Hey folks, ive been consistenly doubling my money in usually the first 4 hours of play, then the last couple hours i always donk off half of my winnings or a little more. Does anyone have any direct experience with this pattern that they were able to fix?

I mean it seems pretty obvious, stop playing after four hours. Maybe 210 minutes just to be safe.

#1 quit lying to yourself

if #1 does not work: stop playing after 4 hours and quickly realize this is not what is happening

how many sessions is this based on? 3?
did you actually track how much you were up/down at every point?


Here's a your question from my perspective:
Hey, someone gives me tons of money, but if I don't leave within 4 hours he takes it back, what do I do?

If 2x starting stack is usually your high point, just stop playing when you get there.

While absolutely nobody is doubling their stack from the beginning of every session they play, there are a lot of players who constantly lose back a big chunk of their profits during sessions in which they doubled up. The two main reasons for that are incapability of playing that larger stack (especially true if they started with 50% or less of the bigger stacks at the table) or loss of focus/concentration. Both are things you can work on.

SMS .. Scared Money Syndrome is a possibility. There can be a tendency to change how you play when your stack grows. Losing 'all your hard work' can be a mental strain. So you starting limping or giving free Turns to 'pot control'.

The other 'natural' tendency is you start to feel invincible and opening up your game/range too wide. Ten high flush draws start to look good or you start to play too many hands from early position and you bleed a few too many chips floating Flops you might not have when your stack is shorter.

Some Players increase their opening bets because they can 'afford to' and this can cause the losses to be larger than the earlier wins and result in a net decrease in your stack 'per pot'.

You haven't changed stakes, so just try to stick with what worked earlier in the session. As suggested, get up and take a break/walk. Find out what the rules are for the room (3 missed BB?) and let your brain relax.

I used to color up and then only play from my 'starting stack', keeping in mind that the larger chips aren't to be used except in an extreme spot.

I also used to feel obligated to stay until the game broke and many a time my stack suffered from it by going into 'lock down'.

Poker is very much about self awareness, figure out what you're changing and adjust accordingly. GL

"I always double up then fritter it away" is a recurring theme on this forum. Here are some reasons why it happens, IMO it's usually a combination of factors:

1. It doesn't. You play badly, forget when you do the walk of shame 30 minutes in, remember when you double up and then you lose it because you are bad at poker.

2. It doesn't. You just don't really track what's happening.

3. You get tired after several hours and play badly.

4. You get bored after several hours and play badly.

5. You get entitlement tilt when you double up and play badly.

6. You absolutely suck at deepstack so when you double up, you play badly.

If it's 3. to 6., then just leave when you double up and/or have been there for 4 hours. Gradually extend session length as you fix your mental/game leaks. But you need to honestly examine the reality of what's occurring because 1. and 2. are highly likely.

Where do they allow u to color up at the poker table?

You can color up at any time you want, technically. Just ask for a rack and put whatever red chips (5) you want to go green (25) or black (100). A chip runner or Floor will come over and exchange out your chips for you, leaving a 'lamer' behind for you to play with during the exchange. If the cage is in the room, you may also take them yourself .. just tell the Dealer what you're doing.

It's probably not wise to color up 'only' 100 into black, as you might get some stink eye from other players that think you may intend to go south with that chip once you have it.

Although it's a dead giveaway that you're new. ASK questions along the way as it's the only way for you to 'know' for sure and also it will allow you to focus back on the game and not whatever it is bouncing around in your head. GL

Most rooms let you color up, but only to the highest chip that plays.

Lots of 1/2 games don't let anything above $25 play for example. In those rooms you obviously can't color up to $100 chips.

That said, other players might look at you funny if you do that without having a lot of stacks in front of you. But if you're sitting at >$2k in a 1/3 game, you might run out of space in front of you if you don't have a chunk of that in chips larger than $5.

One, make sure this is a real thing and not confirmation bias
Two, start taking after session notes to figure out WHY you are losing
Three, Start paying attention to see if you start playing differently 1) when you are ahead, or 2) after 3 or 4 hours (due to mental fatigue)