Quitting While Ahead

[StevieG]

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Nice avatar, jrz.

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actually, liked the light bulb more.

[DavidC]

Despite posting a question on this myself, I will reply to your post...

You play in a game because you're expected to win, or for the educational / entertainment value. We're going to ignore the latter and focus on the former here.

If you're slotted to win, play. Otherwise, leave. Continue to do this until you die. Ignore the money, except to ensure that you have an adequate bankroll.

Should you choose to leave the game before you die, good job (if you have lots of money)!

--Dave.

Edit: Oh wow, I missed a lot here. Make sure you win the most possible, and that your hourly rate keeps in sync with what you need to live and other income opportunities... but yeah, like they said, it doesn't matter if you play one hand a day for 100 days or 100 hands in one day.

[jrz1972]

I can sympathize with the OP because I used to be the same way. If I got more than 20 BB ahead or so, I would start looking for reasons to quit playing so I could walk away with my win. In fact, sometimes I would actually cringe at being dealt something like QQ or AK knowing I would "have" to get in the there and do some betting and jeopardize my "nice win for the day." The statistician in me knew that was absurd, but still it was something that I had to deal with early on.

At some point, though, you need to break yourself out of this. If I play on and "lose back" my 25 BB, so what? It's not like I was just playing the last few hands of my poker career. As long as I'm +EV, my bankroll is going to grow; downswings, when they come, are just part of the game.

I'll admit that I sometimes still "quit while ahead" if I'm recovering from a serious downswing and could use a confidence-booster, but that's a self-admitted *weakness* in my game something I should really try to overcome.

[bozlax]

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...Sure it's not what the pros do...

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Isn't it, in fact, a pro that reccomends leaving the table if you go down 30BB? Lederer? Helmuth? One of 'em.

For me, it's about keeping my level of play up. If I am way up or way down I either start playing too loose or too tight, and that's partly because being up or down a lot is an indication of how long I've been playing. So, I have set arbitrary "limits" for myself, and when I'm closing in on one or the other (-30BB to +50BB), I wait until the blinds get to me and then quit my tables. Then I get up and go do something else for at least 3 hours before I play more.

It's the same thing Blade writes in his article, essentially, except I move away from the game for a little while to let my brain reset.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

the only reason why i leave a table is because i dont' feel like playing anymore or the game is turning really crappy or i'm playing crappy.

how much you win or lose should have no affect on your decision to keep playing or to leave unless it is actively affecting the way you play in a negative way.

Poker, like life, is one long session.

It's a session full of sessions.

[olavfo]

I'm sure you already know on a theoretical level that it doesn't matter when you quit. But knowing this theoretically and "feeling" it are two different things.

As you gain experience the question of when to leave will start to lose meaning. In the mean time, try to resist the urge to quit while ahead, for example by playing sessions of fixed length.

olavfo