[GuyOnTilt]

I hear what you're saying, but the day I start thinking of it as just putting in hours, I'll quit playing. It will lose all it's appeal to me and become another job.

Yeah, I guess that's just a personal choice then. I don't mind thinking of it as just another job and I'm satisfied to think of it in terms of hourly wage. Honestly, I haven't put in enough to hours to say with any certainty what my hourly rate is at the level I'm currently playing, but my stats so far give me a vague idea of where it might end up being. I've put in ~200 hours playing 2 tables (400 table hours) at Party's 15/30 full-handed tables in the past 6 weeks, and have earned a little under $18k. So as of right now, I'm averaging ~$90/hr, which is 1.5 BB/hr/table. I haven't logged enough hours yet to be certain this will remain my win rate, but it gives me an idea. Since I'm relatively new to hold'em, it hasn't lost it's romance yet, so I'm still having fun playing. But even if it becomes "just another job," I'd still rather make $90/hr working a job where I have flexible hours and no boss than work some other college kid job and make $10/hr and have to answer to somebody. The fact that I enjoy it is just an added bonus to me, not the main reason I'm doing it.

For better or worse I do try to win every session, not to the extent of changing my game to do so, but when I find a table that seems easier to beat I will stay longer than my planned hours, and I do quit early if there is no edge to be found.

I'm the same, and I'm different. I don't try to win every session directly. My goal is to play my best, and sometimes that means winning and sometimes that means losing. Whatev. I will also stay at a table beyond when I had planned to stop playing if I find I have a significant edge though.

The comment about the $1,200 hour was of course facetious, and I didn't mean to indicate I should have played the other hand differently, just that I wish I had made an incorrect read because it would have meant another couple of bets.

Yeah, I know that comment was meant to be facetious. It was more the other comment that struck me as odd, and this one just kind of went along with the same mindset.

I want to milk every bet I can out of every session.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to miss bets any more than the next guy. But my primary focus isn't money when I'm at the table. It's playing optimally. Gaining extra bets when I win and not leaking extra bets when I lose is just a result of my primary focus, but it itself isn't my objective.

My resources are not so deep that I can afford too many bad weeks, so while I don't fret 1 losing session too much, I do still worry a lot about bad weeks. THat is still the time frame I concern myself about. My bankroll is around 1200 BB's right now, and as crazy as it seems i still think of myself as 10 weeks from ruin. Maybe if I get it up to a few months of reserves I'll stop worrying about it and take the losses a little better, but to be honest I think worrying about the losses keeps my level of play high.

Sound good. My bankroll isn't as big as yours; it's only 900 BB's. I do have some money saved up to last me a few months should I happen to bust though.

It might sounds like I'm nit-picking, but I honestly think there's a big difference between the way you and I approach our occupation. It may seem like we're saying the same thing and looking at our sessions the same way, but I don't think we are at all. Neither way is right or wrong, but I think there's a definite contrast between the two.

Keep playing well.

GoT