When Is The Time To Stop Playing Poker?

To stay and play or not to stay and play, that is the question. If we leave too early, we are tortured by the thought of future potentially winning hands. If we leave too late, we have already lost our shirts and not potentially, which is even worse, especially that last grisly hour. We will never know why we overstayed our hand and are doomed to repeat the error when next we face the table.

It is crucial to be able to stay or leave based on a logical analysis of the situation, not an emotional impulse. If logically you have matters to attend to - liking picking up your wife and kids or attending work - you must be able to leave immediately. Sometimes a desperate hope for by now certainly imminent better luck is so strong that you miss dates and business appointments. But, the longer you stay overdue, the worse you play, because you know you are supposed to be elsewhere and that possibly your are ruining your life and career.

If poker is supposed to be entertainment but you are not enjoying it - this is a good reason to leave early, before the game becomes a tangle nightmare of bad moves and worse moods. You often see player who take up poker as recreation, but when a game gets too much for them, they cannot leave, and yet they cannot play. They stay out of some sort of perverse compulsion to prolong their torment, not willing to walk out losers. They stay and become greater losers with every losing new hand, instead of accepting good-naturedly accepting the situation - which is merely pastime anyway - and leaving the table, remaining in a good mood, and perhaps trying another game later at another table.

To overcome such pitfalls, the source of the problem must be discovered, and that can be done by the realization that the problem has nothing to do with the game intrinsically. If you insist on performing a pointless activity of self-torture that you cannot possibly enjoy but neither can you get up and walk away from, you have a problem. If you are not staying at the table for the poker, then you are deluding yourself and avoiding what is really troubling you.

This behavior is undoubtedly manifesting itself in other aspects of your life as well. You must refocus to help you uncover the source of your problem. Don't waste any more time wondering dumbly why you have once again overstayed your playing time by that murderous extra hour and try to concentrate on envisioning yourself in your other day-to-day activities. This may allow you the insight to discover incidences totally unrelated to your poker game where your behavior is the same.

The problem may lie in not facing the fact that you hate your job, or owning up to a real feeling of grief that you have suppressed for a long time. If you are able to make a connection, you may be able to stop kicking yourself and enjoy the reality of life and of poker.

The author of this article plays online poker and gets Rakeback at Red Star Poker where they offer the highest Red Star Rakeback.

Tagged with: card games • gambling • Games • holdem • Poker • recreation • sport

Filed under: Poker