EAT , PLAY,,LOVE

The Well Being and the Sprituality of Poker

TIP OF THE WEEK

Poker Pro Beth Gains

 

Tip Of The Week: FPS Tilt – Fancy Play Sydnrome

 

This phrase used by poker players to describe plays that are too complicated and deceptive. While the idea behind them is usually sound, it would be better to simply make the straight forward, obvious play. Often this is just a one-off occurrence, but sometimes a player will start to make too many fancy plays over a period of time. At this point he can be said to be on FPS Tilt. In some ways FPS Tilt could be considered the opposite of normal tilt. The player tends to over-think situations, rather than not think enough.

The most common of FPS Tilt is bluffing too much and slow-playing too often. While both bluffing and slow playing have their uses, they are dysfunctional weapons if they are overused. Some players have particular tricks that they are proud of; the delayed bluff on the turn, the bluff raise on the river, the limp followed by a re-raise. Unfortunately, they will start to use these tricks whenever they can, eventually getting to a stage where the surprise factor is lost. The following are the most common triggers of FPS Tilt.

Overconfidence

Sometimes when you are running well, you will start to believe your own hype. Everything you try is working so you start trying crazier and crazier things, not realizing that you are winning in spite of your unconventional play - not because of it. Trying to make things happen when you are running badly is often tempting. We often try to make things happen by running bluffs. Your thought process goes, “I’m not getting any good hands, so I have to try and win somehow.” Of course, this reasoning is flawed. If the play has a positive expectation you should have been doing it anyway; if not, then it is a bad idea to start now.

FPS Tilt is fairly common, but like other forms of tilt some players are particularly prone to it. You will probably know it if you are a kind of player who likes to make fancy plays or no. This tendency is not harmful as long as there are solid strategic reasons for why you are attempting them. However, FPS Tilt is very difficult to detect and as a result it can slowly chip away your win rate without it ever being recognized. Unfortunately, it often occurs along with loose tilt, which can be an expensive combination.*

          Love yourself so you can do what you love!

          Beth “Betyourmama” Gains

Action Point: Try to identify the types of tilt that you are prone to and what your individual triggers are, and write them down.

*Watch the movie “The Color of Money”

 

Topic #3 BAD LUCK-YOU ARE NOT UNLUCKY

You are not lucky* either. Neither is any other player particularly lucky or unlucky. If you believe you are lucky or unlucky you are putting yourself in a position where you might make bad decisions as a result of this viewpoint.

Convince yourself that you are neither luck or unlucky. Luck is a label that can only be applied in the past tense never in the future. The odds of any random even occurring are precisely those dictated by the laws of probability. If you miss ten flush draws in a row then the odds of hitting the next one are the same as the odds of hitting the first one or indeed the other nine. If you are considering how well you are running and that is how you’ve made you decision then you are on tilt.

The majority of players have tendencies to think of themselves as unlucky. There are two reasons why. The most obvious being that most players lose. If you lose then your alternatives are either to admit you don’t have the skill to beat the game or to put your losses down to, “Bad Luck.” For most players it is a major blow to admit the former so it is easier to attribute their losses to bad luck. If these losses are consistent over the long term you might decide you are simply an unlucky person rather than face the reality that you may not be as good a player as you thought.

When we play poker we don’t tend to notice when things go as planned. We don’t notice when our flopped hands hold up, our aces don’t get cracked, or our opponents flush draw doesn’t make it. Yet we suddenly sit up and take notice when we are “unlucky.” We forget about the times we were fortunate enough not to get outdrawn, focusing instead on this one hand, lamenting our bad luck.

Nobody is naturally unlucky. Over the course of you poker career luck will not be a significant factor in your overall results. You will have individual hands, sessions and even strings of sessions when your luck is bad but this will come close to evening out in the long term.

Love yourself so you can do what you love!

Beth “Betyourmama” Gains

*Suggested movie: Lucky You (2007)

 

Topic #2 Having the correct attitude towards your opponents

From one point of view your opponents are your enemy. It is your goal to win their money and their goal to win yours. Much poker literature uses the metaphor of battle and war when talking about a game of poker, and indeed this is a valid comparison.

However if you take a different perspective your opponents aren’t really the enemy at all. While it is true that collective success is inversely proportional to your own game they’re really just another part of the game that you must adapt to. Your goal isn’t to beat your opponents it is to win the most money, which can only be done by making the best decisions possible.

THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN PREVENT YOU FROM MAKING THE BEST DECISIONS IN A POKER GAME IS YOURSELF

If you look at poker as a war* then subconsciously you will be trying to prove to your opponents that you are better than them in order to win the war. Your ego starts to make your decisions rather than your brain and this could put you on tilt. You are desperate to recover your losses, prove a point to your opponents or even worse target a particular opponent who you perceive as your nemesis. If you believe in the metaphor that poker is war, try to leave it as metaphor and don’t bring a war like bloodlust to the table.

By emphasizing correct decisions over making money you are less likely to keep score and more likely to treat each decision as independent. By leaving your ego at the door you will foster a better attitude towards your opponents. By adopting the attitudes of Eat, Play, Love you will be protecting yourself from tilt before you even sit down to a table.

If you accept the realities of poker you will know in advance the likelihood of bad beats and bad sessions and are less likely to react badly to them.

Love yourself so you can do what you love!

Beth “Betyourmama” Gains

*Suggested reading material: “The Art Of War” by Sun Tzu

 

Topic #1: Staying in Control