Unsound exit strategy

Last night, for the most part I played quite well; however, I played too long, and finally lost patience and succumbed to an unsound exit strategy which ruined my whole session. Fairly early on, my stack got a nice lift to $54K on the strength of a $43K pot. I should have ended my night right there, but of course that's 20/20 hindsight. From that point, my stack slowly and steadily descended back down to its starting size of $40K. I had another opportunity to salvage the session by just saying to myself "No harm, no foul", and calling it a night when my stack hit $40K again.

But no, I couldn't bring myself to do that. My stack continued its slow and steady descent until just south of $30K. And here's where the unsound exit strategy came into being. I told myself what millions of poker players have told themselves down through the years -- "Just let me win one more big pot, and I promise I'll quit right then." I was sincere about it too, as most poker players who tell themselves this are. The trouble is, this strategy throws your game all out of whack. You're looking to make the big score, you're impatient, and your judgment becomes seriously impaired. You're almost guaranteed to lose a boatload more money.

That's what happened to me. I took a measly pair to showdown against not one but two opponents, and deservedly got my head handed to me. Of course I wasn't betting the hand, but I did call all the way down the line. Miraculously, I still had a small pile of chips left over after this debacle, and finally conceded that my night was done.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 77 hands and saw flop:
- 8 out of 10 times while in big blind (80%)
- 7 out of 11 times while in small blind (63%)
- 28 out of 56 times in other positions (50%)
- a total of 43 out of 77 (55%)
Pots won at showdown - 4 of 9 (44%)
Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $-35,550
balance: $1,009,284