Essay: "When to leave the game"

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WARNING: The remainder of this post is very long and highly theoretical. I started writing it and it just kept coming. I plan on posting this in the Poker Theory forum for further response. I will still leave it here because this is where I created it.

Learning when and when not to leave a game is a really hard question over which tons of posters debate regularly. Here's my take on why it's so touchy:

Over a short period of time (I'm talking about one or two hours or so - the point at which you may start wondering how long your session will be), luck plays a big roll in how your stack grows/shrinks. This will affect you psychologically, especially if you are one of those many players that cannot keep their feelings in check. Although a period this brief is governed more by luck than by skill, you will feel you are playing better if winning, feel you are playing worse if losing, or feel nothing at all if you aren't experiencing much variation. If you are one of the few that can keep themselves under control, you will generally be entering every hand with the mentality that you are break even as the cards come out. The greater you deviate from your psychological norm, the harder it is to come back to a clear-thinking mindset. This is where the debate starts.

The truth and one's impression of the truth differ greatly from each other. The truth is only based on how you are playing NOW and how your opponents are playing NOW. This truth is based on how you have been playing since you started, how your opponents have been playing since THEY started, and how your opponents have been playing since YOU started. The problem is that this is all very difficult to assess, and furthermore, it is based on the cards that everyone has been receiving, which is a concrete and uncontrollable factor. The truth is simple... in theory.

Because it is so difficult to assess the actual truth, most people tend to measure it as a function of size of their stack relative to the initial size of their stack: growth = success, shrinkage = failure. This also applies to one's impression of one's opponents: growth = shark, shrinkage = fish (a little extreme). The less psychologically stable you are (in terms of poker, and I would advise you seek help if this is true in other parts of your life), the more emphasis you will put on your and your opponents' current fluctuations, and the farther you are from being able to see the truth. If you can think with a clear mind, you will be able to seperate stack sizes from quality of play. You will be able to correctly judge how "good" a game is and how "well" you are playing. This is all after a very short (one or two hour) session, where luck plays a huge roll on the size of your stack.

The reason that there is so much debate is that there is such a huge gap between the truth and one's perception of the truth. After every hand comes to an end, you will be playing differently, and your opponents will be playing differently, all for a very complicated set of reasons. The "quality" of the game is measured not in stack sizes or runs of cards (which are the only concrete pieces of evidence available), but in how you and your opponents are playing and reacting to concrete events.

The only reason you should ever leave is game is because of the quality, not because of the concretes.

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Hey, I plan on submitting this to my local forum. Is there anything I should consider changing before doing so? Is my thinking correct?