What is tilt anyway?
I ponder this while reflecting on an online poker session last night. Up a small amount, I was going to close out the session and go to bed early. But look, there’s pocket tens, let’s just play this hand.
Fast forward and the villain has pocket nines, but hits a 3rd nine on the river. Now I’m down a small amount – can’t quit there.
The next hand I get AKs. One caller, who also calls my C-bet then shoves on the turn with the board showing 654-7.
An orbit later, with pocket deuces, I call a pre-flop raise and float his C-bet on a flop of 753 with a flush draw. His C-bet sizing didn’t convince me that he had much. A deuce came on the turn giving me bottom set. He shoves and I snap call to find out he has pocket queens. Just like the ending of a movie I’ve seen too many times before, the river is a queen. Burned twice by 2-outers on the river in a span of just a few minutes.
In 20 minutes after deciding to book a small win, I proceed to blast through 180 BBs, recover a little bit, and go to bed an hour after I really wanted.
Tilt can be so sudden and unexpected. Like road rage. Looking for understanding, I found this article: The Psychology and Biology of Road Rage, which introduced me to the term “Intermittent Explosive Disorder.”
According to Wikipedia, “Intermittent explosive disorder (sometimes abbreviated as IED) is a behavioral disorder characterized by explosive outbursts of anger and violence, often to the point of rage, that are disproportionate to the situation at hand (e.g., impulsive screaming triggered by relatively inconsequential events). Impulsive aggression is unpremeditated, and is defined by a disproportionate reaction to any provocation, real or perceived. Some individuals have reported affective changes prior to an outburst (e.g., tension, mood changes, energy changes, etc.).”
The psychological root of this is something called Hostile Attribution Bias, “the belief that every accidental injury or threat is purposeful, and personal. People with IED over-personalize every interaction, and then over-react with immediate aggression.” This is obviously dangerous when it happens to the driver of a car on a busy highway and financially self-destructive when it happens at the poker table.
I’m not prone to road rage and my propensity to tilt isn’t severe enough to classify as a disorder. But I do tilt, having experienced many of the types of tilt Tommy Angelo describes in his wonderful book Elements of Poker: steaming tilt, simmering tilt, too loose tilt, too tight tilt, too aggressive tilt, too passive tilt, playing too high tilt, playing too long tilt, playing too tired tilt, entitlement tilt, annoyed tilt, injustice tilt, frustration tilt, sloppy tilt, revenge tilt, underfunded tilt, overfunded tilt, shame tilt, distracted tilt, scared tilt, envy tilt, this-is-the-worst-pizza-I’ve-ever-had tilt, I-just-got-showed-a-bluff tilt, I-gotta-get-even tilt, I-only-have-so-much-time-to-lose-this-money tilt and demolition tilt. Entitlement tilt is my biggest nemesis. I can handle bad pizza.
On the other hand, I have some friends with tendencies much closer to Intermittent Explosive Disorder when the poker Gods deliver just a few of the 10 plagues of poker injustice upon them. Dear friends, you know who you are!
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