Fishing in Poker

I love to fish. Granted it's been awhile since I took fishing serious, but fishing once hooked me and I used to hook a lot of fish, carp especially. Carp are not just 'fish' fish; carp are the most intriguing, most beautiful, strongest and biggest Fish in the Dutch fresh waters.

The first thing people picture when I tell them that I have a passion for angling is me sitting in my fishing chair waiting for my float to be finally pulled down by a 'fish' fish. Not surprisingly people tend to conclude that I have to be a patient person.

Although carp are very common here, they're not the most numerous fish around. You could just sit down at any spot to wet your lines and wait for them, certainly if you start feeding on that particular spot every day from a week prior to your planned fishing session. Some bring a tent or brolly with them in which they spend the night, waiting for carp.

I tend to look for them. Many hours I spent walking alongside ponds, ditches and canals looking for signs of carp. Signs of carp feeding, carp jumping above the surface or carp laying just below the surface in the shadow of a bridge on a warm sunny afternoon. And if I found them, then that's where I would throw my bait out, sometimes after feeding for 1 or 2 days on those spots.

A piece of gold
Poker face with a piece of gold.
Rarely did I restrict myself to just one spot. If things didn't work out within an hour, maybe two if the spot was nice, then I packed my gear and moved to the next one, and the next one, until I managed to catch (and release) a piece of gold. I think I'm a lot less patient than many people concluded I would have to be.

Sometimes I ended up at spots riddled with carp, big carp. It would then be tempting to rush to the waters and drop the bait as close to the fish as possible before they would move on and be out of reach. Sometimes this made me use a slightly damaged line or blunt hook instead of changing it as I should. And I lost some big carp in the heat of battle because of this. Sometimes I scared the fish before I could even wet my lines by walking too close towards the water; just a matter of undisciplined acting with the gold only the distance of a rod away.

Online poker isn't much different really. Many poker players tend to sit down at a table and wait for other players to make mistakes. You could also look for tables at which people are playing poker who constantly make mistakes and join those instead; table selection. Find the fish, play disciplined when you do and poker might require a lot less patience than you think. And if a certain table proves to be less soft than you anticipated, then you can move on to the next one, and the next one, until you manage to catch (and keep) a piece of gold.


How to reel in the fish when you find them: