Tilt In Poker, Blackjack, & Settlers

The term 'tilt' in the world of poker involves being thrown off one's game usually after stumbling upon some bad luck. According to wiki: "Tilt is a poker term for a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player knowingly adopts a sub-optimal, over-aggressive strategy." When lots of bad things start happening to you, especially after losing big hands where you had a large advantage, it is only natural that you start pressing a little. Every time a long shot hand beats you there is this little voice in the back of your mind saying 'if that hand can beat my monster one, maybe I can win by playing more hands like that too!' Although you may rationally acknowledge that those weaker hands will lose you more money in the long run, it is very difficult to ignore the sensory evidence that says the opposite. Before you know it you're playing far too loosely and losing more and more money. Overcoming tilt is one of the most difficult roadblocks to becoming a serious poker player. Recognizing the beginning of tilt in your game and having the emotional strength to correct it keeps you true to your strategy and gives you the greatest chance to leave the table a big winner.


Sometimes you just need to walk away

Although it is a poker term, tilt could be a useful concept when applied to other types of gambling and gaming. It might not hold the precise meaning of the original word, but certainly recognizing this type of behavior in any game will result in increased player effectiveness. I can relate this phenomenon to situations in my experience with blackjack. Blackjack requires a great deal of willpower--first to stick with your basic strategy and betting system, and then to follow through with your predetermined quit points. When high percentage plays start turning against you (dealer upcard of 6 vs. your 20 draws to a 21, for instance), and your session bankroll starts to shrink it is difficult to stay on track with a rational betting system. Often your gut reaction to these situations is to start making large 'inspirational' bets, desperately hoping to win a huge hand and recover a chunk of your bankroll in one big play. More often than not this type of behavior will bankrupt a blackjack player. Even if you win such a bet it sends the wrong message to your subconscious: that inspirational betting is a good strategy! Another key to blackjack success, quit points, can be very difficult to follow if you become frustrated and start to tilt. Once you have lost a predetermined portion of your bankroll the proper move is to step away from the table, swallow your pride, and accept your losses. As any blackjack player knows, however, when you are down big to the house it is very difficult to walk away! With a well timed winning streak, that small pile of chips left on the table could transform this into a winning session! While this is certainly a possibility, the most probable outcome of this line of thought is complete bankruptcy. The lower your bankroll gets, the less likely you'll be able to even make the proper bets to take advantage of weak dealer hands, and the more likely that the minimum bet at your table is much higher than a reasonable bet for your current bankroll.


The Dice...they hate me!

I even found myself exhibiting somewhat tilt-like behavior when playing Xplorers on Asobrain Games several days ago. Earlier in the week I went through a streak of about eight games where i won six times and placed second twice. All of a sudden all the good breaks that had been going my way started turning on me. Numbers stopped falling my way. Other players scraped up the resources for settlements blocking my way just before I could. Every development card I bought seemed useless to me. Nothing was going right. Of course, it's impossible to win at Settlers of Catan when everything is going against you, but the real problem starts when you start making bad decisions because of those uncontrollable disasters. I found myself basically going on tilt. Instead of spending resources this turn on a small advance I would wait another turn hoping to hit a big number and get back in the game. Invariably a seven would be rolled and I would be left with nothing at all. Once you get to that point where frustration starts to take over, many little mistakes follow. Maybe you make a poor trade, build a road in the wrong location, forget to play a soldier at a key time, etc. Maintaining control over your emotions is one of the most important aspects of game play.


Conclusions

It seems to me that this tendency towards tilt doesn't often appear in board games, probably because there is less at stake in a typical board game than in a poker tournament or at a blackjack table. My frustration level during this rough streak in Xplorers was higher than in most board games since I was playing ranked games. Every game I lost, especially by a large margin, cause my Xplorers rating to plummet. I went from about a 130 rating (excellent) to about 48 (pretty mediocre) in this one rough stretch. Even though this rating is a pretty foolish reason to become frustrated, it was enough for me at the time. Also, the fact that Xplorers games typically clock in at about 30 minutes rather than the hour+ of a live Settlers game, it takes a lot less time to lose a lot more games! I guess the lesson here is to always be aware of this tendency to tilt in games. When you begin to get frustrated during rough stretches, it is imperative to either regain control of your emotions or stop playing the game! By the time your next session rolls around you'll be back in control and ready to play at your best. Of course, for some of us, our best isn't exactly that good, but that's a story for another day.

So, I'll admit it, I have a gambling problem.

Well, it's probably not quite what you'd think but it is a problem nonetheless. I'm not (yet) a compulsive gambler since I don't spend an inordinate amount of time or money on the pastime. In fact over the almost four years since I've been living close to a casino I've only been there three times. The unsettling fact about my recent gambling forays is that I just can't seem to win. Now some quite rational folks might interrupt me here to offer a reminder that this is, in fact, the point. (At least from the perspective of the casino, that is!) Well, for better or worse I'll have none of that. I'll add, as a brief side note, that my most recent gambling session resulted in a loss of a mere $50. Good news, right? Considering the last time I went I somehow managed to drop $250 at the tables, there's really no other way to look at this more recent trip than as a major victory! Okay, now to return to reality.

Once you go Blackjack you never go back

To me gambling is almost always either blackjack or poker. I'll play poker against human opponents, but when I'm playing against the house I prefer blackjack. Now, this game has a reputation of being the only casino game that can actually be beaten. Fortunately for the casino the vast majority of blackjack players seem to interpret this rep as meaning blackjack 'can be beaten by any idiot with a lot of cash who's willing to bet big.' Now you might want to stop me here to ask if these players actually call themselves idiots in their own thoughts like that. Of course they don't but really, a few thoughts in the hands of such people can be very dangerous indeed. So I think we're all better off if I just do the thinking for them.

Back to my point: what this reputation really means is that under certain player friendly rules a player who has the ability to count cards, a proper sized bankroll, mastery of the game's basic strategy, and the discipline to walk away from the table when ahead is theoretically able to beat the game long term. As you may be able to guess, the percentage of blackjack players that fall into this second category is a fraction of a percent, and they certainly win much less money than the first category of players generously donates to the casino.

It pays to be Progressive

Now, as a blackjack player I fall somewhere between these two extremes. I subscribe to a hypothesis presented by Walter Thomason in his book Twenty-first Century Blackjack. Thomason argues that card counting isn't necessary to win consistently at blackjack. He champions a system based on positive progressive betting paired with proper execution of game fundamentals. Positive Progressive betting is simply raising your bet after every winning hand along a predetermined progression. For example, I may follow a 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 betting progression. My first bet would be $10, I would increase it to $15 following a win, and continue to move along the scale until I topped out at $30 or I lost a hand. After any losing hand I would return to my initial $10 bet. Now most mathematicians who have studied the game of blackjack have discarded (no pun intended, really!) this system without much consideration because since each hand is completely independent of the previous one there is no reason for you to believe that the hand following a winner would have any greater chance of being a winner than if it had followed a losing hand. Despite this, Thomason demonstrates such a system's effectiveness through thousands of hands of simulated play.

Streaking for Fun & Profit

Thomason's best explanation for why this system seems to work is that blackjack is a game of streaks. Many times during a playing session a player will experience several (or more) consecutive wins or losses. During such streaks, the positive progressive player will tend to have much more money on the table during winning streaks and much less money on the table during losing streaks. Unfortunately for me during my last trip to the casino, I had more losing streaks than winning streaks. Using this system in such a case can still be beneficial since it minimizes the amount of money lost during such rough sessions. Of course, it's little consolation that I could have lost a lot more!

Perhaps next time I'll be a little more fortunate and end up with some of the casino's money instead of it ending up with mine. Of course, at this point my wife is simply convinced that I'm just plain unlucky and should quit now while I'm only a little in the hole. My philosophy is this: I've been lucky so far in life in lots of ways. Somehow I ended up with a great wife, two healthy kids, and a job I don't hate. Also, I'm still alive. Even more amazing, the Red Sox finally won the world series in 2004. If that isn't being fortunate I don't know what is. From where I'm sitting it feels like only a matter of time until some of that good mojo rubs off on my gambling sessions and sends me home a winner. Finally.