I've had a little test of my dicipline lately as I had lost 4 single table 9 player tournaments.  Three of them were by opponents suck outs and one was all me.

Whenever I get it all in with my hand dominating another I always cringe.  Two nights ago in the 4th tournament of those 4 loses I got it all in with A K against A 10.  My opponent hit his straight on the river.  That hand would have given me a huge chip lead going into the money and the final 3.  Instead I was cripled and eventually out in 4th.  Ouch !  It would have ended my night on a high note but instead it added to my misery.  Not a single cash all night.  Man did I feel down ... but not as down as I thought I would.

You see I am really practising what I preach and when I lose I start to analyze what happened.  It really works at minimizing your anger and frustration.  At least it does for me.

So I looked at my game play and realized I was creeping back to my old ways of forcing the action.  Playing hands in situations I shouldnt be.  Hands like K Q suited, A J  look like such nice hands to play, and are certainly playable under some conditions, but you / I must be folding those hands most of the time.

When I say 'minimizing your risk' in the title I mean create the conditions where when you do play a hand you have a 100% (or close to it) feeling that you have the best hand.  To create those conditions it is a given that you will (or should be) folding most of the time because part of creating those conditions dictates that (early and most of the middle stage) you have at least a premium hand like A A, K K, Q Q and A K to play with.  Even then, early in a tournament I play QQ and AK a little less aggressively than I would AA or KK.

When you are folding you are minimizing your risk because your chip stack stays the same.  Even when you fold in the small or big blind to a raise you are preserving fold equity.

Fold equity refers to your chances of causing your opponent to fold so the less chips you have the less fold equity you have.  Preserving your stack means maintaining or increasing your fold equity because other stacks are decreasing in size.  A simple example would be if your opponent has 2000 in chips and you have 500, you have 25% fold equity.  The less chips you have decreases the chances / percentages of your opponent folding.

Look at hands that will get you into trouble and discard them quickly.  If you play Ax suited as I do you have to learn to fold if you dont hit the flop.  Lets say I have As 3s and the flop has 2 spades.  My opponent bets.  I have to fold because what if I dont hit my spade on the turn or river and my opponent is increasing his bets because he knows I am chasing.  Sure you can fold on the river but how much did it cost to get there ?  You've lost alot of fold equity by chasing !

In poker you must always be thinking about minimizing your risk and taking FULL advantage of your opportunities !