how long do your poker sessions last?

I am a butterfly when it comes to poker, I have not got
a good attention span so I tend to flit from table to
table

I very rarely spend over 20 minutes at any one table, the
most I have ever spend on a table is 2 hours but after
an hour my brain goes dead, well deader than usual

that is why I play mainly 6 man sit n go's cos they are
over quickly

If I do play NL or PLO I usually multi table say 5 or 6
tables but never for more than an hour

sometimes I will play a PLO ring game, a NL ring game, a
sit n go and a MTT, all at once, all the purists say you should
stick to the game you are good at, but as I no good at any of them
I guess it doesnt apply to me I am a typical Gemini who gets bored
very easily and is permanently restless

I read in poker magazines of people doing 12 hour sessions,
If I did that you would have to carry me out in a box

I dont know if it is anything to do with age, but then again I
have always had the attention span of a gnat.
so I was wondering how long do your poker sessions last, on
average, one hour, 2, 4? Can you multi table for hours on
end?

I would be really interested to know if I am the exception
to the rule
can most poker players grind away for hours and hours
and not get bored or brain dead, I wish
I could but I just cant

I thnk you have a short attention spam!

The thing is, if you are not spending longer than 20minutes at a table you aren't getting a feel for anything that is going on. If you get bored after 30mins of play then do you actually enjoy poker? I don't mean to say that in a bad way but for you to get bored quite quickly then maybe the game types just aren't interesting enough for you. Have you tried all different formats? Maybe you should try some headsup, that can be a quick game and lots of action. Also what limits are you playing? If you are a standard recreational player who is just looking for the odd game here and playing smaller stakes then it might just bore you because of the feeble amounts of money involved if however you are trying to grind something out but getting bored quickly I'd address the game types you are playing.

I can get bored after an hour but I realise that I'm just not in the mood for poker, usually though a normal session can last from 2-8hours depending on how busy I am. Then again I like to try put in a lot of volume and if I'm playing cash it can be as little as 2hours but with SnG's/MTT's it can be upto 8 hours.

thanks for the reply Rambeebam

probably bored is the wrong word for me to use,
restless is more like it, I have been the same all
my life, always looking for something new, if I lose
interest in something, be it poker or a film etc I
just drop it and I like the challenge of joining a
new table and learning about how the players play
but when I know how they play I lose interest and leave, which
is exactly the opposite of how poker should be played I know

I absolutely love poker and in a typical week
I probably play at least thirty hours

What you say about trying new formats is spot on,
I can play PLO or OHL for a lot longer than NL which
these days I do find tedious, but I think anyone
who plays PLO would find NL tedious cos PLO is a
far more challenging game, to me it is in any case

your observation about the stakes is true, I only
play micro stakes because to be honest I cannot
afford to play higher and I am realistic enough to
know I am at best an average player, not a fish but
not a shark either

but having said all this I have been playing poker for
6 years now and have a record of every session I
have played in that time and I have not had a losing
year, I never make a fortune but over a year do not lose,
and I do keep honest records, so I am not doing too bad

thinking about it I play quite a few MTT's and can concentrate
on them for 3-4 hours but as an MTT progresses the
dynamics and challenge of it changes and I love that

anyhow Rambeebam thanks for your answer, it has given me a
lot to thing about and in poker that can only be good

i think alot of players suffer from this problem, my advice to u is to multitable max 9 tables, play abc poker, play for short periods of 30 minutes if cash, record your start and finish bankroll and try to make a profit. the 9 tables will keep u busy, then walk away and come back fresh for another 30 minutes.

or play 6 to 9 of your sng tables, either turbo or short handed, if ur making a profit then ur laughing, maybe set a target of something cool in pokerstars store etc. good luck alot of us have this problem and it can cause big leaks in one's game

Poker attention span can be an issue with me. There are periods when I can play long (by my standards) 5+ hour sessions a day on several consecutive days, but eventually it drains me, and I find that I need to take it easy for some time afterward to recover.

I use FTP's internal reward system to help me pace myself. My basic goal is to achieve minimum Iron Man status (i.e. Bronze) every month, so the core of my grinding is aimed at fulfilling this goal (i.e. every day I decide to make an "iron day", I must play at least 50 Iron Man points' worth of poker). So I try to find the games I'm comfortable playing that allow me to do so most efficiently (4 to 6-tabling PLO 5 and PLO 10 I can do this in under an hour).

Once those points are out of the way, I can play as much or as little as I like, and whatever game suits my mood. This system keeps me from having too many "extreme" days, where I overdo my sessions at the expense of underdoing them another day.

Haha, I too am a fan of mixing things up on the occasion! It keeps things interesting. I've been known to play at least one table each of Stud, Stud 8, PLO, PLO8, 9-man NLHE SnG, NLHE Cash, 10-Game Mixed Games, and Badugi all at once. When I tile the windows, I make a mental note to myself that "the lo games are on the bottom", so I don't confuse the lo games for the hi ones or vice versa. And I try to take an extra moment to double-check what the heck is happening on the Mixed Games table when it's my turn to act, so I don't foolishly play Razz when I should be playing Stud, etc.

To anyone for whom poker is getting boring--try moving away from your usual routine, and give one of those wacky variations a stab!

If it were me I would work on extending the time I could concentrate by setting a timer (for say 60 minutes) and playing a game for that long. Then gradually adjust the length of time. Also, sometimes I'll surf the web, answer email, or checkout the CC forum while playing if game is moving slowly.