123 isn't really a low number of sessions. At 5*52 = 260 sessions per full-time year, it's about half a year of poker.

MikeStarr reported a 78% session win rate, which is LOL-high to me, so I'll try to calculate what it should be for him. Using his reported SD, win-rate and average session length, I get that he should win about 66% of his sessions long term, so I'll use that.

Over 123 sessions with a win-rate of 66%, this table shows the probability that a losing streak of a given length will be the longest losing streak. The first column is the length, the second is this probability, the third is the cumulative probability. I used 1,000,000 trials.

2 0.030954 0.030956
3 0.299964 0.33092
4 0.364195 0.695115
5 0.191023 0.886138
6 0.074169 0.960307
7 0.026004 0.986311
8 0.00905 0.995361
9 0.003132 0.998493
10 0.001002 0.999495

A full-time player playing for 10 years, or 2600 sessions, who has a session win-rate of 66%

4 0.000371 0.000371
5 0.069411 0.069782
6 0.335632 0.405414
7 0.33074 0.736154
8 0.164389 0.900543
9 0.065121 0.965664
10 0.022653 0.988317
11 0.007717 0.996034
12 0.002666 0.9987
13 0.000869 0.999569
14 0.00029 0.999859

Online players will get about as many sessions as live players. If we were talking about losing streaks using a different metric, like each 100 hands, you would have a good point, but we're talking about sessions.

Based on my simulations, there is about a 1% chance that a full-time player playing for 10 years with a 66% win-rate will encounter 10 losses in a row.

A 10 session losing streak is extremely unlikely for a winning player, and 25 probably hasn't happened to any winning player ever unless they employ funky quitting strategies which give them an abnormally low win-rate.

I think if you're a rec player, it's totally fine to just quit and book a big winning session.

I think if you're on a big losing streak, it's also fine. I can't tell you how many times I've been on 7 or 8 session losing streaks online and just booked a win for the psychological boost of being able to say "I can still win, I'm not the worst player in the world."

Myself, I have limited timed sessions. I usually pre plan these before I get to the casino as well. There has to be some huge extenuating circumstance to get me to keep on playing regardless of result.

Also think of it this way. If you're posting on this website, chances are you're probably better than most other players in the room. This also means that you are probably at least slightly +EV against these players the deeper stacked you get. Why quit at a 800bb winning session when there is a better than 50% chance you can get an additional 300-400bb off the other deep stacked player?

You shouldn't quit until the fish quits. And usually that's how a 1Kbb stack is built.

If u feel not confident @ the stakes just leave.

How will you know when someone is going to sit at 5/10 and dump 1000bb. You don't. Keep playing when such opportunities arise.

Sure, if you accept that someone's going to win 78% or even 66% of his sessions, losing 10 in a row is mind-blowing.

But assume a sane number and it's different. Using z = sqrt(h)*WR/SD, you can estimate the probability of winning as a function of WR/SD and session length. People with SD/WR ratios in the 8-12 range, which is typical for NL pros, playing 6-8 hour sessions, that number is 58-64%. And for more typical players (small winners and shorter sessions), it's even lower. People with SD/WR ratios in the 10-20 range, which is typical for LHE pros, that's 54-61%.

At 65% winning, you're absolutely right, about 1% of players would see >10 losses in a row over 2,000 sessions, and median losses in a row is 7. Fair enough. At 60% winning, that number is now 5%, with a median of 8. At 55% winning, it's 15%, with a median of 9.

Again, my main point is less about 25 being a magical number and more that tge probability of losing N in a row (N = 10 or 25) is way more than people think it is.

Now this is just silly. Online players multitable, so they can play way more sessions. And more hands.

This is actually my usual strategy. If there isn't any easy money at the table, I mentally go through a few things in my mind:

1) Do I want to keep playing?
2) If yes, then can I table change? Or do I need to take a 30 minute break and eat, reset, etc? Taking a walk allows me to pocket winnings and start fresh at a new table.

I try to limit my sessions to 2-4 hours as I feel that's when I can play my A game most often. My cash strategy is probably more of a hit and run style, but it has suited me very well. I also haven't encountered any of these super fish that people keep talking about. I have seen players spew about 3 buy ins but that's about it.

Perhaps I'm just too risk averse when I have a 300bb+ stack. When I played online, my roll was 25k, but I still played $15 tourneys and $50 PLO. My highest ever live cash game stack is about 550bbs.

I'm unfamiliar with how online players like to track their sessions. If each table is considered a separate session, then of course you are right.

Ive never left a session because I thought I had "won enough"
Some clueless person said-
"A 10 session losing streak is extremely unlikely for a winning player, and 25 probably hasn't happened to any winning player ever unless they employ funky quitting strategies which give them an abnormally low win-rate."
I lost 10 sessions in a row at the start of this year, and now my winrate on the year has plummeted to 30 dollars per hour at 1/2 playing near full time. But you said losing 10 times is nearly impossible???
In a direct response to the op= Im trying to get 2k + at a 1/2 table in a few hours.

Have you ever been to a live poker room? If you don't think a player will lose 25 sessions in a row without giving up I have some Prime Florida real estate you may be interested in.

I can agree with whoever is talking about survivorship bias. I think a lot of us got our 'start' in poker b/c of some run good at the beginning of our careers. I know I did -- since then I've had pretty bad downswings that I've always managed to come back from, but if I started playing on one of those downswings I just would've quit.

A lot of the pros too started because they got a bink, and then were able to get better at poker -- Tom Dwan, Shaun Deeb... I'm sure there's more -- and I'm sure there's a ton of people out there with the capability to be great poker players but just ran bad when they first tried it.

the thing about long losing sessions. if you lose many in a row it could be just bad luck. but most times you played badly or your opponents played in such a way your style didnt work.

you may be a big winning player that just played not up to par for that period. and with a big ego that we all have, blame it on fluctuations or whatever.
if you had a 25 losing session in a row where you put in decent hours of play you certainly played a losing game during that period or were cheated.

It depends on my table. If the only player who has a stack close to mine is a great player, I'm probably not going to be enthused to stay. But if there's a few fish with deep stacks I know that I can play against them at a very strong advantage. Never leaving to "book a win".

it's an interesting point a few others have brought up - the idea of players commencing with some sort of winning stretch early on, otherwise a lot of casual players might get filtered out. That being said, I've heard about some pretty bad stretches and I think (much like in sports) a lot of it becomes self-fulfilling or self-inflicting for players; as they reach a certain threshold they start chasing it more and are a victim of sub-par play - players that have a winning strategy and the patience to absorb downswings will usually find their way back towards being profitable at some point.

The "keep playing when you are +EV" idea I've always thought just completely begs the question. Since top notch players are +EV approximately - or exactly - 168 hours per week, that can't possibly be the call as to whether or not they keep playing. It has to be something else and, since we are human beings, that something else is probably a more human factor: not math.

I'll go out on a limb. I think I just proved that it isn't a mathematical subject as to whether or not one keeps playing. Should someone take it apart, I'll stand corrected.

And I'll name that something as "quality of life." I've seen so many people destroy their quality of life, even not needing the money, by not employing that standard, that it's mind-boggling.

It's called reverse tilt when you start playing scared when you are up big, so then it's time to quit. I find myself doing that sometimes when I'm up pretty big and just want to book a nice win and savor it. And sometimes I don't even want to play again the next day so I can savor it for a little while longer.

I'm pretty sure no one is +EV after playing for 160 straight hours, so at least the last 8 hours of the week are -EV and they should quit. Probably before that.

There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with booking a win, on any level. If it's something that you routinely do, then there is some issue that needs to be addressed.

^ It's not LOL high, but it's almost certainly not sustainable at optimal win rates.

^ This is incredibly hard to verify using actual data.

Tell us all about this "optimal win rate"

Money

You guys are picking a fight against the least important component of callipygian's argument. I am a multi year pro, and I just had my worst career downswing at 2/5, and it involved 12 out of 14 losing sessions, including a nice 7 streak at the end.

I say this only because it's pertinent to the discussion, and not as a brag, but I am definitely one of the biggest 2/5 winner's in my region (and probably anywhere) and even I was carrying a pretty negative mindset throughout that stretch of time, and I was very elated to "book a win" after losing in 7 straight.

It wasn't an issue of bankroll either, since I'm pretty conservative when it comes to money, this DS only put a small dent in my roll. The issue was simply that feeling of losing, it's going to affect just about everybody.

Is "booking a win" a good thing to do long-term? Definitely not. I think people who book wins and then try to get unburied in their losing sessions are doing it totally backwards. There are a lot of intangibles that come with having a big stack in front of you. You're confidence should be at a maximum, other players fear getting in pots with you, and when they do, they tend to make more mistakes. And when you're losing, the opposite is true. I will often stretch my wins, and I also have no qualms about quitting after only a few hours if I lost a BI or 2, nothing's going right, and I'm feeling a little negative. As a pro living in a good region for poker, I can play literally anytime, so there's nothing wrong with going home and recharging.

As for OP's question, once you're sufficiently rolled at the game you're playing, and you're comfortable playing deeper, then having a lot of chips in front of you is just not a good reason to leave. I don't play 2/5 to make $2000 in a night, I play to make $100K+ in the year (hopefully!), so as long as I'm feeling good, focused, and confident, what I have in front of me is fairly irrelevant

It was proven long ago, using scientific methods, that maximizing profit increases risk. Do you believe that the best, i.e. most profitable, tournament players cash in 78% of their tournaments?

@RESTRAIN THIS - Care to share some of your thoughts on the factors you think were involved during the losing stretch? (i.e. variance, tougher competition, life-tilt stuff, etc).

It's kind of funny, but after analyzing my stats over 3 years I noticed that my win rate is significantly worse during the months of October through January - which happens to be peak football season (which I happen to bet on).

My theory is that my attention span and general composure is significantly impacted during this period and that is responsible for the drop in win-rate.

I did great today, cashed out up 1500+ at the 1/2 when I got kicked out at midnight. With 3 other deep stacks why would I ever leave if the place didnt close?

...winning more?

1) Deep stacks may be better than you
2) Your wife / gf calls and wants you home to take care of her "needs"
3) You are sore from sitting all day
4) Your mother needs your help with something
5) Money isnt the only thing in life
6) Deep stacks have position on you
7) There are better things to do than play poker for 12 hours
8) Poker is hard and you could lose that $1500 as quickly as you won it if you get into some really tough spots

You asked why you would ever leave. Those are a few reasons but I could go on.

Unless you have a very large sample size, it's likely that lower winrates on certain {months of the year, weeks of the month, days of the week, hours of the day} are entirely due to variance. Most people barely have the statistical power to determine their aggregate win rates to +/- 50%, by chopping their entire sample into 12 months or 7 days or even morning/afternoon/evening, there's far more noise than signal.