[xtwalker]

Ok, after last night, it is time to admit to myself that I may have a bit of a problem... I don't think it is a gambling problem, I think it is a quiting problem. And I don't know how to kick the problem....

I drove down to an indian reservation to play some NL yesterday afternoon hoping to catch a little holiday money, and I set myself a goal for money to make/time to leave. That came and passed as I decided that the game I was in had too much easy money sitting on it and I wanted my share. I set myself a new goal for a $ figure and time to leave.

At 1100 I was right at my (second) goal. I was up a fair amount and was on the small blind and told the table I was playing my button and leaving. I end up getting in a raised pot with QQ, and I re-raised to $70, someone pushed all in for $200, got an (all-in) caller for $200 and I called. My opponents had 22 and AJos. There was a 2 in the window and I never improved.

Now I was $200 shy of my (second) goal, and I was even more convinced there was too much soft money at the table. I end up playing another 2.5 hrs (very poorly bc I was tired and a wee bit tilted) before my 1hr drive home, got 2.5hrs of sleep before work this morning, and I lost another $150 trying to get that $200 back.

This is only the second time I have done this on a week night, but needless to say, my wife is getting tired of me rolling home at 230-400 once or twice a week. She really hates it when I get home that late and I don't have a good profit for her to share.

So long introduction to a simple question: How do you decide when to leave a game, and how do you make yourself stick to it?

Feel free to leave serious suggestions or funny anecdotes.

[Quads]

When one of the three (or any combination thereof) happens:

a) I'm busto
ii) the table is no longer profitable
3) I'm tired, hungry, or on tilt.

[guinness]

Originally Posted by Quads

When one of the three (or any combination thereof) happens:

a) I'm busto
ii) the table is no longer profitable
3) I'm tired, hungry, or on tilt.

I'm more on the first two. The 3rd criteria I don't listen to....since I can play tired and hungry and I don't remember the last time I tilted...but nevertheless thats a good checklist.

[SandmanDC]

This sounds like my rules for determining when I am drunk.
1) When I run out of money.
2) When my buddies run out of money.
3) When the UGLIEST nag in the bar looks real good.
Or last but not least.
As long as there is a blade of grass to hang on to to keep from falling of the face of the earth.... I am still ok!!!

[OnTheButton]

Not to be axiomatic, but you should leave the moment you think you should leave.

Don't second guess your heart and brain. Nothing says "that rush is gonna come tonight, or tomorrow..."

I've said all my life, "Why is it that most gamblers know when to leave when they have lost X amount of money, but can't seem to leave when they have won X amount of money?"

I live by the 1:1:3 rule for my poker table winnings and losses.

Say I sit down with $100. I lose that $100, I stop. Take a break, go eat, smoke, walk, think. I'll allow myself one more sit down with my set amount of money (in this case $100) for that night. That's it. Done. Fin. In this case, $200 total.

However if I win $300 (or more) at any point in time, (in the first or second sit down) I'm also out. Grab my cash and go. If it was the first sit down, I've tripled up. Not bad. If it's during my second sit down, then I've gotten back my first lost $100, and made $100. Happy to make it out in one piece.

If you are playing just to play, get a free money account on P*s. If you are playing for money, realize that if you keep chasing bad money with worse money thinking "this has got to be the time" you may have a problem with gambling.

Funny anecdote:

About 15 years ago, I'm in Vegas on a business trip. Mid-week winter. The town is empty. I saddle up to a $5 Black Jack table at about 3am with $100. I'm playing heads-up with the dealer and there are 2 or 3 other tables with dealers just standing there, so I'm praying that no shemp comes and sits at my table, when I wanted to play only against the dealer.

He shuffles the decks and loads them into the shoe. We start playing. I have a very good Black Jack system of progressive betting and bet building with winning streaks, when those streaks come. We play one entire 6 deck shoe, and I've got a little over $700 infront of me.

As he stops to shuffle the decks at the end of the shoe, I ask him for a color up, tip him $25 and stand up to leave.

The dealer looks at me with my tip chip still in his hand and says: "Thanks for the tip, but you really just made my night by leaving."

I made some comment back to him like, "Why? Are they going to demote you to the Pai-Gow tables for giving me this money?"

He says to me, "No, you made my night because you sat down, played well, and you are taking your money and leaving with it. That is the way it is supposed to be done, and trust me, I can count on one hand in the 25 years I've been doing this, the amount of people that do what you are doing now. Have a great night."

[dad604]

Can't help you with when to quit as I have been there too many times in the past.

[Maegnus]

I was dying to get my hands on a new authentic NHL jersey but couldnt justify shelling out the $300 for it. I threw $50 onto FTP and played .25/.50 to see what I could do. After 3 days I was at $500 and considered stopping. I convinced myself that it was just too easy to get to where I was, so logically I should be able to go up, maybe hit a grand. Although I got my money in with the best of it still, I was down to $170 by the next day after getting sucked out on several times and didn't feel great about it (despite being up $120 still). I got greedy and kept going but played reeeaal tight and managed to get it back to $300. Just cashed it out, getting my jersey tomorrow night at the game. It sucks that I didn't stop at $500, but I feel lucky to have gotten it back to $300.

I'll probably throw another $50 online next year sometime and try for a repeat. maybe get a new set of chips then. Not sure how relevant this is, but I now understand why people have gambling problems. I never understood it because I only played live with buddies. Basically, if you have any hunch that you should stop, you should then and there, not even next hand. If you are greedy enough to want more than 10 times what you put in, you deserve to bust IMO. cuz no matter how good you get in, there will be bad beats, and they will probably come 2 hands after you said you should stop.

[xtwalker]

My rule of thumb for length of play/money I want to make is directly related to the distance to the casino and the stakes I play. Where I play bigger (for me) games it usually a little over an hour to get there and about an hour getting home in the middle of the night.

I usually only get down there Friday afternoons, so it is an easy goal of 10hrs play and a 3-4x my buy-in. I also keep my available funds limited so I can never get into a game too deep.

Funny thing is, I can't remember ever calling it a night early, but I remember plenty of times where I called it a night way too late.

The only time I remember trying to call it a night early was when my wife was with her friends playing bingo down the street. At midnight I was up $1500 and was ready to go, but the ladies weren't ready to go yet. At 1 they were going to stop at Walmart on their way to pick me up. Between 115 and 130 I had QQ cracked twice and lost about $1800 in those two hands. One of the hands I flopped a set and there is no way I could have gotten away from the hand. In the other hand, I made the worst read/play of my poker life and lost my A$$. Fun drive home that night!

[noelsarchs]

Originally Posted by OnTheButton

Not to be axiomatic, but you should leave the moment you think you should leave.
"

Last night after my dad's funeral, I went to the casino here in Green Bay. Played the $1 $3 limit table.

Sat down with $100, 4th hand got dealt QQ. Told my brother shanghai about this on the phone and he told me that I should have folded immediately seeing as I lose every single time with QQ.

Well, I raised from the button to $6 and had 3 callers! Flop came xxQ!!!

I bet $3, got 3 callers again, flop x and bet $6 with two callers, river A and I bet out again and get called....

There was about $50-60 in the pot and I finally won a hand in a live casino!

I played three more rounds of blinds and thought to myself, take the $40 profit that I still had and get some sleep. So I got up and left because that's exactly the thought I had, leave now! So I left.

[jamby]

It's usually a matter of the game going south or that I get too tired to continue play. It's often too late unfortunately by the time I realize that it's time.