Increasing your emotional control: Avoiding Tilt - Part 1

The aim of this article is to get players to increase their emotional control through mathematical knowledge of the game, reducing or even stopping tilt - reducing downswings and increasing profits.

Downswing - the major cause of Tilt

First of all, it's interesting to talk about downswings, which can be caused by two reasons:

1 - It could simply be variance. Suppose a hand that has a 70% chance of winning. Many people confuse this with winning 7 times out of 10, which is not true, because there will be a deviation, up or down. This deviation, the larger the sample, the smaller it will be. So if we say that every 10 million hands we win 7 million, that's closer to reality. You have to understand that poker is a long-term game, where these deviations are negligible. If you understand this, you'll see that you don't have to end the session with a profit, nor the day, but the month or maybe even the quarter, or even longer, depending on how much you play. Once you understand this, you just need to have a comfortable bankroll to withstand this variance and continue playing normally, without changing your game, because after all, it's variance, not a bad game! That's why bankroll management is so important, even for professionals!

2 - You lose a little due to bad luck, start to tilt or think you're playing badly and change the way you play, which will make you lose even more because you're playing in a different way. It may also be that because of the tilt you want to play with the thought of recovering the loss, which will also only make you lose more and increase that downswing.

Think about the mathematics of gambling! Probability is not an accurate index in the short term, where the influence of chance (read luck or bad luck) is very great, but as you increase the number of hands, the variance will become smaller, that is, the real results will come closer to what probability says. Don't be sad when you lose with better hands! Being sad is short-term thinking, and short-term thinking is gambling; real poker is a long-term game. If you lose with the best hand, great, because it was you who had the best hand, and it's you who will be the winner in the long run!

Did you know? Good players suffer bad beats, bad ones apply them

Want to avoid bad beats? Simply play badly! That's how you'll apply them! It's the good players who take bad beats.

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You see, 82% chances of winning are not 100%, you don't always win, and nor should you! You only deserve 82% of the pot, not all of it. Since it's not possible to split it, you'll win all of it most of the time, but you'll have to lose some to make up for the 18% you're taking for more. Imagine if it were possible to divide the pot according to probability, i.e. to do away with variance and bad beats, the game would lose its fun... It's based on this, and the fascination with it comes mainly from these factors! That's why there are so many donks playing, that's why they manage to be winners in the short term. It's from players like this that it's possible to profit in poker. Inexperienced amateurs can beat professionals with a very high knowledge of the game! If the luck factor didn't exist in the short term, the game would become extremely difficult, because the losers wouldn't have a chance of winning, so the vast majority wouldn't play. Just like in roulette, the chance of losing players ending up in profit at the end of the day will make them come back the next day. Because of this, never complain about someone for beating you on a bad beat, you should thank them, after all, it's because of players like this that you're able to make a profit.

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Article adapted from the original by Tex Wilde. Check out Part 2.