How do you avoid determining your sessions by amount won/lost?

[bkholdem]

Consider tracking your sessions based on other criteria such as:

Degree of emotional stabliity-

When your emotions are in check you will be playing better. Therefore you want to play longer sessions when your emotions are in check and shorter sessions when you are angry/etc. You also want to have a way of monitoring your emotional state through the session. If your emotions take over your play will suffer. Moreover, you might want to begin considering strategies to regain emotional control when you start to drift from your optimal state. In the beginning, if this area is an issue for you, taking breaks when you start getting frustrated/angry is probably a good place to start.

Favorabliity of game conditions-

Longer sessions when conditions are good, shorter sessions (or avoid the game) when conditions are unfavorable. You will want to have criteria to define good and bad games. Bad games might be worth playing if you intend on practicing playing under different conditions. You will might want to seek advice as to what you want to be working on when playing is such a game (i.e. playing in a rock garden- practicing agression/stealing).

Decision making-

Tracking your decision making and keeping a focus on this (as opposed to money). Hands that concern you, hands that you notice make you uncomfortable, etc. you might want to track these for later review. If you can determine conditions in which you are making great decisions that info is probably valuable. Good emotional control is usually correlated.

The better you are able to do these things the more money that is going to flow in your direction. Just a few thoughts.

[ QUOTE ]
I measure my success purely on winning sessions > than losing sessions. I want my winning sessions to outnumber the losing sessions 2:1 and not allow any losing session to be more than 2x a normal buy-in while riding a winning session until I get tired sometimes pushing 4-5x normal buy-in's.
...
If you're not at least thinking at least a little results-oriented you're being naive.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have a friend who plays in terms of sessional results. I contiually pose to him the following question, after which he typically changes the subject:
You have just finished a week of poker. Monday - Friday you play for an hour each day and earn yourself 5BB from every session (good job!). On Saturday, you lose 25BB in an 8-hour session. Sunday is the day of rest. You had 5 winning sessions and 1 losing session. Does this make you a winning player?

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ninja: If you are playing the types of players that measure your success in terms of stack size, then seeing you lose convinces them that they are playing better than you. This will have the unforunate effect of improving the general level of your opponents' play. If enough opponents believe this, then you should leave.

bk: I agree with your approaches here.
I think, generally speaking that
Putting yourself in profitable situations over the long run will earn you money.
On the flip side,
Having earned money in the long run does not require you having always put yourself in profitable situations.

It is important to distinguish between cause and effect.

[SoSo]

Buy and read Inside the poker mind.

[Degen]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you avoid determining your sessions by amount won/lost?

[/ QUOTE ]

play w/in your means

[cadillac1234]

I keep track of buy-ins and cashouts. I'm constantly taking from my bankroll and it's not very practical for me to worry about hourly rates when I play part time. Playing online has changed that a little bit but I've still pulled money out and switched sites, etc. ROI-wise I'm in very high numbers and I'm not really interested in jumping limits on-line so I expect to keep those numbers very high.

I don't really care what my hourly is and if I hit a downswing I'm still going to cash out a winner. B&M-wise I've done much better ring-wise (at higher limits) and less tourney-wise.

I'm a +EV BJ player in single/double deck Northern Nevada casinos due to liberal rules and employing a simple red-7 count. I had a horrible downswing due to bad luck/variance to the point it knocked me out of BJ all-together and ruined my bankroll.

If I'm not looking at results-oriented view I'm back at the tables risking more ruin even though I have a +EV in a game that I can't seem to beat. I know a lot of guys in poker rooms who have great poker knowledge but for whatever reason are consistent losers.

I know it's anectdotle evidence but when it comes down to it I'd rather be a donkey with a huge bankroll and 3-digit ROI than a non-results oriented player without a win

[creedofhubris]

Play until the games are no longer good or until you are tired enough that your skills are dropping.

That's it.

If you have some other work-related deadline for play (gotta quit at midnight so I can get 8 hours of sleep) that works too.

[SNOWBALL138]

I love it when stupid players try to gamble with me. Thats how I get paid off.
Doyle once said that the greatest thing would be for everyone in the world to think he was a fish, and try to take shots at him.

[Boltsfan1992]

[ QUOTE ]
ninja: thanks for the feedback.

JRegs: I hope this helps, if you continue to have problems in this area, PM me. Oh, and sorry if I killed the thread with my long-winded response.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't apologize - that helped me a great deal. Thanks for writing it!

PB

thanks for that post, it is helpful and I need to stop associating winning from playing well (and vice versa) btw, for me at least 9 months is about 12K hands