Sorry if this is a stupid question but in one live poker session, what is the reasoning that you has a losing a session?

What percentage of the session is due to:?
Variance?
Running bad?
Tilt?
Trying a new play out?
Losing on purpose of strategic reasons?
Mental game?
Leveling yourself?

I know every one is different so I wanted to know why you think you lost a session.

Thanks!

Just nature of the game.

I have been consistently losing ~35% of all my sessions every year.

Leveling myself and variance / running bad are the main reasons I think I lose in a session, but I play in a game different from most games on here, so running bad has a slightly different meaning to me. It's usually not that I run bad, it's that someone else runs really good.

Isn't it the same thing as running bad?

Yeah but with less personal responsibility

I want to know who has actually lost on purpose?

Exactly. It's their fault, not mine!

it's done after big wins to offset the taxes ldo

dont know if this is losing on purpose, but i noticed a major leak of mine was that if i just lost a big pot and was very short stacked, i'd make a "tournament play" and jam pre flop with a suited ACE or even worse. I have literally caught myself thinking, oh its only 60 bucks who gives a sh*t.

It's hard to give percentages, but it's an important question to ask yourself after every session why you lost (or why you won).

It's easy to blame variance, and there are definitely some sessions where you are going to lose no matter how you play your cards. At the same time you need to be honest and admit when a winning session was just due to running good rather than good play.

Maybe it would be good practice to estimate an "expected result" after each session where you estimate how much you would have won / lost with "perfect" play and compare it to your actual results.

My most common excuses for specific sessions are terrible bluffs and terrible / stubborn calls. Also just general impatience. When I get good cards and hit I'm a genius!

I have given up a pot where I was way ahead of villain's range. A whale that I play every couple of months was down to a short stack. He shoved the flop in a limped pot when I had TPTK. It had checked to him in LP and he was shoving ATC, so I'm way ahead.

I knew he had a lot of money in his pocket but if I busted him he was liable to walk away and go play blackjack. So I just gave up the small pot in hopes of getting more later.

Seems like a flawed strategy. Seems more likely to pull out that money in his pocket if he loses his chips, no?

actually I've encountered this situation 3 times this year. 2 different whales both did exactly what you described. They came in, had probably 10k cash on them and sat at 2/5, kept reloading full and even buying full racks to top off with on the side. But they got tilted from getting felted 5x in a row and just and quit the game. Money was definitely not the issue, they are both known businessmen, they just dont like losing in quick succession. Spread it out over a few hours and they're ok with it, but to literally get stacked for 100BB over and over in less than 30 minutes just frustrates them and they quit.

I would go with my hand against an unknown tilted villain. My experience is that your thinking is correct in general.

This was a case of playing the specific opponent. Whale in question bounces back and forth between poker and blackjack. Switches when he gets bored or something ticks him off. He was tilted because he got sucked out on and felting him was very likely to drive him away. If he gets a couple of hands to cool off he probably pulls out some big chips and continues.

you might never get another opportunity vs him in 6 hours. Take the money now, if you don't want him to go back to bj, make the game fun for him. Entertain him, so he enjoys losing in poker more than in bj.

One reason I used to lose is because I bought in for the max and didn't bring much more cash to rebuy if things didn't go my way. When you get short, it's easier to get all your money in and increases your chances of busting. Now I bring 5 buy-ins and top off any time I fall below the max buy-in.

I stopped caring about winning/losing sessions. I track how well I think I played. I've had 'winning sessions' where I played like **** and 'losing sessions' where I played my A game. I care more about why I played well or why I didn't and what can be done to play better next time.

I lose over 1/3 of my sessions, to answer you question. The reasons in order:
1) Variance/running bad
2) Try to make a new/creative play that failed
3) Tilt/mental game

Although are to quantify but what about getting outplayed?

Obviously runnbad, but the three mistakes I'm most likely to make in order of costliness generally:

1. Bluffing and getting called or trying to buff stations.
2. Calling river bets when I'm beat.
3. Playing too many hands pre.

In my best sessions, I'm only using one or two well timed bluffs, I'm letting go of strongish made hands when facing significant turn and river action and I'm not playing junk or marginal hands pre.

Not really a strategy question.

Locked.