Quitters Never Win and Winners Never Quit

Ok, now that is really a crock of… well you know.  In life and in poker you absolutely have to know when to quit and move on. And you absolutely have to know when to stick it out no matter what.  As hackneyed and boring as it may seem these days Kenny Rogers was right! You have to know when to hold them and you have to know when to fold them.

Are you in a dead end job that is frying your brain?  Don’t be stupid and stay there.  Get out!  Plan an exit strategy and get out of there.  But, don’t just quit, look at the previous sentence “plan an exit strategy.”  Every minute you waste stuck in a dead end job or a dead end poker game is a minute of your life wasted.  Figure out what you should be doing and do it now.

Poker is a good metaphor for life, or maybe life is a good metaphor for poker.  Either way you can’t afford to get stuck with unreasoning reasoning stubbornness in a no win spot.  Seth Godin talk about this in his book “The Dip.”  There are two real questions.  The first is how do I know I am in a dead end and the second is how do I get out. 

Look at your poker situations.  If you are a serious player, you are at the table to do something very specific.  You are there to win, to take away more cash than you brought to the table. If you get too stubborn and focus too much on one hand or a group of hands you can easily loose your stake and be force out of the game totally.  You have to know what you can afford to loose on that specific hand and if the situation is going too much against you get out.

If someone at the table knows that you get emotionally vested in any particular hand they can easily push you and you can wind up loosing more than you can afford because you didn’t have the guts to quit. 

Another important point and even the pros make mistakes in this.  Do not try to determine what you can afford to loose on each hand during the game.  In the heat of the moment you may… no, you will wind up making an ill considered decision.  Those stories of players loosing ranches and homes and girlfriends in a poker game are told because they are true.  Sit down with a calculator and decide coolly and before hand what you can afford to loose.  Then decide what you are willing to loose to play the next game coming up.  Choose the lower of those two numbers and go that far and no farther.  Be ready to quit when you loose your limit and commit to yourself that you will.

Like many important things in life the ability to commit intelligently is very important.  Commit to not loosing more than you choose to afford.  Commit to quitting when the predetermined time comes and you will have gone a long way towards becoming a better player.