When?

][cEMAN**

When do you stop? I know some have said about picking up bad habbits if you start to play before you read up extensively about poker, but I tend to find myself learning more from practice than theory. Not saying I won't get a read once I get the books though...

I'm finding myself winning, but then not knowing when to stop. I don't need the cash to need to win it this way. It's nice when I do, but I don't over extend myself - I just play what I can afford and what i'm willing to lose without worry.

However I don't keep winning. I don't think I expect to. Maybe i'm just compulsive on certain things. I know i've read before about being on tilt when you're in this kinda zone, but I think with me it's more entertainment over the boredom factor.

Last night I came on to play, after already using up all my action points on VC through low level freeroll tourneys. So I had to earn a few more. I decided to test out how well I do in general tournies, as i'd recently placed 6th in a 600 man tourney - been chip leader till the last table. I'd been placing in the top 30 in the last few tourneys I was in. I played a few STTs and came between first and third on them - gaining a few chips here and there. I was playing tight, yet agressive when I got the chance. So I moved to a 5c/10c NL hold'em table and put up a $2 stake. I decided when that ran out I was going to walk. I ran it up to about $25 and then relaxed a bit, giving away more than I should have, and overbetting pots with hands which could be beaten by 1 card (card coming up on the river in most cases). Ran it back down to about $3, but then back up to $20 again.

This seems to be my pattern though. I enjoy playing, but I don't know when to stop. I win, then lose - which snaps me awake, and I start winning again. In the end it was 5am and i'd been playing for about 10 hours. I was tired and having only about $4 I went all in on an average hand hoping to double or leave. Well I lost and left...but i'm thinking to tonight when I start again.

As you've probably gathered from all of my posts so far, i'm not an experienced player. I'm playing now about 3-4 weeks, all online. Last time I played cards in any way was when I was a kid, a good 20 years ago. I want to learn though and I find poker fun. I was hoping to learn from you guys and your experience on these matters.

So when do you know when to stop? Do you go into a game with a goal in mind? General pot to achieve? Or if you get to a stack size, when do you decide to stop and leave, or do you ever keep going though you may drop it in size a bit?

Hey Iceman,
I've *only* been playing for about 6 weeks in clubs, never really online, (might sit in on a few hands if my friend wants to go to the Jacks or whatever). My advice, beginner to beginner is simple. Read, read, read. I entered the freeroll for the first time, rebought 3 times, knew sweet f.a about poker, came nowhere. Read Poker: the real deal, played the next freeroll, straggled in 5th. Free ticket to the 100 game. Read Mike caro's book on tells, played the 50 game, came second. Next day freeroll, won that too.
The discipline is IMHO the single most important thing in the game. You have to know when to throw down sets (it hurts btw) and you really have to know when to stop. Every time I play, I have a set amount of money in my mindframe, and nothing will make me play more. Just shrug, say to yourself, "I just didn't get the cards tonight" and live to fight another battle.
But read up on it. My 2c.

Drakar

You leave when you start losing. That sounds like I'm being "smart", but it's not meant to be. Particularly online, table dynamics change quite quickly as people get up and sit down practically every few hands. This means that a table of weak players can be substituted by a table of strong players quite quickly. In fact this quite often happens as strong players search specifically for tables with many weak players, so if you are on a table with people who make wrong calls regularly, expect a few sharks to jump in when they can.

In other news, apparently you should sell shares when they are at their highest price.

Iago

Drakar wrote:

You leave when you start losing. That sounds like I'm being "smart", but it's not meant to be. Particularly online, table dynamics change quite quickly as people get up and sit down practically every few hands.

I would tend to disagree with this. For me it's simple, I have a time that I'm going to play to, it could be anything from 1 to 4 hours from when I start (I tend not to play any longer than that in one sitting)

Regardless of whether I'm up or down when that time runs out I leave the table, sometimes I'm well up, sometimes I'm well down, sometimes I'm about even. I don't chase money and I don't chase my losses.

As well as a time limit I have an amount limit, I won't risk anymore than this regardless of whether I've been unlucky or am sitting at a table full of fish that "will pay me eventually" discipline is the key.

Set a target yourself the next time you play, time, amount to lose or amount to win i.e. "If I sit down with $10 and my stack increases to $50 I'm leaving the table" and stick to it. The more you play the more important this will become.

Imposter

I'd suggest you leave if you start to be bored or if you are feeling tired. If you are not concentrating on the game then you're not at your best and are liable to lose money.

I'd also dissagree with what drakar says about leaving when you are losing.

DeVore

Leave when you have achieved or failed to achieve the objectives you set yourself.

If you play "for fun", leave when its no longer fun. If you play for money, leave when you have reached the target you set yourself. You *did* set a target right?

Targets are important. Knowing *why* you are playing is important. Like Iago I wont play more then 4 hours in cash games, nor less then one hour (you are time-pressured and will play marginal hands to get your "fix" before your time runs out...)

I set time and money, upper and lower limits before playing. I'll usually sit down with 100 notes into the 50/50 game and leave if I hit 350. I occasionally re-evaluate that during the session (ie: if I make 350 in the second hand, I might not get up and leave if I think the table can/will pay me more). I rarely do this though, and fairly rigidly stick to my guns. I will leave if I lose my tank. eg: if that 100 goes south, I'll get up and leave. Very very rarely will you ever see me rebuying cash chips and chasing lost money. I have done it twice in my life, both times under very very strange circumstances (and both times I made it back and then some).

So, understand why you play (this can be a multi-reason answer ) and then set boundaries outside of which you should hear alarm bells ringing...

DeV.

Drakar

Yeah agreed. There can be many reasons people play poker, not just for the money. One should definately set maximum time and money limits at least.

I can't imagine why anyone would disagree with the leave when you're consistently losing principle, especially online when it's easy to switch tables to more profitable games.

[edit]
er actually maybe that's my fault for saying leave when you start losing. I don't mean that if you lose a hand you leave. If you do that you lose all the table reading you've done. What I mean is that if you lose a number of hands which lead you to believe you are not one of the top players at the table, then it's time to look for greener pastures.

][cEMAN**

Well losing is kind of a wake up call for me. I might lose 3 hands though before I wake up completely. Just playing sloppy.

Like last night, as I said I ran from $2 to $25, then back down to about $3 (dropped to $11 being half asleep and the rest were outplayed), and then back up to $20 before running out again. I think it was cause I was playing so late, but tbh I was just enjoying myself - chatting while I play.

I know that's meant to take away from your concentration, but I sometimes feel I overthink things too much and will let emotion take over, unless I can centre myself by emotional distraction.

I have to be honest - I didn't really set a target. I was playing just to play, and I guess earn some action points - see how far I could go. I think last nights play was to go from 0 action points to around 600, then if I lose in between, I lose. In the end I managed about 750 or so. That was 1 target. I guess I just push myself late at night to go further and further and ignore the sleep threshold. Bad call on my part - gotta learn from that.

Like I said, i've not read a lot - I bought poker for dummies on dvd (don't laugh, got it cheap, and it's not bad for the basics - which I needed when I started). I've read a few of the links at the top of the forum, including working out the odds, and good/bad hands. That's helped a lot, though I don't find myself working on the odds directly atm - I tend to work on what my instinctive odds are of the cards out there.

Atm, though it's online, i've grown to watch the player and their betting styles, to know if they have a hand or not and what they have in it. I'm able to call a lot of hands, but missing some for new players.

I sometimes will throw a low pot away on a new player at the table just to see how he plays and how he bets. It's not the wisest thing to do, but i've seemingly got an ability to pull myself out of stack rags to riches . It kills me though in tourneys when i'm down to a few hundred and the blinds are 600/1200 or 800/1600. Can't get out of that hole...

Thanks for the advice guys. I think i'm going to play a few STTs for fun tonight, but if I go NL on a real money table, i'll probably start at $2 and aim for $10. Maybe I should keep record or something.

BTW, in terms of books - i've recently found out there are some regular games in the city. I've gone around looking for poker books but they all seem to be bought up, so i'm going to have to order. I know there are a wide range of books out there, but I was looking to know what you'd put in order of reading first.

I think someone said Super System 2 is just Super System 1 with extras, but would it be ok to avoid the first, and just get the second?

Would you rate this over other books? Or suggest other books to read first?

Is Caro's book of poker tells really that good?

Lafortezza

' wrote:

[cEMAN**']So I moved to a 5c/10c NL hold'em table and put up a $2 stake. I decided when that ran out I was going to walk.

Why would you do this? I've been playing the micro limits over the last couple of weeks and I'd never sit down with less than $10 at a 5c/10c NL game.
You see people who buy in for $2 and they'll call a 50c raise preflop with QJ or something, hit a J on a KJx flop and stick it all in.
Then they rebuy for another $2 and repeat.
You're better off buying in for more imo. It lets you see some flop and not get pot committed, lets you make rational decisions, and when you do hit a monster and get all your cash in the middle, its better to double through with $15 than $2!

peeko

If your playing the STT's go in knowing you have to give it full concentration for about 1.5 hours. And act like your chips are worth thousands, play tight until you get a monster and then be aggresive.

I've just ordered Caro's book of tells and Super System. Looking forward to reading them, will let you know how I find them.

][cEMAN**

lafortezza wrote:

You see people who buy in for $2 and they'll call a 50c raise preflop with QJ or something, hit a J on a KJx flop and stick it all in.
Then they rebuy for another $2 and repeat.

lol

You don't see them for long though.

henbane

Don't set limits. If you're winning money on a table and feel capable of continuing that, why would you leave that table? Play until you feel you are no longer capable of extracting money from the table. If you're tired/pissed off/on a high from winning a big pot, you may start to do silly things... You should stop then or take a break.

You've been playing for 3-4 weeks so you don't have a lot of experience. You will learn to spot the signs that you've gone off the boil before you've lost a big pot you shouldn't have been involved in. That's simply experience.

If you want to set targets, think about your hourly rate. Keep a basic spreadsheet for all your sessions. It's easy to work out your average/median hourly rate from that.

Another good target is to try to work your bankroll up to a size where you can comfortably play at a higher limit.

AmarilloFats

I agree with Henbane. "It's all one big session" as Sklansky put it. Play as long as it is profitable to do so.("as long as you have the best of it")

Nothing wrong with losing initially. Consider it your tuition fee.
Just minimise your loses by Learning from mistakes..and reading and playing and losing and reading and playing.

GoodLuck

Marq

Agreed. why leave a table where you are confident that you can make money? last night for example, i was playing in the fitz Hold'em Omaha cash game. I had bought in for 100, and was down to about 35, having seen no cards in about an hour against absolutely unbluffable players. i went out for a cigarette and said to myself that if i got my stack up to 125 (my buy-in plus my taxi fare home) this was a terrrible idea. I did make my money back, and was up to about 150, cards were beginnning to come (which the hadn't been all night) and this table was extremely easy to make money on with a bit of money in front of you and half decent cards, so i decided to stay, because why else would i be playing a cash game if not to make some easy money?

Then my kings got outdrawn by king-jack in a 500 euro pot, and i busted my whole tank. some people were telling me i should have stuck to my word and left when i was a pony up, but despite the maddening outdraw and the fact that i now had no money, i knew that staying in the game was the right decision at the time. 9 times out of ten i would have won that pot and been up 400 euro, and one time out of ten i was going to lose everything including my buy-in of 100. so staying in that game was +EV or whatever they call it.

get out of a game when a game is crap, and difficult to make money in. stay in if there's money to be made and you're playing well, regardless of bankroll or time limit.

][cEMAN**

OK i've taken the advice, and i'm sitting down now to a play money game to get all the first hand bad calls out of my system. In about half an hour i'm gonna move to the real money table and see how I fare out

Time to see if I can limit my losses and earn some winnings

RustySpoon

Iceman,

I am also playing mostly online but with a few home games and 1 live MTT a month.
I use a spreadsheet for each site I use - Pokerstars, Noble Poker, Partypoker and Ladbrokes.
I have put down date, session, time of session, opening balance, closing balance, session total and overall total. I have also got a notes fields for hands won & lost and opponents.

This gives me a good idea of when I'm playing well, playing absolute rubbish or getting bad beats etc.
It also keeps track of how much I am spending per week/month as online money doesn't seem as real as chips in your hand.

I have noticed though that my bad form seems to come in sessions on a Friday and saturday night, so i now have a sign on my PC that says "If your drinking don't play".

Don't know if this will be of any help at all to you but that's what helps me.

][cEMAN**

I had considered keeping notes on people I play, especially for opening hands in tournaments, but considering any time I sit down to play it's anywhere up to about 6000 people sitting down, I figured it would take too long to find them.

Though I think there's a notes tab somewhere, so I might look into that.

Well last night I caught myself on and finished early when I started to realise being tired was affecting my play. I had only played some play cash tables first, and then went into two low limit STTs. Came third in the first, and 4th in the second (again big blinds and a bad run of cards meant that the only thing I won was with a well timed bluff).

mewso

Just a word on the books mentioned. Both Caro's Tells and Super System are somewhat dated at this stage. Super System in particular is not the book to buy to improve your cash game. You need to study up on odds etc. so Sklansky is your only man. Caro's Tells is not relevent to online tells. As to live play tells it has some handy info but is full of "hes probably weak but if hes a good player then he could well be strong" etc.

][cEMAN**

So if there was one bible you held true to, what would it be?

mewso

It's in the poker links. If you haven't read anything then read theory of poker. From there you can get books more specific to holdem but I think theory of poker is essential to get the basic ideas into your head.

Lafortezza

Theory of Poker - Sklansky
I found Tournament Poker for Advanced Players also by Sklansky fairly good, changed my mind a little about how to play MTTs.

Don't underestimate teh intarweb either, www.twoplustwo.com has great forums, and there's load of articles around the web by any amount of good and bad players, check the stickies for links.

Hectorjelly

The Theory of Poker.

There is a huge amount of differing advise out there, usually concerned with managing losses and wins, as per De Vores post. I dont think theres anything paticularly wrong with this type of advice, especially to a beginner or intermediate; but a winning player is definitely giving up equity by following rules like this. If a game is good, meaning if you have a significent edge over the other players (or over enough of them to be profitable) then you should continue to play. If not then you should leave. Whether you are up or down doesnt really matter, unless it is at the point that your wins or losses are affecting your game.

Hectorjelly

Wow three almost simultaneous replies and we all agree!

mewso

I wont tell anyone if you wont.

][cEMAN**

Yeah I saw that in the sticky, but I wanted to make sure I was getting a few opinions and not just 1 review

Looks like you 3 have proved that it's not just a 1 off recommendation.

Might be able to get this one then, cause i've been around every last book store in town and I can't find Super System. They all tell me they're sold out.