How does everyone cope with a bad loss. Loss a significant amount of my poker bank roll this evening. I still have enough to keep playing but wow. Didn't need that big of a loss. Roughlyca 1\4 of my bank roll.

I’m just going to assume that you have a regular job, right? If so, don’t sweat it, you have income to replenish it with. You aren’t expected to be making 10/bbs an hour and variance happens.

If you’re a full time player, then don’t play so high that you can lose that much in a single session.

Start playing higher. When luck comes back your way, you'll make the money back faster.

Take a day or two off and then get back at it. A two buyin stop loss works for me

Probably not this.

As for the OP, I'm guessing poker is not your sole source of income, or you would probably not be asking this question. The thing with poker is even if you are good, you are going to lose a lot. You will lose often, and you will lose lots of money. You just have to grind through it. If you aren't mentally in the right place, then you need to step away. But ideally you can overcome the tilt that comes with losing and stay in your seat for when your luck turns around. Just keep your focus on playing good poker, not the results, as hard as that is to do.

If it affects you mentally, either take a day off or play a different stake (smaller) or location that will be lower variance where you should book an easy but small win

This is a two part answer.

Part 1:

I think the idea of a bankroll is misnomer if you have a day job. Instead it should be considered "disposable income." If your job is paying the bills and you burned off the disposable income, well I guess you shouldn't be playing until you save some up some more. If you're playing such high stakes that losing a few buy ins creates risk of ruin for your disposable income, you need to either play less often, or play lower stakes. Your call either way. You should not be risking money at a table that you can't afford to lose.

Part 2:

The tilty mental aspect is separate. Yes it sucks to have bad outcomes. But you need to analyze what you did and how you played. Did you make the right decisions each step of the way? How accurate were your reads? Did you make obvious mistakes that you knew at the time were probably bad, but did it anyway? Even if after reading Part 1 you conclude you need to take a break from the tables to save up, you can get your poker fix by doing some self-scouting and seeking help on the forums.

Either you will conclude you made the right call and sometimes variance and coolers happen, or you will conclude you screwed up and you'll do better next time. Either of those results will make you feel better about yourself and your play and are way more productive than just stewing over your losses.

Common question and a fine one but this really isn't the forum for this topic. Psychology forum might be a better fit, but I'd browse through first because I'm sure this is the subject of many many threads.

How much you lose and atbwhat stake?

Some folks don't really recover very well and eventually quit. Others take a short break to get off total tilt and then get back on the horse! BTW your situation is so common among both pros and recs that it is almost considered normal. 1/4 is significant but not a wipeout! Depending on the size of your BR and the stakes you play , you could recover your loss in a few sessions.

Yeah having more info could help, but 1/4 of your bankroll does seem like a lot in one night. If you have the suggested 20 BIs that would be 5 BIs in a night. My advice would be to only come back when you are ready and then to set a 3 BI limit per night because it doesn't seem you are easily able to cope with big (downward) swings.

Definitely take a few days off, but my greatest "therapy" tool are records. Go back and look at similar bad variance stretches and you'll realize it's more standard than you think. Win rate over time helps too.

If it's bad play that's a different matter.