Before black Friday, poker income just flowed in like milking a fat dairy cow and drinking in it’s goodness. Times have changed, there’s less fish, and much less accessibility to good games if you’re in the U.S. like myself. I’m calling this part of my poker life, my second poker career. I’m playing lower stakes than I’ve played in forever, and the money trickles in instead of pouring in over my head. During this time I’ve had to really work on an important word…. PATIENCE.

Black Friday Blues

I think I’m a pretty patient poker player, but without question, post black friday, I tried far too often to make things happen simply because winningblack friday large pots was so much more rare, and the quality of the regulars in any game has gone up quite a lot. Since I’ve noticed myself forcing the game a little more than I probably should, I’ve re-focused my game on being a lot more patient, but pushing really small edges when I’m in pots. This has been paying off over the last several months, where my winrate over my last 30k hands is over 15bb/100. Small sample size of course, and I ran pretty good the last 5k hands or so, but being more patient has helped me with two very important aspects of my game.

 

  1. I’m playing better hands, and I’m able to sit back and induce more bluffs knowing I have the best hand more often.
  2. It’s eliminated any tilting tendencies since I’m not putting myself in bad spots, and then kicking myself later for having done it. 🙂

 

Both points are important. The moral of this story though is, back off on your game a bit. Don’t try and force things to happen. Stay patient and then strike hard when you do.