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Lately, I've been running into this issue. I play poker to make money, and am usually pretty good/disciplined about doing so. Depending on the game, I won't re-stack myself too deep, and will leave when I'm up what I consider to be "good".

That being said, I've been having an issue that I need to deal with. A couple times recently, I've bought into the $1-$2 game for $400. I've gotten up to $8-900 in about an hour and a half twice. I should have left, but didn't. Ended up getting down to $180, re-stacking for a total of $600, and leaving 8 hours later up $175.

When do you decide it's time to leave? What does a satisfactory session consist of, money wise?

The best approach is to just concentrate on making good decisions when you're playing and don't worry too much about the results. That being said, I try to constantly ask myself how I'm feeling during a session to help me gauge if I should continue to play. After I've been playing a while (4 hours +), I'll ask myself how I would feel if I was to lose my profits/buy-in on the next hand in some type of cooler situation. If I know I'll feel really bad or feel like I wasted a bunch of time, I know it's time to go. Also, just having a set time you're going to play helps as well.

You're going to experience losses to your stack, whether it's the beginning of a session, the middle or the end. As meow said, the time to leave is when you are no longer capable of playing your best game or if the table conditions worsen to the point that you no longer have a significant edge over the rest of the field.

I've left after 1-2 hours (whether up or down) because the games just weren't good and I wasn't interested in trying to wait things out. On the other hand, I've stayed an extra 3-4 hours because there was one or more players with lots of money playing very very poorly.

It sounds like your biggest problem is that you come into every session expecting to finish up for the day. That simply is not going to happen. You can go to great lengths to constantly book small wins, only to see them eroded one day when you run bad from the very start and keep chasing your losses. But that is the wrong mindset to have. Go in and play your best, and realize that with the variance of poker that you are going to lose some days even if you play much better than your opponents.

PS - Is the 'nola' in your screenname for New Orleans?

I appreciate the responses. As a competitor, I expect to win every time I go, but as a realistic person I understand that I will take some losses. Sometimes things you know already need to be reiterated from a 3rd party to help you remember.

And yes, I live in New Orleans.

Try to win as much money as you can. Note that if your goal is to win as much money as you can you will not be winning as many sessions.

Interestingly enough over a fairly large sample (as in thousands of hours) I had 45% winning sessions. This was because I had lots of short session where games sucked or I was running bad and had super long sessions when games were good or I was running good.

i have trouble with this also, when to leave. i've experimented with long sessions, hit and run, and sessions based on time. you may want to experiment with playing multiple shorter sessions throughout the day. i have recently started to play for a couple hours at a time. play for 2-3hrs, take a long break, get some food maybe workout, then come back. yeah some people may not like it if you sit down, win a few hands and then pick up and leave and then show up an hr later- pocketing their money...but FTW! if you're doing this as a living who cares what people think. that money you just pocketed is going to pay the bills.

i have trouble with this also, when to leave. i've experimented with long sessions, hit and run, and sessions based on time. you may want to experiment with playing multiple shorter sessions throughout the day. i have recently started to play for a couple hours at a time. play for 2-3hrs, take a long break, get some food maybe workout, then come back. yeah some people may not like it if you sit down, win a few hands and then pick up and leave and then show up an hr later- pocketing their money...but FTW! if you're doing this as a living who cares what people think. that money you just pocketed is going to pay the bills.

If you're playing professionally I really doubt ratholing and playing scared money is a valid strategy. If someone is playing for a living I'd really think that they'd be proficient post flop, and deep.

We were talking about it in another thread as well. Even using that type of strategy you can, and inevitably will run into a string of nasty beats and coolers.

Also, many casinos have strict rules against ratholing. If you leave a table and then come back and get on the list for the same game, you often have to buy in for the amount you had on the table.

If you're playing to make a living (which is generally not a good idea for a host of reasons), you should really only be leaving when a table gets bad, regardless of how much you are up or down.

Shuttle's and SweetJazz's statements like always are on the money. Whether you play long sessions or short sessions does not matter (provided fatigue is not a factor), life is one long session.

Evaluate if the game is good, are you playing well, do you have a good image for your game plan? These are questions that you should ask. Up or down is not part of the thought process. If you are stuck you will often have a poor image for a balanced game (as you should be less apt to bluff when stuck as you will lack credit)(sometimes balance is not required); Please recognize the root of consideration here is table image, not up or down.

If you are concerned about loosing what you have at the table then you have either had an incredible night and a large majority of your BR is at risk at which point you should exercisize BR mang. and leave, or you are underolled and never should have sat there. I could give it too you if you took a shot and hit hard, but not everyday.

Summarizing as Shuttle and Sweetjazz were saying, spend lots of time in good games and very little in poor games. If you are leave based on time requirements or other factors you will not be capitalizing on the good games.
Is the game is good?
Is my game good?
Is my image good?

Lately, I've been running into this issue. I play poker to make money, and am usually pretty good/disciplined about doing so. Depending on the game, I won't re-stack myself too deep, and will leave when I'm up what I consider to be "good".

That being said, I've been having an issue that I need to deal with. A couple times recently, I've bought into the $1-$2 game for $400. I've gotten up to $8-900 in about an hour and a half twice. I should have left, but didn't. Ended up getting down to $180, re-stacking for a total of $600, and leaving 8 hours later up $175.

When do you decide it's time to leave? What does a satisfactory session consist of, money wise?

Expecting to make $400-$500 dollars every session at $1/$2 is fantasy. Ending up $175 for 8 hours is about right in terms of the max expected hourly rate for $1/2 (actually even a little high). This obviously doesn't mean you should expect to finish up $175 after every 8 hour session - some sessions you will make several hundred and others you will lose several hundred. It just means that on average over large samples you can expect about that hourly rate (assuming you are much much better than the competition).

Remember, you are only getting like 40 hands and hour.

Stop breaking up your play into winning and losing sessions in your mind - poker is all one long session. Your control over your winnings in any given session is infinitesimal. What's important is results over large samples of hands. 400 hands is ridiculously small.

If you play poorly deepstacked, I can see it becoming a problem. Some players lack experience and familiarity with reverse implied odds in 400-500 bb play, and a single bad decision at the end of a session (especially if your tired) can be catastrophic to your winrate. If you can't deal with that, makinga -EV play and leaving for the night to prevent a larger mistake makes sense. It's not proper live etiquette, but leaving to go play at another casino with a fresh 100BB stack is fine in my book.

There are live image considerations to take into account too. Bart Hanson talks about this quite a bit in his DeucePlays podcasts.

Basically, when you're winning, people are more likely (either consciously or subconsciously) to give you credit for being a 'good, winning player'. You get more credit for your bluffs. You get more respect on your bets, etc.

When you're losing, people look at you a certain way. Your bets get less respect. Your bluffs work less often. You get looked up lighter. Basically - you have fewer options, you have to play more straightforward. Fewer options is a bad thing.

Bart's advice is basically: play longer when you're winning, as long as you are still playing your A game, in order to take full advantage of the winning image you're building. Play shorter when you're losing, be willing to call it a day if you're in a hole and have gotten a really bad table image.

Combine that advice with the fact that, in reality, poker is all one long game. The winning and losing sessions are just illusions. However, those illusions will impact your image at the table and we should take advantage of that.