Positive Tilt™

As you will all know I welcome both genders equally to this column. If anything women are slightly more welcome – after all my Mum’s one. But this month I suspect I will only be talking to my brothers.

Don’t worry I’m not going to ask you to ‘reclaim the cock’ Magnolia stylee; however I do need to speak to your inner caveman for a bit. Now I don’t care how many products are now in your bathroom cabinet, how many pastel shirts you wear or if some of your best friends are ‘metrosexuals’ we all have our caveman to answer to.

Just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about I’m speaking to the part of you that screams obscenities at the TV when your team’s playing, the part that wants steak for breakfast and the part that absolutely never under any circumstances wants to know how her day went.

However we may try to play great rational poker at some point this game is guaranteed to bring out your caveman. It might come out as maniacal tilt after a bad beat or as a personal war with the cocky kid at the end of the table who keeps reraising you. Mine comes out in a phenomenon I’ve officially trademarked as positive tilt.

Over the years I’ve worked hard on my game and am proud that I very rarely become upset or tilt in the traditional sense however I’ve never been able to get on top of my positive tilt. Let me define my Achilles heel for you. If tilt is playing differently to your best due to negative emotions then positive tilt is playing less than your best due to positive emotions.

Specifically I’m afflicted by the emergence of my caveman when I’m winning and feeling like I’ve got poker licked. Instead of a red mist it’s like a golden shining mist. In a tournament my stack is huge, in cash games I’m running over the tables – I am the warrior, they are all my little bitches, I own poker… I am above the law.

Except sadly…it turns out…I’m not. Poker has a way of punishing you the moment it you think you have it cracked. When I’m in this state the specific thing I do is get trapped in bluffs. If you’re making a move on someone being prepared to bluff every street is a good quality in the right spots but, of course it’s a very high risk play and often you should bail out before the river but when you’re the caveman… hey how can they call?

Last week I was struck once again by my positive tilt monster. In an online MTT that had started with a pretty big field we were down to 6 tables and getting close to the money. I found myself at a dream of a table with very predictable players who weren’t stealing enough and were almost never playing back. As such I’d been able to run over the table and built my stack from a medium one on arrival to one of the bigger stacks in play with very little risk. I was playing well…dominating…owning…I am the walrus and so forth…

So by show of hands who think this continues and I sail effortlessly into the final table and who thinks I spew off all my chips with an ill timed positive tilt bluff? Anyone?

The painful hand in question arrived with horrible predictability. The only stack at the table who was approaching my chip position opened from middle position and I’m on the button with some junk – let’s say 67suited so I can save some face. I call as we’re both deeped stacked and he’s playing in a very straightforward fashion. The flop comes Q42 with no suits and he checks. Now I know that means he’s not strong; he’s just not trappy enough to play another way… and here comes the caveman. Only one thought now exists – this is my pot.

I bet the flop and he calls quickly. Okay we now know exactly where we are; he has a medium pair and he doesn’t believe I have the queen. The turn is a 3. He checks to me and I follow through on the plan and make my second barrel ‘no I really do have something’ turn bet. Which he again calls quickly. Now I’m hoping for an Ace or something scary to hit the river but what I get is another 4 to pair the board. This is a horrible card for me as it changes nothing and means he’s very unlikely to go anywhere as the pot is so big.
In my normal state I would give up now, he might be trapping me with a monster but probably he’s just decided he’s not going to be pushed off his hand.

Sadly my normal state is far far away, long since stamped on by the positive tilt monster. It doesn’t take me long to move in – after all how can he call this is my pot? So…um… he calls. He shows me his pocket 9s and I muck my J8 or whatever it was. From being in great shape I’m down to 7 big blinds and my exit soon follows.

My traitorous caveman has been squashed and quickly disappears to leaving me feeling faintly dirty; just another metrosexual loser.

Originally published in Poker Player magazine.

Related Content:

1. nice weekend hey kids…. and so forth the ups and downs of poker – it’s bizarre...