Small Issue with Andy Fox Article

[Xhad]

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The tight player is a pro. He's playing to make his monthly nut. I know he's been running bad lately, and this was the 30th of the month. For all I know, he had rent or a car payment or a mortgage payment coming up, and the amount he won in the game put him over the top.

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This kind of reminds me of my days when I was in poverty and living with multiple roommates. One discussion went something like this:

Roommate: I was thinking of not paying the rent until this Saturday since that's when it's due in case something comes up.
Me: That's a horrible idea.
Him: Why?
Me: Is either of us getting paid between now and then?
Him: No.
Me: So, let's say there's an emergency. We spend the rent money. Now what?

So extending this to the poker example...Hero has X amount of money, and a mortgage payment of Y tomorrow. Hero decides to quit the game because X-Y isn't enough to continue playing poker.

Tomorrow he pays the mortgage. He now has a total bankroll of X-Y which isn't enough to play poker. Now what?

If I'm misinterpreting the argument I apologize (though I still think this is an important point to make), but this is an important point to make and just further solidifies my view that stop-losses are only good for psychological reasons. If hero is quitting because "rent is tomorrow" then he needs to move down in limits or get a day job.

Point taken, yet I think you are missing the point of
the article.

Playing in a game where your mind no longer has the same focus may be a bad thing, even if the game is otherwise good. Having done as well as he had hoped to do, and perhaps having other things to do with his time that day, it could easily have been correct to quit playing.

Another example is if he had been playing 'too much' lately and needs the break, regardless of the quality of the game. After all, there will be other good games later.

The main point is that you cannot judge Hero's decision based on the percieved profitability of the game alone.

That's basically what I was thinking when I read the article. I always thought that the concept of not using stop-losses, or never leaving a game that is still +EV, was based on the assumption that the player is adequately bankrolled for the game in the first place. Isn't that a fundamental assumption that we have to make whenever we talk about whether it is worthwhile for someone to make any +EV wager? When Sklansky wrote about propping your eyes open with toothpicks to remain in a +EV game, I don't think he was talking about a situation where you're a slight favorite but risk losing everything you own if you lose.

If the point of the article is to say that EV is not the only factor to consider when deciding whether to play a game, then I agree. Clearly you have to balance maximizing your EV with keeping your variance within an acceptable range for your bankroll. The article gives a good example of a situation where it is justifiable to leave a +EV game, but I would argue that the player should never have been in the game to begin with. This is not an example of why using a stop-loss strategy is sometimes a good idea, it's an example of why playing above your bankroll is always a bad idea.

If it's the 30th of the month and this "pro" has a mortgage payment due the next day and he doesn't have enough to pay it without getting lucky at the poker table that night, he has far more serious issues to confront than whether it's okay to leave a +EV game. What's he going to do if he loses that night? If he wins, what does he do after making the mortgage payment leaves him with almost no money left? Does he then set out to earn next month's payment by playing in more games he clearly can't afford? These are signs of a degenerate gambler, not a person who should be playing poker for a living.

I'm not saying you should never leave a +EV game. There are clearly emotional or psychological reasons why one might leave such a game. There's also the fact that there's more to life than money, which would lead any rational person to stop playing from time to time, even if it was always +EV for them to stay. But saying that someone should leave a +EV game for financial reasons is just a sign that they didn't belong in the game in the first place. Is it correct for them to leave? Absolutely, but I think that focusing on how the stop-loss strategy was a good idea is sort of missing the point.

[skp]

I too have a beef about this article...Andy, you better get the hell out of seat 9 when I am in town...heh

Andy, Welcome to the world of poker articlemanship (don't know if that's a word or if it is, whether it is correctly used here but what the hell).

Looking forward to more from you.

[CardSharpCook]

very strange article. I mean sure, there are emotional and psycological reasons to get up, and that's all well and good, but to suggest there is some kind of financial reason to leave is just odd. I think someone said it above, but... So you pay your rent... and now you have no money to play poker??? Focus on the emotional, not the rational, because there is never a rational reason to leave a good game other than a better opportunity elsewhere (even if that opportunity is getting laid, or making your son's baseball game).

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
Point taken, yet I think you are missing the point of
the article.

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My comment was not on the entire article; just the specific example quoted. That's why I called it a small issue.

The point of my post was that the example quoted is either a faulty example, or a legitimate example phrased in such a way that it could lead to some dangerous misinterpretations; no one who uses poker as their sole source of income should ever be saying "I should stop for the night in case I lose my rent money."

EDIT: I think Ungoliant summed it up best here:

[ QUOTE ]
If it's the 30th of the month and this "pro" has a mortgage payment due the next day and he doesn't have enough to pay it without getting lucky at the poker table that night, he has far more serious issues to confront than whether it's okay to leave a +EV game.

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[Zetack]

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[ QUOTE ]
The tight player is a pro. He's playing to make his monthly nut. I know he's been running bad lately, and this was the 30th of the month. For all I know, he had rent or a car payment or a mortgage payment coming up, and the amount he won in the game put him over the top.

[/ QUOTE ]

This kind of reminds me of my days when I was in poverty and living with multiple roommates. One discussion went something like this:

Roommate: I was thinking of not paying the rent until this Saturday since that's when it's due in case something comes up.
Me: That's a horrible idea.
Him: Why?
Me: Is either of us getting paid between now and then?
Him: No.
Me: So, let's say there's an emergency. We spend the rent money. Now what?

So extending this to the poker example...Hero has X amount of money, and a mortgage payment of Y tomorrow. Hero decides to quit the game because X-Y isn't enough to continue playing poker.

Tomorrow he pays the mortgage. He now has a total bankroll of X-Y which isn't enough to play poker. Now what?

If I'm misinterpreting the argument I apologize (though I still think this is an important point to make), but this is an important point to make and just further solidifies my view that stop-losses are only good for psychological reasons. If hero is quitting because "rent is tomorrow" then he needs to move down in limits or get a day job.

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I thought this point was perfectly clear.

Pro needs a bankroll of X to play the game. He has rent due tomorrow of $680 dollars. No other pressing bill are due for another two weeks. At the point he stops playing he has X plus 800 dollars.

If he stops he can pay his rent and has two weeks to win enough to pay his next bills. If he keeps playing and drops say 500 bucks, now he has X + $300 and has to dip into his bankroll to pay his rent tomorrow and then has to decide whether to drop levels or play on a short roll.

It doesn't seem like a difficult example. And to me it makes perfect sense. Sometimes short term considerations can outweigh longterm considerations. Postive EV is a longterm consideration. What's confusing about that?

--Zetack

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
Pro needs a bankroll of X to play the game. He has rent due tomorrow of $680 dollars. No other pressing bill are due for another two weeks. At the point he stops playing he has X plus 800 dollars.

If he stops he can pay his rent and has two weeks to win enough to pay his next bills. If he keeps playing and drops say 500 bucks, now he has X + $300 and has to dip into his bankroll to pay his rent tomorrow and then has to decide whether to drop levels or play on a short roll.

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You have TOTALLY missed the point.

Okay, so the rent is $680. I currently have X + $680. Since I can't afford to blow my rent money, I stuff the $680 down my underwear and have X left over to play poker with. Which is exactly the situation I'll be in tomorrow if I quit now, go pay my rent, and THEN go play poker. So how is stopping for the night going to help me pay next month's bills? (Hint: It won't.)

[TwoNiner]

Actually, I think Zetack has the idea correct and I like the article in general. Here's another thing. If you string yourself out on a long session b/c the game is good you run the risk of burning yourself out for the near term (1 or 2 days perhaps) and then maybe you lose +EV table time overall. On the same note if leaving when you finally get back up puts you in the positive frame of mind to play more and better poker the next time out, it's probably a good thing.

[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)