Patience and discipline

The last couple weeks have shown me the holes and limits in my game, of which there are too many to name, but allow me to try:  I’m too aggressive, too timid, too sloppy, too tight, I bet too much, too little, give too many free cards, take too many free cards, limp too much, limp too infrequently, incorrectly bet top pair, incorrectly fold bottom pair, fold, call, raise, reraise all wrong, just plain wrong… In short, just about anything that can go wrong has. Ah, but I’ve not yet lost my patience, nor discipline.

[Know how you say to yourself “Man, these players suck?” Well, I’ve been saying that a lot, and including myself in that group. “Man, these players suck and so do I thanks for stopping by.”]

I sit and wait for premium hands, limping with small pairs, or perhaps suited connectors in late position, refusing to put myself in situations where I’ll have the worst of it and can’t get away.  And after folding for a solid hour, I finally wake up with kings, raise 4x the big blind under-the-gun, get five callers and a big, dumb ace on the flop. Somehow I muster the strength to fold to what turns out to be a showdown of A8s and A5.

And then the weapons show up: AA. I raise, he reraises, I reraise, he shoves. With K9. And flop comes K99. My QQ is up against KK; my KK against AA; my 888 loses to a straight on the river; my AKs loses to 99; my 99 loses to AKs; my 77 can’t beat 66; my nut flush loses to a boat; lately I can’t beat anyone with anything at any point in time.

“Have patience,” I tell myself, “things will turn around.” So I redouble my efforts, roll up my sleeves and prepare for a long, intense battle. And then lose yet another 80% favorite to be eliminated just short of the money. Have patience! Wait, wait, wait, sometimes for hours… for just the right situation. Again, I buckle up, batten down the hatches and…

…and they start to attack my big blind. I reraise. They go all in. Wtf.  Patience. Eventually, they’ll attack with the worst of it, and they won’t be able to stop themselves. Eventually.

Patience is a virtue in a single table sit-n-go. Of the nine entrants, you can count on 2 players to be borderline maniacs who want to turn a $60 pot into a shovefest. Avoiding confrontation (at least without the nuts) for fifteen minutes usually means two, maybe three players will have hit the rail.

[Awesome aside: sixteen times in the last week, my AA or KK has picked up only the blinds. Other players double up, I rake in a couple hundred or less. This can be an unintended consequence of "patience and discipline." w00t.]

When four players are gone, and the blinds are still only $30/60, your chances of making the money are likely as good as if you had sat out for a half hour and only just now hit the “I’m back” button. You’re down a hundred, maybe one-fifty, without ruffling any feathers or sweating any rivers (except Joan, a lovely rivers to sweat).

[Weird aside: Not long ago, I participated in a nine player sit-n-go and watched as one player got KK four times and AA twice. He finished third. I won. Point? None, really. But man, that’s weird, eh?]

On the other hand, MTTs are a strange animal, particularly tourneys with rebuys. You just can’t count on many players to utilize any amount of logic, which makes it nearly impossible to figure out where you are in the hand. Players often play like complete maniacs, particularly so during the rebuy period; for some it’s too easy to hit the rebuy button and start anew.

They raise with T7, QJ, J9, 22, and slow play JJ, QQ, and AKs. You toss in a probing bet, they shove. You fold to the flush, straight and full house possibilities; they show 83o and type “lol” in the chat box.

The under the gun player shoves his measly stack. You shove your less-than-measly stack… and get two callers behind. Your AA isn’t looking so good anymore, and it turns out it’s only third best after the river.

You win three pots in a row, prepare to switch gears, but get dealt AQs in the big blind. So you raise, and lose a healthy chunk back to a fluky set. You play extremely tight when the blinds are 5 and 10, and watch dozens of players eliminated with hands such as AK, AQ, AJ, and AT as they continuation bet into an airy flop, and can’t stop their chips from flying on the turn and river… and out they go, in 672nd place, courtesy of 65s or 98.

You realize it’s not worth it to get into a pissing match when a healthy pre-flop raise is 40 chips. So you wait and wait and wait, playing the blinds or limping in cheap with potential. You win a few pots, and keep your losses containable.

But now it’s the first break, and your 1895 chip count is way below the average. In fact, you’re sitting in a not-so-pretty 549th out of 715. The chip leader has 19,000. A double up would escalate you to 400th; while a second double up would put you into the top 50. So you wait, but know time it getting short. The blinds are rising, players all around are getting desperate, and you know that if you can’t catch a hand soon, you’ll be joining them in shoving with rags and hoping to get lucky.

You’re constantly being moved, new players are coming and going too fast to track, and you’re looking at Q4, 75, J2, K8, 32, 84, 96, J4… when the hell do the cards plan on coming? Even an AT might be shove-worthy at this point. You finally get a pair and hope you can see a cheap flop, hit a set and double up.  Two players fold, you consider going all in if it comes to that, but one guy shoves, another calls, and a third shoves his massive stack. So you wait.  My kingdom for a premium hand!

You fold your J8 and watch the flop come 888. Your T2 hits the muck, and the flop is TT2. Heavy action forces you to fold your A5 of hearts, and of course flop three hearts. You were right to fold those hands! Patience!

Finally, you see AK of clubs in the small blind. A few limpers join in, you shove and get a call with A diamonds, Q hearts. You flop a king and two hearts. The ace of hearts gives you top two pair, but you already know… the river is another heart, and throw the percentages out the window, the baby out with the bathwater, and nearly two hours of your time... for nothing.

So you enter another MTT or a nine player sit-n-go. This time, you know your patience is going to pay off. You discipline is going to pay off: this time. And miles to go before I sleep, dawg…