When to Leave the Table - November 23, 2005
Lesson: When to leave the table
Poker Players are infamous for "what if" questions. What if I would have raised. I wish I would have folded. If only the river card hand't been an ace. Another popular question that poker players ask themselves, is when is it the right time to leave the table? For example, a player plays for four hours. After two hours the player is up $50. However, during the last two hours he loses $80 and ends up down $30 for the night. He may be kicking himself saying, I should have left the table after two hours. When someone asks me, "When is the right time to leave a table?", my response is typical of any other poker response, "it depends".
Do you play better when you are ahead or behind? Have you been playing a long time and are starting to get tired and therefore making poor decisions? What is the table's emotion level? Are players on tilt (both positive and negative) or has the well run dry and players are now making good poker decisions? Often times, beginning poker players think they should leave the table when they are ahead. In actuality, they may be right. If they are a poor player, they are up because they have received better cards than the competition. In actuality, they should leave not because they are ahead but because they should have never sat down to play at all.
I have been thinking about this recently as I have been playing limit poker. I only like to play when I'm really excited about playing. Part of the reason I switched to Limit poker is because I had played so many SNG tournament poker that it was starting to get repetitive. Playing a new game, even if it was still Hold Em made me more attentive. Playing poker usually gets my adrenaline flowing so I don't have too much problem with being too tired to play. So being tired is less of an issue for me. I think for me, it comes down to two factors: Table selection and My performance.
First I'll address table selection. Say you are down $40 after playing for an hour. It is important to ask yourself, why am I down $40? Is it because I have been getting a bad run of cards? Is it that players at the table are better than I am? With Poker Tracker I am able to see what type of players are at my table. If I lost $40 because a guy called two bets preflop with J7 and then called to the river and caught an inside straight draw to beat my AA, I shouldn't want to leave the table. Are players reading my bets correctly to the point where I'm not making extra bets or I'm not able to protect my hand and players are correctly drawing out on me? Than maybe I should leave the table. In the long run, if you play at a certain place with the same group of guys and you always lose, than maybe you should consider quitting. Maybe they are cheating, maybe they are better than you, but simply play a different style. However, if it is one or two occasions and you feel you have an edge in the game, then you should definitely continue to play.
Another question you have to ask yourself is "How am I playing today". When you answer, be sure to be as honest as possible. This is not the time to bluff. As you are playing you should be questioning your play after each hand. Did I miss out on a raise somewhere? Should I have clearly folded earlier? If you find yourself answering yes to some of these questions, maybe it is time to quit. Take a break for the day and wait until you are more refreshed to come back to the table. You may have a decent table selection and will make some money by sticking around, however good games come all the time (especially on the internet) so wait until you can get more out of the game the next time around.
Steve K's progress/Current Emotion
I have been losing a bit lately, but I still feel I have put myself in the right situation to win. I am getting killed playing SNGs. I think I am in such a limit mode that I am struggling making correct tournament decisions. I am still playing good limit poker, but have not seen the great results over the last week. I spent a couple days playing away from home and I felt like I was playing blind without Poker Tracker and GameTime +. I was unable to identify the poor players quick enough and since I had to pay more attention I could only play 2 tables at a time. Party came out with a deposit bonus, which I am working on right now. Stars also created a November bonus. I'm not sure if I will try this out or not. I'm going to look into it a bit more. It will probably depend on whether I can figure out how to utilize Poker Tracker while playing on Poker Stars.
Poker Players are infamous for "what if" questions. What if I would have raised. I wish I would have folded. If only the river card hand't been an ace. Another popular question that poker players ask themselves, is when is it the right time to leave the table? For example, a player plays for four hours. After two hours the player is up $50. However, during the last two hours he loses $80 and ends up down $30 for the night. He may be kicking himself saying, I should have left the table after two hours. When someone asks me, "When is the right time to leave a table?", my response is typical of any other poker response, "it depends".
Do you play better when you are ahead or behind? Have you been playing a long time and are starting to get tired and therefore making poor decisions? What is the table's emotion level? Are players on tilt (both positive and negative) or has the well run dry and players are now making good poker decisions? Often times, beginning poker players think they should leave the table when they are ahead. In actuality, they may be right. If they are a poor player, they are up because they have received better cards than the competition. In actuality, they should leave not because they are ahead but because they should have never sat down to play at all.
I have been thinking about this recently as I have been playing limit poker. I only like to play when I'm really excited about playing. Part of the reason I switched to Limit poker is because I had played so many SNG tournament poker that it was starting to get repetitive. Playing a new game, even if it was still Hold Em made me more attentive. Playing poker usually gets my adrenaline flowing so I don't have too much problem with being too tired to play. So being tired is less of an issue for me. I think for me, it comes down to two factors: Table selection and My performance.
First I'll address table selection. Say you are down $40 after playing for an hour. It is important to ask yourself, why am I down $40? Is it because I have been getting a bad run of cards? Is it that players at the table are better than I am? With Poker Tracker I am able to see what type of players are at my table. If I lost $40 because a guy called two bets preflop with J7 and then called to the river and caught an inside straight draw to beat my AA, I shouldn't want to leave the table. Are players reading my bets correctly to the point where I'm not making extra bets or I'm not able to protect my hand and players are correctly drawing out on me? Than maybe I should leave the table. In the long run, if you play at a certain place with the same group of guys and you always lose, than maybe you should consider quitting. Maybe they are cheating, maybe they are better than you, but simply play a different style. However, if it is one or two occasions and you feel you have an edge in the game, then you should definitely continue to play.
Another question you have to ask yourself is "How am I playing today". When you answer, be sure to be as honest as possible. This is not the time to bluff. As you are playing you should be questioning your play after each hand. Did I miss out on a raise somewhere? Should I have clearly folded earlier? If you find yourself answering yes to some of these questions, maybe it is time to quit. Take a break for the day and wait until you are more refreshed to come back to the table. You may have a decent table selection and will make some money by sticking around, however good games come all the time (especially on the internet) so wait until you can get more out of the game the next time around.
Steve K's progress/Current Emotion
I have been losing a bit lately, but I still feel I have put myself in the right situation to win. I am getting killed playing SNGs. I think I am in such a limit mode that I am struggling making correct tournament decisions. I am still playing good limit poker, but have not seen the great results over the last week. I spent a couple days playing away from home and I felt like I was playing blind without Poker Tracker and GameTime +. I was unable to identify the poor players quick enough and since I had to pay more attention I could only play 2 tables at a time. Party came out with a deposit bonus, which I am working on right now. Stars also created a November bonus. I'm not sure if I will try this out or not. I'm going to look into it a bit more. It will probably depend on whether I can figure out how to utilize Poker Tracker while playing on Poker Stars.
posted by Steve K at 1:54 PM
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