The next million times you’re alone, try this.
Touch a thumb to the index finger of the same hand, and breathe in. (You can do this with one hand or both. Either way is fine.)
Then touch thumb to middle finger, and breathe out.
Repeat a lot.
Now, if you want something harder, do an in-breath AND an out-breath on the index finger, and then move to the middle finger for the next in-out combo.
And if you really want to get exotic, you can work your other fingers into the act.
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Here’s a hand I played in the big no-limit game at Lucky Chances. There was a guy in the game I’d never played with before, and he was giving lots of action. So far I’d played two pots against him. Both times I was on the button. Both times the river went check-check. Both times I turned over the winner. And both times my cards caught him by surprise by being quite a bit less strong than he expected. He made it known both times that in his world, I suck.
Then this hand came up. My stack was about $4,000 and he had me covered. He was on the button and I had the big blind. Everyone folded to him and he opened for $160. The small blind folded and I called. The flop was J-J-2 rainbow. I checked, and he checked. The turn was an ace. I checked. He started to check, then he said “time,” and he acted like he was thinking, and then he said “two hundred.” I called instantly with two $100 chips while he fumbled around with ten $20 chips on their way into the pot.
The river was a king. Final board: J-J-2,A,K. I checked. His face got consternated and he shrugged and said, “Your ace is good. I check.” I turned over pocket sixes and he said, “That’s good too.”
Then he said, “Nice hand, buddy. Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living?”
Now, if he had intended this as a polite question, then I would have ignored him politely. But he didn’t. He was being mean. I’d heard this rib before many times over the years. He was mocking me and my poker player by implying that I must have a pretty good job to be able to afford to play as bad as I do. Well, I lost my cool and I got rough. I ignored him ruthlessly.
It all ended happily though, when one of my favorite foes, Sam B., spoke up and replied on my behalf.
“He plays limit.”
How to Tilt
by Tommy Angelo
My mom used to tell me, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” This is such a profound and righteous philosophy. And I’ve stuck to it. For example, when I eat popcorn, I think it’s worth doing, so I do it well. With the fingertips of one hand, I can pick up a surprisingly large amount of popcorn and put all of it in my mouth, without dropping a single piece, in the dark. Another activity I give my best to is folding. I can fold poker hands at high velocity with crosshair precision so that the cards vanish into the muck. And when it comes to tilting, well, I hate to brag, but I do believe that I might be the greatest tilter of all time. Yes, I know, that’s an unfalsifiable claim. Just because I happen to tower above everyone in my player pool as the unquestioned champion tilter doesn’t mean there isn’t some tilter I’ve never met who is better than me. All I can say is, bring him on! I’ll take on anyone anywhere anytime in a globally televised heads-up tilt-off if need be, to find out if I am indeed the world’s greatest.
Because I am a generous man, I am now going to share with you some of my tilt wisdom, and yes, some of my secrets. Let’s start right out with that well-worn question that has generated so many classic arguments: Is tilting a science or an art?
My answer is: yes. I believe that easy tilting is a science, and that difficult tilting is an art. It’s a simple matter to manipulate some of the tilt-inducing variables, such as playing twenty hours in a row after hardly any sleep. Anyone can bring out their best tilt in a situation like that. Even a scientist. But can you be unexplainably angry at everyone and hate yourself and your money when you are winning every pot and your opponents are having fun anyway? That’s something only an artist can do.
Okay, enough with the highfalutin intellectualism. I’m going to dummy down to your plebian level. (Did that sentence tilt you? Then there’s hope for you yet.)
People ask me all the time, “Tommy, sometimes I’m playing poker, and I feel great, even after I lose a few big pots. It doesn’t even bother me. I know I am missing out on some great opportunities to justifiably tilt like crazy. But I can’t. I just sit there and I keep making really good folds and raises and everything else. Can you help?”
Oh yes, I most definitely can, in several ways.
Try this. Reverse the order of cause and effect. One of the effects of tilt is that it makes us play bad, so what you do is, make some really bad plays on purpose. Call when you should fold. Fold when you should call. The act of playing bad will agitate you, and that in itself will bring on some tilt.
Here’s another simple way to backdoor some tilt. Start with one of the other main effects of tilt, namely, that it makes us unhappy. What you do is, wait until you are naturally unhappy – such as after a heated argument with your best friend – and then go play poker! I guarantee you this will increase your probability of tilting, and the tilt will then compound your unhappiness which will nourish your tilt even more. Give it a try. This is a lock.
So far I’ve been talking to you on the level of How to Tilt 101. Now I’m going to share a concept about tilt that only the grand tiltmasters truly understand.
When it comes to fixing your tiltlessness, you have to realize that there are band-aids, and there are cures. Everything so far has been band-aids. Some other excellent, effective band-aids you can use are to make sure that you don’t take breaks and that your body is sleep deprived and malnourished.
As to cures, what you have to realize is that tiltlessness is what happens when you are in control of your mind. So, to become a master tilter, you must let your mind be your master. You must surrender to your mind and let it have its way with you. Allow your mind to fill you with worry, and regret, and anxiety, and fear. You see, when you are sitting contentedly playing poker, the problem is that you are living in the present. If only you could unshackle your mind from the bonds of reality. If only you could pry yourself away from what is. Then you would be liberated. Then your mind would be set free – free to drift into the past and dwell on your bad luck and your bad playing and your bad streaks – free to gallop into the future so that it can languish in the land of worry – and then, and only then, your mind would be empowered by imaginary madness to do that thing that it does so well – make you tilt.
It is extremely difficult to willfully wrench yourself free from happiness while it is going on. Learning how to do it is a long, slow process. That’s why, if you’re really serious about curing your tiltlessness, you have to practice doing it away from the poker table.
You probably never thought of the act of waiting for something as an opportunity to practice your poker. Well, it is. It’s one of the best. Think about it. Doesn’t poker involve a lot of waiting? When it comes to working on your tilting while you wait, it doesn’t matter what you are waiting for. You could be waiting in line, or waiting for a plane, or waiting for someone who is late. The only requirement is that you have empty time that you can’t speed up.
Let’s say you’re in a big hurry, and you’re in line at the grocery store, and the old woman in front of you finally gets her huge order all rung up, and just when you think she’s about to finish, she says to the cashier, “Honey, look at my ice cream. It’s already melting. And it’s going to be very hot in my car. Would you please run this back to the cooler and trade it for a colder one? Thanks!” Then she hands the ice cream to the cashier, and off he goes to the frozen food cooler.
This is the key moment for you. Even though you know that it would be totally illogical and absurd to get upset right now because you have no control over the situation, it is absolutely imperative, for the purpose of curing your tiltlessness, that you do. For poker’s sake, you must summon the strength to be agitated at the woman, and at the cashier, and at the whole universe if need be. You must not remain calm. I know, it’s tough. I never said this was going to be easy. But I have faith you can do it. I believe anyone can.
An eon later, the cashier comes back with a rock hard package of ice cream, and even though the final total of her bill had been staring her in the face the entire time, the woman now pulls out her checkbook to start to write a check. Be strong! This is not the time for compassion! This is not the time to let her remind you of your adorably forgetful grandmother! Be angrily annoyed! Be frantically frustrated! Now is the time to dig deep into the depths of the darkest part of your soul and feel extreme bitterness toward this stranger who you will never see again.
Another great way to practice your tilting is to get mad at your opponents for doing things you do. Well here’s some good news. You don’t have to wait for your next poker game to do that. You can practice while driving. You can literally drive yourself to tilt! For example, let’s say you are in a crowded parking lot, looking for a place to park. You see someone getting in their car, so you stop and wait for them to pull out of their spot, and you pull in. It so happens that there was not enough room to drive around you while you lurked, and a line of cars backed up behind you. After you finish shopping, you get in your car and you back out of your parking spot and you aim for the exit. Just one problem. You aren’t moving. And the reason you aren’t moving, for like, forever, is that the guy in the car in front of you is stubbornly waiting for the slowest person in the universe to pull out of a parking space so that he can pull in. Waiting … what an A-hole… waiting… what a selfish, rude A-hole… waiting… waiting… aaarrrggGGHHH!!
Good. That’s good. Well done. Once you get into the habit of refining the essential tilting skill of being able to get upset when total strangers do routine things that you do too, it’s possible to maintain a state of nearly constant agitation when you are behind the wheel, interspersed with fits of rage. That combination is perfect tilting form. Which is why driving is a bountiful opportunity to practice tilting.
Okay. I’ve done my best. I have taught you everything you need to know to become a world-class tilter like me. You had better follow up on this. I don’t want to hear any stories about you being tranquil and concentrated and accumulating a fat bankroll. That would totally send me on tilt. And then you would be responsible for what I say to that old woman at the store.
Here’s one of my favorite smart-ass poker quips. I’ve heard it a few dozen times. And every time, it was the same person who said it: Walt Z. He’d say it right after a really big pot got played at no-limit. On it’s own I guess it’s not all that great a line. But the way he said, his tone, and his timing, it always landed just right.
He’d would only say it when these situational parameters had been met:
I think I’ve said it a few times, back before I stopped saying stuff. Now I just think it. And I’ve thought it hundreds and hundreds of times. The line is: “That didn’t hurt the game any.”
I’ve been rummaging through dozens of ancient folders on my hard drive, full of half-started articles and unexpanded ideas. I found a few unpublished finished works that I had totally forgotten about. “The Guiltless Gambler” is one of those, from about ten years ago. Enjoy!
The Guiltless Gambler
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Rick Strenson inventories his hundred-dollar bills, quickly touching the bulges. 20 in my wallet, 50 in my breast pocket, 50 in the left sock, 50 in the right. Then he returns to the airplane window.
Rick and Bonnie Strenson live the Noah’s Ark version of the American dream: two cats, two kids, two cars, too good. Their youngest won a science fair; their oldest has perfect teeth. Bonnie runs the household, runs a bridge club, and runs through the park each morning.
Rick earns six figures as regional vice president of a plastics company. He often makes business trips to Cleveland or Pittsburgh or Detroit. Once each year he goes to a convention in Los Angeles. Before that trip, Rick always does business with his old high school-buddy, Howard Skleep.
“Hey How-weird. It’s that time of the year again.”
“Wuddayasay Rick, you sneaky dog. I seen your outfit on the news the other night. Something about a stock split or sumptin. Nice job, ya lucky buck.”
“Hey, I gotta make a bundle in order to pay your prices.”
Howard comes back smoothly, “You get whatcha pay for, Ricky old boy.”
And Rick gets plenty from Howard. He gets real airline tickets and fake ones, real car-rental receipts and fake ones. Rick always returns during the wee hours so he can take a cab home instead of being picked up by Bonnie.
When Bonnie is dropping Rick off at the airport, she asks an uneasy question, quietly, with trust.
“What do you do in San Diego from Wednesday night to Friday night?”
“Well, we golf some, and eat, and mostly gab. See, after the official stuff is out of the way is when we make some real progress.” Rick’s rare lies are convincing. “What brought on that question? You usually aren’t much interested in my work.”
Bonnie is slightly embarrassed. “It’s nothing dear, really. I happened to see the itinerary for the convention on the kitchen table and I noticed that the last event was Wednesday afternoon. That’s all. I was just wondering.”
At the plastics convention in Los Angeles, Rick wears his official, confident smile through seminars and meetings. He recognizes almost everyone and almost everyone recognizes him. But no one knows anyone. It is the plastic people gathering.
At 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, Rick is at the front desk of the Los Angeles Hilton. He slips four $100 bills and a phone number to Mr. Stimple, the hotel manager.
“The usual arrangement please. I will be leaving tonight around seven.”
“Very good sir. Thank you sir.”
Mr. Stimple briefs the three shift managers in turn. He hands each of them $100, and tells them that if Rick Strenson gets a phone call from his wife Bonnie, they are to put Bonnie on hold, then return to her and say that Mr. Strenson is not answering. Then immediately call this number (the one that Rick provided), and leave a message that Bonnie called.
At 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Rick is at the airport. He never tires of flying. Always a window seat to prop his head and gaze at the surreal world unfolding below. Every cloud and landscape are familiar, but always fresh. Within minutes Rick is in a trance. This is his time, his alone.
He thinks about retirement and the leisure life and unborn grandchildren. He imagines he can feel the rotation of the earth and its movement through space. He ponders technology, and plastics, and he doesn’t take airplanes for granted. But on this trip his thoughts visibly reach for his destination, when he feels for his wallet, touches his socks, and puts his hand over his heart.
Years ago, Bonnie was rummaging through a wastebasket when she came across a stack of scratch-n-win lottery tickets. With sincere curiosity, she asked, “Honey, when did you start playing the lottery?”
“Huh?” Rick was off guard. “Oh, I got those during lunch the other day. I cashed one in for $5,” he boasted, knowing how silly he sounded.
Bonnie didn’t mind, since there was always ample money in the checking account. Plus, if Rick got lucky, there might be lots more. Whenever the lottery drawing was on TV, Rick was always watching, acting like it didn’t matter much, like he was just betting a couple bucks.
Rick has all the symptoms of a controlled, frugal man; he buys sale items, he hardly drinks, and he doesn’t smoke. But he loves to splurge occasionally with money he can afford. Once he went months without buying anything, then came home with a new lawn mower, an exercise bike, jewelry for Bonnie, and all sorts of gizmos for the house.
Bonnie was overwhelmed and ecstatic; “Did you win the lottery?”
“Nope. Just feeling good.”
On the plane, Rick runs through the numbers one more time. “I put away $300 per week for 51 weeks. That makes $15,300. Plus the $3000 bonus after the Dayton deal. That makes $18,300. Minus $400 for the hotel folks in Los Angeles, minus $900 for Howard. That leaves me $17,000 flat.” He touches again.
Rick feels the airplane slow down just a bit and this gives him a buzz. The speakers click on, “We have begun our initial descent and the captain has turned on the safety-belt lights. We will be landing in approximately 30 minutes. The local temperature is 86 degrees. Thank you for flying with us and enjoy your stay in Las Vegas.”
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I resolve to increase my resolve, to do more resolving, and to see everything with a finer resolution.
