Talk to your friends. Read the ITH forum. Play some poker. And then ask yourself: what is the single greatest need that poker players experience? Another angle from which you can approach the question is to ask: what is costing me the greatest amount of money at the table? What is my biggest leak?

Judging from my own experience, from the thousands of postings on the ITH forum, and from the experiences of my poker friends, the answer becomes clear: PATIENCE. Or rather lack of it. Lack of patience leads to tilt. Tilt, as such, not only costs one the edge in the game but usually turns one into a huge loser. Here is a relevant question that many of us could ask: what would I buy if I still had the dough I tilted away because I was not patient enough? A good follow-up question is: how do I increase my patience? Most articles on poker psychology tend to be descriptive rather than pragmatic. In other words, they describe the problems rather than offering real help. That “patience is a virtue” is obvious and does not help one in any way to improve. The good news is that the following series of articles is aimed at practical ways to develop and maintain patience at the table. But first we need to understand how patience works in poker.

Patience and Outcomes

Patience means waiting for outcomes without anxiety or inner tension, whatever they may be. Screaming for a king on the river is not patience. Neither is it patience to play a “few more hands” to get back to even or to quit early because you “had a good night”. Patience understands the law of large numbers. Individual outcomes are just that: individual results that are only a small part of the whole picture. Patience does not pay much attention to individual situations but focuses on the big picture.

Patience and Immediate Gratification

“I want it all, and I want it now”, screams the old Queen song. And there is a part of your brain that screams for instant gratification. Some people cannot control it well and become kleptomaniacs, dangerous sex offenders, and oh yes, sometimes even poker players. Television poker misleads by creating an image of instant gratification. The real game is anything but. Patience controls the urge for an immediate win. If you cannot do that, you are in the wrong game (by the way, speed chess is a fabulous alternative for those of you out there hooked on instant gratification).

Patience and Behaviors

Patience has no need to act out against others in some kind of “retribution” when a loss occurs. If you played poorly, then you have a chance to improve. If you played well, then it does not make sense to assign blame. This point is related to the other two. Your behavior at the table is reflective of your attitude towards outcomes and how you handle the issue of immediate gratification. Behaviors are outward indicators of the quality of your attitudes.

Patience and Limitations

You have limitations and always will have limitations as a poker player. Anything to the contrary is a denial that will cost you money. Patience means accepting your limitations and working with them. The worst thing you can do is to beat yourself up over something you likely could not have avoided. Patience knows limitations and works around them.

Patience and Other People

Chances are that other people at the table are doing the exact same thing as you are: trying to win some dough and hopefully enjoy themselves while they are at it. Nobody likes to lose. But losing is understandable. Poker is hard. Patience understands that and does not expect much from other people in terms of behavior. Most players do not have the ability to handle losing gracefully. Patience does not expect them to.

Patience and Enthusiasm

Both patience and enthusiasm are said to be good qualities. But does not patience imply a lack of enthusiasm? Not really. Patience means informed enthusiasm. Expecting to win the World Series of Poker after two months (or even two years or perhaps ever) of online play is not informed. Expecting to move up the limit successfully without doing a lot of homework on your opposition is not informed either. Patience understands what is involved and formulates strategies accordingly.

Patience and Emotions

Good poker players are typically not a very touchy-feely bunch. Poker is a game of rational decision-making based on incomplete information. Personal feelings are detrimental rather than supportive of quality play. Patience handles emotions by seeing them as understandable, but rather unnecessary at the table. The greatest negative emotion that players experience is self-pity (“Poor me! See how hard I tried and look what happened”). This is usually rooted in a kindergarten idea of fairness and thinking like, “It is only fair that I win as much as he did since I tried just as hard." These are absurd notions based on emotionality rather than logic. Patience looks at plain facts and disregards considerations based solely on emotions.

Conclusion

These are just some aspects of how patience works at the table. Merely understanding these and how they work will allow you to recognize what you are doing wrong and make some changes. But really, we have not even begun the practical work ahead of you. Stay tuned.

Happy Playing!

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