Increasing Your Emotional Control: Avoiding Tilt – Part 1

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

Downswing – the main cause of tilt

First of all, it is interesting to talk about downswings, they can be caused by two reasons:

1 – It could simply be variance. Suppose a hand 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, either more or less. The larger the sample, the smaller this deviation will be. So if we say that out of every 10 million hands we will win 7 million, it will be closer to reality. It is important to understand that poker is a long-term game, where these deviations are negligible. Understanding this, you will see that it is not necessary to end the session with a profit, nor the day, but rather the month or perhaps even the quarter, or even longer, depending on the amount you play. Understanding this, all you need to do is have a comfortable bankroll to support this variance and continue playing normally, without changing your game, because after all, it is variance, not a poorly played game! This is why bankroll management is important, even for professionals!

2 – You lose a little due to bad luck, you start to tilt or think you are playing badly and change your way of playing, which will make you lose even more because you are 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 this downswing.

Think about the mathematics of the game! Probability is not an accurate index in the short term, where the influence of chance (read: luck or bad luck) is very large, but as the number of hands increases, 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 thinking in the short term, and thinking in the short term is gambling, real poker is a long-term game. If you lose with the best hand, great, because you were the one who had the best hand, and you are the one who will be the winner in the long term!

Did you know? Good players take bad beats, bad players take them

Want to avoid taking bad beats? Simple, play badly! That way you're the one who will apply them! It's the good players who take bad beats.

Bonuses, cashback & freerolls – you can find all this and more when you create your partypoker account using our links!

You see, 82% chances of winning are not 100%, you don't always win, and you shouldn't! You only deserve 82% of the pot, not the whole pot. Since you can't split it, you'll win the whole pot 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 split the pot according to probability, that is, to eliminate variance and bad beats, the game would lose its charm... It's based on this, the fascination for it comes mainly because of these factors! That's why there are so many donks playing, because of this they can be winners in the short term. It's from players like these that it's possible to make money in poker. Inexperienced amateurs can beat professionals with a very high level of knowledge of the game! If there were no luck factor in the short term, the game would become extremely difficult, because the losers wouldn't have the chance to win, so the vast majority wouldn't play. Just like in roulette, the chance that losing players end up winning at the end of the day will make them come back the next day. Because of this, never complain about someone beating you on a bad beat, you should thank them, after all, it is because of players like this that you are able to make a profit.

Did you know that when you create your 888poker account using our links you get a great bonus and can also play in our exclusive weekly freerolls?

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