In every poker player's life it will seem as though every hand you hold is outdrawn, often by an inferior hand to yours. It will seem like every river card seems to be the miracle card that will turn your 48:1 favorite into a 100% loser. It will appear to you that your opponents can see your hole cards, that the game is fixed, that the dealer is favoring some players and not others, especially finding you in disfavor. It will seem like all of this and more. While this is going on it can shake your confidence, cause you to play catch-up and, in general, put you on tilt. The simple truth, however, is just this: you are experiencing first hand why there are no absolutes in poker. Even a hand that is a 99% favorite to win the pot outright will be cracked one time out of 100 times played. In poker, there are no sure things and everything depends on everything.
I was asked the other day how to avoid tilt when experiencing what appears to be bad luck. I thought about it for a few minutes and, finally, decided there were three strategies I use to mitigate the damages of being beaten by a hand that was inferior to mine at every street except the river.
- Have a stop-loss exit strategy and stick to it.
- Learn to identify the feelings you associate with tilt and when they are running high simply get up, walk away and do something unrelated to poker.
- Realize that for every bad beat you experience, you have been on the other side administering a bad beat to your opponent.
These are in no particular order but they are mutually dependent on each other and cannot exist outside of the relationship the have to correct poker action.
Create an Exit Strategy
Perhaps the most important thing you can do as an individual player is to create an exit strategy for when you go broke during any particular session. In my case, I limit my potential loss to the amount of the buy-in. When I buy chips I am committed to the game up to and including the amount of my buy-in. If I go broke in any given session I will not buy additional chips. If I do it changes the nature of the game I am playing. To my mind, re-buying chips only gets me deeper in the hole and instead of letting me catch-up I just go deeper in the hole. The idea of creating a stop-loss exit strategy simply puts a cap on my potential losses without impacting how much I can possibly win in any given session. Doing this requires developing the discipline to avoid the temptation to re-buy if you go broke in a cash game but it is a strategy that avoids re-buying when you are most certainly not playing your best game.
Identifying Tilt
You just took a really bad beat. What do you do? One of the ways I identify whether I am on tilt or not is whether or not I am mumbling to myself about the last hand and mentally questioning my game as well as the game of the player who just hammered me. When I do take a hit, when my set falls victim to a flush on the river or I am outdrawn with top set over bottom set and the bottom connects with the case card on the river or I have the nut flush only to be beaten by quads that come on the river my strategy is to simply sit out the next two or three hands no matter what comes my way. If I am still talking to myself, still berating my terrible luck, still wanting to strangle the opponent who beat me, or some other irrational internal conversation, it is time to get up from the table, cash in my chips and do something else. When the hamster is running around in my head I will not be able to play my best game. If I can't play my best game I am most likely going to lose more than I win. If I lose more than I win I will go broke. So the cycle goes. It is better to just walk away rather than play a game that requires concentration and attention when the needed concentration is focused on something other than the current hand. This strategy, too, requires developing the discipline to stop playing, in this case stopping prior to parting with your entire stack.
Both Sides Now
Finally, because poker is a game of probabilities and because each deal of the cards is virtually a random event given a well shuffled deck, it is quite reasonable to assume that you have been the player sucking-out the miracle card on the river from time to time. In those cases you most likely didn't celebrate what a great player you are, rather, you wiped your brow and thanked the poker gods for providing you with this bit of improbable luck. When you are a 2% favorite to win a hand after the turn and the river comes to make the winning hand it is unlikely that you say anything other than "I'm sorry" to the opponent you just beat. You might even think that you played that hand like a donkey but you are counting your new found chips and breathing a sigh of relief. When you win with the miracle card it is unlikely to interrupt your concentration, your focus so why should being on the losing side do so? Protecting your concentration is a matter of conditioning your mind to see the bad beats as nothing more than a part of the random nature of poker, to view the bad beats and the miracle wins in the same light. While it is far easier to do so when you are on the winning side, you can develop the disciplined attitude that recognizes that when you are outdrawn on the river by a boneheaded play and a bit of luck, it is nothing more than tables turned and the probabilities working themselves back to even.
Common Elements
I play poker for the competition, for the ability to go heads-up with an opponent and see who will prevail on any given hand. I play poker for the rush I feel when I win a hand or make a profit during any given session. I play poker for the uncertainty, the strategic thinking, for the complexity of decision making. I play for the ups and downs, the streaks and the thrills. I do not play to lose even though I sometimes do. I do not play to give my money away, when I want to do that I give to charity. I play poker for the disciplined and intellectual challenge it provides me. And that, my friends, it the key.
Discipline is developed. It is learned, cultivated, practiced and studied. In a game of volatile swings up and down it is critical to develop the discipline to curb the emotional volatility that easily accompanies money swings or the swings associated with apparently associated with luck. Learning to recognize poker as a game of skill in which luck plays a significant role is one step toward developing the discipline required to even out the emotional swings that so easily attach to the volatile nature of the game itself.
