swings good and bad

[checkmate36]

It has taken me a while to be able to deal with the swings of the game. If I would lose during a session I would stop playing so my loss would not be so bad. If I won I would stop so I could bank a win. The end result is very short sessions. My wins are greater than my losses so Im currently a winning player.

Has anyone else gone through this type of a phase when you first started? I understand now that this is part of the game and always will be. Thanks for any thoughts.

[Jacob_Gilliam]

I did this when I first started playing. I still have a tendancy to switch games (from hold em to stud or omaha) if I go cold for awhile. But in the end you just kind of get used to it. After thousands and thousands of hands, I rarely notice that I'm on a cold streak. I don't depend on poker for money, so my money total at times almost doesn't seem real to me, like some score being kept in a video game.
But I am very competitive, so I always want to win, an I always try to make the best decision, regardless of what's happening around me.

When I go on a cold streak, I usually keep playing to try and make the money back. Sometimes I make it back, sometimes I lose more, and sometimes I end up at about the same loss. More often I lose more though, I guess just due to the fact that I play too aggressively some pots.

When I'm on a hot streak, I do what you do, I stop sooner than normal. I feel like I have made a good profit and I don't want to lose it right then. I know this is not a great way to think, it really shouldn't matter if you continue. Sometimes I've continued when I wanted to stop, and I ended up making even more.

[manpower]

I had these urges when I was starting out. Remember that stopping a session short dependant on simple expected variance makes no sense. Whether you're going to keep winning or losing doesn't depend in the least on how well you've done so far that session (unless it's putting you on tilt or otherwise significantly affecting your play).

In general, you should resist the urge to stop a session short based off results and keep in mind that one of the best ways to become a better player as well as simply earn more is to play more.