EXIT STRATEGY

"'There must be some way out of here,' said the joker to the thief," and while I doubt Bob Dylan was thinking about poker when he penned those words, the question does arise, in winning and losing sessions alike, when is enough enough? I don't have to tell you about the allure of the next two cards, for OMHS, One More Hand Syndrome is a documented phenomenon among realworld and internet poker players alike. It pays, then, to give some thought not just to how we can play the game well but how we can stop playing the game as well.

Often this decision is made for us. Denizens of small clubs know that the one or two available games will break at or around a certain time, as players get tired or go broke, or the municipal code curfew kicks in. Even big poker rooms suffer attrition as the night wanes. At Bellagio or Foxwoods or Trump Taj, the wee small hours are a ghost world of cardroom diehards still posting blinds and placing bets while infomercials for Ab Blaster play on the plasma screens, industrial strength vacuum cleaners prowl the aisles between silent slot machines, and footsore drink runners make their orbits with increasingly dispirited cries of, "Cocktails? House'll buy you a drink." I've been there; I know you've been there, too. It's part of every poker player's rite of passage at least once to lap the sun, and it just serves to illustrate the profound adhesive power of poker.

The problem is ridiculously compounded online, because there the game never breaks, and if you can't find action at www.pokerbeatsworking.com, the delights of www.pokersickforpoker.com are only a mouse click away. Recall the First Law of Chair Glue:

AN OBJECT IN A POKER GAME
TENDS TO STAY IN A POKER GAME
UNLESS ACTED UPON BY AN OUTSIDE FORCE

We often apply this outside force going in. We tell ourselves that we'll stay in the game until traffic dies down or the dinner party starts or we have to go to work. Those who are ineffective at extricating themselves from cash play often stick to tournaments, especially online, because these come with clearly defined end points: You stay until your chips, or all your foes, are gone. Those who are fuzzy minded about all this stumble into cash games with no clear notion of how long they want to play or what they hope to achieve. They have some idea about playing for "a while" and winning (of course winning) "some amount." So the hours roll by and chair glue grabs hold and the outside force that drives them from the game is ultimately exhaustion or poverty or both.

Here's a thought: Before you sit down and play, know exactly when you'll stand up and go. This is a radical notion, I know, for it flies in the face of the received wisdom that tells us to "stay in the game as long as the game is good." But I have a feeling (and certainly know from my own experience) that the act of placing one's cash play in a fixed time frame is yet another way of applying the clear eyed rigor and discipline that winning poker players have. Suddenly your poker play is not an indulgence or a recreation, but a planned assault on the stacks of your foes. You know when you're getting in, and you know when you're getting out. You have, in other words, an exit strategy, and even a cursory survey of military history tells us how useful those can be.

But you know this. You know this already. You know the dull ache of walking away from the table one lap too late, when weariness, sleep debt, lack of focus, ennui or oxygen-debt stupidity have caused you to make costly blunders -- blunders you know you wouldn't have made an hour earlier.

Fine. We've all stayed too long at the fair, ridden the roller coaster one too many times, and upchucked on our shoes. How long, then, is not too long? What's a reasonable duration for a sensible poker session? Two hours... three?... ten? Unfortunately, that's not a question I can answer for you. Only you can answer it, in terms of how long you can maintain your focus, discipline and, not insignificantly, good spirit. Externals factor in, of course: Is the game still good? Is the lineup still one you can beat? Has the table broken and everyone gone home? Be most interested, however, in your inner state of mind. If you're no longer sharp you should no longer play, full stop.

But state of mind can change fast. I've seen -- you've seen, everybody has seen -- how one bad beat can put a player on tilt and send him down the road to ruin. When that bad beat happens to me, I just go. I'm just not confident that I can keep my spirit and focus high in the wake of it. Yes, I know I may be walking away from a game that is still profitable. Yes, I know I should be able to shrug off adverse outcomes, and mostly I can. But sometimes stronger measures are called for. The most directly effective exit strategy is: exit, quickly. Over time I've become quite adept at listening to the little voice inside my head that says, Leave! Leave now before it's too late! That voice is never wrong.

Do you have such a voice in your head? Can you heed it? Or do you ignore it? And if you do ignore it, why do you do so? I can think of a couple of reasons. One might be the spurious need to "get even." Another might be that the setback comes early in your session, when the poker itch has not yet been sufficiently scratched. Can you think of a time when you knew you should've gotten out, didn't, and came to regret it?

Mike Caro talks about passing the point of pain and entering a mental state where losing more money won't make you feel any worse than you already feel. My own experience of this is that while most big losses are gradual descents, it's also quite possible to blast past the point of pain in a heartbeat. Whether this happens after ten minutes or ten hours, it's a strong cue to get up and get out. Sadly, this cue is hard to see through the haze of pain, but that's why we grow our self-awareness: so that damage control becomes easier over time.

Annie Duke has an even more practical approach to this matter. She recommends leaving any game in which you've lost more than 30 big bets. The estimable Ms. Duke reckons that 30 big bets is what a good player can hope to earn in a good session, and therefore can have the reasonable expectation of recouping her losses next time out. To go beyond that threshold is to dig a hole too deep, and not just in monetary terms. A big loss leaves ache in its wake, and the residue of that ache makes correct play more difficult during the next session. That's why Annie suggests the 30 big bet loss limit; you leave before the pain becomes too great to bear.

Folks, you know what? If it's good enough for Annie Duke, it's good enough for me. Thirty big bets, maximum loss. Or 60 big blinds if you're playing no-limit. After that, scat. It's all the exit strategy you need.

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