How to stay off tilt

Here are three things I do to stay off tilt. I can’t guarantee they will work for you but they work for me, so here they are.

The first thing I’ve done is to purchase a lined white writing tablet of fifty pages and a supply of number two pencils. I wrote the following, filling all fifty pages.

     “There is no such thing as a bad beat. Each player receives two hole cards and the dealer spreads five community cards face up in the middle of the table. At the end of the hand the remaining players make the best hand from their hole cards and the community cards. The best hand receives the pot.”

     When you have finished this exercise you will understand and accept this and losing big pots and busting out of tournaments will no longer bother you.

     The second thing I’ve done is develop a different mindset. When I bust out of a tournament I just tell myself, “I didn’t lose, the other players won, and I’m glad for their good fortune.”

     Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t really enjoy losing any more than anyone else does. Only a village idiot is really happy about losing his money. But that mindset is a defense against going on tilt, and eating yourself up inside. It’s already done, there’s nothing you can do about it, so just get over it. The other thing is I’ve done my homework. I’ve read Harrington on Hold-Em, volumes 1,2, and 3, Super-System 1 and 2, and countless other texts. I bring my A game to the table all the time, and if that’s not good enough to win or place in that tournament, so be it. There is always another day.

     The third thing I often do is a little visualization. It goes like this.

Imagine you are a brave French freedom fighter in the foreign legion. You have been captured by the enemy and are to be shot before the firing squad at dawn. At sunrise you are lead into the courtyard and placed in front of the wall. The Commandant steps forward. “Would you like a blindfold M’sieur,” he asks. At this point you can do one of two things. You can fall to your knees, lick his boots, cry and plead for mercy, and when they drag you to the post and tie you to it you can urinate and defecate in your pants. Or you can refuse the blindfold, smoke your last cigarette, and die like a man. That’s the way a bad beat is supposed to be taken. It doesn’t do any good to whine, so die like a man.