How to avoid tilt after a bad beat

By Jim Makos on June 24, 2013@jimmakoscom

I push all my chips into the pot with Aces preflop and another player calls with Ace King. “Great!” I think and I lean back to my chair waiting for the villain’s chips. It’s a respectful addition to my bankroll, given we are deep-stacked (200+ big blinds effective stacks) and it’s one of those rare soft games at high stakes tables (25/50 NL). I focus on the action of other tables as I’m multitabling and by the time the river is dealt, I’m prompted to reload. You guessed it, AK showed a straight on a Q38JT board beating my Aces and I just lost a 20K+ dollar pot! This is how I avoided going on tilt.

When playing at many tables simultaneously, there is no time to cry over any loss. In a matter of minutes another crucial decision needs to be made that can seriously affect the hourly winrate. Multitabling actually is a two-edged sword: it can protect you from tilt, but it can cost you dearly if you do tilt! If you are prone to tilt, you should think twice before multitabling. Fortunately in my case the never-ending action provided me with new challenges that made me forget the bad beat.
I was properly bankrolled; or to some extend at least. Proper money management will not jeopardize your future in poker. When you lose a pot, even when you are all-in, it’s just a buy-in. If you planned carefully your poker career, your bankroll should have at least 50 buy-ins of the level you are playing at. Now, when it comes to deep stack poker the situation changes a bit, as you can lose two or even more buy-ins in a single hand, like in the above scenario. However, most of the times playing at levels that are well into your bankroll’s limits will steer you away from tilting. You still have 49 buy-ins to try and get that money back!
I didn’t try to take my money back! Strange huh? Well, villain was in fact a regular good player, who decided to go to war against me on that particular hand. Trying to outplay them when I knew I didn’t have the necessary skills would make even more damage to my bankroll. So I continued targeting other players whom would be easier to take money from and recoup the loss. I suggest you do the same if a good player is after you.
I had experienced a lot of bad beats in the previous hundreds of thousands of hands I had played online, so that bad beat was no surprise. Experience takes time but in the end it makes you tougher against the most unpredictable events! When playing your first hands in poker, it’s tough to accept the fact that you will lose money even if you are ahead 98%! That one outer the villain needs to hit on river will eventually come sooner or later. No matter how well you’ve prepared yourself for that, you are in for a big surprise! Try to control your tilt and I am sure you’ll do better in the future.