Patience is definitely important if you want to be a winning poker player. When you get a good hand after waiting patiently, though, you need to follow through and be aggressive with your play, to complete the package.

Nearly every winning poker player is also an aggressive player. You can win a pot in exactly two ways: you can hold the best hand at showdown or everyone else can fold.

With that in mind, it’s easy to see how aggressiveness can pay off. If you have the best hand, you’ll make the maximum amount of money. If you don’t have the best hand, you can scare other players into folding decent but not great hands when you aggressively bet and raise.

Now, don’t get us wrong, we’re not advocating that you pick any hand to bet and raise with. We’re still advising you to be patient and to wait for good starting hands. All we’re saying is that once you’re involved in a hand, it’s almost always better to be aggressive and bet, to be the one pushing the action, instead of checking and calling.

You should be looking to either raise (if you have a good hand) or fold, and hardly ever looking to simply call, hoping to get lucky and win the pot. There’s absolutely no way to get your opponent to fold if you just call, so it’s almost always better to play aggressively and raise or fold.