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How to Win The Inner Game of Poker

The last card is dealt face up and it gives your opponent the winning hand. He made a runner runner full house beating your flopped straight. That is just crazy you think to yourself. Some heat and anger build up inside of you and you start playing like a reckless maniac, raising and calling off your chips.

For the next few rounds you lose more and more money. All the while you think about that horrible beat you got. He was practically drawing dead and he won, how can it be?

Does this sound familiar? I know it happened to me in the beginning and still does, but not on such a large scale. Most are in denial and say that they never act like this, but I can guarantee that in some way or another money is being thrown away when it could be kept in your pocket. You know what I am talking about don't you? You wouldn't be reading this otherwise.

There are simple steps to eliminate and minimize this kind of behavior. I call this poker tilt or simply tilt.

In simple words, it is when you lose control that bad things happen. It often looks like you have control when you do not.

Here are 5 secrets to getting closer to your black belt in tiltlessness:

1. Fear - There is fear in everyone of us. Some have more, some have less. It doesn't make you any better or worse than anyone else. It does sound new-agey, but trust me. After over 3 years of playing poker and battling with my inner demons, I know there is truth to this. I am one of those people who try stuff out before telling others about it. And this time I am telling you that you have to identify why you are tilting. You cannot banish something before you have identified it.

2. Priorities - What kind of priorities do you have when you play poker? Is your #1 priority to have fun? Is it to throw money away being raging mad and yelling at people? I'd prefer the former, I think :) Learn what is standing in your way of having fun, or keeping it fun. Sometimes you can begin a poker session at the best of moods, but after a few hours you stop playing and tell everyone to bugger off. You have to know what you want to get out of it before you go in. Of course we all want tons of money but realistically. Do you want to have fun? Improve as a poker player? It is not really realistic to expect thousands of dollars to come to you instantly. It will come to you if you study the game and improve every day. Be patient and in the long-run it will come. Poker is not a short-term game.

3. Listening To Yourself - Have you ever thought about listening to your mind and observing your body? What are the signs of you going into that zone of "I don't care about anything"? My signs for example are that I get a feeling in my chest, I get hot and start to sweat. Frustration and anger build up and this is when I know I have to stop playing unless I want to lose money. Sometimes I slip and keep playing, it happens to everyone but everyone has lapses. The more you do this, the better you become. If you even practice these steps a little you are way ahead of most people on this earth.

4. Knowing When To Quit - Let us face it. We will not be able to control ourselves, we are not robots. That is why you have to learn when to quit a game. Learn what your signs of poker tilt are and quit before you start making those bad moves! If you are an aspiring poker player and would some day want to make money playing poker then this single poker tip will be HUGE for your poker game, I promise!

5. Fun - Keeping it fun is what has kept me from going insane. It is all to easy for me to fall into a rut of making money, making money and making more money. Money is not where happiness lies, it is the things that it can give us. Freedom is one of those things and of the most important for me. And if I cannot keep poker fun then why would I want to play? Ask yourself these questions and see what comes up :-)

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