10 Ways to Lose at Poker (9)

Not knowing when to stop playing is one of the best ways people have devised in their attempts to lose at poker. Although it might seem an easy decision to make, knowing the appropriate time to leave a game is difficult. All decision making stratagems that involve an incomplete knowledge of the future can be very difficult to apply and counter intuitive.

An excellent example of this is choosing a partner. Imagine that you have one hundred potential partners (maybe you are living on a tiny island or have signed up for 100 dates on a dating website) and you will have only one date with each of them. If you don't select them immediately following that single date it will be too late; they will be gone for life. If you reject 99 of them, you will be stuck with the hundredth. The answer to this conundrum is relatively simple. You date fifty of them, and note the characteristics of the one you like the best. You then carry on dating the others, but you stop at the first one who is better than the best of the first fifty. This is a mathematically proven strategy.

Selecting the time to walk away from a poker table is harder than choosing a partner as there are no mathematically proven best ways to do it. Most new players leave it too late (in the above example, this is analogous to being stuck with the hundredth potential partner however unsuitable). You need to decide under what circumstances you will leave the game and stick to them. These might be when you have won a certain amount or when you have lost a certain amount, when it seems that the cards are going with you or against you, when you are tired or when other factors in your life know that you should leave.

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