Increasing your emotional control: Avoiding Tilt - Part 2

In poker there is a question of reciprocity, which means that in the long run what happens to one player happens to others. Everyone takes bad beats, goes through downswings and upswings, receives the same percentage of AA, etc... And it's precisely the player who takes best advantage of these opportunities who will be the winner in the long run! That's right, even downswings are great opportunities, because everyone goes through them, and whoever copes best with them will be the winner in the long run. If you don't tilt, feel happy, because you'll be minimizing your losses, unlike the vast majority who, when they go through a downswing, tilt and end up losing even more.

Reciprocity in the long term - understand how it relates to Tilt

This question of reciprocity in the long term also applies to hands that are difficult to play, these are better than AA! I'm not saying that average hands will bring more profits than AA, no, but look, AA is a relatively easy hand to play, everyone has a similar line, you'll win a lot with AA, but so will your opponents, and a good part of their profits will come from you, just as yours will come from them, but the hands that are difficult to play, those you can have a big advantage over your opponents, you can win a lot from them if you play well, while they won't be able to win much from you if they don't know how to play. In an AK vs. QQ confrontation, don't be happy if you win, regardless of whether you hold AK0 or QQ, because this is an EV situation, since half the time you win and half the time you lose, but you always lose the rake. In this case, only the poker room wins. It's also nothing to be sad about, as it's an unavoidable situation in the game. Unless you make the big read and manage to fold the kings, then it's a reason to be happy, because you'll be setting yourself apart. But that's the point, everything has a reciprocity, what happens to one happens to all (external factors such as internet outages, people getting in the way and things like that don't count). There's no point in hoping to get a certain hand at a certain time. Try to play them all as well as possible, that's what makes the difference.

Try to turn off the emotional side when you're playing, just use reason! Almost all micro stakes players play with the mindset that losing is bad and winning is good, and that's a big mistake. Once you understand and apply this perfectly, you'll have tilt under control! Don't get upset when you lose, but when you play badly, even if you win the hand!

It's no use knowing that EV is what rules, knowing how it works in theory but not being able to apply it in practice... We know that in practice it's very complicated, and that's what we should focus on... When we take a 4% suckout we can't be sad, we need to be happy, because after all, we're the ones playing better than the opponent. If we take another bad one soon after, we know that it will be very difficult to maintain control, but this is extremely important, it's what differentiates great players from good players. Making the right decisions is the goal in poker, it's what will pay off in the long run! If you have 4 or 5 bad beats in a row, you'll probably feel uncomfortable, it means that your subconscious isn't ready enough yet. Why do we think like that? Why do we want to make a profit in the short term? It's very complicated to play without emotional influence. We need to understand these concepts very well in order to be able to apply them in practice. If every time we make a bad move we have to think about these concepts to try not to make a mistake, we'll be taking the focus away from the actions of the game. Once again, these concepts need to be well understood, fixed in our subconscious.

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Fishs are there at all limits because they're in that phase where losing is bad and winning is good. And that's why they play. And there are a lot of them! Sharks don't, they take advantage of this erroneous thinking, they know that winning doesn't mean good and losing doesn't mean bad, they know that poker is long term, where +EV is good and -EV is bad.

It's a good thing that this transition in thinking is very difficult, so the donks won't die out. If you play tight, it's even more complicated, because it gives you the impression that by selecting your hands better, you should win every time you enter one.

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Let's make the transition from donk to shark - day by day

But we, my friends, have to try to get it out of our heads once and for all, moving away from the donk state and towards the shark state. A tilt, no matter how slight, is a big problem! You can be sure that a game without any tilt has a much better winrate. There's no point in playing perfect poker for hours on end, then tilt and throw away the profit in a single hand.

Remember, it's the decisions that count, not the results.

Continued from the article adapted from the original by Tex Wilde.