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How do you want to extend you cash game win rate by 10 percent?

I’ll inform you how — and it’s easy: Play faster. Assuming you’re a winning player, more hands per hour means more profit per hour.

In an ordinary low-stakes no-limit hold’em game in a casino, you'll expect roughly 30 hands per hour. In a ten-handed game, that works out to twelve seconds per player per hand. If lets shave only one second per player per hand from that average, it will translate to about 33 hands per hour — that 10 percent increase I promised you.

Of course, you don’t have much control over how briskly the opposite people play. But you do have control over yourself. So let’s consider seven ways you'll be able to trim unnecessary wasted time out of your play, with absolutely no compromise on whatever time you legitimately have the desire to make good decisions.

1. Cell phones

Hey, I LOVE maintaining with Twitter, Googling random questions that pop into mind, and texting my girlfriend in regards to the big bluff I just ran up to anybody. But smart phones are some of the biggest drags on game speed these days.

When the shuffling starts, put phones away

You don’t must swear off using the devices entirely, but you do have the desire to make sure that your use isn't slowing down the sport. To that end, it isn't enough that you simply put it away when it’s your turn to behave. Although you never did not notice when it was your turn (an unbelievable little bit of self-delusion), just waiting until that moment signifies that you’ll waste a few seconds blanking the screen or moving it off the table, then taking a look at your cards to make a decision.

I use the next rule of thumb, and recommend it to you, too. When the dealer starts the shuffle, that’s when the telephone goes to blank, face down, or away, and it stays that way until your cards are within the muck. Put another way, any time you might have live cards, or are about to receive them, your phone is out of the image entirely.

I suspect that if everybody did just this one thing, we’d make that 10 percent raise.

2. The cocktail waitress

Long ago, I FOUND a corollary of Murphy’s Law: Poker site cocktail waitresses never bring a player’s drink except right when it’s his turn to act.

Most players, when faced with these two competing demands on their attention, pick the cocktail waitress. I BELIEVE that is plainly wrong. In the event you do that, you retain 10 or 11 folks (including the dealer) looking forward to you. Conversely, in case you make the sport your priority, you retain just one person looking ahead to you — and she’s being paid for her time.

So politely tell the waitress, “Just a second, please,” take your turn, then give her your attention to position an order, receive your drink, and provides her a tip (which, of course, you may have prepared in advance, right?).

3. Cup holders

While we’re in the case of drinks, use cup holders and side tables. A capped bottle of water at the table isn’t much of a problem, but open drinks at the felt are a large no-no.

Use the cup holders!

A single spill can bring the entire game to a screeching stop for a fair ten minutes while the poker site staff mops up the mess, brings in new decks of cards, and so forth. I’ve even seen messes so ugly they'd to transport all the game to a brand new table.

There is just no excuse for ever being the reason for this. Spilled drinks, like car accidents resulting from drunk drivers, are a ONE HUNDRED PC foreseeable, ONE HUNDRED PC preventable problem.

4. Chip stacks

Keep your chips in reasonably tidy, regular stacks of 20 and/or 10. 20 is the standard, but I’m sympathetic with my fellow klutzes who're forever knocking over stacks that tall, so I BELIEVE 10s are an even alternative in case you can do it without taking over an excessive amount of real estate.

Doing this helps accelerate the sport in different ways:

• You can count your individual chips more quickly, so any decision that depends upon a consideration of stack-to-pot ratios becomes easier.
• Other players can estimate your stack size more readily, to allow them to make their all-in decisions faster.
• If the dealer must make a proper count, there’s no wasted time sorting and stacking the chips before adding them up.
• In a tournament, the color-up process will take less time.

5. Don’t toss

There is never, ever any wish to toss chips when making or calling a bet.

Look, folks, this isn’t rocket science. Chips are round. They bounce and roll. And each time they do, time is wasted gathering them back up and putting them into the stacks that they need to was in within the first place.

Count out the quantity of your bet, call, or raise. Put the chips in a stack (or two, if needed). Slide them forward. Done. Then do this again. Each.. Time.

6. The button

As a general rule, don’t move the button — let the dealer do it.

This is also counterintuitive, since you might think that it saves somewhat time between hands if the dealer has that one less thing to do. However it doesn’t.

Let the dealer handle the dealer button

If the dealer doesn’t know that the button have been moved, and moves it again, then we have now a multitude. The sport stops while everybody argues over where the button was last hand and where it'll be now. The time lost in precisely one such controversy vastly outweighs the only second or in order that it takes the dealer to transport it lots of of times.

There are exceptions. Some tables are so big that it’s an actual struggle for dealers to succeed in the button when it’s at the ends, especially for those of smaller stature. In those instances, it’s ok to help.

But even then, it's a must to do it right. That suggests moving the button on the same moment the dealer would, that is immediately after pushing the pot to the winning player. That’s when the dealer’s attention will turn to the button, so that’s whilst you can move it under his or her watchful eye. If someone else has already moved the button prematurely, that’s also the proper moment to make that fact clear to the dealer: “Button has moved.”

7. The button, continued

The button isn't your toy. Don’t spin it. Don’t flick it from one hand to the opposite. Don’t place your bets on top of it. Don’t pull it in next on your chip stacks. Don’t use it as your card protector. Don’t attempt to balance it on edge.

Both players and the dealer want to use the button as a visible reference point several times for the duration of every hand. It must be sitting in the market as conspicuously as possible. Time spent scanning the table looking for a button that some numbskull has moved out of plain sight is time wasted.

Conclusion

Well, I had a number more time-saving suggestions, but I’m out of space. The primary point is that this: Among the things I’ve mentioned typically kill just one or two seconds whenever they happen, but those seconds really add up.

Remember, only one second per player per hand, saved by a number of tiny bits of additional efficiency, means a roughly 10 percent increase for your hourly profit. Do your part toward this goal, and perhaps others will catch on and do theirs.

Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker at the "Poker Grump" blog.

Photo (WSOP wine spill): Andrew Teng.

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