Do you guys ever hit a point in a session where you feel like your focus begins to fade? For me, i feel like after 3-4 without a break i start to become less alert. I guess i could always get up for 10-15 min.

I want to overcome this so i usually continue to play figuring if i get used to playing longer sessions then itll become more of the norm, even if its a small leak short term. What thought do you guys have on the situation?

I usually play about wice a week and a home game about 10 minutes from home so its not like i drive 2 hours and feel i have to stay, i just want to.

Obv the total session time will be different for each person. I prefer a few short walk around breaks, e.g., 5 mins every 90 mins or so, vs one after 3-4 hrs.

I use the time to think about how I could have played 1-2 hands smarter. It works better for me than waiting for the drive home to begin the mental post mortem. The situations are fresh, the perspective is a little different than "in game" analysis and the changes can be applied immed and hopefully result in a better outcome in current session.

I prefer longer sessions, with obvious bathroom/quick food breaks. This is especially true with loose/active players who you decide want to be in pots with.

I never play more than 3 hrs without taking a break. this break could be 20 min to eat, a 5 minute walk, or cashout for an hr and come back. a lot of my friends can play 6-7 hrs no problem. I find that I acutally play my worse when im hungry or dehydrated. that's just me. I usually hit foxwoods around 12. get a quick lunch, drink a bottle of water. play for 3 hrs, drinking water throughout. then take 20 min and go for a walk. when I don't do this, I call way too many hands PF out of boredom, get stupidly aggressive, and just don't play well

I prefer to play long sessions. It minimizes the time that I spend in the car driving to and from the card room (as a fraction of playing time), and it allows me to better take advantage of the players at the table. As you get better at profiling players and finding their leaks, you want to have the most time to exploit their mistakes. This becomes harder with shorter sessions.

The key is to avoid getting tired or hungry or distracted. Take short breaks every few hours when you start to find yourself drifting a little bit. 10 mins walking around the casino stretching your legs a little bit does wonders for your ability to play longer sessions. Same with grabbing a quick snack.

Treat your mind like a muscle. Try just to play for 15 minutes after feeling tired to build your mental endurance. Also take mini breaks to walk around or snack on something. After awhile your sessions will last longer and you can feel more alert while playing

I try to make it a point to get up for at least 10 mintes every 2- 2 1/2 hours. I don't always accomplish this because if I am running hot or bad, I like to stay. Regardless, I need to improve in this area.

I smoke take a 5 minute walk every hour. So basically every other dealer change I smoke, walk, and stretch. But after 4+ hours my focus fades too. This is usually when I leave or just get up for 20 mins or so to eat or something. Personally, I try not to think about poker on my break. After all, poker is what I'm taking a break from, instead I play a game on my phone or text. Anything but poker stuff unless a hand I played is really bothering me.

http://tommyangelo.com/articles/reciprocality/

OP Read the section on Quitting Recipricality.

Although my session lengths vary I take very regular short (3-5 min) breaks and every 4 hrs a 10-15 min break.

I play ~6-9 hour sessions with no break except bathroom breaks. I believe I start to lose my focus a little bit but not too much.

Cammando that was a very good read thank you.

OP I have noticed a difference in my hourly between my 6-7 hour sessions and my 8-10 hour sessions. The longer ones I earn less. This is over a small sample of a few hundred hours, but yea, I'm pretty much committed to a 6-7 hour session at this point.

I will say that my longer sessions are usually due to me staying at an action table, so they have more variance in them as well.

Also yea get up and walk around like every 20 minutes. I speed walk around the casino and out to the smoker's area outside (I don't smoke, but its as good a place as any to speed walk) Sitting for prolonged periods of time is hella dangerous to your life, see the London bus driver study.

It depends, during the weekends i try to play as long as i can...there are a lot of spewy players, and the later it gets, the bigger the stacks = the bigger the pots.

but if i ve got regulars from 5/5 or 5/10 playing in the game than i might quit earlier, cause they love to outflop you, and don't really care about the money... + there supppppeeer aggressive....

I max out at 6 hours. Breaks every 90 minutes once the button is past me. Minimum 10 minutes, maximum 20. Been known to eat dinner at the table once in a while too (not included in the mandatory breaks).

I too play very long sessions 10h +
I always have healthy snacks every 2.5-3 hours (setting my phone alarm to go off) eating apples oranges almonds etc..
Good healthy nutritious food to fuel my brain and body. Drink lots of water and mix in electrolytes. Obv getting up for b-room breaks and will stretch while I'm up.
I noticed about a year ago after long sessions I would lose ALL FOCUS get headaches, and somewhat start getting tunnel vision. Game would go from A+ to d- (esp in tourneys)
Since my new EATING RULES I'm much more alert for longer periods and play better later in sessions.
Gl op..

I think eating is key. Without eating I tend to lose concentration pretty drastically and I must have punted so much money over the years playing hungry because I wanted to play a long session. Not sure how drastically others are affected by this but this is my personal observation of myself. Same goes for hydration and of course as everyone else has mentioned regular smallish breaks.
Regarding length, just stop when you feel you are starting to play badly or lose concentration. No shame in a short session if it is +EV in the long run.

There is something to be said about mental toughness. But the reality is, all the willpower and determination in the world isn't going to work if you don't eat or drink or sleep for a week. Your brain will slowly fall apart and then die. I try to focus more on things like keeping my emotions under control and my concentration up when I am playing more so than I try to focus on playing super long sessions without a break.

I'm very similar to you, I tend to last around 3-5 hours before I start to fall off. I have to drive an hour to go play, so I definitely prefer to stick around for longer. What I find works really well for me - I play for 3-5 hours, then take about a half hour break to go eat and walk around. If I'm really hungry, I'll eat a whole dinner. If not, I'll much on a banana or something but I be sure to eat something as that tends to make a huge difference. When I'm refreshed and ready to go again, I'll play for another 2-3 hours and head out.

I tend to have really good win rates in that final 2-3 hours because I've got reads on the table and I'm alert and ready to go.

I take breaks... Sometimes the dealer ****s with me...

I just added all my 1/3 NL poker sessions into Poker Journal. Got some interesting results with the hours played report, but my guess is that it's all just statistical noise. Still:

5-6 hours (24 sessions): $46.00/hr
6-7 hours (62 sessions): $28.89/hr
7-8 hours (8 sessions): $13.86.hr
8-9 hours (7 sessions): ($22.86/hr)
9-10 hours (8 sessions): ($1.38/hr)
10-11 hours (16 sessions): $31.16/hr
11-12 hours (13 sessions): $47.13/hr
12+ hours (8 sessions): $45.39/hr

Lol, looks like I get worse and worse as I get towards 8-9 hour sessions, then I catch my second wind or something and start kicking ass.

Glolsamplesize,probablyallmeaninglessG

Thanks a lot everyone. As I said i play a reg home game close to my house so it's not a matter of taking advantage when I find a weakness since they will be there every game mostly or needing to get enough time in due to the drive to the table.

I think the biggest thing is not eating a snack and drinking water during the game. I usually do neither! Ill start taking more breaks too. I don't get tired just start to feel mentally less calculating. Had 2 sessions recently were I was up 3-4 buy ins in 90 minutes after sitting down and donked off a large portion in the last 2 hours of play.

Going to the gym regularly has helped me be more focused for a longer period of time.