diff --git a/tinygrad/ops.py b/tinygrad/ops.py
index b9846978f8..abb8cefa6c 100644
--- a/tinygrad/ops.py
+++ b/tinygrad/ops.py
@@ -160,6 +160,9 @@ class GroupOp:
   # BinaryOps that can be flipped
   Commutative = {Ops.ADD, Ops.MUL, Ops.MAX, Ops.CMPNE, Ops.XOR, Ops.AND, Ops.OR}
 
+  # BinaryOps that satisfy f(x,x)=x see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idempotence
+  Idempotent = {Ops.OR, Ops.AND, Ops.MAX}
+
   # do not preserve f(0) = 0
   UnsafePad = {Ops.RECIP, Ops.LOG2, Ops.EXP2, Ops.IDIV}
 
@@ -1186,9 +1189,7 @@ symbolic_simple = PatternMatcher([
     lambda x,c1,c2,c3: x*c2 if c1.arg*c2.arg==c3.arg else None), # (x%c1)*c2+(x//c1)*c3 = x*c2 if c1*c2==c3
   (UPat.var("x", dtype=dtypes.bool) & UPat.cvar("c", vec=False), lambda x,c: x if c.arg else c),
   (UPat.var("x", dtype=dtypes.bool) | UPat.cvar("c", vec=False), lambda x,c: c if c.arg else x),
-  (UPat.var("x").maximum(UPat.var("x")), lambda x: x),
-  ((UPat.var("x") & UPat.var("x")), lambda x: x),
-  ((UPat.var("x") | UPat.var("x")), lambda x: x),
+  (UPat(GroupOp.Idempotent, src=(UPat.var("x"), UPat.var("x"))), lambda x: x),
   (UPat.var("x", dtype=dtypes.bool).logical_not().logical_not(), lambda x: x),
   (UPat.var("x", dtype=dtypes.bool).where(UPat.const(dtypes.bool, True), UPat.const(dtypes.bool, False)), lambda x: x),
   # ** zero folding **