Rule 11: Discipline must be kept up until the end.

Here is another idea that we sometimes lose sight of. Play like a pro for seven hours, then play like an amateur for the last 1/2 hour, and you can undo al the good play you achieved earlier. Your grade? An A+ in four courses and an «FВ» on the final. You scored high at first, then fell apart “ lost it all back.

Don't start out strong, then gradually fall apart as the night wears on. Play a consistent game the whole night through. Remember, we get no points for professional play in the first 90% of the game if we unravel later.

Rule 10: How difficult is it to play tight?

Is playing tight in poker hard to do? Sitting there all day without playing very many hands? Folding hands hour after hour? Let's put this issue in perspective. We're talking about free money here. (We're talking, generally, about low-limit games here.) If you do this (and keep doing it), you will often get free money in return. Remember that there are people who are toiling from dawn to dusk in disagreeable jobs for money “ digging ditches, doing roadwork in the hot sun, washing dishes in restaurants fourteen hours a day “ the worst possible jobs imaginable.
Are these things hard to do? All we're being asked to do “ the great sacrifice we're being asked to make“ is to sit in a comfortable card-room
and play tight, doing nothing when we get bad cards. How hard is this in comparison? So we need to keep this issue in perspective. People do any number of disagreeable things in the workaday world for money, but when it comes to poker, we can't just sit there and fold marginal hands?

Rule 9: Don't arrive over-eager to play.

Many players arrive at a poker game a little too eager to play. You can see it in their body language. They are rubbing their hands together, leaning forward in anticipation. They've В«come to playВ», and they will tell you so.

This is an awful lot of eagerness when you consider that poker is basically a slow game that goes on for hours and hours, in which good hands occur only infrequently. Sit back. Relax. This isn't the hundred-yard dash. Cross your arms and settle in for the long haul. Approach the game for what it is: infrequently appearing good cards in a turtle-paced game. В«Back awayВ» from the game, and from any feelings of over-eagerness. See how many hands you can fold. Make each hand В«proveВ» that it is good enough to play. Such an approach will keep you out of trouble. Will doing this make you miss a good hand when it comes along? Or cause you to overlook it? It's doubtful. You'll still know when you have a good hand. Don't arrive at the game champing at the bit to play.

«Lying in wait is the secret of success in poker».

R. A. Proctor, Poker Principles and Chance Laws