Tilting: Gambling term (most common in poker) descibing an angry or "reeling" state of mind usually caused by a big or unluck loss. People playing on tilt play below their usual abillity and usually make larger and more aggressive bets to try to quickly recover their loss. In poker, this is very valueble to other players at the table, hence worth keeping track of and/or attempting to cause. People known to be prone to tilting are often taunted or generally aggrivated when they take a loss and then egged on when they do tilt in order to keep them in this state as long as possible.

People playing on "go" tilt play below their usual abillity and usually make more and more aggressive plays to try to get the game back to their side.

Very interesting, thank you. May I ask — do you experience this more often when you play Black against a stronger player, when you play White against a weaker player, or in even games?

I also have some psychological issues — I just don’t like losing and I tend to get depressed when I lose a game that I believe I “could have” won … interestingly the corresponding euphoria when I win a game that I “should have” lost seldom happens, or only for a very short time.

Anyway, I’m not a strong player, oscillating between 11 and 13 kyu, but what I have noticed quite often when playing W against a weaker B player is this:

B stubbornly attacks W everywhere where W just wants to live (esp. in Handicap games), B tries to deny W any territory, and during these fights B neglects defending “their own” (i.e. intended) territory and life. Sometimes I want to cry out, “Hey, what about securing your own stones before you try killing mine?”

Is this B behaviour what you call “tilting”?

Also, when I win such games, often by capturing huge groups, I sometimes have a bad conscience — the larger the capture(s), the worse the bad conscience After all W has lured B into attacking W, no? W played so lightly that W actually was thin, W played very risky, W played “va banque” and “should have” lost.

I'd rewrite this for go as:

I kinda wonder, does anyone else actually take a mental pause in the middle of a game?

It took me six weeks to raise my game that one stone.

Hi Bill, that's nice. Do you remember your approx. age at the point ?

This is something I get a lot, lose a few games in a row due to obvious mistakes (at least in retrospect) and it quickly turns into a self fulfilling cycle of demented agression causing me to lose more and go more on tilt. Even if I win a game it doesn't help as then I go further into it because I know full well I shouldn't have won that game!

Only way out of it is to sleep I find.

"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,"
-- Macbeth