7:31pm: This topic is one of the toughest situations in all of texas hold em, and especially in a heads up format because you see more of these situations than you would at a 6/9/10 handed table. Should you fire the final bullet after all the cards have been dealt? What factors decide when it’s right and when it’s wrong? Is it instinct, math, or psychology? No matter what the answer, simply put: if you fail to assign correct values to hands (especially on the river), you will fail at poker.

We’re all guilty of missing the river value bet in some way, shape or form — myself included. On the other hand, we’re also been guilty of betting hands that we shouldn’t. In playing heads up sngs, we simply play too many hands to get it right every single time. While mistakes are inevitable, what we can seek to do is cut down on them significantly and make sure that our play on the river is as accurate as possible in such a manner that it’s not a leak in your bankroll.

There’s four ways to make mistakes on the river:

• Betting when you should be checking
• Checking when you should be betting
• Betting too much
• Not betting enough

Let’s take a look at one example of each, and determine which one of the four is most detrimental to your bankroll.

1. Betting when you should be checking

   This one should be relatively easy to fix. This is because it’s easier and less risky to stop betting than it is to start. This is also the mistake most people will readily admit to making. The fix is relatively easy; Simply tune down the aggression factor a little. One of my favorite pieces of advice to people regarding poker is: “You can only gonna get called if you’re beat”.

   For example, you hold 2c2d and the board came out in this order: 2s3s4d, Turn: 5s, River 10s. You’ve bet every stage of the hand up to the river, and your opponent has just called you up until that point. I’ve seen so many people bet their hand in this situation, and while I will yield while it is “read dependent” at times, long term it’s simply not a winning play to make a bet here. Sometimes your opponent’s hand has more ways to beat you than it does to lose, and in these situations you should cease betting. You’re beat here if your opponent holds a spade (9), an Ace (3 [discount As]), or a Six (3 [discount 6s]). That’s immediately 15 cards that your opponent has two shots at having (one for each hole card). In addition to all of this, your opponent could also have 33, 44, 55, or 10 10. Add in all of that, and you are reduced to nearly 50/50 odds of your hand being good. Value bets in this spot rarely make sense.

2. Checking when you should be betting

   This is perhaps the hardest of the four to fix because there are so many factors that go into doing it correctly. Missing value bets on the river has long been a thorn in many a poker players’ side. Let’s run through an example of a situation where a value bet should be made where a check is often the play.

   Equal stacks (1500), and you hold AdKc on the button, and you raised preflop to 60 (from 20). Your opponent (who very rarely draws) called, and the flop was AsKd4c. Your opponent checks, and you bet 100 on the flop, and your opponent simply calls. The pot is now 320. The turn brings Jh. Once again, your opponent checks and you bet a good portion of the pot (250), and your opponent once again calls. The pot is now 820. The river is Qd, and your opponent checks to you.

   At this point, many people would check out of fear that their opponent holds a ten. While it might backfire on you sometimes, it’s better to bet here than check. Let’s look at why:

   Your opponent rarely draws, which usually means their hand is made when they bet or call. If your opponent called you on the flop, it’s a good indicator that they were holding an ace, or a lower two pair (first scenario being more likely). The only way your hand wouldn’t be good at this point is if they happened to be holding A10. Assuming that the first card they are holding is an ace, from an “outs perspective” their second card now has 4 outs to beat you. Add to this the fact that your opponent has checked to you, and slowly but surely you start to realize that it makes more sense to bet here rather than check. Your opponent will more than likely also not put you on a 10, and will often call with a slightly weaker hand.

   Since you bet every stage of the hand, and are continuing to fire on a scary board, your opponent might also incorrectly assume that you are weak. Level 1-2 thinking is that betting means weakness and checking means strength. If your opponent subscribes to this theory, then you will probably get a call here with a weaker hand.

   Also, in this spot many times your opponent will call you out of plain curiosity. Since you fired 3 bullets, and since they probably aren’t putting you on a ten here, your opponent might call just to see they are beat. I can’t tell you how many times my opponent calls and flips over a pair of kings in this spot.

   We now have 3 instances where betting produced a positive result, and one where it produced a negative result. The negative result causes you to to lose the same as you gain when a positive result is produced, therefore your opponent can hold a ten 25% of the time or less for this to be a winning play, and realistically the odds of your opponent holding a ten here are considerably less than 25%.

3. Betting too much

   This is simply a case of assigning incorrect values to hands. If you price yourself into calling when your opponent shoves, then you have to be sure that the hand you’re pushing with is considerably more likely to be good than not. One of the biggest makes my opponents make is overvaluing weak hands (such as 1 pair, bottom two pair, or the bottom end of a 4 card straight). You can generally get a “feel” for what hand strengths are worth over large sample sizes. This may seem overly simplistic, but it’s true: big hands should win big pots, and small hands should win small pots. If you’re only holding a pair, and the pot is slightly bigger than it usually is when you’re holding a pair then you might want to reconsider the amount your fire on the river, if at all. To cure this, simply take 5-10 seconds before you bet and ask yourself, “what is this hand really worth?”

4. Not betting enough

   This one is a mystery to me sometimes. There are times when you know you will get paid if you bet huge, but some still chose to under-fire on the river. Here is a classic example:

   You hold 7d8s. The board reads: 2c3s4d5h6c. You’ve bet out on every stage of the hand, so your opponent has a significant amount invested in the hand. The play here is to push — nearly every single time. Your opponent will usually call to chop, and even if they aren’t calling to chop they will almost certainly call you to win (so they think) with a single seven in their hand. There’s no reason why you should let them off the hook with this kind of board with that hand, and you stand way more to gain by them calling and losing the whole match than you do if you bet not as much and lure them into a call they normally wouldn’t make.

Which one of these mistakes is most detrimental to your bankroll? They are all really bad, but all in all I’d have to say #2. This is because it’s the hardest to correct. You have to be very honest and critical with yourself in evaluating your river play. Think about chips you’ve wasted in your life on the river card. Sickening, huh?

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

10:23pm: Professional poker players look for any edge possible to exploit their opponent, but finding an edge may involve nothing more than simply turning on the radio. But does this hold true for everyone? Does music really soothe the soul while playing poker, or is it merely a distraction? This isn’t as easy of a question to answer as you’d think because everyone listens to different types of music for different types of reasons. Let’s look at the different motivations behind listening to music, and whether or not it is conducive to playing a winning poker session:

• To Entertain:

  Music is a great source of entertainment, but this is not necessarily something we’re looking for while conducting business at the poker table. A wise person once told me (as you’ve probably heard before) “never mix business with pleasure”. If you listen to music while playing poker, doing so for entertainment is more counterproductive than anything.

• To Relate:

  People love to have things in common with other people. It’s very reassuring to know someone shares the exact same interests in you. Ever hear the lyrics of a song and think to yourself, “god that sounds exactly like something I’d say”? If so, that’s great, but that means NOTHING at the poker table.

• To Inspire:

  It’s great to be inspired, although this is still not applicable to the situation. To say that certain music inspires you is to assume that you are more likely to be in tune with the lyrics than the melody. You’re better served concentrating on the cards, rather than picking apart each song for meaning while playing poker.

• To Move:

  This is a bit of a no brainer, but dancing and poker don’t mix. Subtle arm movements, and moving to and fro while in the seat is OK. However, an all out choreographical assault on the dance floor (or living room floor) while playing poker is definitely not recommended.

• To Relax:

  Perhaps one can make the argument that relaxation is a good thing while playing poker, but that’s to assume that everyone is hard wired the same way. Some people prefer to be a little “on edge” while playing poker, as it helps them make more accurate decisions. After all, it might not be a good thing to be TOO relaxed at a poker table, right? Therefore, we can’t say with conclusive evidence either way that listening music to relax while playing poker is good or bad.

• To Motivate:

  Now we’re getting a little bit warmer. Poker is a game that must be played without fear, and the only way to lose fear is to lose your inhibitions. There are plenty of songs out there that motivate you to not only become a better player, but also a better person as well.

• To Stimulate the Mood:

  This is starting to make more sense now, isn’t it? I’ve said this many times before: poker is a game of mindset. Those who are able to control their mood and their emotions at the tables are much more equipped to win than those who lack such control. If certain types of music evoke certain types of emotions, simply figure out which emotions put you into the mindset that you need to be in to play winning poker, and you’ve got the recipe for success.

Now that we’ve established a couple of motivations that are conducive to playing winning poker, perhaps we need to establish some particular songs that may evoke these desires. Remember, the type of music isn’t important — only the motivation behind it. Part 2 will feature some particular suggestions from all genres of music.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

Keep HFL Free

1:14pm: There’s this feeling you get every now and then. Actually, there’s two of them. The first of which is the sickness that overcomes your body when you’re caught in a thick, complicated situation. The second is the feeling of not knowing what to do in this event. There are so many things to take into account in each individual case, and the answers are often more subjective than anything. So how do you know when it’s time to lay the cards down, and when it’s time to call?

First, it’s time to determine whether or not your holding is strong, marginal, or weak.

In the case that it’s weak, then there’s a pretty good chance that folding is the best option — unless you have a solid read, in which case you don’t need to be reading this. Every now and then you can play the hero and make a call with ace high and have it be the best hand, but these times are few and far between. If you get some evil pleasure by calling someone down light in an attempt to make a statement, then you’re playing for the wrong reasons. The majority of the time you should fold in this spot, although there are a few exceptions — and I do mean a FEW.

If your holding is marginal and you’re faced with this decision, the first thing you need to know is that you got yourself into this mess by playing a large pot with a marginal hand. Therefore, you’ve just made your decision a lot harder. This may sound overly simplistic, but the best thing you can do is play small pots with weak hands, medium sized pots with moderate strength hands and large pots with strong hands. The decision to call or fold with marginal hands isn’t easy, but in my experience, calling with them ends in bloodshed more often than it ends well. That being said, take a second to think about a few things: has your opponent built up enough credibility to this point? what hand strength does your opponent usually showdown? what does his sharkscope look like? If the opponent is a winning player and hasn’t given you no reason to think he is lying up to this point, there’s no reason that you shouldn’t let the hand go until he’s proven otherwise. It is only if the player has no credibility that the situation becomes complicated. If this is the case, then it’s usually correct to go with your first instinct. A wise person once told me, “If you think long, you think wrong”. This advice has proven itself accurate on more than one occasion in the game of poker. The voice in the back of your head is sometimes more logical than the other one, listen to it.

If you hand strength is strong, your problem is more minuscule than you think. In the same way that calling with weak hands isn’t profitable in the long run, folding strong ones will equally eat away at your bankroll just as fast. Once in a blue moon, you will know your opponent well enough to justify folding top two when there’s a straight on the board. However, if you’re consistently laying down top two, sets, or even any two pair than you may be playing the wrong game. Hands of this strength don’t come around often enough in hold em for you to be making these laydowns UNLESS you’re better than 80% certain that you’re beat. Once again, that begs the question: “how do I know when I’m beat?”, and again the best answer I have for you is to use the information at your disposal and piece together the puzzle. Replay the hand in your mind. If you believe your opponent has a straight, did he play the hand the way someone on a straight draw would (until he hit it)? If you believe your opponent has a flush, did he do like most, and call until the club hit on the river? Depending on the limits you’re playing and the skill level of the players, sometimes the answer is as easy as that. If you believe your opponent is deceptive, then this is where experience comes into play. Think about the other 500, 1,000, 2,000, or 5,000 heads up matches you’ve played in your life. How does it normally end when you call someone in this situation, given your hand strength, the deceptiveness of the opponent, and this type of flop/board? If you can recall more times that you’ve lost by making this call than times you’ve won, then it’s time to lay the hand down. On the other hand, if you’ve seen this situation time and time again, and more often than not your hand is usually the winner, then what are you waiting for?

One thing is certain, it’s easier on the brain to call than fold. If you call, you can be 100% sure to know the truth of the matter, whereas if you fold you may be left wondering forever. You have to resist this urge to constantly know the truth, and as many wise people before me have said: “just let it go”. Poker is a game of uncertainties and you have to embrace this fact alone, and move on to the next hand. The second you let curiosity eat away at you, your opponent has already won. Making great laydown is an art, not a science — so be an artist today and fold if your gut feeling tells you that you should.

2:17pm: This is a VERY helpful article I found regarding discipline in poker (or the lack thereof). This should be required reading for anyone even thinking about playing heads up for a living. Enjoy.

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Playing winning poker is a bit like a tree, everything begins at the roots and branches out from there. Unfortunately few players realize this, so when a person identifies a problem, too often they hack away at the branches, instead of going to the roots.

In written storytelling, sometimes writers develop writer’s block — they just can’t figure what to do next. Experienced writers though realize that the problem is not right “there” where they are blocked, but at some point earlier in their story. Driving on the Los Angeles freeways, you sometimes run into a traffic jam. However, your problem as a driver is almost always not the jam itself, but one stemming from “roots” of poor route planning, poor monitoring of radio traffic channels, and so on. Poker is very much the same.

Force yourself someday to listen to some bad beat stories. Almost all bad beat stories involve a player making a mistake — frequently it’s checking the flop with the aim to checkraise. While the storyteller’s point is the “bad beat”, what they really should be focusing on the root of the beat, a risky or incorrect play early in the hand.

Listen when someone discusses a flaw in his or her game. If you analyze the flaw objectively, the person’s problem is almost always not the apparent, surface flaw. The true problem exists one or two or ten steps earlier in the player’s overall game.

Winning players should constantly evaluate their play — what they do well, what they do merely adequately, what they do below average, and possible ways to improve on all three. One great thing about poker is there are so many variables, so many skills and tactics we can tinker with to attempt to get a better result. But all these stem from one great root.

Some people have called game selection, or table selection, the most important of all poker skills. Find the game most suited to your abilities, play in it, and beat it. Okay, that’s important, but even that’s trivial compared to the key root of winning poker.

The very most important skill a player needs to manage is not math, it’s not reading opponents, it’s not good starting hand selection, it’s not a solid game plan, it’s… self-control!

It doesn’t do you any damn good at all if you know you shouldn’t play above your bankroll, if you then do; it’s no good to know you shouldn’t tilt, if you then do; it’s no good to know you shouldn’t play 72o in Holdem, if you do anyway; it’s no good to know your play deteriorates to the point that you are a losing player after nine consecutive hours, if you continue to play after that time; and on and on and on…

Poker isn’t just a game of the moment. When you deal with regular opponents, you should be setting the groundwork for many strategic plays minutes, hours and even months before you pull the trigger on them. Likewise, every action you are doing now should be the result of a solid foundation of previous actions. Each step along a ladder that leads you to an action should be taken with self-control and a proper attitude. Play a game or games you are good at, have a well-considered basic strategy, have as a goal that you want to be a winning payer, find a limit you are adequately bankrolled for, play hands with a positive expectation, keep your butt in the seat only so long as you play nearly optimally, select individual games that suit you, don’t let one day’s poor results allow your emotions to put you on tilt, and so on. With these in place, each individual action you then take will be rooted in a solid, sensible foundation.

All other poker skills, tactics and strategies run through discipline. Every bit of winning strategy and brilliant philosophy must be applied or it’s almost worthless. No other knowledge matters if you don’t practice self-discipline and use what you know. There is no way to discipline. Discipline is the way.

If you want to be a successful, reasonably happy player, work on your self-control first — and I mean work on it first every single day. Nothing compares.

1:36pm: This is a pretty well written article that I found written by Jason Kirk. Just thought I’d share it with you guys.

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Sooner or later, no matter how skilled he may be, every poker player is going to hit an extended run of poor results. There are few things in poker that will test a player’s mettle more than running bad. Some melt under the pressure, even going so far as to leave the game completely. Others find that they thrive when they have to break their game down and rebuild it from the ground up. Whatever their response, everyone who runs bad inevitably questions their game and looks for a way to stop the bleeding. The most important thing to do in such a situation is to step back and make sure you’re asking yourself the right questions. If you do this, your chances of getting back on track should improve.

1. How much of your bad run is your fault?

While it isn’t a very comforting thought to someone in the midst of a losing streak, it’s very important to note that many players who think they are running bad because of poor cards are really running bad because of leaks in their game. Even worse, these may be leaks that don’t actually appear until a bad run begins. Players who find themselves unable to win can be prone to making basic mistakes because they find themselves jolted out of the mindset they maintain easily when winning. These mistakes can pile upon one another and make a bad situation even worse.

If you’re having a bad run, it’s of the utmost importance that you sit down and analyze your game in detail. This is where having access to a program like PokerTracker can come in handy. Start with your preflop hand selection and make sure you aren’t playing too many hands. Try to figure out whether or not you’re maximizing your position. Are you chasing draws without the proper pot odds? And are you making the most of opportunities to build big pots when you’re on a solid draw? Do you play too many weak or mediocre hands from the blinds? These are all holes in your game that you may not see when you’re having poor results, but which can be fixed easily. Repairing them may not stop the bad run completely, but it will go a long way toward getting you back to respectable results.

2. Do you need to step down in limits?

Bankroll management is a skill that not enough players learn - and it’s also one that can be crucial to saving your stake if you go on a bad run. Players who have built up a bankroll over time through playing in low-limit games, and then find themselves running bad in a middle-limit game they’ve grown accustomed to playing, can fall prey to a dangerous sort of pride. Even if their shrinking bankroll justifies a move down in limits to protect their stake, they feel too embarrassed to do so. They worry about what other players will say if they see them haunting the low-limit tables again, continue to play above their bankroll in the middle-limit games, and then find themselves completely broke or crippled to the point that they’re forced to move down.

Don’t make the mistake of being too proud. It’s better to step down voluntarily to a game you can crush than to be forced to because you lost all your bankroll playing above your head on a bad run. Stepping down can often be the extra cushion you need to weather the downswing you’re experiencing.

3. Are you playing the right game?

Many times a bad run can be at least partially attributed to your game selection. This can apply both to the specific game you’re playing (e.g. limit hold’em, no-limit sit-and-go tourneys, etc.) and also to choosing the right tables. The urge to “get back” when losing repeatedly can cloud your vision, leaving you stuck at an unprofitable table when there are plenty of loose, crushable games to choose from. You may also get into a rut playing your usual game that can only be done away with by playing a different game. Tournament players can be especially susceptible to this because a bad tourney streak can come about even when you’re playing well.

4. Do you need to take a break?

If you examine all the question above and find you’re still playing a solid game, usually the best answer to a bad run is simply to keep playing. Your results should even out in the long run. But if you’ve found flaws in your game, your bankroll management skills, or your game selection, sometimes the solution is simply to step away from poker for a while. This can be a painful choice for many players, but it’s also sometimes necessary. Many of the lessons we learn when playing poker don’t sink in all at once, and continuing to move forward with too much unprocessed experience in our minds can be counter-productive.

If you find yourself unable to fully concentrate, get away from the game for a while. Use the time you would normally spend playing poker to enjoy other activities. Clear your head. When you decide it’s time to come back to the game, you may just find yourself playing the best poker of your life.

3:43pm: I find myself in the midst of a very awkward sleep schedule. I’ve been blogging and playing so much that I’ve now deviated from my normal 2am-10am sleep schedule. The average time I get to bed lately is somewhere around 9am, leaving me with only about 6 hours to sleep. From a return on investment standpoint, this is probably the most profitable time to be playing poker (according to my hour-of-the-day SharkScope stats). However, is it really good for me? Probably not.

First off, this sleep schedule isn’t really conducive to participating in society. Human interaction is important, even when your job is to sit in front of a computer 8-12 hours a day. This is one of the things I miss about my old job as a bartender. When you wake up at 4pm, you’re getting up just as everyone is getting in, which therefore limits your exposure to other human beings.

It’s also not very conducive to staying in tip top physical shape. Like many before me, I am guilty of owning a membership to a gym and not taking full advantage of it. I never said I was perfect, and this is something that I look forward to changing in the near future. It takes a very organized and composed personality to perfectly balance everything in life.

How you walk the fine line between balancing life and poker goes a long way into determining how happy you are as a person. When I’m not on THIS particular sleep schedule, I feel like I do a good job. However, inevitably I always find myself staying up progressively later each day. That being said, it’s not totally my fault though. If there’s one thing I’ve come to learn about myself, it’s that if my body doesn’t want to sleep, there’s no way in hell it’s going to let me force it. I’ve always been a night owl, ever since the early days of high school.

I went to private school, and had to be up at 5am everyday in order to be there for 7am. 80% of the time I’d stay up until at least 2am talking to girls on the phone, and the other 20% of the time I wouldn’t go to sleep at all. I did all of this while maintaining my top 15 class rank (out of 400), but admittedly not working as hard as I could have. I actually got on a better sleep schedule in college, although not much better, but that was because I had a steady girlfriend throughout.

Point being, I think we all — including myself — need to evaluate whether or not we are maintaining a healthy balance of life and poker. What I normally do when I want to get back to a normal schedule is to stay up all night, therefore making me tired when normal sleeping hours arrive the next day. That’s probably what I’m going to have to do in order to get back on track, but I will. More later…

4:10am: This is an article I couldn’t resist sharing with you guys, because it’s so true; The first step in the right direction in bankroll management is being able to pencil in what your “psychological bankroll” is.

And in case you’re curious, I’m having a better start to my day than yesterday. I’m 3-0 so far (2-0 on Cake, 1-0 on PokerStars). Enjoy the article.

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“I got a kick out of having a big bankroll in my pocket. Even if I only made a couple hundred dollars, I’d always keep it in fives and tens so it’d look big.” - Mickey Cohen

Nov. 8, 2007

By Evelyn Ng
Bodog Nation Contributing Writer

There have been countless articles written on proper poker bankrolls. You ask any professional player the top-five questions that he or she is asked most frequently, and the bankroll management question is bound to be on everyone’s list. However, I think that the reason people struggle so much with answering this question on their own is because they fail to factor in the fact that there are two bankrolls you must manage: your physical bankroll and the less mentioned psychological bankroll.

Everyone has heard about the physical bankroll. The standard is that it should be between 300-500 times the big bet. There should be some money set aside for living expenses and $100 or so for buy-ins to the average tournament. You could argue these figures, but more importantly, you should start to consider a very widely ignored and important consideration, the aforementioned psychological bankroll.

Whether you are just starting to play poker, or you have been playing for a while, you are always going to encounter your losing days and downswing streaks that can be tough to handle. To me, your psychological bankroll is the amount of money you can stand to lose before it affects your mindset, and adversely, affect your game.

Never underestimate the value of keeping a cool head.

When I was just starting out, I used to play poker and deal blackjack and poker in the casinos. The fact that I had a paycheck coming in every week to fall back on during my losing streaks was important for my psychological mindset, but there was still always a threshold of the amount that I could lose before I would literally lose sleep over it.

When I would lose that amount, it would bother me so much that I found that I was no longer playing well that day, and it would than often affect the next session or two, as I was trying to protect my stack from suffering a similar fate that it had suffered the session before. Losing that amount essentially made it too difficult to continue playing poker optimally until I got over it, and I eventually learned to stop playing when I reached my limits and that helped me to overcome the problem. As you move through poker limits, your threshold may increase or decrease depending on how your results are for that week or that month, but it’s important to stay aware of the amounts that you can and can’t handle, and then maintain the discipline to quit before you overstep your boundaries.

Everyone’s threshold is different, and I have found through my experience that there are several ways to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of what I like to call “psychological bankroll tilt”:

1. You can give yourself a stop-loss limit. The term basically means exactly what it says. You set a limit that you feel comfortable losing for the day, and you stop when you have lost that amount to prevent yourself from falling into the zone that makes you uncomfortable
2. You can keep a detailed record of all your sessions. If you take poker seriously, you should be practicing this method already, but if not, then you should start. On top of the easily recognizable benefits of knowing if you are ahead or behind, the records can serve as a positive reinforcement to get you to feel better about the day’s losses by forcing you to focus on the big picture.

Doyle Brunson once said that to succeed in poker, you have to have a blatant disregard for money. While many of us try and aspire to think that way at the table, it is not easy for the part-time casual player that has a family and rent to pay to think this way. By setting limits for your physical and psychological bankroll, you allow your regard for money to rule the table without it negatively affecting your game.

4:27am: Something hit me at one point during a match I played tonight: It had been a while since I had won a pot. No, check that. It had been a long while since I had won a pot. I checked the instant hand history and sure enough, it was true. “I seriously just lost 18 pots in a row”, I said to myself.

But did it matter? Sometimes it does, but a good portion of the time it means nothing at all. In fact, you might be surprised to know that I lose 56% of the hands I play. How can someone who wins so consistently lose so many pots? The answer is simple: it’s not how many pots you win, it’s the size of the ones you do win.

Let’s take a look at the instant hand history for a match I just played:

Three things should jump out like a sore thumb to you: First off, green text. It represents the 4 pots that I won throughout the course of the last 28 hands of the match. The second thing you should notice is that I basically lost the minimum in every pot that I lost. The third thing you should notice is that I basically won the maximum in every pot that I won.

So let this be a lesson in patience for those of you who’ve ever played a heads up match, and thought to yourself: “god am I EVER gonna catch a hand?” If you’re patient enough, and the blinds are still low, odds are you can weather the storm and wait for better spots to put your money in. Granted, it doesn’t always work out this way, but the good news is that when it does there are STILL people out there willing to pay you off when you’ve check/folded most of the last 30 hands you’ve played.

by trujm

Patience and discipline are not one in the same in the poker world. However, it will take both attributes to form a successful player. Let’s take a second to discuss why patience is so important in playing this game.

You can’t necessarily say, “be patient and play tight and you will win.” However, you can positively say that if you aren’t patient you will not win. Patience doesn’t mean just “playing tight,” however it does mean picking good spots to get your money in. Drawing when you do not have odds to do so, playing hands out of position that you know in your heart that you are not comfortable with, and making “crying calls” out of curiosity are all things that impatient players do. These are also plays that players who lose money in the long run do.

I will not speak of playing too many hands as a terrible thing to do in poker, because it really does depend on the game and the situation and the strength of the players at your table as well as your image. However, I will say that it is a lot harder for an inexperienced player to play inferior hands than it is for someone who has a good idea of where they stand to do so. So therefore, my advice to you is this: if you consider yourself fully capable of laying down draws when you have unfavorable odds, as well as being able to handle the swings that come along with playing these type of hands, then by all means play any hand you like. However, if you are capable of keeping yourself occupied in between hands long enough to wait for stronger cards, then this may be a better avenue for you. Typically, when you draw a line graph for the profits of a professional loose player, you see large, extreme waves up and down but generally leading in an up direction. On the other hand, the line graph of a tight, solid player probably is a little more consistent and straight, and without the peaks and valleys of a loose player. The profitability of each is debatable, and once again it really depends on how well you play each role. However, tight players are generally more profitable than loose players because of the difficulty of playing undesirable cards.

Also, not to be overlooked is the fact that impatience and tilt usually go hand in hand. Think about it like this: have you ever seen someone on tilt who is also playing very patiently? Being in an impatient mood is sort of a pre-requisite for being on tilt. You can be impatient without being on tilt, however you cannot be on tilt without being impatient. Impatient players also find themselves on tilt more than patient players do. However, this is not to imply that patient players do not go on tilt. Everyone has their own little form of “tilt”, even if most others would not consider their play “tiltish.” We all can agree that going on tilt is not profitable, so take a deep breath and be patient. I always say, “there is another hand to be played shortly.”

by trujm

Between discipline and patience, is one more important than the other when it comes to the game of poker? Well, actually, no. They correlate with each other, but each attribute is equally crucial as far as profitability is concerned. How, then, does discipline play a role in whether a player is a winning player in the long run, or one who loses consistently?

Discipline is involved in a wide range of topics and situations in poker. It takes discipline to build and maintain an adequate bankroll. It takes discipline not to “donk off” the money you work hard at earning, and most importantly it takes discipline to walk away from the losing sessions with piece of mind and sanity knowing you can and will eventually “get the money back.” Disciplined players are always are of the fact that in the long run, they are winning players, and also that they are making an hourly wage at the table, including the losses. Discipline applies to both poker related activities and non-poker related as well. For example, disciplined players maintain a somewhat regular schedule of play, keep records of their play, and hopefully maintain a healthy and productive lifestyle. Non disciplined players typically play and act totally on impulse. It may come as no surprise that impulse decisions and poker usually do not make for a good combination.

Another way in which discipline plays a role in poker is in the ability to get away from a hand that you don’t necessarily “want to lay down.” We all know that feeling that courses through your veins. You truly believe you have the best hand, and you’ve felt this way the whole hand, and then suddenly you hear those words, “I raise” coming from the other end of the table. You evaluate the situation, think about every last detail (player position, player image, possible starting hands, and how the turn and/or river could have possibly hurt you, etc). Deception is a key tool in poker, so is this person just simply “making a move on you”, or are they sincere? Even if they are sincere, do they really have you beat? Those questions are not easy to answer, and there is no magic formula for coming up with the answer. I call this the “X factor” in poker: instinct. What do you feel in your gut? What kind of read on both the person and situation have you made?

The only thing close to an answer I can give you is that your ability to assess the situation and get a feel (and yes, a lot of the time it is just a “feel”) for where you’re at in a hand are, in my opinion, the most important decisions you make in poker. You can throw pot odds, implied odds and statistics out of the window. It takes discipline to have good instinct because a lot of the time your instinct tells you that you are beat, but it takes discipline to trust your instinct and to make decisions. Also to be noted is that when i speak of “good lay downs”, I’m not just talking about big pots where you have to call half your stack and you only have top pair with top kicker. I’m also talking about the minute-to-minute, small to medium sized pot decisions, such as holding a pocket pair with one over card on the board in a three way pot. I’m also talking about when you hold top two and the river card put a flush on the board. Or maybe I’m also talking about when you have an over pair but the person who only called you the whole time suddenly raises on the river when the highest card on the board pairs. Sticky situations like those call for rational and smart decisions, so you need to keep the mistakes to a minimum, especially in these situations. Don’t get me wrong, there is much more to poker than just knowing when to lay a hand down. However, everything starts with discipline and patience in poker, and trickles down from the top.

The rest will take care of itself.