Years of rage tilting at small/midstakes. Doomed for life?
Posted by StreetSpirit
Posted by
StreetSpirit
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Mental Game
Years of rage tilting at small/midstakes. Doomed for life?
Hi and sorry, but I just need to get this out of my chest. I am having severe rage tilt "attack" as we speak. I feel like my head is going to explode and I can actually physically feel my ears getting super hot and ringing.
I'm an online nl200 regular, taking shots to nl500, and trying to beat the stakes and move up, but I feel like I am keeping myself from reaching my full potential because I get these huge raging tilts. I do it all to try to manage the tilt... meditate, exercise, socialize etc etc. I listen to Elliot Roe's MP3s and I've read the Jared Tendler books etc. I even went to see a psychologist for a few months this year to talk about this rage problem. I just don't feel like I have the tools to shake these massive feelings of rage when I run bad and play bad. In a word, I feel like a complete loser/fish.
I have come as far as recognizing feelings that trigger tilt such as shame (bad play and feeling ashamed in showdown), unworthiness (I am not smart enough to be great poker player) or feeling that I am not being capable to "out maneuver regs" or playing "gto/balanced" (Not theoretically knowledged and/or capable of coming up with good exploits ingame).
BUT
Now I GET EVEN WORSE tilts, because I can't keep myself from having these tilting feelings and I am painfully aware why I'm tilting but can't stop and then I'm basically tilting because I'm tilting. Sounds crazy? Tell me about it.
It's coming to a point that I feel like someone with this severe tilt problems isn't ever able to overcomeo them. And this thought has haunted me for months now, and this is actually why I wrote this rant and wanted to ask you RIO members: Do you have a story that would inspire me to overcome these problems? Or do you know anyone who has overcome tilting? Any advice/inspiration/consolation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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For me the more I have a certain strategy memorized the less I deviate from it. I also tend to focus on the EV line more (which still makes me tilt but it's better than focusing on the green line).
I'm currently in the same situation where my downswing has worsened because I get attached to hands. After losing a buy-in I would normally feel my face heat up and start spewing more chips away.
Currently, I'm going to focus on recognizing this problem and either A. Stop playing and take a step back, or B. Play through it and learn how to return to the optimal state of mind. If I'm able to do the latter then tilting because my Aces get cracked wouldn't be much of a problem. The worst thing about this tilt is I start playing trashy hands from various positions like 22-44, KTo, etc in EP and I stop 3betting and start flatting more calls and cold calling more 3bets even though my normal self would know this is a fold
Essentially I would suggest trying to catch it IN THE MOMENT and figure out what is tilting you and work from there.
I have same problems sometimes but it comes with different triggers and other outcome as well. It is possible to fix it but it is hard as you've doing it for a long time.
1)not checking results (maybe for a month)
2)put a lot of quailty studies each day when you play (not watching videos/listening books; but doing pio work, deep hand analyses, stats/db analyses, looking for exploits and studying gto with tools)
3)play less (for sure if you played 8 hours - 5 days time to cut it; and cutting tables as well)
4) if you play not anymomus pool: can close nicknames with hud for a while; or play without hud
5) work on a mentalitly: poker doesnt own you anything, it is fine to do mistakes and blunders and appreciate your opponetns (from most of them you can learn - either good lines or good counter exploits and be happy if someone make a bad play against you -+ EV in a long run)
Succes story: there are plenty I belive but because most play won't write about it's hard to know who have and who don't. Probably everyone had at some point of their career. Isildur comes to mind- being exellent player but rather weak in mindset aspect
I really like number 1 and I'm going to try it. It would be good to see how I'm doing maybe after a week but I believe number 1 will help when I get winner's tilt or when I get scared to lose some of my sessions winnings which will force me to play tighter and fold a lot more than I should.
I'm not at the stakes where I can afford PIO (I play 10NLz) but I've been doing a lot of preflop work with flopzilla.
Currently re-reading and doing my best to slowly go through and implement Mental Game of Poker (I definitely need a ton of work on mental game)
1 It is not as easy as it sounds especially when you run bad. I have feeling I want to check how much I lost. When I win and think that sessions week to week going smooth I dont have such feeling.
Even though it is look like easy thing to do it is not. But benefits are great
Everyone have different type of tilt, for me tilt (not nessesiarly in poker) in life not producing as much anger as blurs my mind. It is harder to focus and brain sometimes going on ''monkey thinking mode''
You can master it so you will tilt but it wont be as hard/bard as previosuly. You'll notice when it comes and start breathing exerisize or can take small break
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