It is difficult to cope with a tilt spell once it has started because it is the nature of a tilt to disable control. Like aggression in everyday life – it is genetically coded into us and is often beyond our control. But nobody runs amuck without reason – catalysts always precede a fit of aggression: an insult, bad news, a bruise, and other like unbearable “fardles,” as Prince of Denmark would say, playing with his bare bodkin. The main catalyst which triggers direct aggression is the organism’s discomfort, like hunger or pain.

We do not live everyday making a list of what caused our aggressive behavior and forever etch the list in our memory. No, when aggression hits, we pound the floor with our fists. Poker demands that we do become aware of our hot buttons. In order to be that cool, self-confident professional, you must be acutely aware of the events leading to your reactions. You should be able to draw up a list of things that push your buttons and sort the list from minor cause to major cause.

If you can do this as a matter of course, you can catch yourself and say to yourself, even out loud: “Okay already, this is the type of serious good luck on the part of my moronic opponent, which pushes my tilt button – beware. Should that idiot do it again, I will not tilt, I will understand and calm down. I will not lose my cool and I will play the best poker I know how.”

You will be able to admit even as you maintain control that in poker you do not have full control and that you, a good poker player, play poker not because you expect to win no matter what – precisely the kind of blind ideals which lead to disillusionment and despair when they collapse in any field of human endeavor – but because you enjoy the challenge of doing your best against the specific odds of the game: a combination of chance and your opponents’ skill.

Such behavior is most likely to expend much of the energy which would otherwise build up into uncontrolled aggression and thus to maintain enough control over yourself to take a few deep breath when that ultimate trigger comes and to remain in control of the situation.

Some of the common triggers are:

Overall discomfort such as hunger or lack of sleep. Because these are not really instances of extreme torture, these can be overcome with introspection about the problem and how it is related to the emotions.

Errors – because poker is a highly competitive game, it’s players are less likely to forgive their own mistakes. Poker players, unlike artists who go easier on themselves because they are used to roughing out the work, whether it be on the page or an easel, rejecting it and either beginning again or building on what they have. They understand that it is a requirement of the creative process. After many rejection notices comes that best seller or solo exhibit in a well-known gallery. So take a page from the artist’s book (or painter’s easel) and don’t criticize yourself so destructively that you close the door to self improvement.

Of course, there are numerous triggers, too numerous to mention here. But if you are aware of your own hot buttons and what pushes them, your stupid mistake will become just a little bad one, your speed up in play will become a recognized trigger to the high anxiety that will surely follow, and that loss to a mere novice will not bother you so much when you realize he will just go somewhere else and lose the farm. Keep it all in perspective and you will be able to, if not conquer, control your tilt.

The author of this article plays online poker and gets Rakeback at Red Star Poker where they offer the highest Red Star Rakeback.

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