How do pros decide to call it a session?

Do most go into weeks with a set goal number of hours to play? And think of hourly alot? I feel dumb for thinking that in poker a pro. Would think of it as an hourly when it's not... I feel like me thinking this way sets up for a collision course mentally and just isn't the best way to gauge how much you play. Advice/strat.info again greatly appreciate

Yes, many pros use a combination of mental strategies and feelings to decide when to end a session. It's important to find a balance that feels right for you. Maybe try mixing up your routine to keep it fresh.

Is it "robotic" for a regular working stiff to show up at 9AM and head home at 5PM?

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For live cash, I generally play six-hour sessions. These days, except on gambling trips, I am only playing Saturday evenings, from 4 to 10 PM.

For online cash, I play hour-long sessions with breaks of anywhere between ten minutes and an hour in between. I generally do not want to play more than four sessions in one day.

Tournaments, of course, take as long as they take. On online tournament grinds, I fire up a bunch of tables and play until I am done with the last one -- while I might fire multiple bullets at one tournament, but I am generally not firing up new ones, because I want my session to have an end. A tournament grind could last for a couple of hours, or up to eight hours or more when I final-table something.

Tyvm

I’m not a pro by any means but it seems to me that an inflexible “I have to play X hours” mindset might not be the best bet. You may take some bad beats or just find yourself distracted and wind up playing less than your best game. Obviously a good pro has a better mental game than most, which makes this scenario less likely, but it may be better to quit than force yourself to play when you know you aren’t playing well. Table dynamics also can factor in. When that massive whale busts out and is replaced by a tough pro, the game just got less profitable. Repeat that a couple of times and your once juicy game might just turn into a very tough game. It may end up that you’d be better off quitting than continuing just because you didn’t get enough hours yet. You can always make up the hours by playing longer when the game is better and you are on top of your game.

Obviously if a game turns bad, I am going to get out of it. But the point of a fixed session length is much more to have a "this is where I stop" point than a "I must play at least this long" point.

Well then conversely, if you are playing well and in a juicy game, why would you automatically stop just because you reached some arbitrary pre-determined number of hours in your session? Keep going as long as the game is good and you aren’t so tired that you start playing badly.

It's all one long session. The games will be good tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, the day after.

I will beg to somewhat disagree. If my 2 5 hourly is around $35-$40 on average in a typical game (which it is) and likely $70/hr with a couple action players/higher limit whales in the game, you bet I will put in a longer session unless I absolutely have to be somewhere the next morning or am so tired I can no longer play at least my 'B-' game or better.

If you are a car salesman or a real estate agent and at least somewhat care about the $$$, you don't clock out at 5pm if a strong lead shows up right before the end of an open house or right before the dealership closes.

The whole point of being a poker pro is so I can play when I want to, not when you want me to.

Pre-determined session length, unless the games are unusually soft.

I play better when im winning

If im winning money I play a long time until im sleepy cat.

If the game is soft and obviously so , I play for a long time until im sleepy cat.

If its not super soft and im losing money I search my own thoughts and decide if theyre good or not.
For example if I find myself thinking lines or ideas that rely on luck or “F it” or how i could “catch up” or any non strategic thinking in place of where strategic thinking should be I get up.
You cant play your best all the time.

I also play in games where I dont gave an edge, but usually when that happens im excited to play against the pros or playing too high so im alert and can hyper focus. So, if im losing money.

Thanks for replies.

Terrible outlook. Your poker results are the culmination of your biggest 10 sessions throughout the year. When you find yourself in a unicorn game you stay until they turn the lights off.

Even worse. If you're a professional then you treat it like a job. Your responsibility becomes being diligent with maximizing the value of your time, not showing up 'whenever you feel like' to play with Arthur and Cecil at 10am on a Monday.

If your feeling good and the game is good keep playing. If you aren't playing your best or the game is bad consider quitting.

I would love to be able to sit there and play 8 hour sessions without losing any edge or much edge and maintaining the ability to think clearly. That doesn't seem to happen, most of my sessions (online) are 45 min to 1.5 hours ... rarely longer. Obviously live, this isn't an option, but it also seems to be easier to focus live for longer periods of time.

After making a few bad decisions / decisions I know that I shouldn't have done, I'll typically quit a session. I find the times that I don't quit in this situation, it usually gets a lot worse from there.

Have you ever tried stacking short sessions? That is to say, play for an hour, take a break, play for another hour, take a break, etc. That is what I do for online play, as I described upthread.

Live is much less demanding than online, because (a) the pace is slower, and (b) one isn't multitabling. And in addition, rules about lobbying are fairly liberal, so if you happened to want to do for live play like I do for online, it would be easy to take a break for ten or twenty minutes every hour to rest your brain.

Live, I generally take a meal break halfway through my six-hour session for about half an hour. (Don't eat at the table. Just don't. You don't want to get mustard or chicken fat on the cards, and besides there are other reasons.)

I don't know, if someone walked every hour I'm pretty sure they would soon be one of the least popular people in the room.