How long should your sessions last???

Ok so I've been really trying to study and improve but I believe I have noticed a pattern with myself, which got me thinking. What I find is I read up and study on a topic, lets say playing the top 19 hands as an example. Then I sign on and sit down to play utilizing what I've just been studying. Things seem to go great and I slowly increase my stack. I'm happy as a pig in shit as I am gaining although it's a slow process and I am totally ok with that. Maybe I'm up a buyin (stack went from say $5 to $10.20) and then shit starts falling apart. I evaluate the situation and determine I'm still doing the same things I've been focusing on but suddenly I'm down to $4 or worse yet $2.
Should I be looking at a time frame as I build my skill level? Would I benefit by taking breaks, or maybe just moving to a different table say once an hour?
Last night I sat down and had 4 tables going and was totally concentrating on only playing the 19 and making proper bets. I made what were for me some great laydowns and stayed away from things I used to jump all over. I was up at each table by at least $2 - $6 but then hit the slippery slop. I ended the session, which lasted about 2.5 hours down a total of $6. I only changed one table once when it died down to 5 players.
Please help me with some suggestions. Do I sit to long and give off to many tells?

First off, don't worry about giving off too many "tells" at the microstakes. The common microstakes player doesn't pick up on many tells, and they routinely fail at exploiting whatever information they might pick up. So you don't need to worry about balancing your range, or anything like that at the micros. You just need to worry about making the most +ev play with your given hand, and the given opponent.

Second, the longer you are around poker, the better you will start to understand variance and how it works. You sound as if you expect you will always win when you play well. But that isn't the case. You can sit there and play perfect, and still have a losing session.

Things you should consider that will determine whether you should continue playing or end the session, or move tables, would be things like (1) Are you playing your A-game? (2) Do you still have an edge at the table? (3) Do you want to keep playing?

If you aren't tilting, and you still have an edge at the table (it's still a profitable table), then you can continue playing. You might continue to lose, but that would just be variance at work. If you can't handle those loses, you are probably underrolled, or need to work on your emotions relating to poker.

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Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

First off, don't worry about giving off too many "tells" at the microstakes. The common microstakes player doesn't pick up on many tells, and they routinely fail at exploiting whatever information they might pick up. So you don't need to worry about balancing your range, or anything like that at the micros. You just need to worry about making the most +ev play with your given hand, and the given opponent.

Second, the longer you are around poker, the better you will start to understand variance and how it works. You sound as if you expect you will always win when you play well. But that isn't the case. You can sit there and play perfect, and still have a losing session.

Things you should consider that will determine whether you should continue playing or end the session, or move tables, would be things like (1) Are you playing your A-game? (2) Do you still have an edge at the table? (3) Do you want to keep playing?

If you aren't tilting, and you still have an edge at the table (it's still a profitable table), then you can continue playing. You might continue to lose, but that would just be variance at work. If you can't handle those loses, you are probably underrolled, or need to work on your emotions relating to poker.

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I have a BR question. If say I have $200 BR I believe I should be playing 10nl. Now does that mean I only play one table @ 10nl or am I ok to play 3 or 4 tables as long as I keep in mind what my BR is? I've really been wondering this lately.

IMO.. It's fine if you play 3-4 tables, as the liklihood of you dropping multiple buyins on all those tables is small. But also go ahead and set a stoploss of a few buyins so that you will drop back down if something goes wrong.

I would wait until you have at least 250-300 to play 10NL. Reason being that it's a slow grind up again if you loose a couple of buy ins.
I would actually just gradually add one table of 10NL so you get comfortable with the stakes, and once you have the roll, make the transition.

One word for you to consider... rathole...

Look at how you're losing your early winnings. If you find you end up grinding yourself to 200-225bb stack, for example, and then losing it to some bad stack offs then you want to consider leaving the table and opening up a new one with a standard 100bb buy-in and protecting your session profit. You're going to need to learn how to play deep at some point, but it doesn't have to be all today -- and AI mistakes can get really expensive when you're making 'em with 200+bb stacks....

Just a thought - it helped me, and it's one of those nice options that online play gives you over B&M...

i think i've been spewing after getting a beat, so my stop loss is just 1 buyin. if i lose a buyin, i finish up the tables (play until im UTG) and then close it

obviously i don't get a chance to play as much as i like sometimes, but i think self control is important here. also i feel like i'm in a downswing, so just better safe than sorry

that's just me being a super nit though. i play overrolled 5NL like crazy. i have 40 buyins for it :D

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Originally Posted by sarbox68

One word for you to consider... rathole...

Look at how you're losing your early winnings. If you find you end up grinding yourself to 200-225bb stack, for example, and then losing it to some bad stack offs then you want to consider leaving the table and opening up a new one with a standard 100bb buy-in and protecting your session profit. You're going to need to learn how to play deep at some point, but it doesn't have to be all today -- and AI mistakes can get really expensive when you're making 'em with 200+bb stacks....

Just a thought - it helped me, and it's one of those nice options that online play gives you over B&M...

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Makes so much since. I'm focusing on the basic foundation for now so playing deep is a long ways down my bumpy road. I'll keep this in mind.
Thanks!

a bajillion hours!

Yea definitely take Sarbox's advice to heart. This was a big problem of mine for a while. I would get up a BI and then I would slowly leak it away. So now what I do is table hop A LOT. Say I'm playing 5nl right? I win a stack or like a $3+ pot IM GONE. Sure it might be hitting and running but hey, y take their money if ur just going to give it RIGHT BACK? Doesn't make much sense does it?

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Originally Posted by dranger7070

Yea definitely take Sarbox's advice to heart. This was a big problem of mine for a while. I would get up a BI and then I would slowly leak it away. So now what I do is table hop A LOT. Say I'm playing 5nl right? I win a stack or like a $3+ pot IM GONE. Sure it might be hitting and running but hey, y take their money if ur just going to give it RIGHT BACK? Doesn't make much sense does it?

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What really doesn't make sense is that you can't trust yourself to keep anything you win :p

Yea I don't claim to have a leak-free game. Especially when i get deepstacked so I'm trying to play it safe and lock up the winnings while they are there. I'm grinding 2nl right now lol so learning deep stack play is a lil low on the totem pole.