Avoid Adjustment Tilt

Recently, I benefited from a serious case of what I call "adjustment tilt." I was in a live $2-$5 no-limit hold'em game. Most of the players, including me, had helped to start the game a few hours earlier, so we were familiar with each other's play.

Some of the players had modestly weak-tight tendencies, so I made my usual adjustments: I played (and raised) more loosely preflop in position, and I challenged for more pots on the flop and turn. My strategy was working reasonably well, except that I had gotten caught a few times on some of my bigger bluffs, so I was about even for the session. I never showed down a bluff, but twice I made a sizable bet and then folded to a raise.

Most of these conspicuous plays had occurred within the first two hours of play. After that, two relatively uneventful hours passed. Then, this hand arose:

Three players -- two loose ones and one with weak-tight tendencies -- limped in. I limped from the button with the K 6. The small blind raised to $10 (a minimum-raise), the big blind folded, and all of the limpers called. There was $55 in the pot, I had about $500 behind, and my opponents had varied stack sizes.

The flop came K J 6, giving me top and bottom pair. Everyone checked to me. I bet $45. Everyone folded to the weak-tight player, who called. The turn was the 4. She checked, and I bet $100. She hemmed and hawed briefly, and then called. The river was the 9. She checked, and as she did so, she glared at me and said, "You need to be careful." She had about $200 remaining, but I bet $125.

She hemmed and hawed a little bit more. Then she said, "I think I'm in trouble." Then she called. I showed my two pair, and she nodded. She said, "I was in even worse shape than I thought," and she flipped over the A J, for just middle pair on the flop.



About 30 seconds later, as the next hand began, she said to someone else, "He was bullying so much before."

This woman was not a loose player. If she limped in and I raised from the button, she generally folded immediately. She hadn't gotten out of line once in the four hours I'd played with her. Yet, she called nearly $300 in bets after the flop against me with a hand with which she likely wouldn't have called $20 against someone else. My earlier failed bluffs had silently put her on a tilt that had lasted several hours.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't adjust to your opponents. If you see someone launch several unsuccessful bluffs, definitely use that important information in the future. But don't over-adjust. Don't start calling down blindly with any old piece of the flop. Even a player who bluffs a fair bit will tend to have a strong hand after making sizable bets on the flop, turn, and river.
So, how might you adjust correctly to a suspected bluffer? Let's say you have a draw on the turn, and your typical, non-bluff-happy opponent makes a decent-sized bet. You don't think you have the right odds to call to hit your hand, and you think that if you raise all in, you'll get called a bit too often to make the semibluff work out. Against this player, you should just fold your draw.

But against a player who you know bluffs fairly frequently, you might not fold. You still won't have the odds to call to hit your hand, but raising as a semibluff will work better. You'll get called less often, because every time you catch your opponent bluffing, he'll fold. So, if you have a borderline drawing hand on the turn, you might fold it against a solid player but shove all in with it against an aggressive, bluffing player. That's a reasonable adjustment.

On the other hand, calling down three streets with a flopped middle pair against someone who bet the flop into four opponents is asking for trouble against all but the craziest players. That's adjustment tilt.

Here's the point of the story:

1. Put all of your observations into context. Just because you saw your opponent bluff once or twice doesn't mean he's bluffing every time. Try to remember all of the situations in which he could have bluffed, but instead just folded, checked, or called. That should give you some perspective of his real bluffing frequency.
2. Watch for tells. My opponent dropped a doozy in this hand. After her turn call, I wasn't exactly sure what sort of hand she had. I suspected A-K, among other possibilities. But then she tried to scare me into checking down the river by telling me to be careful. This classic tell suggests a hand with which your opponent wants to show down but doesn't want to call a bet. After she warned me to be careful, I knew that she likely had exactly one pair, and it was a pair she was worried about. That's why I chose the $125 bet. I was concerned that if I pushed all in, she might come to her senses and fold. If I hadn't picked up the tell, I might have bet a different amount, and I might not have gotten such a good result.
3. If you find your thinking still focused on a hand that happened several hours ago, you're probably on tilt. You don't have to lose a big pot to go on tilt. Indeed, I hadn't played a significant hand against this player the entire session. But she saw one or two hands and convinced herself that I was trying to run over the table, ignoring the countless hands with which I quietly had folded preflop or on the flop. That's tilt. If you find yourself fixated on a particular opponent, and it's not because he's the weakest player at the table and you're trying to figure out how best to get his money, chances are that you're on tilt. Take a deep breath, take a walk, forget about that one player, and refocus on how to beat the entire game.

Ed is a featured coach at StoxPoker.com. Also check out his online poker advice column, NotedPokerAuthority.com. He has authored four books on poker, most recently, Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume 1.