Patience, Patience, Patience!

My goal last night was to break the $500 mark. I am anxious to move up from the $10 level to the $20 level. But I will not break my bankroll rules to do it. I fired up Full Tilt and joined one of the sit 'n go tables. Once the table filled and we were seated I realized that I had joined a 6 person table instead of my normal 9 person table. LOL! The strategies that I teach are designed for 9 person tables. However, I decided to apply them to this short handed table to see how they worked out. The odds of making the money are the same... 3:1. However, I prefer the 9 person tables because the profit is greater when you win.

Anyway, the very first hand I am dealt QQ on the button. One player limps from middle position and it is folded to me, so I put in a pot-sized raise. I was hoping to just pick up the limp and the blinds. The small blind folds and the big blind min-reraises. The player in middle position calls the reraise as do I.

The flop comes J62 rainbow. The first two players check over to me and I put in a half-pot bet. Both players call. At this point my warning bells are going off. Did one of them flop a set? Maybe one has AJ and is calling with top pair? Why would both of them call?

Regardless, the turn comes a K, same suite as the 6. The BB checks and the middle position player pushes all-in. Now I am thinking he has a K and my QQ is no good. I fold my hand. Then the BB calls the all-in. The cards roll over and the BB shows AQ of the same suite as the K6 (so he has flush draw/straight draw), and the other player shows a KJ for two pair. The BB catches his flush draw on the river and knocks out the other player. That's poker.

By the time this hand was over, I had lost half my chips. And this is on the first hand! So not only am I sitting at a table that I didn't intend to play, but I am also the short stack!

Many people go on tilt in this situation. They view their chips in comparison to the other players at the table and think that they are out of it, so they push in with any half decent cards. However, with half my chips and still in the yellow m-zone, I am still in good shape, regardless of the chip stacks of the other players. I have come back from much worse situations to win in the past. So I just continued to play my standard game.

I was card dead for about 15 hands and I watched the blinds slowly chew away at my chip stack. However, I was determined to continue playing my strategy, regardless of the result. This was a key lesson in patience for me. I really wanted to just get it over so that I could load up a new 9 person table and start fresh. However, I waited patiently for the right cards, the right position, and the right situations to make my moves. As a result, I was able to slowly build my chip stack back up to the original 1500 in chips.

Within a few short hands, I ended up heads up with the "fish" at the table who had lucked out on a big rush of cards and knocked out the other players. He had me out-chipped by about 5:1. But I continued to be patient and wait for the right situations. Finally I was able to take him down and win the sit 'n go.

In this example the key to winning was patience. I teach in my lessons that these single table sit 'n go's are about survival. It is about waiting patiently for the right situations to make your moves. Without patience I would have pushed my cards in early and moved on to the next game. But instead I was able to make it to heads up and eventually out play a weaker opponent.

I am still about $12 short from my $500 target so I will have to wait until another night to move up to the $20 level. Back to the 9 person tables!