Poker News

Tom ‘Time’ Leonard

Continuing our efforts to turn over every rock to unearth ways and means of improving our performance and hence our bottom line, today let’s discuss the bane of every poker player, namely getting stuck. No one enjoys sitting down at the table intent on playing his best game and begin accumulating chips only to immediately get off to a bad start and be down a stack or two before his seat cushion is warm But hey, it happens. Your first hand is pocket Aces and you raise and reraise, as you certainly should but when you arrive at the river with five other opponents they are cracked by some piece of cheese that you would never have played in the first place. Many players not only allow their Aces to be cracked when this occurs but more importantly they allow their resolve to play patient, selective aggressive, winning poker to be cracked. It is at this crossroad that you need to hunker down and not submit to the primal urge to throw caution to the wind in a frenzied effort to recoup this loss on the very next hand or two. We’ve talked about the need for discipline in the past. If ever there was a time to exercise it…..this is it.

Some players focus on short term results and therefore allow a bad start like this to get under their skin and get them off their original game plan because they have too much emotion invested in the game. They feel that those pocket rockets should have won them a nice pot and now they feel cheated and angry. You need to practice the long view and realize that although two Aces are the best starting hand they are only expected to hold up about a third of the time against a field of five or more players. This pot, this session, today’s results are notcritical to your long term results. What is critical is making quality decisions each and every time the action is upon you and the results will fall into place. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…. winning poker is not a sprint but rather a marathon.

Players who just can’t stand to book a losing session and wind up playing beyond their point of maximum concentration in an effort to get even for a particular session are doomed to red ink. If you can never reconcile quitting a loser for a session, you’ll never be a winner. These type players remind me of a cute story I recently heard. A regular was playing $10-$20 Hold’em at his favorite card room and was stuck about $300 when he happened to look down beside the table and saw a little green leprechaun. “Quit playing poker forever right now and I’ll give you a pot of gold worth five million dollars”, whispered the leprechaun. The player stared at the leprechaun and pleaded, “Let me get even first”. The reason this little anecdote can bring a smile to your face is that we can all put a name on that player. I just hope you aren’t thinking of yourself. It also speaks to why we play poker To win money…..well, of course, but why is the player who was talking to the leprechaun playing? To compete and prevail which provides the “juice”. Yeah, the money counts but playing is the real juice. “Let me get even first”……… man, just give me the pot of gold!

Well, none of us really needs to make a decision about the pot of gold in reality but let’s take something away from this discussion about getting stuck. Our goal for this session is when stuck, not to get into a short term results state of mind. Keep forcing yourself to make quality decisions and positive results will follow. See you next “TIME”.

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