How many times have you gone to play poker when you really didn’t feel like it? You know what I mean, those times you feel kind of “meh,” but you feel you should go try to earn some money? This will mostly happen to players who are playing for a living.

I would think nowadays that most people playing poker for their main income are keeping track of their wins, losses, and hours. Keeping track gives them a fairly accurate view of their hourly rate. A solid $1/$2 No Limit grinder in my area will average around $30 an hour, and it could possibly be higher. After a poker player knows his hourly rate, it can become easier to want to grind, mostly because he knows he has an expectation of $X per hour. I believe it can be a good motivator when a player knows that putting in time shows up in profit.

But, to keep that hourly pace, we have to make sure that we are playing when we are capable of performing at a high level. One of the brutal things about gambling is that you can win every day for a week and then have one bad session and erase all of your progress. Obviously, a seasoned player won’t do this very often, but it definitely can happen.

I am sure most of you have experienced the times when you take a few losses or bad beats but then tell yourself that the game is good, so you rebuy. Then, you take another loss or bad beat where you felt that you had everything going your way the whole hand. So, you decide to rebuy again. Now, you’re several buy-ins deep and risk erasing a ton of progress.

Usually in these circumstances, we are seeing things a little one-sided and I would probably be correct in assuming there have been at least one or two mistakes. I think it is important to have a really good feel of how we are playing and avoid blowing through too many buy-ins, especially if we are having any emotional reaction to the losses or bad beats.

Obviously, there will be times where things are as they seem and rebuying may be correct, but it is important that every bad session doesn’t feel that way. Make sure to realize how you are performing and be honest with yourself.

A lot of this boils down to knowing yourself. We need to know when we feel like playing and when we should just take a day off. We need to know when to rebuy and when to just call it a day. Knowing yourself could be one of the most important things a player can figure out. Once we know ourselves, we will be able to get the most out of every session, day, week, month, and year.

Now, I would like to share an example of one of the ways this helped me and how watching a friend helped me see the light. Locally where I play, we have two casinos that offer a $15,000 freeroll every month for players who get in 40 hours of play. Because of this, several grinders make sure to get 40 hours in to add the equity of the freeroll.

One of my friends grinds 80 hours a month to qualify for both freerolls and is constantly burned out. One of the reasons is because he is chasing the hours more than anything else and ends up playing in bad games that he would normally leave or playing when he doesn’t feel like it. My friend stays profitable, but his ability to burn out is a decent deterrent in my opinion.

Also, he is not really trying to do more than just make his average amount; he is not trying to pump up to get to the WSOP or anything. He is happy to just make his monthly nut, which also could be a reason he burns out. His grind has no major upside or dream to fulfill at the end. I do think after a few years of doing this, he is a little better at game selection, but I am not a fan of his approach.

I too have tried qualifying for both and, when chasing hours, I ended up in some miserable sessions. What I came to learn was that if I would just play when I felt like it, I could easily get in 40 hours in one of the casinos, and sometimes 40 in both. The added feel good I have by not forcing myself to play greatly outweighs the EV of making both freerolls. My point is to know yourself and play when you feel like it and I believe your profit margin will grow.

As always, my articles are often geared toward newer, improving players, not players already crushing. Good luck to all of the grinders out there, and make sure to know yourself.

This article was written by John cracker9ballReynolds, who hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you are interested in taking poker lessons or would like any information, contact him at variance101@gmail.com or visit Variance101.com.