I play short sessions, so my per sessions results are going to be smaller. My average session is 3 hours. All at 1/2.

Win: $1090
Loss: -$684

When I look at consecutive sessions, its a bit better. I am in the middle of my biggest heater right now. My last 5 sessions were all wins, totalling 16 hours, and up $2365. I hope I can keep it going.

Twice I have had stretches of 4 straight losing sessions, both losing a bit over $1200. My biggest peak to valley downswing was almost $1400.

My biggest downswing was $4.5k playing a lot of 5-card PLO. Single-session loss was over 24 hours, $1,800 playing very badly at 1/3. Biggest win was $2,500 (also 5-card).

do you mind explaining how you're able to do that?

once I sit down at the tables all semblance of time disapears and i'm there until noticeably fatigued or more probable, the game breaks

if i got back into heavy grinding i definitely want to do shorter sessions but can imagine i'll keep finding excuses to stay and keep playing

Im married with 3 kids and a full time job with the nearest room almost an hour away. I typically play Mondays. I get the kids in bed by 8, at the room by 9, play til 12, and in bed at 1 so i can get up at 6:30 for work. 1 day a week of that is all Im good for. Weekends are typically family time but if its slow I might be able to get in another short Friday night session.

Any tips on getting through breakeven stretches?
I’m grinding through one the last few hundred hours and it’s getting to me.
Amazing results btw Quantum. I’m very impressed.

I used to be a marathon sessioner. Like 8hrs was the minimum where I felt like I even played. And often I'd play 18-24hrs. Sometimes up to 36hrs.

But now a days I don't think I play longer than 6hrs at a time. Majority of sessions are 3-4hrs. I think I just get bored and then want to go do something else.

How do you guys have the endurance for that? At some point (and it's usually by the 12th hour or so) I don't care how good the game is I just wanna sleep. Your games must be randomly VERY good or you're some kind of machine.

I also had a brief run as a marathoner in my early 20's. I'm not sure if I ever hit 36 hours, but 20 was not uncommon. Dealers would be like "weren't you just at this same seat yesterday?" and it took my a minute to realize that another day had passed.

Poker had this weird ability to make me lose all track of time. I rarely got sleepy at the table. There were several others in the room that were notorious for playing those kinds of hours. Poker is like the only thing that has ever had that sort of hold on me. I'm not sure what it was.

Yeah I eventually accepted what I'd end up doing and started booking my hotel room for every other night and would leave my stuff behind the front desk and check out and then get my stuff back and check in again in 24-36 hours or so - it was annoying, but less annoying than paying for an unused bed.

I wouldn't get or feel tired so long as I was able to lie to myself and convince myself that I was still making rational decisions I'd keep playing

That was in my 20s though, late 30s noe and not sure if I could still do... But then again I just did a marathon one recently but that was largely because was waiting for my flight and airport was 10 minutes away but last few hours was definitely aware I was losing my edge and the chair was hurting my back

Now get off my lawn

yeah idk. But I would be sleeping in between hands during those last few hours.

I also have always played long games, for several reasons. One of the most important ones is that i am pretty certain my edge gets bigger after couple of hours of play cause i get even more in depth developed reads on my opponents, and i feel more and more in the zone the longer i play up until 3-4 hours.

Ive also always felt and known the importance of logging lots of hours in order to smooth out variance as much as possible, so the motivation to play long hours have always been with me since ive started playing.

Quantum and Lord - well played!

Quantum - @ Hollywood, Commerce, Bike, or Gardens?

What?

I've played 607 sessions of 1/3 NL for 4791 hours, which means my average session is 7.9 hours. However, some of those sessions were non-normal quick holiday/work sessions (4.6% of my sessions have been < 5 hours), so if you threw those out my typical average session would be longer. Basically, if I put in an after work weekday session, I'll get ~6 hours, but if I put in a weekend session I'll put in ~10 to ~12 hours. I only get ~one session a week, so I maximize my time at the table.

@ Koss: A ~2 hour round trip for 3 hours of pokring? Gross!

GcluelesssessionlengthnoobG

But how much did you lose?

My thoughts as well, but he seems to have his life under control and I'm 37, most my possessions are in storage and I'm currently living in an Airbnb... So maybe 2 hour commutes are the price to pay to get your life in order

I won't even bother heading toward the casino if I don't think I'll be able to get a good 4+ hour session in. It's 35-45 minutes driving + waiting for a seat if it's busy. But I could see playing shorter sessions if the logistics were easier.

Yeah makes sense. I do play longer sessions if I have to travel significantly.

It takes me a bit less than 45 minutes to walk to and from my local cardroom. If it's raining or late at night, or I am feeling lazy, then I take the bus and it is more like 20-25 minutes.

I aim for six-hour sessions.

40 minutes away without traffic (which I avoid as best as I can), 1 hour+ with traffic. I try to play 6-10 hours a day, 7 days a week, depending on how my volume for the month is going. Right now I am ahead of schedule for the month volume-wise (86 hours) but my winrate sucks majorly (runbad...lol $3.50/hr.), so I'll probably keep the gas pedal on until I start upswinging again.

Its not ideal. Its probably closer to 45 minutes than an hour. I also get a free car and gas through work, so that helps a lot.

Its either that, or I dont play. Michigan just passed a bill allowing online poker yesterday. Live is more fun, but I may be tempted by the convenience and earnings potential of online.

Are there none of the Charity rooms around you? They're juicy as all hell. If you're within an hour of Detroit there's a *lot* of them, not so sure about the other side of the State.

There's a really interesting dynamic when they run out of chips for re-buys and people are dunk and spewy. We used to call that last hour "magic hour" because of how insane the play could get.

I am west of Ann Arbor. The closest casino is Firekeepers. There used to be some charity rooms in Jackson that were good. Even the charity rooms are a longer hike for me.

Oh. There are Charity rooms in Ypsi that are pretty good that should be roughly equivalent distance if you're near 94 and not N/S of it. There's been talk of opening one in the Chelsea area too. Never materialized of course.

Either way, it's interesting the impact that logistics has on when and where we play, along with the overall benefit of playing at all. At one point I had run adjusted numbers for WR taking into account the average travel time to each room I played in. Even ignoring gas it was over a BB/hr.

Yeah, if you factor in gas, time waiting for tables, and even money spent on meals (a portion of which wouldn't have been spent had we stayed at home), typical LLSNL winrates become even grosser.

GIwonderwhatthehourlyisoncollectingpopcans?G

How are you valuing time? Just taking your opportunity cost of time as your wage rate is greatly overestimating the first hour or so of travel. It's not like you can actually choose to work that extra hour so the opportunity cost is the next best thing you would've done which is probably watch TV. Loading up a good podcast or two is probably only a few bucks an hour worse than that.

I think that's definitely increasing in time though.

GameconomistG