While revisiting my copy of Tommy Angelo's book the Elements of Poker I was curious as to what other players thought and actually followed through with on the following questions regarding a cash game in live poker:

How and when do you determine to quit a particular session? Besides when broke!

Are your sessions typically longer or shorter than you feel they should be?

Do you think you make this decision while thinking clearly or after something has affected your thinking whether positive or negative?

Is this different for guys who are able to play everyday as opposed to guys who might have to drive a couple hours one way to play a session every once in awhile, aka weekend warriors?

All of these questions have a "it depends" factor but curious as to others thought process.

I know personally I tend to play longer than I should and sometimes that is a leak I have.

Cheers

Play while the table is good.

Play while you are playing good.

Play late at night when everybody else is trying to get back what they lost.

I get up when late at night the table breaks or we get an influx of new players (either from a broken table or just guys who are well rested looking to take of advantage of exhausted and/or drunk players).

I always have a stop loss in cash games. So when I hit it, I am out. Typically it coincides with an inability to recognize how tilted I am.

In casinos where must move games are running, I might get up from a tough table and put myself on dinner re-seating and come back into a must move table after eating. Must move tables are almost always better than main tables.

If there are a number of main tables, I sometimes ask for a table change if my table seems too tough.

If you're a recreational player, play whenever you're playing your A game. Leave otherwise.

If losing money causes you to play worse, leave. If winning money causes you to play worse, leave.

The game becoming bad is not a reason to leave in my book. Play your A game and get your ass kicked every once in a while - it will force you to make your A game a better A game.

Part of your A game should be to KNOW ENOUGH to switch tables if possible when you see a game turn bad.
why risk getting your ass kicked when you could make $$$$ on the next table over .

After all Game selection and self assessment are MAJOR keys to making one's A game.

I dunno. I pretty much never table change because my table is bad. Partly because playing 1/2 or 1/3 the table is almost never that bad. Partly because the table I can change to can be just as bad. Partly because the makeup of the table I'm at is likely to change in 20 or 30 minutes. And partly because I don't necessarily play to make money in the short term.

My motivation to play is something like:
30% entertainment
50% competitive challenge
20% make money

If the table is friendly I don't mind sitting in a game with tougher competition because it's a chance to improve my game.

Table changing at 1-2 and 1-3 casino tables is OK if something or somebody is really obnoxious. Otherwise the makeup of the average table , at peak hours , is so turn over prone as to make it mostly unusefull.

As to the OPs main question. I usually rack up when I realize I am playing poorly or if I feel a bit of tilt creeping up on me. The earlier I can do that the better. Does not always come quick enough.

Because unless you are already crushing the highest stakes available to you, you maximize your lifetime winnings by improving your game and beating the biggest games for as long as possible.

Let's say Table A is terrible and you can only break even, while Table B you can beat for $20/hr. But Table A plays like what you're going to face if you move up to 5x the stakes. If you can figure out how to eek out a $5/hr at Table A, basically you can move up stakes and make $25/hr.

You don't get to table change at higher stakes, and seat changing is often contested.

i leave when the game sucks, i'm tired/hungry (if i wanna sit down to eat) or think i'm playing like ****.

i think a mix of this is correct. tough tables (and by tough i don't mean nitty- - mean vs good thinking players) make you better. by the same token at the end of the day we're playing for money and money is what people need to move up.

For the OP question:
Most of the time I go with set stop time and play until then. I play until 11pm so I can be home by midnight and wake up for work the next day.

On a Friday or Saturday night I usually exit by 12:30 or so because I don't want to mess up my sleep schedule too much. Usually if I'm not leaving by 11:30 though I'm chasing loses.

Sometimes on a weekend or holiday I get to the poker room early enough that playing until 11 would be a super long session. Sometimes I'll just take a meal break away from the tables and play 2 sessions. A lot of the time I leave when I start feeling too tired to make good decisions. Even with a break I find it hard to play well beyond about 8 or 9 hours.

I contest this.

While it's fun and ego boosting to grind your way up, the reality is that a small stakes bankroll is easily saved from even a moderately paying job.

Every day, drop $5 into a jar. At the end of a year you've got a 1/2 NL bankroll. Or take a year end bonus and cash it, boom, you've got an 8/16 or maybe even 20/40 LHE bankroll.

I argue most people are skill limited in moving up. By the time you have, say, 200 hours as a solid winner (10 bb/hr NL or 1 BB/hr LHE), you've got enough to move up. And for a recreational player, you're pretty lucky to get 200 hours a year.

My main considerations for staying in a game are as follows:

1: Am I alert, awake and focused? If I feel tired/groggy I'll rack up and leave most of the time. If I've been grinding for 6+ hours and start to feel that way I'll leave.

2: Is the game good? Are there people having drinks and gamboling or is it a table full of headphone wearing nits? If the game is tight/nitty and I'm not feeling it I'll try and find the 'fun' table or I'll just rack up and leave.

3: Am I on tilt? If I'm on major tilt for any reason (doesn't happen often, but maybe I make a river call I know is bad w something like TPTK) I'll rack up and leave. I play mostly to win money and if I think tilt is going to affect my play I'll cut my losses and go home.

Great questions!

Generally I leave when I no longer want to be there.

There is a bit of an unhealthy bias to this, since I am more likely to want to leave when I am winning, and less likely to want to leave while stuck. But it is what it is.

I try to reevaluate the game every 30 minutes. Am I playing fine or am I spewing? Where is the money coming from? (Am I even a winner at this table?) Is this game worth my time or would I rather be at home enjoying a cold one?

You nailed it with the weekend warrior comment. Only being able to play once in a while and having a long commute to the poker room are both horrible for quitting effectively. If you are stuck and steaming at a bad table 15 minutes into a session it is hard to turn the bus around and go home if you spent 2 hours getting there and won't play again for a week. I think delay from leaving the house to getting dealt in (be it a long commute or a long wait) is one of the most important factors in how profitable a game is. Unfortunately most people don't have a choice in that.

Yeah years ago my closest poker option was 3 hours away. I'd go for an overnight and pretty much always play longer than I should. Then I got a room an hour and half away and it was a day trip but still tended to stay too long. Then a room an hour away and it got better. Now I have a room close enough to go after work and I go at least once a week and it's way easier to quit.

The other (decent) reason to leave is when it's getting close to when I want to go and the table makeup changes a lot. Sometimes you're playing 8 handed, 2 guys get up and 4 come in from a broken table. Seems like too much work to profile the new guys if I'm only going to be there for another 30 minutes.

I don't get to play as much as I used to, so I feel rusty and not exactly on my "A" game. I think I have to muddle through anyway.

I set a stop loss limit. I do like to leave a winner, so often I'll play a couple of hours, and if I'm ahead at that point, I'll consider whether or not to leave. If things are still going well, I'll stay, but if things have leveled off, I will often leave.

The hardest thing for me is to leave when, after quite a long time, I am just slightly down. For some reason, its frustrating to leave when I'm $20 down, not so bad when I'm $20 up.

There are going to be a lot of times where there is no good game available. This becomes more frequent as you move up in limits. If you're a 2/5 player who is interested into moving up to 5/10 and higher, it would be good for you to play in some tougher games once in a while to prepare yourself for the higher limits. If you're a 2/5 player who is content with their winrate and has no interest in moving up, I would agree with you.

Getting some good thoughts here!

So I fall into the weekend warrior type of player. I play a local " 1/2nl house game" and also at 2 different casinos one which is 2 1/2 hour drive one way that spreads a 1/3nl game that plays more like 2/5nl game but which only usually runs 1 table 80% of the time. Always the same guys playing. Game breaks at 2 a.m. And I always just drive down play till 2 and drive home makes for a long day and wrecks my Sunday. The other casino is a 4 hour drive one way it offers 20 some tables in the main casino and a couple other small rooms with my main game here being 2/5/100. If I play here it's almost always an overnight type of trip.

With that being said with the long weekend and extra day at off from work I took the 4 hour drive one way this weekend to play.

Left Sunday morning played 8 hours spent the night played 12 hours on Monday and then made the 4 hour drive back, so my Tueday has been wrecked

Once again I played longer than I should have and on the second day and was checking the time often as I always do thinking the 4 hour drive is going to be long!

Although I know I should rack up at a more reasonable time. I always try to justify the long commute by playing maximum hours.

Still working on my racking up thought process.

For me, one of the most dangerous things is setting an arbitrary goal. If I get up (say) $485 in what feels to me like a session I should end soon, I will often say to myself: "I'll quit when I reach $500 ..."

Bad thinking.