Game Evaluation and the Two-Strikes Stop Loss

[Xhad]

This is my new copy/paste response to stop-loss posts. Basically an attempt to make a "quit the game formula" that is not results-oriented or otherwise based on ridiculous misconceptions about math.

I don't know how useful this is going to be to others; maybe most people aren't this self-aware, or maybe they don't make the kinds of errors I outline and count when deciding whether to quit. Regardless I hope this is at least interesting to some people.

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If you've been studying this game for any length of time, I assume that you've absorbed a lot of different poker concepts, sometimes conflicting. You take these concepts to the table and you make decisions continuously based on those concepts. Most likely, you sometimes make mistakes.

What the "Two-Strikes" stop-loss does is set a limit on how many mistakes you are "allowed" to make before ending a session.

By "mistakes" I am not talking about errors based on factors you don't know about. If you're an NL cash player who has never read a book or post about tournaments in your life, and you decide to try one and end up calling an all-in raise on the bubble with AQo because you correctly put the raiser on "any two cards," this isn't a mistake of the type I'm discussing. It's also not a mistake if you thought, "What should I do? I'm not sure," then chose a course of action that turned out to be wrong after some reflection. A mistake is when deep down, you know better. A mistake is when you say, "I know I shouldn't raise here but I'm going to anyway," or "D'oh! Why did I just check there?!?"

Examples of mistakes I count: Losing track of the pot size in B&M play, not acting on reads when I should, not bothering to attempt reads before making an ill-advised river bet, slamming into a check-raise on the turn for the same reason, shutting down even when I'm ahead often enough that I should be value raising, or acting on a read and having it be blatantly wrong. This list probably varies from player to player based on their strengths, weaknesses, and level of experience.

So, when should you quit? I won't presume to set a limit for anyone else because it probably depends on your concentration level, what kind of game you play, how experienced you are and how many tables you play at once. I'm calling this "Two-Strikes" because my limit is two. Two mistakes and I'm done for the day, or maybe for the next several hours if it's early in the morning and my day off and I had no other plans.

If you want to make this dependent on how good the game is (and you eventually should), mistake-count your opponents. Count the number of things they are doing that are blatantly incorrect, and presumably the higher the number the better the game is (I haven't really been doing this part consciously too much so I don't have a specific number but I know I do this on a subconscious level; I've actually been giggling at bad beats lately because of what they mean for the quality of the table). This isn't as straightforward as mistake-counting yourself because your opponents might be so much better than you (or have a playing style so radically different from yours) that what you THINK is a mistake isn't. Or maybe a decision is close and they did the opposite of what you would do. But there are still obvious things you can notice. For example, if pots are regularly more than four-handed in a limit hold-'em game, then some people are limping with trash (but not all of them; if five people limp, two might be donkeys with trash and three might be sharks with reasonable drawing hands). Sometimes people will voluntarily tell you how bad they are (After limping K7s: "I had to play it, sevens are hitting!") but be reasonably sure someone isn't BSing you for image purposes before you take comments too seriously. Once I was going to leave a B&M game because I was tired until someone called me on the river with 32 on a board of 44553 because "I thought you were bluffing!"

If someone does something masterful that you wouldn't have thought of doing yourself but looks to be a great play, you might want to assign that player a negative number.

If you don't notice your opponents making mistakes? Well, just as a "mistake" according to Two-Strikes isn't a mistake if you didn't know better, your opponents mistakes are also not mistakes if you would make the same mistake yourself. So if you can't spot mistakes, the other people at the table are probably at least as good as you are, or you need to up your powers of observation. And if you're making mistakes but they're not? QUIT. I don't care if you're up five racks and "running hot" or if you're down one rack and have one more to go before your magic number kicks in, the game is -EV and you should leave. Even wanting practice or education is not an excuse because if you're making mistakes you're not playing at the top of your game and not in the best position to learn anyway.

So, in short:

A: Count your mistakes
B: Count your opponents mistakes

If these conditions are unfavorable, end your session. Regardless of money won or lost.

Thanks for reading this far.

[SNOWBALL138]

Hi,

I like your essay. Thanks for sharing it.

Best,
Snowball

[vexvelour]

Great post. It seems so common sense to count your opponents mistakes, but I think many of us negelect to do it. Thanks for sharing.

[ QUOTE ]
because you correctly put the raiser on "any two cards,"

[/ QUOTE ]

lol.

[mosquito]

The concept has value.

Two strikes is far too few for many, if not most people. It may be close to optimizing effectivness though.

Problem: When you are not 'sharp' you are less likely to recognize a mistake. Therefore you will still play longer when you are less sharp.

Problem: Sometimes it takes a bit to get in the groove. It is possible to make a couple mistakes, get your head straight, and go on to a great session.

Problem: Some people are much better at regonizing their own mistakes than others. They need to allow significantly more errors before shutting down.

Problem: Full time players 'never' go a full day without making many more than two mistakes.

Making more than 2 mistakes in a specified time-block, or number of hands played, is more realistic. And workable. I tend to do this, without actually counting the mistakes. When I'm not playing well enough, it's time to stop.

Good thoughts, though. Liked the read.

[Don Olney]

Dr. Al wrote about this about a year ago---
I have put this in my game and it has served me well

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
Two strikes is far too few for many, if not most people. It may be close to optimizing effectivness though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, everyone should hold themselves to their own standard on this.

[ QUOTE ]
Problem: When you are not 'sharp' you are less likely to recognize a mistake. Therefore you will still play longer when you are less sharp.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hadn't thought of this, but it makes perfect sense. Two things I can think of:

-Many of the things I count as "mistakes" are things that are so objective I can't deny them even if I am on tilt (making vastly incorrect reads). Other situations specifically cause me to examine my recent play to see if I made a mistake (I go through this thought process every time I get checkraised, not saying getting c/r'ed is always caused by a mistake but it's a good candidate)

[ QUOTE ]
Problem: Some people are much better at regonizing their own mistakes than others. They need to allow significantly more errors before shutting down.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, ironically the ones who catch more of their own mistakes are the ones who would have to be most lenient on themselves. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Then again, the people best at recognizing their mistakes may also be the ones who think so fast that they don't make as many. Either way, I'll personally stick around if I have an unusually high mistake count when my opponents are also making a lot of errors, so maybe the hypercritical should focus more on their opponents then themselves.

[ QUOTE ]
Making more than 2 mistakes in a specified time-block, or number of hands played, is more realistic. And workable. I tend to do this, without actually counting the mistakes. When I'm not playing well enough, it's time to stop.

Good thoughts, though. Liked the read.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, this reply gave me a few more things to think about.

[Xhad]

[ QUOTE ]
Dr. Al wrote about this about a year ago---

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Is it something available online? I would like to read it.

I don't remember if Dr Al wrote about it, but I used a two strike stop-loss for a quite a while.

It's pretty effective, especially if you're results oriented (although not if you're prone to justifying things in retrospect) although I needed a BB number as well because if your first mistake is "no longer recognising my own mistakes", well, you're in for a long day.