I would be a winning player if i left when ever i was up. . Period
I remember seeing a sig somewhere that said limit is basically surviving till the cards hit or something like that.
I enjoy the game, i am playing 3-6 at a B&M.
It seems that when ever i am up if i stay, i will sure enough lose to bad beats more than once to bring me down to a losing player.
I know this is gonna sound stupid but has anyone hit good and then hung for a couple of hours more and hit again or do you invariably succumb to the bad beats and leave even or negative.

yea, the player not using winlocks is pretty always the spot in the game

what's a winlocks ?
What i'm saying, isn't it like fliping a coin ... in other words if i can always go double or nothing on a coin flip i will never loose.
So in other words if i stick around after i'm +EV
i'm gonna get bad beat there just is no way around it is there.

sigh... that's an excellent strategy if you think you don't really have an edge in poker...

edge in limit poker, an edge in no foldem holdem 3-6. what kinda of edge would i need

yes. there is no edge to be had. We are all just a bunch old birds making our bankroll off of the super soft bingo game down at the local church.

Grunch -

I often have the same issue you win and then you start to lose but then you start to win agian; Roller Coaster ride with lots of ups and downs - you can not time you sessions on the ups just as you can not time anything that has variance like the stock market.

In one 6 hour session of 3/6 I could be up or down any amount of bets between 3 standard deviations at any give point more than once.

The point is the average bets/hour when you stop playing poker or that limit.

One author worte that if you are a losing player he suggests that you stop playing after you have won $1. If you are a winning player then quit for the normal reasons that have been listed here recently.

As noted many times if you are losing a lot at one given point it might be that (make like a tree)

o you are not playing your best (leave)
o you are not one of the best players (leave)
o you are being cheated (not likely but leave)

o the games gone from being really juicy to really nitty

FYPPPPP

OP, I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the long run and the mechanisms of winning poker. I'd suggest reading some books (Theory of Poker, some Tommy Angelo), and working on your game. Locking up wins isn't a tool in a winning player's arsenal. Being oriented on short term results is a leak, not a virtue.

I'm willing/eager to lock this thread if it goes negative, and it seems likely to.

I recommend that OP read part one of SSHE instead of TOP - more applicable to 3/6 LHE.

I have been struggling with this particular subject "when to leave" since I started playing LHE... (I am fond of Tommy Angelo's book). The other day at 3/6 I was up $160 and liking the game and then wham I was down $100 (Why did I know that?). But, the conditions for leaving the game had not yet been met so I played on -

I hit a straight flush, won the pot and won $100 high hand.

2005 I was playing NL and stuck about $900 and getting a little tired but I continued to play on because the game was good and at 8:30 PM I hit the BBJ and won $35,200.

You never know what the next card will bring.

no money in lhe, everyone is solid.

it's posts like this that restore my faith in the game really...

I know that this is a running joke and I need to find the beginning of the joke to really appreciate it.

In before Dougl locks it.

I believe that Doug is directing OP toward a more strategic understanding of LHE and expectation v. a tactical approach.

Where money comes from discusses the long term and Random and Independent Events (SSHE) does not specifically discuss win/stop loss concepts but it does address the long term approach to LHE.

My point was SSHE is easier to understand than TOP.

Agreed

Of course I've been up, stuck around, and hit some more. I've had a couple of +100 BB sessions that were quite long in length. I've also had sessions where I was up like 70BB and left even; the cards have no memory of whether you're winning or losing.

One of the most obvious flaws in your thinking is that you assume there will be a point in every session where you will be up (at which point you recommend leaving). What happens if you start off a session by dropping a rack and can never really get anything going afterwards?

Good point... When I first stated to play LHE a player remarked "My secret to winning is to never loose too much at one time." I do not believe that works.

Fun with numbers; I have 491 3/6 sessions and January each year I would export them to a spreadsheet so see what would have happened if I had used a stop win or a stop loss. I never found a combination that actually would have worked.

OP - it just does not work in reality.

My 3/6 session results for July and August are:

-170, 100, 105, -35, -200, -160, 220, 240, 120, -350

I would be a winner for July and August if I did not lose the last $350 - .

What session don't I start by dropping a rack?

The more you pay attention to things like playing well, seeing bad players (on your right), being in a good mental state, etc, the better you play. The more time you spend counting your stack and paying attention to your session high $ mark and low $ mark, the worse you play. Fixation on hand by hand results is a disease.

Do they have pills for that?

Good Advice and some players either buy in for odd amounts (but keep track at the end of the session using various techniques) and/or stack their chips in such a way that it's hard to get a quick count; doing this removes the temptation to "know where you are" chip-wise.

I find if I start to count my chips it is time to go home since my focus is in the wrong place.

The only reason I ever try to "lock in" a win is for psychological reasons; if I'm in the middle of a nasty streak of losing sessions I don't hate the idea of stopping after I'm up $100 or so just to get my confidence back.

In the same vein, when I have a nice profit with a couple of days left in the month (I usually play first 25 days of the month for Ironman on FT) I sometimes drop in limits just in case variance wants to kick me in the nuts. Losing half the month's profit in two days makes those 5-6 days off very miserable.

Other than this, if the games are good and I'm still playing well, I keep grinding.

there wasn't a drop or rake.

Is what i like to do (because of traffic in LA)
is arrive just before 4pm and leave around 8-10pm.
I have no problem losing a rack and re-buying,
i think i have a decent understanding of chasing the draws and pot odds etc etc.
The problem is i finally get up/going with or without a re-buy it does not matter.
I then say YAAA ... perseverance, position,
pot odds, playing good hands,
player understanding, that's what it takes.
(i've learned from here)
Almost every 3-6 game/table is loose passive, with a min of 5 players seeing the flop, the tables are always full 9 players. If there is a raise pre i rarely see a fold and like wise on the flop. Folds really don't start till the turn. I am pretty much seeing the same people and if the pot is raised/big they will go all the way with as little as K high on boards with Aces etc etc. (god bless em)
The last 3 days tue, wed, thur, is what happens every single time i've played, in the last 3 months, unless i leave when i'm up.
I think these are bad beats and not leaks please correct me and excuse my ignorance.

Tue. #1.
AKspades from HJ 3 limpers in front of me i raise, all the limpers and everyone behind me calls. 8 players in the pot. FLOP AK3 1spade
the 3 limpers in front of me bet call i raise everyone calls, still 8 in the pot. TURN 5spades
2 of the limpers in front of me bet call i raise 3 of the 4 behind me call and the original 2 betters call. River 6players in the pot including me. RIVER 8x first player bets second player calls should i fold, raise, or call?

This still sounds like a bad beat story.

Can the guy do this with only 2 pair or does he need a set or straight? I would probably raise, but that's because I'm suspicious of that line being 2 pair.

In the game you describe, one or two big pots will determine your evening. All you can do is play your best and hope that you're +EV in the game. Depending on the drop, it might not be. OTOH, if you're getting 8 way action to the river in every pot, the drop shouldn't matter a lot. I suspect you could just play PP hands and suited connectors for profit in these games. If there isn't a lot of raising, limp a lot. It would be like small stakes on training wheels. Level 2 would be to jam your big draws.