one of these deviations (see the first 100 flips), and that it will eventually come to an end. Like we’ve discussed before, the best solution is volume. But equally as important as volume is maintaining your composure during these times and realize that mathematics doesn’t always take the same path, but it always, always leads to the same point — no matter how you slice the pie. Put every single ounce of trust left in your body on the mathematics of poker. I promise it will even out for you over time. When? It could take a while, but hang in there. That’s why long term thinking is the key to success.

2. Learn to let go. You need a break. It’s extremely important to recognize when you’re in the beginning stages of tilt so to avoid anything totally devastating happening. I can’t tell you how many times (in my past) that I ignored this advice, and found myself thinking “things can’t get worse”. Things can always get worse, and I cannot stress that enough. A good friend of mine once told me (and it’s so true): “when you play to get even, you get even worse”. It’s time to let go and swallow your pride when you feel even three of those ten symptoms creeping in. You’ve lost, get over it. It’s perfectly normal to lose.

3. Find a healthy way to express your anger. Some of this might sound a little crass, but that’s only because we all have different ways of expressing anger. Get a punching bag. Masturbate. Go punt a football 40 yards outside. Cry, if you have to. The idea here is to not keep the anger bottled up and to express it in a way that’s not going to hurt anybody physically or mentally. If you keep these hostile feelings inside, you’re going to feel a permanent resentment towards poker (which is where I believe the term “perma-tilt” came from.)

4. Be happy you got the money in good (if bad beats are causing you to tilt). Fish pay your bills. I know that it’s a very pride swallowing thing on nights where you constantly get the money in good, only to lose to runner runner and miracle cards over and over and over again — only to have your -35% roi opponent (who think he’s a genius) taunt you in the chat. Rejoice during times like these. Don’t get angry. Be happy that (a) poker is still a very beatable game because (b) people keep putting their money in bad. And for re-assurance about when that will turn around, see point #1.

5. Remember that it happens to everyone. You lost $300 tonight, and it seems like the complete end of the world, right? To that, I say: no it’s not, and misery loves company. Open up a $200/$400 NL cash game table and watch people lose Plasma TVs, Cars, and even HOMES in these games. Seeing someone lose a $140,000 pot on a two outer on the river suddenly puts things into perspective for you. Maybe things aren’t that bad? Like I said before, it can always get worse. Always.

6. Detach yourself from the results. This is perhaps the hardest of the six suggestions, but it’s completely necessary in order to avoid going on tilt. Everyone likes to win, and most poker players are very competitive people, but there comes a point where winning can mean TOO much to you. We hear the term “results oriented” a lot, and this is where that phrase comes into play. Don’t worry about the outcome of one particular hand. Worry about the outcome of the same hand ran 100, 1000, and 10,000 times, which ties back into long term thinking. Complete emotional attachment might be asking too much, but I definitely think it’s completely reasonable for you to not care AS much when you happen to get unlucky. It’s just a game.

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Another suggestion is to look up some bad beat videos on youtube (there’s tons). One of the most important things to remember when you’re on tilt is that you’re not alone — thousands of people are having the exact SAME problem as you at the exact same moment. Yes, they are getting two outed. Yes, they took a runner runner beat tonight. And yes, they keep getting counterfeited when they flop two pair and their opponent calls them down. Watching videos of this happening to other people re-assures that it’s not just some conspiracy against you and your account. Variance in poker is real, and it happens to everyone. No exceptions.

Someone once told me that it’s the little things that count so here are a few small suggestions in order to avoid falling into the downward spiral: (a) if you have a gym membership, go work out. Kill two birds with one stone: improve your body and get the pent up frustration out of your system. (b) a very cold/hot shower — very underrated as a means of refreshing your mind set. (c) surround yourself with people who ground you and are a calming force in your life. It’s important not to be alone during these times, because when this happens sometimes you spend too much time in your head instead of in the presence of other human beings.

I could literally go on all night, as this is a topic that I’m very familiar with. While these suggestions aren’t for everyone, hopefully I’ve put a creative spin on at least one thing that you will take from this article that will take you one step closer to solving this huge problem that many people have.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

5:23am: Poker can be an impulsive game at times, but if you truly treat poker as a business, you have to make the smartest business decisions possible in order to optimize your bottom line. Part of being a smart businessman in this case would include two steps (a) collecting data and (b) mining it effectively.

Collecting meaningful data could and should take a very long time. Statistics deviate from the norm more often than we’d like, and a lot of the time makes things that are irrelevant seem relevant, and vice versa. At what point does data become “valid”, you ask? If you have less than 1,000 heads up sit n gos under your belt, you have a long way to go. Just let the statistics fall into place and continue to put in more volume, and then see where you stand after 1,500 games. When you start to get around 2,000 games, that’s probably the point where you can start circling trends and label them meaningful.

Mining the data is easy. All you have to do is read it, interpret it, and pick out the statistically relevant information. Using this information effectively will, without a doubt, increase your hourly wage, roi, and win %. Paying attention to details such as these is what separates a person who wins 55% of their games from someone who wins 57% of their games. And you better believe it: two percentage points make all the difference in the world.

One example of this is how I made my heads up sng “work schedule” based on my most profitable days, and even during my most profitable hours. Take a look at my data below:

Looking at the days of the week chart, one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: Mondays are not profitable AT ALL for me. Therefore, right off the bat I know that if I’m working a five day week, this is the first day I need to stay away from. We now have my first day off. Choosing the second day off is slightly more complicated ONLY because of my living situation. Based on my graph, the next day that I should throw out the window is Saturday. However, my GF is off on Tuesdays, which is the next least-profitable day. All things considered, I decided that it’s better for me to choose Tuesday as an off day. Point being, I have chosen two of the three least profitable days as my days off, which in turn should optimize my winning percentage on the days that I have decided to work.

Whenever changes need to be made, always make the next best decision. For example, now that football season is here and I run a fantasy football league, I have no choice but to take off on Sunday rather than Tuesday (GFs schedule changes to off on Sundays as well during football season). Sunday is somewhere in the middle from a profit standpoint, so it’s not big deal that I’d be missing this day. Thankfully, I can still include Monday (and probably always will) in my days off.

Another profitable idea is to take a look at the most profitable hours of the day to play. Upon looking at my data, a few things stand out:

1. I should always be in front of a computer with games loaded from 1am-3am CST. 3am is my most profitable hour, and it’s not even really close. This is pretty much the irrefutable evidence I need to know that late night poker is +EV for me.

2. For whatever reason, 4am has given me some problems, however I don’t believe this to be anything more than a statistical deviation (it probably takes 10,000+ games for this particular data to be completely meaningful).

3. 9pm-12am are also pretty solid times to play, as I’ve shown a pretty consistent profit and ROI during those times.

4. The mid morning hours have abnormally large ROI’s, however the data is over a small sample size - and therefore I don’t have enough tangible evidence to suggest that I should alter my sleep schedule in such a drastic way. However, 3,000 games later if I have many more games registered at these times, I wouldn’t be adverse to putting some thought into it.

All things considered, whenever possible I try to put my best efforts into playing the most profitable hours. However, I value the “profit by day” data a little more, so if I deviate slightly from the most profitable hour chart, it’s perfectly fine as long as I’m playing within a profitable day itself.

So to all this, I say take an hour or two and evaluate your data. If your data is meaningful, choosing the optimal days/times to play will go a long way into making your business a thriving one. If your data isn’t meaningful yet, now’s the time to collect the data, and what better day to start than today?

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

1:28am: Unfortunately, due to running HFL and also playing live poker 3 nights a week, and running a part time Ebay business 6 months out of the year, I am unable to put in the volume online in heads up sngs that used to. So how did I put in the volume before life got hectic?

By Using the “NFL football season” method.

The NFL is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. Being as such, most people are aware that there are 16 games in an NFL season. Keeping this in mind, this method would mold each poker session into a microcosm of sorts of an NFL season.

Let me explain. If you follow NFL football with any sort of regularity, then every year you go through the ups and downs that is an NFL season. You also probably don’t panic right off the bat if your team starts out on the wrong foot — say, with a 1-3 record. If they win the next one, they are only one game under .500. The same holds true for heads up sngs. If you pre-commit to this set number of games each day, I find that people usually hold their composure better in a contained environment/system such as this, than they do if they are just arbitrarily playing without any real plan or system.

Any time you get serious and organized about your poker endeavors, it’s almost always a good thing. By employing this method, you’ve basically guaranteed yourself a fighting chance of beating variance because it is focused more on results at the end of the day rather than results by the hour. This is not to say that even less-than-desirable end of the day results mean anything, but it’s certainly better to put more emphasis on doing well over a 16 game stretch than it is to put emphasis on doing well on a game-to-game basis. In addition, this method also helps you stick to volume commitments. So many times we say “if I play X hours per day, and make X dollars per match, I should make X dollars per year”. However, those figures mean nothing if you don’t stick to your volume. This method will ensure that you will make [avg. profit/game] x [16] x [5] dollars per week if you play and “NFL season” per day, 5 days a week.

So let’s say you play $20 heads up sngs, and you average $3 profit per match over a 1,000 game sample size. Using this method, you will ensure that you make $3 x 16 = $48 per day.  Play 5 seasons a week, and you’re suddenly looking at a near guaranteed profit of $240 a week, which is also $960 a month. That’s not exactly chump change.

Like I said before, doing well in heads up is nothing more than a series of mind tweaks and mental manipulations you do with yourself in order to stay in the right mindset, because mindset is everything in heads up poker.

So to this I say at least give it a try - and everyday can be football season year round.

7:26pm: Someone requested that I post a chart on outs/pot odds, for future access in the archives, so here it is. Always know how many outs you have before consulting this chart: