Poker--Winning Through Patience

Thought I'd talk a bit about this subject since it paid off for me last night.

I was in a small league game $2 buyin on Absolute Poker. I get a good stack, I'm doing fine. Then I lose some of the stack, I'm not doing so fine. Then the cards go south and I can't even play my big blinds, it's that bad, can't call a raise, have to lay down the cards every hand, blinds eating up what's remaining of my stack. There's only 31 in the tourney and it pays 9 places, so I'm thinking it shouldn't be this dang hard to come into the money.

But when the cards go south and your luck stalls, getting into the top 9 looks like it will be a miracle.

And that's what happened. There are 10 left, 3 low stacks, and I'm thinking okay, I just hold on, get in the money, then I'll play more aggressive.

But...the low stacks keep coming back like an infected tooth. They go allin and double up. Suddenly there are still ten people left and I'm the low stack. I'm weeping on my keyboard thinking this can't be right.

But by golly, now I'm determined, I'm hanging in if I have to fold pocket aces.

I didn't have to act that drastically. One low stack finally went allin and was put out.

Sigh of relief. My patience has paid off, I've gotten back my buyin and a little more, I'm in top 9 now. But we all know you don't play poker for last spot in the money. I don't settle. I like to win bigger.

But it takes patience. I keep folding all these awful hands, the low, little off cards that couldn't even make a straight. All the while I'm telling myself to be patient, be patient.

I even fold KQ off when the blind is raised, and good thing, it wouldn't have done a thing for me.

Now I'm down to 845dollars and the other 8 players have 3500 up to 12,000. I am doomed. But I am patient. I won't let the blinds eat me, but I'll fold until I can have a chance. Patient.

One 3500 stack goes all in against the chip leader and gets put out. All right, I can go out in 8th now, more money.

Couple hands later another minor stack, 3-4,000 or so goes all in, gets put out. Okay, I can go out in 7th place now.

Suddenly I have pocket aces. Big chip stack raises the blind and I go allin. He has pocket queens, doesn't catch, and I double up.

Now I'm almost back in the game. I can't even remember what happened next, but I played my way from being the low stack, still, and put out one player, and wound up with just three of us. I even had the chip lead at one point, but I played pocket 7s against a board showing 668 and kept betting at it and the other player had an 8, which decimated my chip stack.

Anyway, the moral of this long, convoluted story is that you can be way down, you can be lowest stack, you can be on the verge of being put out, but if you play smart, you play patiently and you have a tiny bit of luck, you can make it from 10th place, out of the money, to 3rd place and win a goodly amount of dough.

Because it wasn't luck that turned it around and caused me to win money. It was patience.