[Xhad]

Last point first, I already said a stop-win/stop-loss can make sense for psychological reasons. If quitting ahead keeps you from getting depressed or tilting then sure. I'm not disputing this. No one in this thread has disputed this. My issue is with the fact that the article implies that they can be good for "I need money next week" reasons which is bum logic as debunked below.

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Actually, I think Zetack has the idea correct

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He does not and it's not close.

Let's assume that I have X amount of money with rent payment R. Let's also assume that whatever negative variance I may suffer tonight is just as likely tomorrow (built into the specification that this is a soft game, and that you'll play the same way tomorrow that you do today).

So, let's say that tonight, I say, "OK, set aside my rent, and use the remaining money to play poker this evening," and, crap, I hit a downswing "d". I now have X-d. Tomorrow I pay rent. I now have X-d-R to play poker with.

Now you, being the smart money manager that you are, quit tonight. Then you pay rent tomorrow. Now you have X-R. Then you go play poker and hit the same downswing that I hit yesterday. So now you have X-R-d, which many third graders can tell you is the same amount of money that I have.

EDIT: Just to make sure this is clear, the above discussion relies on two assumptions:

-You are just as likely to hit any given downswing in the game you play tomorrow as in the soft game given in the article
-X amount of money is worth just as much today as it was yesterday (common f'ing sense)