I struggle with patience in all things, but especially with poker! My husband has recently given me this advice which helps...when I use it. lol He said:

Before playing a hand, ask yourself, "Will this hand most likely double me up?" And you want to hold onto chips as long as possible so when the double up hand comes, you'll have more chips.

Sounds so obvious, right? But he did the math for me and if I start with $4000 and play here and there for only $100 blinds, but lose, lets say I now have $3000 when AA comes along. I double up and have $6000. However, if I had folded all the way to AA (and for simple math, let's assume there's no antes), I would have $8000 when I double up. That's a $2000 difference in chip stack!

Now, to actually ask myself that question EVERY hand. lol

I'd love to hear more practical strategies/questions you use to get you to the end of the game!

Hello

Aces come about 1 time for every 221 hands. It will be most correct to use the starting hands charts specially developed for each type of game.

Good luck at the tables!

Originally Posted by LoveHopePeaceFun

Before playing a hand, ask yourself, "Will this hand most likely double me up?" And you want to hold onto chips as long as possible so when the double up hand comes, you'll have more chips.

Sounds so obvious, right? But he did the math for me and if I start with $4000 and play here and there for only $100 blinds, but lose, lets say I now have $3000 when AA comes along. I double up and have $6000. However, if I had folded all the way to AA (and for simple math, let's assume there's no antes), I would have $8000 when I double up. That's a $2000 difference in chip stack!

True, however if you fold 4 orbits in a row or something crazy hoping not to atrophy chips even the less perceptive players at the table will assume you as nitty and believe your 3 betting or even calling range is capped to premium holdings, so you miss out on a lot of value when you do get dealt those hands.

There is definitely a happy medium between playing too loose and too tight preflop. You can also reload 1K in those situations that you lose a handful of medium and small sized pots and want to maximize how much you make on a double or triple up.

Also, shortstacking isn't a bad thing either! It can be useful in situations when we find ourselves short (or even as an initial buy in) because you can take advantage of the fact you have less fold equity when you hold monster hands and it gives you the opportunity to go all in multi way whereas with a big stack you have to play more post flop and face harder all in and post flop decisions.

Patience and again patience is just about me, I miss him very much, this is probably my eternal problem. When I sit down to play the first hour, two everything goes well, almost always go to plus, but then I start to make a bad game, I do not need raises I go into the game with a bad hand and lose everything that I raised for an hour, two. Good advice to me would not hurt, how to keep myself in hand for a long period of time and make a good game.

Originally Posted by quartz

True, however if you fold 4 orbits in a row or something crazy hoping not to atrophy chips even the less perceptive players at the table will assume you as nitty and believe your 3 betting or even calling range is capped to premium holdings, so you miss out on a lot of value when you do get dealt those hands.

There is definitely a happy medium between playing too loose and too tight preflop. You can also reload 1K in those situations that you lose a handful of medium and small sized pots and want to maximize how much you make on a double or triple up.

Also, shortstacking isn't a bad thing either! It can be useful in situations when we find ourselves short (or even as an initial buy in) because you can take advantage of the fact you have less fold equity when you hold monster hands and it gives you the opportunity to go all in multi way whereas with a big stack you have to play more post flop and face harder all in and post flop decisions.

So how do you win shortstacking? If I'm shortstacked by the time I get to 5 people, I'm screwed. If you have tips on how to make it til the end when shortstacked in that situation, I'm all ears.

I find that forcing myself to take a break really helps me maintain focus and allows me to continue making good decisions later on in longer sessions. I'm not sure if you play cash games or MTTs but I try and go out on my balcony for minute or two to get some fresh air on break during MTTs and I'll usually break up my cash game play with much larger breaks.

I hope this helps, as one person who struggles with patience to another!

Originally Posted by LoveHopePeaceFun

So how do you win shortstacking? If I'm shortstacked by the time I get to 5 people, I'm screwed. If you have tips on how to make it til the end when shortstacked in that situation, I'm all ears.

Not necessarily "screwed". Often if you're short and get in multiway the pot odds will make it +EV (positive expected value) even though your winning odds may be less than 20%. Usually if I'm buying in short (in my case 40-50BB in cash games) I am trying to jam all in when a good situation presents itself knowing that the bigger stacks are much more likely to call off an all in squeeze play when the effective stack is so small (effective stack is the smaller of the stack sizes, or the shortstack, hence the only money 'effectively' at play). After I double or triple up I will immediately adjust to deep stacked play where I'm not going all in for 200+ blinds without premium holdings and I can start calling and possibly reraising more speculative hands like suited broadways or connectors. If I lose my 50 BB I repeat 1 to 3 more times before deciding to leave or reloading for max if I'm more in the mood for deep stacked play.

Of course shortstack play is a lot more nuanced than I'm describing but it's definitely a worthwhile strategy that you can make work and it can help you start with a shorter roll