How To: Spot And Adjust To A Tilting Opponent

Spotting A Tilter

I like to observe a few things about my opponent as I play:

• Is there a consistent fold/check/bet speed?
• Is s/he saying anything in chat?
• What is my opponents “comfort zone?”

Especially in HU, it can be easy to recognize a consistent speed at which your opponent acts, usually a couple seconds for each decision.

A player on tilt, however, may start making decisions incredibly quickly – calling or betting near-instantly for multiple hands in a row.

Sometimes chat is a dead giveaway. If you see lots of cursing, “OMG I CANT BELIEVE YOU HIT THAT,” etc in chat, keep your eyes out for erratic play. This can be faked of course, but it is often accurate.

What Is “Comfort Zone?”

Comfort Zone is how I describe a players “normal” habits of play. Does he like to limp alot preflop, or does he like to raise?

Usually when a player gets out of his or her CZ it’s for a reason. If Mr.Limpy min-checkraises the turn for the first time in 200 hands, he’s probably got a big hand.

However, sometimes it is drastic and consistent…all of a sudden Mr. Limpy starts raising every hand preflop. Or, Mr.Tight starts calling you down with mid pair.

What has happened? The player has told himself something about you, perhaps “He’s crazy! I wont stand for it any more!” or “I’m not going to get run over any longer, now I’m going to win some pots!”

Regardless, he’s gotten out of his comfort zone and is now playing erratically and irrationally.

Now is the time to adapt.

Adapting To A Tilter

Now once you are quite sure your opponent is actually tilting – he’s gone from limping and calling to uttering a non-stop stream of obscenities into chat, and raising every hand – now is the time to adjust.

So, we want to encourage whatever he’s doing wrong. If he’s raising and betting, lets let him do that. Call KQ-type hands preflop, and let him hang himself with bluffs if you flop top pair.

Note that a tilting player may stop tilting if he wins a good size pot, so it’s important to play a bit tight, and let him win tiny pots until you have a hand to make your move with, like TP or a decent 2nd pr.

If he’s started calling you down light, or calling bets very fast without thinking, it’s time to run a fake bluff.

Example:
2/4 NL HU, 100bb eff

Hero raises 33 from the button/SB to $12, Tilter calls in the BB.
Our opponent has started calling bets very fast, and seems to have told himself that Hero is crazy.

Flop: 3QTr ($24)
Jackpot flop, now it’s time to get some value.

BB checks, Hero bets $20, BB instacalls.

turn: 2o ($64)

BB checks, Hero bets $60, BB instacalls.

At this point, the super-fast-calls usually mean he has either a made hand that he’s decided to “call my bluff” with, or he has a strong draw like JK. The draw is folding the river UI, so we can ignore it and go for value from made hands.

River: 2o ($184)

BB checks, Hero goes All-In for $308, BB instacalls with Q7o.

BB in this hand clearly only beats a bluff, but he has convinced himself so thoroughly that Hero is crazy that he is willing to put his whole stack in to try and beat a bluff.

Ordinarily this might not be the most optimal way to extract value, but if you can spot changes in your opponents play you will see new areas for profit.