Time is On My Side, Yes it Is!

The holiday tournaments and school and job vacations are over, and reality sets in. What are you going to do with all of your time? Getting back to the poker tables is always a good choice. The winter holidays for many of us are times we spend with family and friends and get out of our daily routine of sleeping, eating, and playing poker. Generally, that is a good thing. Regardless of the kind of year you had playing (remembering to keep your records and reflect on them often), a little bit of time off is good for the psyche. Whether you take some well-deserved personal time during the holidays or at some other time, it is often good to step back and get a new perspective on things. I find that the season to do this is winter. There is something about the bell-ringers on the street corners, being with family, and the "be nice to your neighbor" attitude that many try to display that helps me to reflect on what is important to me. After this thoughtful time, I get back to poker and all of the craziness it adds to my life. It's good craziness, by the way. Life is good.

Now that the presents are put away, the decorations stored, and the thank-you notes written, you have time on your hands. (You did write those notes, didn't you?) Upon returning to the cardroom in the new year, you meet and greet all of your old buddies from the last time you were there. Then, you take a seat at your favorite table and the eager anticipation to play overwhelms you. You post the blind and are dealt the proverbial 7-2 offsuit. But you don't worry, as you have just gotten there and know that patience is a virtue. After all, you heard that message all year long! Anyway, you sit for a few orbits and realize something eerie: Nothing has changed since last year! Yikes, you are still feeling card-dead and can't pick up two cards that look like they came out of the same deck! How do you handle all of those miserable hours spent mucking hand after hand, occasionally calling a blind and seeing another flop that has missed you entirely, and then going back into the hibernate mode?

Having just played poker a couple of days ago for the first time in quite a while, I was reminded of some of the things you can do. In an $8-$16 full-kill Omaha eight-or-better game, I didn't pick up a playable hand for two hours. That is the literal truth. I watched the action around me, and there was plenty of it, and I couldn't dance with them. I saw some of the horrendous cards my opponents were playing, and I couldn't even get my feet wet. How could I get some action? Of course, one option was to play bad hands, but I surely don't recommend that. You can switch seats, but it is unlucky to be superstitious (smile). You can play blind, watch the TV, order a meal, change games, cash out and go home, or any one of a zillion other things. Or, you can use that time in a constructive way to learn something about your opponents.

As I mucked hand after hand, I saw the cards that were tabled. Those who were picking up the pots were showing down hands that were worse than those I had been discarding for a couple of hours. Was I tempted to enter some pots with these kinds of hands that were scooping pots? No, I was not. I was playing my "A" game and was not going to start "playing like them," so to speak. I continued to watch in amazement as I saw players enter raised pots with hands like J-10-6-5! What were they thinking? More importantly, what was I thinking? I was thinking that at some point in time, those cards were going to break even, and look at how juicy the game was. Even though those cards might not change for me during that particular session, eventually they would. It was not the time to try to mix it up with these guys who were playing any four cards; it was time to continue playing my usual tight game of starting with the best hand. True, in these types of games, it is not always garbage in, garbage out, but if you start with something rather than try to manufacture a hand, you can catch 'em in there with nothing. I watched who was playing what and who could be trapped in the middle of some nut-nut action. These guys were calling raises with non-nut hands and no redraws! It was unbelievable for an Omaha game of this limit. They seemed to be giving their money away.

Finally, after two hours, my cards did change, and I ended up booking a very nice win after about five hours of play. Of course, it didn't have to go that way; I could just as well have lost in this game as in any. The point I am trying to make is that the time I spent mucking hands, I was not wasting. I was watching and learning, and not getting impatient and frustrated. During some of the long lapses in playing time, I even kept track of how much money I would have won or lost had I entered a pot with a hand I would have been playing purely out of boredom. Seldom did I win these imaginary showdowns. I saved several racks of chips playing mind poker! Anyway, remember to use your time wisely while you are at the poker table. If watching the action isn't holding your attention, and all else fails, go home! Class dismissed.

Please contact me with your poker-related questions and comments. I will personally reply to all e-mails.

Editor's note: Jan Fisher is a partner in Card Player Cruises. The 2004 poker cruise schedule can be found at www.cardplayercruises.com.