In this article I’m going to talk about two very important personality traits you need if you want to win at internet poker rooms over the long haul. I’m talking about discipline and patience.
Poker Requires Extreme Discipline
This is one of the most simple, yet fundamental aspects of winning at poker. If you haven’t got the discipline to stick to your bankroll, or stick to your overall strategy, then there’s no point in carrying on with poker as a hobby. Strong words indeed, but that’s how important this can be.
So you need the discipline to stick to your bankroll and stick to a certain cash limit that you pre-determine before you play poker online/live. If you were to lack discipline and move up in limits every time you were trying to chase your losses, you’d burn your bankroll in a matter of days/weeks.
Discipline will also help you stay patient (which I discuss in more detail below) when you are having poor hands.
Anyway, I don’t want to sound like I am lecturing you, so I’ll leave it at that. Just remember that if you inject a little discipline into your game, you’re reaping the rewards much more often.
The Virtues of Patience Pay Big
This aspect of the game is vital to your success. Even if you don’t have comprehensive knowledge about the game and only know the basic fundamentals, if you can be patient, you will win more money in soft games then most players.
Why? Because you can wait for the strong hands to come along and still get paid off with them. If you haven’t been doing well at poker up until this point, then the first thing you may want to look at is your patience. You see, if you’re not patient, it’s all too easy to be lured into playing bad hands just to see something happening. You don’t want to get into the habit of playing bad hands.
Patience will also help you when it comes to choosing where and when you should play. You don’t want to get involved in high stake games just because that’s where all the action is. Although this is less of a problem with online poker considering there are plenty of games to suit players of all skill levels and bankrolls.
If you notice you play worse at a certain time of day (like if you’ve had a few drinks, or you’re not fully concentrating because you’re watching TV) then avoid playing at that time of day.
When migrating from online poker to live poker games, if you were multi-tabling online, all of a sudden playing a single table can be challenging to begin with, since you are used to always getting action on at least one table. Really be aware of this so you can remain patient even when you seem to be card dead in live games. The last thing you want to be doing is spewing chips by playing weak hands out of boredom or to try and get creative.
Be disciplined and patient, and you’ll win at poker more often, boosting your bankroll in the process, so you can eventually play in bigger games when you’re ready for them.