Some days just aren't your days and you will sit down and lose 4 buyins in 30 minutes.  While it's tempting to stay in there and keep plugging it's best not to do that.  Go to a movie, take a walk, do whatever you can to get off of the poker tables. 

What I am going to talk about is different though and if you can do this right it will make a big difference to your bankroll.  The scenario above and the scenario where you are just on fire is rare.  The more common scenarios happen when someone three bets you with J3 and gets their against your Aces.  That stuff happens.  Soon enough you find yourself deep enough in the hole where it might be tough to get back to even.  It's real easy to forget that your life is one big long session when the NetWon tab on Bluffware is telling you that you are down.  You want that money back and what is worse you have lost it to total morons.  I am a big boxing fan, boxers are notorius for losing to people with a style that just counters their style well.  The best in the world will sometimes lose to some guy with 15 loses.  It happens.  Or maybe it just is not your day, that could also be a factor.

In situations like this I look for a spot to leave.  Now don't get me wrong some times that spot never appears and you are just going to go off for big.  But if you can maintain some facsimile of your best game and then you win a decent pot, just leave.  tomorrow is a new day.  Let me give you a number as a perspective.  I was playing some deepstack 27 bounty on UB, at one point I was down over $500, just a little over one buyin, so no big deal, I took QQ out of position against AA.  Really my session came down to that one hand but it was really more dynamic than that.  Fatigue and Headaches started to creep in but the players at the table were pretty bad.  So I started looking for a spot, i decided that I would leave in the 200's, so $299 and I am gone.  I made a tough call with AA against a real tough board and I was saved by a paired river.  That got me to about $75 stuck.

Now I am going to pause here, how many of you would have tried to stay and get that $75 back and then end up stuck $1000 for the night? A lot of people would and I do it occasionally but $75 is the same as $0 in these games for the most part, so why not just leave. 

You can do it a lot of ways, you can have time limits, cool off periods, lots of things but if you can do this one thing really well you will find that it is beneficial to your bankroll in the long term.  I had decided if I got stuck $800 for the day I would quit too.  Big losses tend to stick with you into the following days so when you can tread water and come into the next day with a tiny loss it can really help your mentality.

When it comes right down to it winning in gambling is very simple, limit your losses and push your wins.  The only problem is no one wants to quit while they are losing but if you use a graduated stop loss plan it can really make a big difference to your game.