Activities with a high degree of complexity require introspection to raise them to a level where they can be considered “art.” This principle certainly applies to playing poker and even not playing poker. To play or not to play poker requires an intimate knowledge of oneself, more so than most people are willing to learn. Self-evaluation is the basis of introspection and this is very difficult to take on. We struggle against inward knowledge and find it much easier to obtain knowledge of events and circumstance outside ourselves. Accurate self-criticism of our characters is anathema. In poker, lacking introspection can make you play way more and way longer than you intend, but you don’t know how or when to stop.

You might be playing poker because you can’t figure out what else to do with your time. Those having no purpose for what they do continually perform pointless activities. If you are not willing to undergo the rigors of introspection, one way out of the dilemma is to focus on poker as a game of winning against all odds. Just because you haven’t had a winning poker year, doesn’t mean that a win isn’t just ahead, and nobody likes to lose in this devilish game.

Focus on the fact that your decision to stay or leave directly influences your profits from the game and that you just can’t afford to lose. Then it will become apparent that the only reason to stay in a game is because there is a good chance to win. Reason broadly with this ultimate goal and ideology in mind. It does not matter whether you are wining or losing at present; it does not matter whether you are being lucky or suffering a bad spell; what matters is the final overall gain; and if you see clearly that the current game, however great it is going, will in the end translate into overall loss, leave the game.

On the other hand, to practice hit-and-run strategies only seems to keep you constantly with a safe benefit. If your goal is not more than to play safe, hit-and-run may be a valid solution. But if you also wish to win, yet be able to leave in time, play discerningly, and leave when you perceive a definite loss.

The plain truth is that in poker, all hands are dealt to all players by pure mathematical chance, having nothing to do with the goddess of luck. It is just foolish to get sweaty nervous when your cards are bad and totally elated when they are good. It is true though that self-fulfilling prophecies have been proven to have some psychological validity. If you have played a hand well and have had luck on your side, your success impresses upon your opponents that you are a player to be reckoned with. This makes you play even better, with confidence and the courage to take calculated risks, while your opponents are beginning to feel weak and cowardly, and even worse, they feel disheartened and unlucky.

The important thing is not to let the same happen to you - you will have to allow at least this much introspection and admit that you are afraid of chance and have a tendency to demonize it, but that it is only a quirk of your nature and should not control either your game or your life.

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