What is Tilt?

Jarrod Tendler in his book, The Mental Game of Poker, lays out the concept of tilt and how it costs players so much at the tables.  He suggests that normal advice on self help and poker such as breathing exercises, meditation, visualization and positive self talk may help in the moment of a tilt storm but don’t get at the root cause of tilt.  Tilt will continue to happen it’s just with these “tricks” you may be able to cope a little better with it.  Jerrod is interested in helping players uncover what causes players to tilt in the first place, find ways to resolve these issues and in this way stop tilt from happening.

Here is Jerrod’s equation:

Tilt = Anger + Bad Play

We are all familiar with bad players.  Folks play poorly for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, indifference, superstition.  But, it is when anger (frustration, indigence, envy, arrogance, etc) results in bad play that we have the recipe for tilt.  Notice that anger alone is not tilting.  The best players in the world get angry at the tables but they have learned to not allow emotion to negatively impact the decisions they make.

Trying to find out players beliefs about and meaning assigned to poker is at the root of what causes anger, and subsequently tilt.  It’s natural to think that I need to find out what’s pissing me off to resolve my feelings about it, not just try some tricks to stop feeling pissed off!  But, one tool Jerrod suggests turns this upside down.  I need to critically examine what success means for me in poker.  I get angry at the table when I feel like my attempts to achieve success are thwarted.  So, what does success look like for me?

It’s easy to think that success in poker means winning money.  Money is how we keep score in poker.  A big win rate, a string of positive sessions and a swelling bankroll would tend to make most players think they are on the right track.  But, when I sit down at the table there’s more at steak than just money.  Trying to find out what those things are, how to measure them and identifying the thing preventing me from achieving them would go a long way to start getting a handle on tilt.