All I Need Is Just a Little Patience

I no longer have the patience to play real world poker. Since switching to online games a couple of years back, I’ve come to love the speed of the shuffle and the forced 30-second decision-making. In the real world, you can spend several minutes staring at your opponent looking for cracks in their façade, but in the online game there isn’t much to read on the spot. You have to make your call based on the cards or based on what you’ve learned from the player in previous hands. It’s not like their avatar is suddenly going to start weeping or exposing that high-tension eye-tick.

Live games may be more interesting for the psychologist in us all, but I find the pace to be excruciating. I can’t handle someone taking five minutes to call a two dollar bet, and I practically implode when a beginner fumbles his way through most of his shuffle only to have the deck fly apart in his hands and carpet the floor in diamonds and spades. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the social element. I miss getting together regularly with guys (a tradition which ended due to families and jobs rather than the growth of online games), and I miss the good-natured banter that comes from friends, as opposed to the loud-typer online who labels anyone who wins a hand against him a “douche bag.”

The real problem with my lack of patience is that I start to do stupid things. Online, I play a patient, opportunistic game designed more to get me to the money than to actually be the winner. In the real world, the longer the game goes on, the more likely I am to bluff with an off-suit 2-8 or to call a big bet when I really should know better. At the two-and-a-half hour mark of a tournament that starts with only seven players, I’m ready to go all-in without even looking at my cards. Hell, I don’t even need cards. I’ll just play with a drink coaster and a leftover chicken wing bone (which makes it very hard to hit a straight-flush).

So, give me the online game, and I’ll use the live buddy-time for action movies and Hockey Night in Canada.

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