Three Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Calling it a Night

Poker is a card game where you bet that your cards are better than those of your opponent. If your cards are actually the best, you win, and if not, you can still win by bluffing. The game is a great way to explore the concept of risk, but it’s not as simple as it looks.

In the foundational 1944 book, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior, mathematician John von Neumann and economist Oskar Morgenstern analyzed a simplified variant of poker. They showed that the game is solvable and that an optimal strategy (including bluffing) exists. It wasn’t until 2015, however, that computer scientists created an algorithm that displayed essentially perfect play for a limited version of the game with two players and constrained bet sizes.

A good poker player understands that making the right decisions in a given situation is far more important than simply showing up at the table and playing. It’s why they study and practice so much. But there are a lot of different situations in poker, and not all of them can be solved with an equation or a table.

A good poker player knows when to call it quits. Knowing when to walk away from a bad session is one of the most valuable skills in the game, and it’s not always easy. In this article Doug Polk walks through a high stakes cash game session that didn’t go so well for him and explains the three questions he asks himself before quitting.