Cash Game Theory

[meow_meow]

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EDIT: but seriously, you should be willing to play as long as you have a positive expectation at the table. Quit when its time to go home or when you no longer have a postive expectation at that table at that time

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I think the boiler plate advice about continuing to play a long session is dribble.

Whether you're still awake, or playing well or whatever doesn't matter. After a certain point you need to protect your profits. The cards won't keep hitting you, the bad players at the table will leave, etc.

With enough experience, we can tell when we've hit the wall as far as pushing for more profit. In the stock market, the term would be momentum. The momentum of your game decreases.

You could still have a positive expectation as far as playing the players at the table, but there is still a gut feeling that develops that says 'time to go'.

Leaving the table with a rack or more of profit is always looked at with jealousy. Nobody thinks to themselves "Gee, that guy should have stayed because he had positive expectation." Instead, the thought is "I wish that was me".

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Try as I might, I can't detect are sarcasm/satire.
wow.

[Tilt]

Rather than go home, change tables (even if that means changing stakes).

Either your game is changing, or your opponents are adapting to you as they get a read on your play. Either way its a problem that you should fix. I would not want to be playing at the highest stakes I play while I work on a solution, however. So step down, play a longer session at a smaller table, and work on changing gears or detecting whether your play is declining as you play longer and in what way.

[willmay3]

A couple of things:

1. I like this quote
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Not everyone that can beat a game can beat it for 6,8,10 hours. Perhaps your ideal period of play is the first 1-2 hours.

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2. Everybody has made the same point in about a dozen different ways, but it needs to be made again. You need to ask yourself WHY?

Maybe you have solved the problem with the short sessions, but you still don't know the basic question.

I have the same "problem" you do in that my results in live games deteriorate after about 2 hours. The reason for this, I have found, is that I play mostly online and am only playing 1-2 hours at a time, then going out, coming back and playing another 1-2 hours, etc., etc.

So, I now only play 1-2 hour sessions. I'd try to isolate the cause and then treat it if I were you.

BTW, I agree with an earlier post that you may not have enough hours logged to be able to say with any degree of certainty if you have a "problem." This may be just short term fluctuation. I dunno.

Will

[elric]

It is possible that you have some tells that take an hour or two to pickup on. This would explain your inability to beat the game past the 2 hour mark.

[cobalt]

I agree with Elric.

My thinking on this is that when you first sit down at a table, no one knows how you play or if they can bully you.

So if it's working for you, don't bother changing it. Make $1000 easy, then sure, call it a day. That's the best workday you can have. If I could play for 30 minutes to and hour and make $1000 then chill the rest of the day. I would. It would be roughly $200,000 - $300,000 per year for approximately 360 hours of work. I'm sure there is some varience in there, but seriously. That would be awsome.

[ChewyMint]

I think if you're playing no limit, and the game is beatable, it isn't worth leaving up $1K in a game that size. No limit is all about doubling through, in my opinion. When I play no limit, I play tight until I have every covered by quite a bit, and then work on bullying the players who are now "shortstacked" in relation to my chip stack. I think you will end up winning more per hour if you give yourself a chance to acquire a big stack to work with.

ChewyMint

[the 9]

Post some hands you got beat on past the 2hr mark in the MHS forum and then your play can be critiqued, otherwise how can anyone know whether the problem is with your game or purely psychological?

If he's just a regular cash game player then I agree he should try and maximize the winnings at NL but if he's a pro then going home with a 25% profit every day would be about the best thing he could wish for.

[Shandrax]

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I have been playing the NL 600min buy in game with blinds 10-20 at Commerce Casino for the last 3 months. And I have noticed that I always come up a lot in the beginning then it slowly goes down. So I came up with this strategy, but I am not sure if it is a good/correct one to have. I sit down for 4grand, and once I come up 1grand, I leave the tbl and go home.

Tell me what you guys think,
Thanks

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Sounds like a physical problem to me. After a certain amount of time deeper into the game you are starting to lose your concentration and with that your A-game. Maybe you should work out to improve your stamina so you can keep the level of concentration up for longer. You could also try chocolate bars and such to keep your blood-sugar high enough (chessplayers do that).

Maybe this would allow you to increase your win/quit level up to $1500 and rising...

[12AX7]

Well,
I tried that in Stud at the Mirage one year. Left with a win 16 sessions in a row.

Then the piper paid his visit. LOL!

Anyway, been my experience that I always seem to win more where the opposition doesn't know me. Over time they adjust and if you don't readjust, your edge would seem to disipate. Or at least mine did.

Just my two cents.