A card game has its own momentum, with which you must never interfere. Don't mess with the mojo. You can (and should) control the pace and size of the action with your betting, but that's not the same as tinkering with the framework.
I was having a great Day One in the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in London. Starting with 12K in chips, I had 60K by the end of level five. Then our table broke. The tournament director threw a batch of new seating cards onto the baize. When my fellow gannets had swooped, two cards remained, because one player had failed to show up. I took a card: it revealed a new seat in the restaurant, not the card room. I hate playing in the restaurant. It's hot, it's crowded. So I swapped it for the other card.
An hour later, my stack was crippled when I raised from the button with AK and a young Swede on the small blind, who must have thought I was straight off the onion boat, moved in with KQ. Of course, he hit the queen. But I can't complain, because fate did not intend me to be in that seat to be dealt those cards. I insulted the gods and was rightly punished.
Never take the wrong seating card. Never play a big pot after a misdeal or a weird ruling. And never, NEVER, play "one more hour" of a cash game after you've decided to leave. You won't always lose (the toast doesn't always fall butter-side down) but it's not worth the pain of self-blame when you have jammed a stick into a naturally turning wheel.
