The Value and Risk of Patience in Poker
Patience is a huge strength.
We’ve all seen the guy who loses a big pot to a 4-outer and immediately shoves his last 7 big blinds in the next hand with nothing.
We’ve also all seen the players who maneuver a 7 big blind stack for hours in a tournament.
How can we cultivate patience?
Today, we’ll cover that, as well as a look at how patience might cost you.
Let’s do this!
A Virtue That Can’t Be Mastered
Picture what a patient person looks like at the poker table.
You may have pictured someone calm, and confident. Maybe happy?
Now picture an impatient person.
That’s a more vivid picture.
Most of us don’t think of ourselves as that impatient person we just pictured, but rather a patient person who sometimes isn’t quite as patient as the first image we had in our minds.
“I need just a little more patience,” you might think.
This perfectly patient person we have in our mind – I believe they don’t exist in the way we imagine.
We can all be rattled. We are all impatient at times. It’s just a matter of howimpatient.
I believe we shouldn’t strive to be perfectly patient, but to be impatient less frequently and less intensely.
Expect yourself to be perfectly patient,
and you’ll inevitably be disappointed.
No, I’d rather you be a little more patient with yourself.
Recognition
Before you can work on your patience, you need to see it. You need to feel it.
How does impatience often manifest in you?
Do you get bored and distract yourself with social media?
Do you get upset that you have to fold a hand pre-flop?
Or do you play that same hand even though you know better?
Whatever signs you exhibit, take note of them, so that you can recognize them right away in future sessions.
I’d also invite you to take note of what led you to feel impatient.
Did you sleep poorly last night?
Did you just lose a big pot?
Have you folded the last 30 hands pre-flop?
Knowing what triggers your impatience and knowing how to identify it are two great first steps — not towards “conquering impatience,” which I don’t believe should be your goal, but towards feeling impatient less often, and improving your game in spite of your impatience.
What to Do
I think that simply acknowledging impatience can go a long way.
Once you recognize it, there are a number of methods to improve it.
The method that I personally like is to close my eyes, say (out loud if I’m in private), “I’m feeling impatient,” and take a deep breath.
I find that labeling my emotion turns down the volume on it,
and helps me become acutely aware of it.
When I get dealt a hand that I shouldn’t play and want to, I find that I’m more clear-headed.
Next, as I’ve discussed in my ebook Poker Mindset Strategy, having rules set for yourself ahead of time is a great way to protect your bankroll from your (worst) self.
Perhaps when you notice yourself making a play out of impatience, you take a break and a walk. Perhaps when you do it for the third time, your session is over.
Set whatever rules you decide, while calm and away from the table, will work best for you.
With rules and practices like this, you can work towards not feeling as impatient as often, and you can reduce the number of times that you play poorly (or at all) while being emotionally compromised.
The Trojan Horse of Patience
Before we go, I want to warn you about a potential leak you may have as a relatively “patient” player.
Players with more patience have better results, no doubt, but be careful.
Sometimes fear masquerades as patience.
What do I mean by that?
Patience can involve not going broke in a spot you shouldn’t. It can involve discipline in a situation where you want to bluff, but realize it’s not going to work quite often enough to be profitable.
But fear can lead to the same thing.
I’ve seen many a player make bad, nitty plays in the name of “waiting for a better spot.”
Sure, there are settings in which it’s correct to pass up on a tiny amount of EV, usually in tournament situations. But those spots don’t come up even 10% as often as someone tells themselves they’ll “wait for a better spot.”
You need to play with patience and discipline, but you also need to play with fearlessness.
Where patience prevents you from making a bad spewy play,
fear prevents you from making a good risky play.
Fear might protect you from that spewy play in the same way patience does, but it’s going to cost you elsewhere.
Just like with patience, it’s not about expecting perfection and never feeling fear. And it’s not about forcing yourself to make a super-aggressive play just for the sake of it.
It’s about recognizing when fear is creeping in and impacting you, acknowledging it, and trying to reduce its effect on your bottom line.
Good luck.
I wish you all a session of being consciously, fearlessly patient.
