I think I'm still 12 years old...

[Dave H.]

Assuming you're multitabling, you may want to try what has really worked well for me. I always buy in with the same amount at every table I play. Whenever I lose 50% of my buyin at any table, REGARDLESS OF HOW GOOD THE GAME IS, I leave that table the next time I have to post a blind.

There are many who have told me that it's not right to leave a "good" game. However, I have decided that it's NOT a good game if I have lost 50% of my buyin. It doesn't make much difference to me WHY I've lost, only that I HAVE lost. There could be many reasons that I've lost 50% on that table. I could ERRONEOUSLY believe it was a good table, the variance at that table is killing me, etc. Rather than fret about it, I just leave and open a new table and usually that does it for me.

[Buck_65]

[ QUOTE ]
Assuming you're multitabling, you may want to try what has really worked well for me. I always buy in with the same amount at every table I play. Whenever I lose 50% of my buyin at any table, REGARDLESS OF HOW GOOD THE GAME IS, I leave that table the next time I have to post a blind.

There are many who have told me that it's not right to leave a "good" game. However, I have decided that it's NOT a good game if I have lost 50% of my buyin. It doesn't make much difference to me WHY I've lost, only that I HAVE lost. There could be many reasons that I've lost 50% on that table. I could ERRONEOUSLY believe it was a good table, the variance at that table is killing me, etc. Rather than fret about it, I just leave and open a new table and usually that does it for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is really bad advice. Losing half your initial buy in means nothing in and of itself. Don't leave a good game.

[Girchuck]

That depends on how big the original buy-in was.
If you buy-in for 200BB, losing 50% is a big deal

[MTBlue]

uhh... no

[Pog0]

[ QUOTE ]
This is really bad advice. Losing half your initial buy in means nothing in and of itself. Don't leave a good game.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not good advice, but it's not terrible.

Your facts:
1. You have some reason to believe the game is good
2. You are down 12BB+

Possible reasons:
1. The game isn't as good as you thought it was
2. Normal variance

With the stat overlay, sometimes you will still know that the game is good (and that your seat is good(!)), then there's no excuse to leave, however, if you are second guessing that the game is actually good, might as well join another one you think is good.

Another thing to consider is that when you're losing, the game may become worse for you. People start to play differently against you, and when your opponents deviate from their original play, you know less about them, and the game becomes less profitable.

Just because you thought a game was good when you sat down, doesn't mean you should always think it's good. Leave if you decide your judgement was off. Don't leave if it's only because you're losing. Some of my biggest wins were on good tables I knew were good that I started down 20BB.

[Dave H.]

I'll give this some thought and some trial too. However, your point about "people starting to play differently against you" is major, and certainly can cause more problems at that table.

The stop loss "method" I use works for me, and that's why I use it, although I certainly understand the arguments against it and why it may not be right for many. I've learned that there is nothing wrong with running away from a situation which I thought was good but is proving NOT to be so (assuming, of course, that I believe my play decisions to be correct).

After playing over 100k hands, I began to track results at tables where I had lost 50% of my buyin. From that point on, i.e. from the point where I had lost 50%, my results were absolutely terrible EVEN THOUGH I BELIEVED THE TABLE TO BE A GOOD ONE and even though I wasn't on tilt and even though I believed I was making good poker decisions.

I tracked these results over 50,000 hands and decided, at that point, that I would use a stop loss method even though I was fully aware of the arguments against such a method. The bottom line is that this worked for me in that my results over the next 50,000 hands are very, very different by simply leaving the table and opening another and tracking results at the newly opened table.

My take on this is that either:
1. My table selection was, in fact, poor even though I didn't believe that to be the case.

OR

2. My table image (after losing) was such that players began to take shots at me (similar to what you said).

In any case, the results were markedly different. I felt that 50,000 hands was an adequate sample size for my experiment and I believe that this method works fine for me.