by JR Cook - 10 years ago     show comments

I’m a Poker player. I’m certainly not the best, but I usually walk away from my regular Thursday night poker game with somebody else’s money in my pocket. I’ve won some pretty spectacular pots and I’ve had some pretty horrible defeats. For me, there’s nothing worse than being out bluffed! Obviously, a string of frustrating losses can lead to a poor mental or emotional state and frustration can impair decision making, often leading to overly aggressive play. I recently discovered that one of the reasons I do so well at Poker is that I’m intuitively able to recognize a tilted player and I quickly adjust my gameplay accordingly.

In Episode 33 of the HearthPro Podcast, Shoctologist recommended learning more about tilt as a way to improve your Hearthstone play. After some research, I was surprised to see that without knowing the exact terminology, I was already using tilt to my advantage while playing Poker. This made applying strategies to Hearthstone much easier and I thought I’d share with you some of the lessons I’ve learned on the subject.

Being Tilted

The most common ways to tilt is losing but it is possible to go on Winner’s Tilt. How many losses have you had when you needed just one more win to jump to that next rank or get your 12 win Arena key? Most often though, a string of losses, a particularly bad defeat, or being defeated in a very public way will contribute to the feelings of anger and intensity. This emotional state leads to poor decision making and detrimentally affects your gameplay.

Another way to tilt in Poker is from the bad behavior of others at the table – rudeness, cockiness, and poor table etiquette are all ways that players can wear on nerves. There have been plenty of discussions on the legitimacy and professionalism of a “BM [Bad Manner] Strategy” in Hearthstone (see Chakki vs Reynad during the NESL King Of The Hill), but in Poker this is something that happens on a fairly regular basis. At the highest levels of gameplay, whether Poker or Hearthstone, tilting your opponent is a strategy that can be very effective.

Advice When Tilted

The first step to handling tilt is accepting that it is a real variable to your gameplay and acknowledging that you need to pay attention to learning to recognize when you’re on tilt before too much damage is done to your ranking or Arena run. Taking a quick break is usually your best option to reset your focus, but returning to face another losing streak is often more than most new players can handle and their ranking takes a beating. The quicker you learn to recognize when you’re making silly mistakes out of frustration, the quicker you can refocus and get back to climbing that ladder.

A commonly suggested way to handle tilt in Poker is to disregard the “bad beats” (e.g. when one puts a lot of chips in the pot with the best hand and still loses). These losses deserve little thought since they are the product of variance, not bad strategy. Sometimes you just mulligan into all of your late game cards or your opponent simply has every value answer to your plays. There ARE bad match-ups and not assigning too much value to one of these losses is key to maintaining a healthy perspective. Understanding that Hearthstone is a game of decisions and correct play making over a long period of time will help you stay focused on the long game.

Another method for avoiding tilt is to lower your variance, even if that means winning fewer pots overall. In Poker that usually means folding marginal hands, even though that may also mean folding what ends up being the winning hand. When it comes to climbing the ladder or doing Arena runs, there are classes that simply perform better at different ranks. Learn to recognize when you’re playing a deck within a part of the meta that is full of bad match-ups, and switch to a more favorable class. Winning streaks have a funny way of making a class you’re not too keen on suddenly more enjoyable to play.

So, what do you do when you’ve let yourself get tilted? First and foremost, back away from the computer or put that iPad down! Get up, go for a walk, get a drink, or do whatever it is you prefer to do to clear your head! Your goal is to refocus yourself so you do not let the negative emotions of tilt lead to bigger losing streaks! When I lose two or three games in a row with one deck, I switch to another class. For me, this usually has less to do with bad match-ups and more to do with forcing myself to look at opponents with a new, refocused strategy. When all else fails though, don’t forget that while Hearthstone has a fierce competitive scene, there are plenty of ways to play the game and still have a lot of fun!