Can't agree more!!

To OP:
Listen. This is poker. This ain't work.

Work sucks because you have to be there at a certain time, and you gotta stay until a certain time.

In poker, you come and leave as you go.

Don't turn it into work.

You come when you want, you pick-up your chips and leave when you want.

Cheers,

S

1)Plan to get up as you are in Big blind( Joking)
2)pick rack up from the floor.
3)place chips in rack
4)head to cage?

In a full game, especially one with a waiting list, just wait for your big blind; everyone else does. (Those who don't are giving up value.)

In a short-handed game, though, a different etiquette may prevail. It depends a lot on the local game culture. Waiting for your UTG hand before picking up can be seen as rude, as the game might well break, leaving someone else who has just posted their big blind with nothing to show for it.

Typical arrangements in games where this is an issue include:

• Player about to leave says "I'm leaving at X o'clock," and picking up precisely then, regardless of where they are with respect to the blinds.
• Picking up at the next dealer push or time collection, again, regardless of where one is with respect to the blinds.
• Request the dealer to shuffle and cut to expose a card, play that many more hands (A =1, J=11, Q=12, K=13).
• Et cetera.

People will be more willing to play short with you if they know you aren't going to try to button them when you leave.

when im ready to leave i get a rack put it under my chair until my blind about to come up, rack up and leave quietly.

One note:

If you're winning... get up whenever you feel like it. Maybe the game just got worse. Maybe it didn't, but, you don't feel like playing anymore.

Don't feel like you have to play til your blind, many people end up losing their stacks their last few hands. Especially when they start to rack up first. It's some kind of bad luck karma thing... but, I've seen it enough times to just get up when I want to. **** a free hand when you should leave.

As for all the shy socially awkward bull****. Grow up and grow a pair. I might say good luck or good bye if I have acquaintances in the game. I might not say anything. Nobody gives a **** either way. Ever.

I was the loosing hand in a Bad Beat Jackpot... as soon as those guys came to the table with my chips... I was out of there faster than you can say "hey, we have a new 10/20 starting right over here"!

I used this approach this weekend - played tourneys all day, sat down at first cash game after midnight, extremely loose loud table of guys in their 20's, bought in light (60x BB - felt right for the table dynamics I had observed), paid my BB in UTG +1 (immediatly took verbal heat from those on my end of the table), doubled up as SB, then again on the Button. The table shut down. An hour of mostly small pots after that, I was ready to go. I got up, grabbed a rack, dealer asked me if I was on my way out, Since I was in middle postition I said I would wait until I was UTG. Like when I sat down, I started to get lectured. I said nothing back. Although I don't post here often, I have learned it is important to select the right table - I have also learned that it is important to know when to leave a table when the dynamics change for the worse. For me that will always be after my UTG hand is delt, with some type of heads up to the table, or I'm felted.

3 pages of discussion, who knew apparently leaving the table is trickier than playing QQ UTG.

Ah, but playing QQ UTG isn't the least bit tricky.

Has anyone ever seen anybody leave the table from other than UTG?

i.e. not playing their free hands before the blinds reach them?

If so, how did that influence your assessment of their game?

Leave when you are ready to leave. The game will go on with or without you.

Was playing a game recently with a guy who was racked up but wanted to play his button, got involved in huge hand and wound up loosing the whole rack in to a guy he had been in an ego match against a guy across the table all day. Two lessons learned, poker is about money not ego, and when you want to go, just go. When you say I want hand +n where n is the number of hands to play you may mentally already be out the door.

I leave after folding my UTG hand every time, and have never heard a word about it.

Pretend to get a phone call like your drug dealer, then quickly pack up and tell everyone you have to go in a hurry.

when I was very new to poker I had a dealer say "don't you want to play free hands?"

I was like "huh?"

she says "you just paid for your next five hands, don't you want to play them?"

I learned and have rarely left any other way since.

I leave just after the fish do...