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Hi all,
I have a horrible habit of tightening my range big time when I am up and I know I am leaving soon for one reason or another. I have it stuck in my head I am ahead and I am not losing the money back before I have to go. I sit there and watch hands I would have won if I didn’t tighten my range. The biggest thing in my mind set is I booked a win period. How do I over come this bad habit or just be happy I booked a win and move on.
Thanks…This is probably my biggest weakness in my game – when to leave. It’s easy to leave when you’re down, but not always when you’re even or up.
A lot of times I will try to set a “leave by” time – whether it is to beat traffic or to get home by a certain time. It doesn’t always work (especially if it’s a really good game), but it usually does.
If I’m up a lot (like a buy-in or more), I’ll generally set a limit that if I lose X amount I will leave. This isn’t always easy because usually if I’m up that much, it’s a good game and it’s just hard to leave a good game.
If the game is boring, I try to set a time – If it doesn’t improve in 30 minutes, I will leave. This is somewhat easier to follow, since why am I going to sit around an play a bad game.
I guess the only other thing I could suggest is setting an alarm on your phone. You just have to learn to respect it.
I’m curious to see what other people use to leave the casino at a decent time. I could definitely use some help leaving before I do.
This is a natural human behavior and changing it (to an unnatural constant state) is very hard. I am an expert on the topic of Behavioral Finance. I teach it.
I think you will find this short article pretty interesting: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/10/14/richard-thaler-wins-the-nobel-prize-for-economic-sciences
As you read it, just try to apply it to your poker problem.In my little research on the topic, I found that players who are less effected by the tendency to protect their gains in their winning sessions, treat their stack as a capital investment in the session.
To elaborate, you are worth $1,000, let’s assume you bought stocks in the capital market at 11am for $200 and you have made capital gains (meaning the price of the stock you purchased went up) while the market is open. Your investment at 2:45pm is worth $290 dollars. Do you have any of the $290 in your pocket right now? The answer is no. The reason is because you have not ended your investment session yet. Only when you end the investment session will you count your gains as incurred (in the books).Similarly in poker, you can treat every session as a grand investment session and every hand as a mini investment session. You have to have the same standards by which you select your investments. Your ability to withstand risk should be the same throughout your investments. Your hand selection is an element that constitutes the risk you’re taking. For example, when you’re playing 76suited, the math says you would not have a made hand on the flop 65.4% of the time. However, you would flop a flush draw, OESD, or a gutshot 10.9%, 9.6%, 16.6% of the time respectively. So, if you know the math says that you would have a hammer on the hand on the flop (quads, fullhouse,flush, straight, trips, two pair) 5.5% and have a weak pair, middle pair, top pair 29% and you find this investment appealing, you should be making the same decision regarding the investment throughout your grand investment session unless of course other variables change such as raises and position.
The bottom line is, each hand is an independent investment, the money that we have on the table is what we are worth during the grand session, our gains have not incurred because we haven’t ended the session. The money we’re committing in the hand is our investment. We wanna make money on every investment we make, and we think we have a good strategy to do that, then why change the winning strategy.
I can talk about this all day, let me know if you have a question.
Hi County. Thank you for being honest and bringing up this topic. If you got it in your mind to leave and your are up, just leave. You become your own worst enemy if you sit there and think of the opportunities you missed because your trying to protect your stack.
Tightening up your range when you are up is another matter. I think your play will depend on your opponents and the effective stack size, the deeper you are. One-pair hands tend to drop in value when the stacks are deeper. If you play well with a deeper stack and widen range, then you should try and focus on playing strong poker than the actual results. Ofcoarse that’s easier said than done. I’m struggling with that myself, but it’s a work in progress.
In terms of leaving, I try to play 4-5 hours max a session. I know I start to get tired and lost focus around this amount of time. Whether I’m up or stuck, I will rack up and leave, because I know I’ll risk a lot more if I play tired. Whether the game is good or not, I stick to this rule. The games will be there the next session. 4-5 hours is what works for me and I take a break every hour. You’ll have to figure out what works for you.
Like John, I also have a stop-lost as well. I only bring 2 max buy-ins to the casino I play. So if I’m in for two buy-ins, that’s it!
Lastly, about your habit of just making sure you book a win. I think if you are in a downswing, its fine. But if you really are making it a habit about your monetary results, I would suggest focusing on another metric, for example: play x amount of hours per session. I think if you try to find another metric other than session results, that may break your habit.
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