Talk:Tilt (poker)

Opening comment
the "raise" link leads to a mountain. i dont know how to change this. could any one do it?

In the list of reasons you might go on tilt, the last one says after an all-in showdown... how does one go on tilt after losing all-in? you would no longer be playing.... is it just me?
 * say you were to go all in with 100,000 in chips, and your opponent calls with only 60,000 chips, this is an all in showdown, but you could lose and still remain in the game, tilted or not. 04redsox07 (talk) 19:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. 2005 22:08, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Wikipedia currently has two articles regarding the same subject: Tilt (poker) and Steam (poker) and, incidentally, both of them have the same original research-plagued unsourced content. I'm suggesting to do away with one of them and merge the articles together before we can do something about the content. Since the term "tilt" is much more prevalent and easily recognizable for poker players today, I suggest we use Tilt (poker) as the main article. PokitJaxx (talk) 17:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree both need better sources.


 * There's a common misconception that tilt and steam are the same thing. They are not. Steam is a more extreme manifestation of tilt, like anger is a more intense than irritation. Tilt is when a player is off-balance; steam is when he loses it altogether. One's annoyed, the other's pissed off.


 * If you could find a way to combine the two articles and explain the differences, perhaps titled Tilt and Steam with redirects from the original Tilt (poker) and Steam (poker), that might work.


 * What do you think?


 * --UnicornTapestry (talk) 22:43, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I've never heard any distinction between steam and tilt. "he's steaming" and "he's tilting" are interchangeable.  Tilt is more common, while "steam" is nothing but slang.  Wikipedia is not a dictionary of slang so steam really should not have an article in the first place.  Steam should be redirected to tilt.  If someone wants to, a short passge in the tilt article could discuss steam.  We should definitely not have an article called "tilt and steam" because no one ever uses that as a term. (There are also many other similar terms to steam like "go off" or "launched", and likewise all these other concepts should not have their own articles nor do we need to put them in the title with tilt.) 2005 (talk) 23:33, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Here are some references showing "tilt" and "steam" used almost interchangeably:
 * http://www.playwinningpoker.com/poker/terms/tilt.html
 * http://www.poker-babes.com/poker/definitions/steaming/
 * http://www.ruffpoker.com/blog/how-to-avoid-reaching-your-steam-point-at-the-poker-tables/
 * http://www.rakebackftw.com/eng/poker-articles/poker-strategy/poker-tilt
 * http://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-dictionary/tilt.php
 * http://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-dictionary/steam.php PokitJaxx (talk) 19:52, 9 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh, come on, lads! "I've never heard of it…" isn't the best defense, as a Google of 'poker steam' turns up 2 million hits, so it seems common enough. (A google of 'poker tilt' turn up 2.7 million.) While it's true newbies tend to blur the line, steam as the more intense manifestation has been around a long time. It's up to you guys how accurate you want your encyclopedia.


 * Poker News definitions distinguishes, although I believe they're remiss for not pointing out the reasons, the emotions involved:
 * http://www.pokernews.com/pokerterms/steam.html
 * http://www.pokernews.com/pokerterms/tilt-on.html


 * --UnicornTapestry (talk) 02:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You are missing half the point. Besides the fact that steam is a subset of tilt, steam is slang.  Slang does get articles.  Tilt is the common expression for non-optimal play due to losing/anger/etc.  And no, this is not a newbies blurring of the line.  As for instance states, steam exists only as a subset of tilt.  There should be two sentences in the tilt article noting steam is used to describe actions when tilting, and the steam article should redirect to that.  2005 (talk) 05:07, 10 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I didn't address the point about slang because I honestly fail to get the point. Either they're both slang (to the outside world) or they're not. They're both terms of art to poker players. I hazard steam is a much older term, but that's pure guess, only because I remember my grandfather using it. I suspect tilt came along after the advent of pinball machines when the term came into general use as a slang term. I'm not sure which would be classified as a subset of the other.


 * In glancing through the web, I came across an interesting hold'em simulator which very much distinguishes between the two terms, much as I described. I mention this to help the term be understood. (You have to play the damn thing to get the terms to come up.)


 * I think PokitJaxx (talk) has a good point, that the articles are so similar and fail to properly distinguish that the terms confuse readers. I believe a title of Tilt and Steam with redirects suggested above is a solution, else you may be cutting off a piece of poker history. In the scheme of things, maybe that's not important, but worth considering.


 * Best regards, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 07:26, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Tilt (games)
This term is by the article's own admission not exclusively a poker term. A better name for it, then, would be tilt (games) or some such. CapnZapp (talk) 19:41, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed - the term is used very commonly in many varieties of game so there's no real need to be this specific in the article title, especially since the term's origins aren't from poker either. Sellyme Talk  11:20, 25 May 2023 (UTC)