When to leave the table in cash game?

Various "rules" are fine, but they are only guidelines. I was in a live $1/$2 No Limit game at a casino on Sunday evening. There were several decent players, no real table bullies, and two fish. I bought in for $100 and planned to leave if I lost that. Playing tight aggressive and not getting many good hands, I only played about 10 hands to the flop and only about half of them to the river and walked away with $460 after 3 hours. I avoided playing against the solid players and concentrated on the two fish. They fish each went through $500 before they began talking about leaving or switching tables. About that time, another player left and an loose, aggressive player sat down. With the fish leaving and the loose aggressive player sitting down...the game was changing. That was my cue to take the money and run. If the game is good, stay...if not it's time to hit the bricks.

I have a hard time just as many of you. Im glad I read this thread. I need to devise a way that I can make a good profit but then be able to leave before I lose it all.

Leave the table just before your Big Blind =).

HipHopStoner said:

Leave the table just before your Big Blind =).

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the easy way out huh....:musicus:

OzExorcist said:

Here's a question: if you follow one of these "leave at 2x" type formulas, WHY?

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I'll play. When I play cash games, I do like to leave when I've doubled up. It's a habit I developed in my noob-hood (which seems to go ON and ON, dammit, but that's another post).

Why?

Because I found that in an evening of play, very often I would double my buy in at some point. I might lose some later, but over an evening of play, there was some moment in time when I had 2x what I started with. Well, says I, what happens if EVERY night you just quit playing when you double up? Isn't that pretty much a guaranteed winning play? It was. That's what I did, and following that method I ran $30 up to $300.

Short answer: it just seemed like a good idea, and in practice, it worked.

RF

I will leave the playing tables when I cant make profits from there any more...I would like to choose to play in another table rather than reload $$ in the same table...and most importantly...it's time to leave when you get tilt and starting to lose yr bankroll...

I'm not sure why anyone would consider leaving a table when they're winning and feel they have a significant edge over the table?

Once I double up and become the chip leader at the table, it's hard for me to figure out when to leave also. Generally what I do is continue to play as long as I'm comfortable. If my stack starts dwindling or new players come in that make me nervous, it's time to leave. Mentally though I try to play with only my excess chips > than my 2x buyin. I want to leave the table with at least twice what I paid.

What is ratholing exactly and how do you do it?

Thank you very much for wonderful advices. To conclude the general tip, it's better to stay at a table when you're running over the table. Knowing when to leave is still a problem. Here's what happened.

My roommate was in vegas. He bought-in for $100 just to see how it is at $1/$2. He was playing garbage poker since everybody at his table were playing like shit. He rolled it upto over $1100 and had a huge control of his table. And then later, this one good player flopped the boat and pretty much outplayed my roommate who ended up catching his straight on the turn. So my roommate was down to $900. He was still up compared to what he bought in for. He was thinking about leaving at this point. But the player who took some portion of his stack left the table.

His question was
Should I still leave?
or
Should I keep playing?

He didn't know what to do and figured that he needs help at this point, which is why he asked me to find out for some advices.

He keeps thinking because his thoughts go back and forth from "i think i should leave since I lost the control of the table, i lost table image and my luck ran out. everyone knows how I play now"

to

"eh, my main problem is resolved since the shark left the table. I should keep playing. I can crush these guys."

In the end, he still walked out with over $900 but he, me also, wanted to know how to have a discipline of knowing when to leave.

Some would say leave and call it a night with your winnings, some will say stay as long as there are fishes. Don't know which advice is better. This is the second question I want to ask. I'm wondering what most people would do in this situation.

stubzy11 said:

What is ratholing exactly and how do you do it?

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ratholeTo remove a portion of your chips from the table while the game is underway. Normally prohibited in public card rooms. Also "going south".http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_poker_terms

Now i got an idea... exit the table as soon you hit a big pot untill you play slow and quit as soon u win.

i normally leavin' the table by doublin' up myself

Play until you double your money, and then quit when you lose 1/2 of your winnings. As your overall winnings increase, you continue to calculate what 1/2 of your winnings are so you know when to quit.
This means you have to know that if someone goes all in, and you are required to put up more than 1/2 your winnings to call, you fold. Tough to do sometimes but those all ins are likely the place where you will end up losing your total chips. Exception of course would be when someone goes all in and you got the nuts. This would have to happen after a flop where you have perhaps an ace high flush and your opponent goes all in (likely with a high flush but you got the nuts)