When to Quit a Live Session

Most quitting rules are about how much money is in front of you, which is the one variable that should have no vote. The two that should are how good the game is and how well you are playing.

Why Win Goals Do Not Work

A win goal says leave after winning a set amount. The problem is that the reason you are winning is usually that the game is good, which means the goal makes you leave the best games you find and stay in the worst ones. It selects for exactly the wrong sessions.

The same objection applies to quitting because you doubled up. Your stack size only describes the last four hours, which are over. It says nothing about whether the game in front of you is still worth playing.

Why Stop-Losses Partly Do Work

A stop-loss is different, and it survives the objection for a reason that has nothing to do with the money. A player who is stuck two buy-ins is, on average, playing worse than he was three hours ago. So the stop-loss is protecting your bankroll from your own late-session decisions, which is a different job from protecting it against variance.

Set it before you sit, in buy-ins, and treat it as a hard stop rather than a suggestion. Two or three buy-ins is a common number. The exact figure matters less than the fact that you chose it while calm.

Condition One: The Game Got Worse

Games decay. The recreational player busts and leaves. Two regulars sit down. The straddle stops. The table that was worth four hours at eight o'clock is a rake-paying grind by midnight, and nothing about that is visible in your stack.

Check the table every hour with one question: who at this table is losing money and why? If you cannot answer it, the answer might be you. Leave, or move to the other $1/2 game if the room is running one.

Condition Two: You Got Worse

The signals are behavioral and they are checkable, which is what makes them useful.

• You are calling to see if you were right rather than because the price is right.
• You have stopped counting. Pot sizes, stacks, outs. When the arithmetic stops happening, you are playing on feel.
• You are playing hands you would have folded in hour one. The range creep is the most reliable single signal.
• You are thinking about the last hand during this one.
• You are tired. Six hours in, most people are measurably worse than they think, whatever their mood is telling them.

Any two of those together is a session ender, regardless of the number in front of you. Tilt specifically has its own countermeasures, which the tilt guide covers.

The Awkward Truth About Quitting Winners

If the game is good and you are playing well, leaving because you are up is giving away the profitable part of the session. The reason people do it is that a win booked feels different from a win at risk, which is a fact about feelings rather than about poker.

Two legitimate exceptions. Life comes first, so a session that runs into sleep you need or plans you made is over regardless of how good the game is. And a bankroll that cannot absorb the swing is a reason to play a smaller game rather than to book a win in a bigger one.

The Rule Worth Adopting

Decide the stop before you sit: a maximum loss, a maximum time, and a promise to reassess the table every hour. Then let the result float. The point of the pre-commitment is that all three of those decisions get made by a version of you who is not stuck, not tired and not on a heater.

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