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Tilt – A Gamer's Worst Enemy and How To Deal With It
We’ve all been there. When things are going well, you’re coasting along in good spirits and then something happens. It could be something minor, a small pothole in an otherwise perfect road. But rather than accept it for the small flaw that it is, it rattles us. It slowly becomes something bigger than it should and, although we don’t want to, we let it. Before we know it, it takes over us, we’re consumed by it. And now it affects both our focus and our performance.
It’s something that is so common that everyone can relate. From someone not signalling in traffic, not saying thank you, or even just a tiny fault that causes our player to die. It’s not a big deal, there was no accident, or you just start the level again, but we let it in and it manifests in ourselves as something a lot darker, a little slice of evil.
In gaming terms it’s known as tilt, and if allowed to flourish, pain awaits the gamer as it clouds our judgement and curses our luck. But knowing not just how to avoid tilt but also how to successfully deal with it, will get that monkey off your back, for good.
The Tilt Psychology
In simple terms, it’s a vicious circle of anger and frustration. We let something small bother us, we get frustrated and we allow it to get under our skin. Now we’re angry, just a little, and our previous focus has slipped as we’re thinking more about the incident that already happened and less about what’s going to happen. So that allows us to make another mistake, and so on and so on until we spiral down the path of bad decisions and terrible judgement.
It happens to us all but what separates the good players from the average is the ability to instantly recognise what has occurred and implement a strategy to banish it from our minds. First, we need to know what to look out for so we can plan accordingly.
Common Signs and Symptoms of the Dreaded Tilt
We’re all unique so you can take this advice with a grain of salt, but we’re sure we can all recognise parts of these characteristics with us at times:
- Things are bothering you that normally wouldn’t
- Your gameplay changes, usually becoming more aggressive
- You run out of luck
- You take uncharacteristic risks
- You’re not enjoying yourself
Recognising that any of these have crept into your gameplay needs to activate some form of alarm inside you. It’s a sure sign that your game is going down hill very fast and something needs to change. You need to act now to avoid any further damage from occurring.
But knowing these signs and recognising them in your gameplay is sometimes the hardest part, so it pays to really focus on them. Because if you can act fast, you’ll avoid that anger, that frustration, and continue playing well. If you want to learn more about the science behind tilt, you can do so here.
Online Casino Platforms Forced to Act on Tilt
In poker and casino circuits tilt is seen as particularly serious stuff. https://casinopilot.ca/ says that online casino platforms are forced to act due to responsible gaming regulations that, if ignored, could jeopardise their casino licence.
Common actions that are taken by the operators are stop loss limits and forced time-outs. These features are easy to control yourself at any serious casino as they will be accessed from your account settings or as a pop-up message in the lobby.
At some casinos they even educate their support staff to recognise tilt and other gambling behaviours that may have a serious impact on their players. However, this does not solve the root problem.
How to Deal with Tilt
Clichéd as it is, knowing you have the problem is the first step. Now you need to act and the best thing to do is to take a break. It sounds simple but in the midst of a gaming marathon it goes directly against your natural instinct. But you have to. Take five minutes; get a coffee, check out the weather or just watch a funny clip on TikTok. By removing yourself from the situation, even for such a small time, you don’t allow the problem to manifest itself.
Overtime, you’ll learn how to recognise its on-coming quicker and be able to react faster, so you won’t even need to remove yourself from the situation. This is what makes the pros as good as they are. Yes, they have the physical skills but they also have trained themselves over years of practice to also have the mental edge that is needed to evolve from a good player, to the best.
And at the end of the day, if you’ve come down with tilt, you aren’t enjoying yourself, so what’s the point?
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