When to Stay & When to Go?

Thanks to Beluga Whale and SavvyChris from PokerSavvy I'm crushing the 5NL stakes I'm currently playing at, and doing pretty good at 10NL.

One thing that I'm still unsure about is when to stop playing a session, and when to keep playing? On most days I'll build up 5-10 BIs profit by playing 1-2 sessions and then stop for the day. Should I continue on with those sessions to milk it? And on the days with bad variance, when should I stop? Today was one of the bad variance days, but started out profitable (almost made 2 BIs despite noticing the variance not being on my side), and the more hands I played it kept eating at the profits till it tipped to the negative side and then eventually lost 1 BI with a monster, and worked down an additional half a BI by not getting the right equity with the hands I played.

What is your advice on sessions? And when to keep playing or stop for a while?

When you have a winning session, you should play untill you got 3-4 BI's, and then leave when the blind comes to you, OR just play more tight than you usually do.
That is because, in my experience, when you got more than 4 BI's, you will start to get some serious bad beats.

When you're in a losing session, you can try to go to another table or just play sng's instead.
I tend to play sng's as I play much more tight in those than I do in cash games, so if you play sng's you might be able to go back to cash games, and then have a winning session.

It is not everyone who's thinking like I do, this is just my point of view

Regards!

I usually go with 3-4BI before I leave

I am much more conservative, and start feeling the self pressure once I am up 2 BI's. It is better to creep up slowly than to drop down fast!

I cap my day at minus 1 BI, most of the time.

Thanks for the feedback. Since there was two people saying they stop session after 3-4 BIs profit, I think I'll stick to that per session.

I'm thinking ending a session if variance whacks me down 2 BIs. Sometimes it's so hard to stop on those days because I usually have a high BB/100 and I keep thinking yeah I can make it back and get on top of that session. Sometimes that makes the session worse, or just stays stagnant.

I remember reading about 20 years ago that you need to have a bankroll equal to 5-6 times the buyin to sit down at a poker table..

In the same book (John Scarne on Cards).. it said for a blackjack table you need 300 times the minimum bet to ride out the bad cards.. so $5 table $1500

$100 buyin 1/2 no limit.. come with $500 minimum..


If you get a chance to pick up a copy you should grab it..
great strategy book on all cards games.. but a lot of the newer players won't have access to it.

Don't focus on how many BIs you're up or down except perhaps to set a stop-loss.

If you're in a game where you're +EV, you can play as long as it stays that way, which can involve various factors - there are still enough weak and beatable players, you still feel like playing, your mind is into it so that you're still playing well.

It's counter-productive to leave a soft game to protect what you've won
when your expectation if you stay is that you'll win even more. The same can be said for leaving too soon to limit your loss when your expectation for staying is reducing the loss or better.

My god people, the advice in this thread is horrible except for Arjonius.


The amount of buyins up or down is not important. What is important is how well you are playing, if you are tired and if the game is still profitable.

I think setting a stop loss, like Arjonius said, might be the best way to go. If you are beating the game at the table than why leave? So say your @ 10nl and u are up a buy in, but the game is beatable... set your stop loss at 150BB or so. So that way you will still leave with a profit if the game gets harder, and you will win more money if the game stays soft.