Patience

[Scuba Chuck]

It is said that Patience is a virtue. That those who wait will be rewarded. Poker is one place where nothing can be further from the truth.

As I continue my studies, I often worry that I’m not being aggressive enough, or is this hand good enough to call? In my humbleness, I do not think I am skilled enough to teach poker, nor give excellent advice. I still view myself on the outside looking in. Yet the one thing that seems to fail this forum is a lack of discussion on patience.

I am of course an advocate of being very aggressive with premium hands. And being a student of the game, I am primarily interested in success (rather than entertainment). And most importantly, consistency of success. So, poker can be boring at times. That’s why I’ve learned to multi-table. But, in the end, there’s a fine line between aggression and stupidity.

Many of us students have posted and still post questions like – “Is this a place to push any two?” or “Should I call this allin with Ax?” During play, asking yourself What are the reasons to fold here? will often help you lead to the best decision. And of course, doing the math post game is also very important.

An old poster said:

“I can say without hesitation, that if I regret something (usually after a loss), is playing *too many hands* and not *too few.* To put it differently: I very rarely regret folding anything.”

IMO, it’s easy to be patient in early play. And yet I still see many mistakes made in levels 1 and 2. Patience is more difficult when you’re chip starved and it’s 8 handed on level 4.

But the real test of patience is when you’ve analyzed your chip stack, you’ve considered your opponents aggression, your position against aggressive opponenents, how chip starved you are, are you going to lose folding equity, how bad is it to lose folding equity, and how strong is my hand? Sometimes we fail to analyze in detail all of this info (and more) before making decisions. Sometimes we find ourselves making a poor decision because the solution to one of those problems (which we incorrectly give more weight to than it deserves) is to act aggressively, but when taking the situation in totality, the best solution is to be patient.

“I am … saying that no matter how diabolic your plan is, if you choose to get involved with an inferior hand, you will more often than not be handing your stack to the better hand.”

What I’m getting at is that we should always consider as many factors as possible when making decisions. Hand strength or lack thereof are important factors, but usually, it’s weight is far less important than we think. The answers to some of the thoughts I posed and more, should always be on a running mental checklist. Sometimes you have to get it in with the best of them. But sometimes, you need to be a little more patient, and let the game come to you.

Good luck at the tables,

Scuba