A Winner Never Quits?

At a recent meeting of our Wednesday Poker Discussion Group, a topic came up about what factors you should weigh to decide when to quit if you have booked a big win in a no-limit hold'em game.



I found the topic to be very interesting, but had to leave the room during the discussion to take a phone call, so Jay Wilder, our WPDG reporter, has granted me permission to copy his notes from the meeting to share with you. (Thanks, Jay!) Here is an excerpt from Jay's notes, with a little rewrite due to space limitations:



Warren spoke of a $1-$2 no-limit hold'em game at the Golden Nugget in which the pots were huge! There was often $2,000 in the pot, and his entire stack was constantly at risk. I believe the initial topic was, "How do you play when your entire stack is constantly at risk?" It was pointed out that in limit poker, you can always say to yourself that you will quit if you lose back X amount of your win; however, in no-limit, you are in jeopardy of losing your chips every time you enter a pot.



The conversation was fast and furious. Ben noted that your play depends on whether you have a big stack or a small stack. We agreed that short-stack poker is easier to play because you're often going to be all in before or on the flop. Thus, you're not forced to make decisions on the turn and river, which requires more skill. If there are better players at the table, their advantage over you is muted by your short-stack strategy.



Nick and others commented that many players are afraid to win. They hit the door once they have racked up X number of dollars because they are afraid … this makes it impossible to have huge wins, yet these same players will sit and take huge losses. I interpreted this as, "you can't play scared money." Jan brought up Mike Caro's "Threshold of Pain" theory, which states that once you have lost a great deal of money, you become numb to the pain of losing and will continue to pull out more and more money because being stuck $1,500 doesn't hurt any more than being stuck $1,400 if you are used to much smaller losses.



Someone mentioned that the pain of losing is twice as great as the joy of winning. This idea comes (most recently) from a column that Barry Tanenbaum wrote. Here's a link:



http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=15027&m_id=65574.



By now, Grover had posed another related question that went something like this: "How do you know when to quit when you're winning? Most of us have an idea when it's time to quit when we're losing." Some WPDGers commented that if they ran a $100 buy-in into $1,000 and then lost $500, they'd feel bad because they lost back $500. Others commented that they don't consider the chips on the table to be their money until they take those chips to the cashier. They would feel like they won $400, in this example.



We weren't really answering Grover's question, though. How do you decide when to quit when you have booked a big win? Linda stated that if you are playing well and the game is good, continue to play as long as you are comfortable. If you start worrying about losing the money back and it becomes a consideration in your decisions, it could be time to leave. Jan correctly pointed out that if there are only one or two players with the same amount of chips as you have, you are playing for all of your chips against only those one or two players.



Now, here is my (Jay's) take on the situation: Suppose that an opponent moves in preflop for $1,000. Everyone folds around to you and you look down at pocket aces. It's an easy call, right? If it's not an easy call, you're playing with scared money, and are no longer playing to win; you're playing not to lose. Calling a lone opponent's all-in raise preflop with aces is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point: If you find yourself giving up your edge in order to avoid losing, you lose anyway.



If you make the call and lose the hand, will you be comforted by the fact that you got your money in as a big favorite? You should, but many of us would be supremely disgusted as we rack up our remaining $300 (booking a $200 win) and head to the cashier. Some players don't consider the money on the table to be theirs until they rack up and leave. They feel good about going to the cashier with a $200 win, but certainly they are disappointed that their aces got cracked for a grand on that last lap.



If you're starting to feel uncomfortable with having a big stack in front of you in a game in which several players have you covered, or if you are insecure playing big-stack poker against dangerous opponents, consider quitting the game. You don't want to be making bad decisions and giving away your advantage in order to protect your stack. You can book a nice win and spend the rest of the evening honing your skills at a lower-limit table.



If the idea of losing it all in one hand doesn't bother you, and you honestly believe that you play better on every street than your opponents, by all means, play on. You are the type of player who will sometimes run a $100 buy-in into $1,000 or more, only to lose it all, dig into your pocket for another $100, and start over. You are also the type of player who will eventually have a day when you win every available chip on the table.

Thanks, Jay. You do a great job of taking notes of our weekly meetings. Keep up the good work!



Now, let's play poker.

Linda is available to host poker seminars, corporate poker events, and charity tournaments. You can contact her through her websites at http://www.cardplayercruises.com/ or http://www.lindapoker.com/.