Aggro-tilt control.

[EGO]

I've got a tip for everybody who suffers from the form of tilt that is particular to those of us who play too many hands, have read too many books, and generally "know" too much about limit hold'em.

This kind of tilt is "pushing", or an overagressiveness in trying to force others out of the pot. It's when we think that everybody is bluffing or semi-bluff raising, and we play back too hard. It's misapplied aggression. It's FPS. I fall victim to it, and just about every regular that I study offline has at one time or another. I've got a solution to this, at least temporarily - and I've been using it for the past few years with good success.

Turn off your HUD's for a session, and play ABC poker. For one session, you won't absolutely know how often your opponent steals the blinds or check-raises the turn. For one session, play a couple less tables and take more notes. I've found that a few "good" notes is worth at least 500 hands of barely observed play. For one session, just try to fit into the natural flow of the game.

It's all about finding the core of good play - which we (well, ME at least) have a tendany to drift away from. HUD's are very useful, and I rarely multi-table without them. The times I do is when I realize that I'm playing like a LAG-tard, and turning off the HUD always brings me back into focus on making good decisions.

It's an elightening experience to play poker when you aren't correllating the actions of other players with numbers on a screen. I often pick up reads that I would have missed otherwise. Also, don't dismiss this post as a derision of HUD's (I purchased Playerview, for goodness sakes!)

One last note. In the two or so years I've been playing with a HUD, I've turned them off maybe 30 times due to this type of tilt. During this period, I cannot recall any time where I finished the session a bigger loser than I was when I turned them off. Food for thought.

[RemyXO]

I dunno ... I don't see any correlation between HUD and overaggro spew. Never had this problem. I tiltspew with HUD and without HUD equally! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Harv72b]

Whatever works for you is obviously good. Personally, I rarely get overaggressive when I'm tilting; usually I just call down too often. That's something I continue to work on.

There are three things I've found over the years that can help me when I feel the beats piling up:

1) Stop playing for a while (most obvious solution).
2) Learn to recognize when I start to tilt, and how to control it. I haven't mastered this yet, but I've gotten much better at it (instead of tilting for the rest of the session, I can usually cut it down to a hand or three).
3) Take more time between your decisions, even if that means cutting down on your tables. Really think about what you're doing before you do it, and allow that rational side of your brain to overrule the tilt-induced part that insists you can force your opponent to fold his AK if you cap the turn on an AJ57r board, holding 64o.

As far as HUDs go, it's important to remember that PT stats are only part of your reads, or should be. Even if you're playing 10 tables at once with overlap & can barely squeeze your actions in before you time out, you need to be going back into your database after the session & reviewing your hands...as you review those hands, take those notes on your opponent. If you have the time to take notes during the session as well, even better. As you grow more accustomed to multi-tabling, you'll notice that you start to pick up on things like that & the natural flow of a table much more readily. At least, if you have a HUD up to keep track of all the easy stuff for you. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Befolder]

Also, if your play is affected by your stack size, use some sort of tilt blocker. Some recommended a digital sticky notes program called "Memento" that you simple cover up your stack w/ when playing so you can't see how much you have.

When I'm four tabling, it's easy to not really know where you are during a session. Early in the session, I have a general sense if I'm up or down, but as the session goes further, things blur and I don't really know what my results are (good thing).

When I'm done w/ my session, I hide the notes and open up my gift to see if it's this:


or this:


Now when I play live, I keep my checks in uneven stacks so I have no idea how much I have. It's actually exciting when I know I have a lot, but really have no idea how much until I start racking up. It's far less likely to affect my play

For those interested, here is the very simple program:
Memento Program

[Sordini]

Turning of PHUD is a good thing.