Tight Poker

[snickers99]

This post is a question about when to say when during a losing session (sorry...it also turned into a bit of a bitch). So I'm playing on Empire last night, trying to clear my bonus. Awful night. Playing .50/1 limit and it's a freakin' rock garden. Plus, it seems I always have the neuticals. I have QQ, someone else has AA. I got AQ, someone has AK and so on. Most of the time, I'm getting dealt crap or my hands go nowhere. So now I'm down about 11BB. I try another table (briefly multi-tabling, something I rarely do) and lose another 5bb there. I close the second table and I'm now down about 16bb. Things start turning around and I manage to get back to only losing around 3bb (tough when the average pot was hovering around $3 or so). This is where I have trouble. I desperately tried to get back to even instead of packing it in for the night. Not playing bad hands...I kept playing 'my' game. But I slipped back, gained some back, slipped back, etc. Never getting to even. Then, two bad hands a few minutes apart where I have AQ and lose to AK, and my KK are cracked by a donk who has 8-10 and nails her fucking gutshot on the river. I'm now down 20bb and I quit.

My question...when do you quit? It seems like sometimes when I have a bad night, I almost get even, but I keep playing, and then lose more. And get pissed. I honestly can't remember starting off bad, fighting to get back to even, and then going on to a big win. Well, maybe once...but it could be that I just don't remember. But I do remember a bunch of times where I lose say 10bb, fight back to almost even, only to end up losing more than 10bb. Again, it could be selective memory. I need to stop doing this because now I'm barely a third of the way through my bonus at Empire and I'm down $30 on a $40 bonus. So, what do you do? Once you get close to breaking even, do you quit then, figuring it's not your night? If I would have stopped when I was only 3bb down, I wouldn't be writing this post and I would have slept better last night. I know...you don't know if that's the closest you're going to get to breaking even on the night, but I can't stop thinking about it when it happens. Do you not worry about it since it's the long term you should worry about and not an individual session?

[puckhead23]

I go through this same agony from time to time. There are certain nights that just aren't mine. I will be jamming a pot with a strong hand, only to be called by the flush or straight draw who connects on the river. This might happen twice (or more) in an hour. These couple of hands will represent the amount of money I am down. The only hands I win a couple of small pots that pay for my blinds.

Then there is usually one hand that takes the cake. Recently, I was dealt 4's on the button, pot was unraised, and the flop came K94 rainbow. The flop ends up capped. The turn and river bring blanks (no probable st8 or flush); both streets get capped. Believing I had the best hand, and my evening is about to change for the better (thinking I was up against a 2 pair, such as K9), I was shown KK. Then I drop some F-bombs and shut the computer off.

I guess the moral here is the following: Change tables when your image is less than it should be. If you're losing, your image is not good. You can continue if you're playing good poker, but if your play is deteriorating, then quit for the night. As long as I am making good decisions, I ignore the immediate gain/loss of money since I can't control Lady Luck (aka Luck o' the Fish ).

I've seen your posts for a long time here. You are clearly a good player. It sounds like you have the occasional bad session like we all do. Just make sure you shut the computer off when you're getting mad and spewing chips on tilt. I try to practice what I preach, sometimes I'm a hand too late to realize .

[biggle10]

I usually quit if I'm down 20BB on a single table. (30-40BB if I'm on 3 or so).