Enough’s Enough
When it’s time to call it a night
By Frank Scoblete
There is a time to quit; to call it a night or day or morning. Things have gone to the point where you cannot afford to lose another cent and you won’t because you are ready to say, “Enough’s enough.”
Every casino player has his or her moment when the red lights start flashing. That means the inner police are pulling these players away from the game. Of course, these quitting moments are not the same for everyone.
If I feel the least drop of fatigue, I stop playing. To me a tired player tends to be a poor player. I do not want to play in the crawling neverland of a spongy mind slowly fading away. You want to be sharp when you make your decisions about your hard-earned money. (Your hard-earned money!)
I’ll go to my room, meditate, nap or I’ll head to the pool for a swim, or I’ll take a refreshing walk.
QUESTION: Now, wait a minute. What if you are winning? You’ll quit a winning session just because you
got tired? That seems so self-defeating. You are nailing them for money and now you quit?
ANSWER: Just the opposite. If I am playing a casino game where I do not have an edge over the house, the less I play, the better it is for me. In random games, what happened in the past has no effect on the future. Therefore, if I feel some fatigue, I quit. I am, when you think about it, doing myself a great service!
Them and Their Money
There are plenty of casino players who will play against their “session bankroll.” If they lose that money, they quit. They will usually apportion their money to play several sessions during a day. The hope is that they not get hammered for every session.
This type of technique does require discipline. You never (ever!) dig into one’s pockets or purse to get more money with which to play. If you lose that session stake, you are done for that session.
These players may also have “stop limits” to slow down losses if their session isn’t going so well. A player who makes $25 bets might reduce those bets to $10 or $15 to ride out (what they think) is the storm.
The big “stop limit” might be just to resign the session without losing all of the session stake. There is no law that demands a total loss of one’s session stake. At least, I don’t know of such a law. Doing the big “stop limit” seems an intelligent way to handle one’s money.
Know Thy Money, Know Thyself
I am sure many of our readers know the following: You should be fully in charge of how much money you bring to the casino and never play more than you can afford to.
That sounds like simple advice but more casino players have violated that advice at times when they got heavily into the game or heavily into the drink while playing the games.
If you ever woke up in the morning and asked, “I did what last night? I lost how much? Oh, my lord!” you know the horror of playing poorly and playing beyond your means.
[Please note: I think many of us have been there, in the pits. I know I have. My time was three decades ago! I learned a valuable lesson from my experience of losing my money and losing my self-control. I said to myself, “Frank, don’t ever do that again.” And I haven’t. Once burned, twice shy.]
Establish how much money you can afford to play with. Stick to that amount.
Make sure that you bet in relation to your bankroll. If you give yourself $500 with which to play, do not think of yourself as a $25 player. At maximum, you are a $10 player. (Or $5, if you can still find such tables today.)
Light-Speed Time
Light can travel at 186,000 miles per second. Yes, that is per second. When things are going from bad to worse during a casino game, it seems as if your money is shooting across the table into the dealer’s chip rack at the speed of light. All things being relative, maybe it is!
You can’t ride those light waves for any prolonged time period without suffering damage to your bankroll.
[Please note: Yes, the games are random. Yes, you have no control over what numbers the dice will roll or what cards you will get at whatever card game you play. But, yes, it is still good to get away from a game where you are being hammered. Do this for your sanity and to save whatever money you have left.]
In short, live to fight another day.
The same awful things might happen tomorrow but maybe not. That is our hope after all; games can change the direction of who wins the chips. I wish I could say that a long or short break will cause the game to turn in your favor. It might; it might not.
A rest is always welcomed when things have been speeding away from you at 186,000 miles per second.
All the best in and out of the casinos!
Frank Scoblete’s website is www.frankscoblete.com. His books are available from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, kindle, e-books, libraries and bookstores.
