"I don't tilt."
"I never tilt."
It has been a long time, but I remember saying the above quotes. There are varying degrees of tilt, some more extreme than others but everyone tilts. Tommy Angelo's book, podcast interviews and new video series on Deuces Cracked have helped me realize a big leak and begin to plug the dam. You can have many goals in poker, but one of your main goals should be to "tilt less" than your opponents. If you deal with the bad beats, coolers, running bad over a session, etc, etc better than other regulars in the game do then you will profit in the long run.
I tilt a lot less than I used to. I now find myself taking a little more time to make decisions right after a bad beat, cooler, or bad call/play. For the next orbit or two, I am consciously asking myself, "Would I normally make this bet/raise/call/double barrel/triple barrel/etc if xyz hadn't just happened a few hands ago?" The 2 additional seconds that this usually takes has probably meant more to my game lately than anything else. I occasionally find myself folding instead of calling/raising or raising instead of calling/folding thanks to taking that extra 2 seconds.
If you think you don't tilt or never tilt, make sure you aren't kidding yourself. Review your sessions. Don't just review the big losses and wins, but also review the next 50 or so hands after a big loss or win. Did you do something differently than you normally would during that stretch that you would consider spewing, playing too nitty, or just a plain bad that caused you to lose more or win less than normal?
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Angelo is so good at delving into the non-mathematical aspects of poker. You have to work at it, but implementing his lessons is a significant incremental improvement in one's game. Anyone can teach the simple math of a LHE hand; few can really teach how to manage tilt. Angelo does the latter.
-PL
Shrike
1:09 AM