Poker results for the last 3 years
A little insomnia caused me to investigate my poker results from the last three years to see how I’ve stacked up. I realized I never posted 2005, so I went back and dug it all up.
2005 was before I really started learning no limit, I lost a total of $462, comprising of $198 live and $264 online. Of course back in 2004 I lost $1,825 live and $717 online, for a total of $2,542. So let’s table this baby up:
| Year | Live | Online | TTL |
| 2004 | -$1,825 (360h) | -$717 (389h) | -$2,542 (749h) |
| 2005 | -$198 (95h) | -$264 (146h) | -$462 (241h) |
| 2006 | +$1,508 (217h) | -$1,564 (214h) | -$56 (431h) |
I think the right way to interpret this is to say that I suck 45 times less than I did when I started playing poker. There’s also another factor: fun. This really hit me at my usual Friday night game. It’s a low stakes game, $1/$2 with a full kill, limit hold’em. After two hours I was up $60, which statistically is my high water mark. (Katie thinks this is crap, by the way, she thinks I suck when I win an entire buyin.)
Anyway according to my statistical history I’m up as much as I’m likely to be, but the table is still full and my friends are all still here. The question comes to this: do I leave? I can’t stay here and not play without being rude. In fact, there’s also nothing to do. But if I leave I won’t get to hang out with the guys, which is fun. But there’s no column in my end of year stats for fun, just dollar results.
An interesting quandary, in my opinion. What would you do in that situation? I know what Sklansky says, "Don’t quit winners", but what if we’re all pretty evenly matched? Then I’ve just experienced the upswing, should I sit around and wait for the downswing? What would you do? Leave it in the comments.
I think you should stay and keep playing until you donk off the $60 profit plus your $100 buyin.
Preferably keeping the money going clockwise around the table.
Tough talk from a guy who’s afraid to come over to my house and play no limit for a measly hundred bucks….chicken!
“Don’t quit winners”. I’m not sure what that means.
The phrase “Don’t quit winners” I think has been attributed to poker theorist David Sklansky, and means (I think) that you shouldn’t quit any game in which you’re a favorite to win money.
I see people misapply it to lots of situations along the lines of “If I’ve won money, I should keep playing”. Sometimes you won money because you got lucky. Sometimes you won money because you’re good, and now you’re tired and you’re no longer as good. It also doesn’t take into account that if I’m having fun, I may lose some small amount of money, but enjoy myself with my friends. And that also makes me a winner.
In general every time someone says, “Don’t quit winners” I cringe. Life is not that simple.