Playing Patient Poker

Consider this fact, you will be dealt way more bad hands than good hands. The odds are simply against you here. There are substantially more bad hand possibilities than good hands when being dealt cards. And then consider that not every “good hand” will be a winning hand. There will most certainly be times when you will have to wait an hour or even more before you a hand even worth calling one bet with, and then it’s quite possible that you will lose with that hand.

Not every poker hand is a winning poker hand

Hoping you get lucky is a sure-fire way to lose at poker. Trash hands may win every now and then but in the long run, you will just lose more money, faster.

The successful poker player has patience. The successful poker player has the discipline to sit for hours on end, constantly folding bad hands. The successful poker player remains patient during this time, they know their position and they know what hands they can and should play. You have to have the patience to stick to your game plan.

What does the winning poker player do when getting a streak of bad cards dealt to them? They study. They study their opponents play, make some mental notes, and they study how other poker players are perceiving his or her play. The winning poker player takes advantage of the situation and learns who is doing what at the poker table. You have to be the type of poker player that has the tenacity and patience to ride out the storm of bads cards and come through with more knowledge than anyone else at the table.

There is an interesting advantage to being a patient poker player and observing your opponents image of you. As soon as you sense the table believes you to be a super-tight poker player, you can use this opportunity to steal a pot or two.

Having others fear you at the poker table is a major weapon. Hands down, the best way to win a pot is to just have someone give it to you without a fight.

Aggressive is NOT Reckless

Remember that line. It’s the most important thing to know about playing aggressive successfully. The kind of aggression I’m talking about is controlled aggression, not insane outlandish lunacy. Combine this aggression with courage, poker smarts, and instinct and you’ll take down more pots that you commit yourself to than before.

Aggression means making the most of your top hand, taking advantage of the cards given to you and pressing when you sense weakness in a player and their hand. It DOES NOT mean play every hand given to you. It DOES NOT mean playing garbage cards.

It does, however, mean bluffing, semibluffing, buying pots, and trying to dominate the table. The aggressive style of poker play gives you many ways to win and makes other poker players react to you. It makes those other players at the table try and guess and this gives them the opportunity to guess wrong.

It’s far better to take the fight to the enemy. Play aggressive poker.

Mastering your fears and mastering your inner self is mastering poker. Consider the following:

What is the Fearless Poker Player?

• You must be willing to raise aggressively and rereaise when prompted.
• You can not fear that someone has the nuts just because he raised you.
• You have to stay strong when someone comes after you
• You can not be intimidated by experienced players
• You can’t be afraid of losing your money
• You can’t be foolhardy with your money
• You must not be afraid to fold a hold
• You must not be afraid to fold a hand that might be a winner
• You have to wait patiently for a playable hand
• You have to be willing to bluff
• You have to be willing to look that tough guy in the eyes when you do bluff
• You have to believe in yourself even during losing streaks

Just one missed tell or one missed sign from another player all could be lost, especially with No-Limit Texas Holdem, but also in the limit games as well.

Lose your smarts in a No-Limit game and you can lose your chips, lose your smarts in a limit game and it could take you and extremely long time to get back and dig yourself out of a hole.

What Does it Takes to have Poker Smarts

It’s way more than just knowing what hands beat what or what the odds are of making a hand. It requires super fast decision making involving multiple variables and no on at the table is going to wait around for you to make your decision. You have to be able to call up past experiences, read body language factored against playing style, and calculate pot odds all within a matter of seconds.

Poker is way more than odds, as you can see. You have to be able to tell what kind of person your opponent is by how he/she reacts in certain situations to calculate their possible hand based on their current reaction. Basically, you have to be a card player, a risk taker, mathematician, and a psychologist at the same time. You have to learn from every hand and to do this, you need a solid memory.

You need poker smarts.