How Long Does A Poker Game Last

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4/13/2022

How Long Does A Poker Game Last

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Poker, like with all legal betting events, is a game that is played using the typical deck of 52 cards. These cards are shared amongst the players in even proportions, and then played in a particular variant of the Poker game. Like with all betting events, Poker. According to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, this card game lasted fourteen years. The second hotel in town, named Lafayette, was often referred to by locals as “Lay-Flat” hotel. This one was located closer to the.

You may have heard of poker pros who log countless hours at the tables every day. For example, certain online multi-tablers and tournament grinders are renowned for playing 10-12 hours per day.

These ironmen earn hero status among their peers for feats of sleeplessness and extreme concentration. They’re also imitated by amateurs who play long hours in hopes of one day making big profits.

But are lengthy sessions really the best way to make money from the game? Or is there a point when too many hours diminish your skill level by a considerable margin?

I’ll answer these questions by discussing the optimal amount of time for a poker session. You may find that the perfect number of hours is far different than you think.

Several Variables Go Into Deciding the Right Amount of Time to Play

No golden rule exists on the ideal number of hours for playing poker. If there were, then everybody would know to play for X number of hours.

You need to consider multiple factors before formulating an idea of how long to play. Below, you can see the many aspects to account for.

Experience Level

A big part of poker success is recognizing patterns in opponents. Sure, you’ll be surprised by some players, even after being in the game for a while.

But for the most part, players at each level exhibit similar patterns. Pros take advantage of these patterns to boost their win rate.

The same pros can play on autopilot to a degree. They save mental energy as a result and can enjoy longer sessions.

If you’re not a skilled professional, or even a competent player, then you’ll have to analyze situations closer. Therefore, you’ll feel mentally exhausted quicker than a player who’s seen the same scenarios over and over.

Rest and Diet

You can’t play your best poker on a fast-food diet and four hours of sleep. Proper rest and healthy eating are crucial to quality hours spent on the table.

You’ll be able to play the longest after a standard seven to nine hours of sleep. But your play will be suboptimal with too little sleep, especially as you get further into a session.

Research shows that you’ll be more forgetful and distracted when sleep deprived. You’ll also struggle with memory and visual perception.

None of these traits are ideal for a serious poker player. Therefore, you should consider playing a shorter session — if at all — when you’re struggling this badly with sleep.

Multi-tabling

Online poker provides the opportunity to play multiple tables at once. As a winning player, you can use multi-tabling to boost your hourly profits.

Of course, you also have to consider the increased focus involved with multi-tabling. This practice requires making a lot more decisions within a shorter timeframe.

You can slowly adapt to playing more tables. Eventually, you may find that running three to four tables is just as easy as a single table.

However, you’re never going to feel completely at ease with 12-20 tables. Such a large volume of hands cuts down on the amount of time that you can play.

Hot and Cold Streaks

Poker has a luck factor that causes up and downswings. If you’re good enough, you’ll survive this rollercoaster of emotions and still earn profits.

However, you want to spend the most time playing during good runs. Your confidence level and psyche will be up during hot streaks, which is when you need to maximize your time.

Meanwhile, you should consider shortening sessions when running bad. You don’t want to force the issue after several bad beats, or you’ll be more likely to suffer tilt.

Hand Goals

You can measure the length of a poker session through either time or the number of hands. Time is a good method for tracking the hourly profit/loss rate of sessions.

But many players prefer to focus on the number of hands. After all, the type of poker you play can affect how long your concentration lasts.

You may average 160 hands per hour in heads-up cash games. But you might only log 75 hands an hour at full-ring tables.

Obviously, playing four hours in each of these situations isn’t the same. You’ll be able to concentrate for more hours with full-ring tables versus HU games.

That said, you might want to rely on hand goals when determining your session length. After consistently reaching a certain mark, you can gradually increase the number of hands played per hour or session.

Documenting Your Play

Knowing the factors that should determine session length is only part of the battle. You eventually need to start tracking your play to figure out how many hands/hours is ideal.

One way to do this is simply by using the stopwatch on your smartphone. You can keep the stopwatch going from the start to the end of a session.

The other method involves tracking how many hands you play. Some online poker tables monitor this information, while third-party software (e.g., Heads-Up Display) does the same trick.

In these cases, you needn’t perform any guesswork. But if you don’t have software monitoring your hands, then you can use estimations.

Here are examples for each category (all single-table estimates):

Heads up = 150-200 hands per hour
6 max = 80-100 hands
Full ring = 60-75 hands
Fast fold (e.g., Zoom) = 200-250 hands

You should also consider taking notes on how you feel during and after each session. Documenting how you’re feeling mentally and physically helps nail down the perfect number of hands/hours.

You may, for example, feel great after the first few hours or 500 hands. But then you might notice that your play and concentration drop off after this point.

Without keeping track of these feelings, you may forget about them later. Having them on paper or in a Word document helps pinpoint patterns over time.

The Importance of Finding the Optimal Time for Poker Sessions

Perhaps you just like to play poker sessions by feel and can quit naturally. This approach can work to a degree.

But if you’re aiming for the optimal time for playing every session, then you want a more precise approach.

Your skills diminish when your concentration is no longer as sharp. This aspect highlights the importance of ensuring that you know when it’s time to quit.

Of course, you can still make money after the optimal point if your edge is big enough. If you win 10bb per hour by multi-tabling $1/$2 NL cash games, for example, you might still earn 7bb past your peak.

Assuming you’re not a winning player, though, then you should seriously consider only playing at peak performance. After all, you don’t want to play worse poker and lose money simultaneously.

Can You Improve Your Focus for Longer Poker Sessions?

The biggest thing that you can do to boost your focus in poker is to simply play more. You’ll gradually notice patterns when playing at certain stakes and not have to think as hard about decisions.

You may set a goal for logging X number of hours or hands per day. Then, you can try to increase this goal slightly each week.

Another key is to take care of yourself. You should be eating well and sleeping enough, regardless.

But improved poker skills provide further motivation to be healthy. At the very least, you should wait to eat bad until after your poker session.

One more aspect includes improving your ability to multi-table. If you’re a really serious online poker player, the chances are that you’ll want to play more tables at some point.

You can slowly make this transition one table at a time. A good goal is to play at least three to four tables simultaneously or be able to handle fast-fold poker adequately.

Conclusion

You can see that there’s no easy way to answer how many hands or hours you should play in a session. The optimal time/hand number differs for each individual.

But you can at least form the foundation for the optimal amount of time to play. This process begins by looking at the various factors that should dictate your session length.

To recap, these aspects include:

Poker experience
Sleep and nutrition
Whether or not you multi-table
If you’re on an upswing or downswing
Using time or hands as a measurement

You want to determine how these factors fit into your poker profile. Afterward, you should start tracking how you feel physically and mentally during sessions.

The goal is to figure out what works best for you. Once you determine the optimal point, you can try to gradually improve on it.

Playing more, eating right, and sleeping enough will all help boost your playing capacity. Gradually multi-tabling can increase the number of hands you log each hour.

If all else fails, you can always stick to the common workplace recommendation of only playing (working) four hours per day. However, I encourage you to look more deeply into the matter and figure out what works best for you.

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If you’ve ever played or even just watched poker, you probably know that cash games and tournaments can take hours and even days to finish. Over the course of these hours and days, players will have played many individual hands. But how many exactly? How long does a typical poker hand last?

A poker hand can take anywhere from 10 – 15 seconds to 10+ minutes to complete. It depends on how many players decide to get involved and how big the pot gets. If players have to deal with tough decisions, they’ll take more time on every street and can sometimes go into long tanks before they act.

In general, live poker hands take longer than the online ones. This is because of several factors. First of all, online players don’t have to deal with physical chips and cards and they’re always warned when it’s their turn to act.

Secondly, most online poker rooms have timers, so there is a fixed amount of time you’re allowed to take on any street before your hand is automatically folded. In really tough spots, you can get an extension via your time bank, but even these time banks are much shorter than how long many players take to act in live games.

Table Of Contents

How to Speed up the Action?

How Many Hands Can You Play in a Session?

The question of how long does a poker hand last may seem somewhat pointless but it’s actually quite important for serious players. You want to see as many hands per hour as you possibly can if you have an edge over the competition.

This is especially important in cash games, where professionals will often explain their win rate in terms of big blinds won per 100 hands. If someone is playing $1/$2 no limit Hold’em and wins 10 big blinds per hundred, they’re making, on average, $20 for every 100 hands they get to play.

This includes all hands, even the ones they fold before the flop without putting a single penny into the pot.

So, you want to see as many hands as possible during your session if you’re a winning player because that effectively increases your total profit.

So, let’s look at some numbers.

Online poker is typically much faster and you can expect anywhere between 70 and 100 hands at a 6-max table and between 60 and 80 hands playing full ring (nine players). So, an average hand of online poker takes less than a minute to complete.

In a live game, you’ll be lucky to see 30 hands per hour at a full table, while you might get to 40 – 45 playing 6-max.

In a live setting, especially in cash games, there are no time restrictions. Some rooms won't even let you call the clock on a player when playing cash. In those games where you can do it, it’s still considered rude and done rarely.

So, if you go to a casino to play full ring, in a typical five to six hours’ session, you’ll see between 130 and 200 hands. In that same period online, you can get to up to 500 hands in, and that’s assuming you’re playing just one table.

How to Speed up the Action?

Let’s be honest; the moment you fold, you’re ready for the next hand and having to idly sit and observe others fight it out for the pot is boring and even frustrating sometimes.

This is especially true if you’ve been getting a lot of bad cards and had to fold a lot. In that case, the next hand simply can’t come around fast enough.

Online, this isn’t too big of an issue as players can’t take forever to act and you can always add some extra tables if the action on one is just too slow. Live, though, all you can do is sit in your chair and wait for someone to drag the pot before the next hand can commence.

Before we discuss some things you can do to potentially speed up the action, it’s important to post some warnings.

Players have the right to take their time to make a decision. Some take longer than the others and as annoying as that may be, it’s the part of the game. You can’t just rush everyone else because you’re bored. After all, it’s the real money at stake.

Some players are new to the game and some dealers aren’t as experienced. These things can slow down the game significantly and make every hand last much longer than it should. Getting frustrated over it won’t do you any good as they aren’t doing it on purpose. Have some patience and be thankful there is some fresh blood at the table.

Asking Politely

There are some players who enjoy poker mostly for the social aspect of the game. They don’t care how long a hand lasts or what their big blind per hundred or per hour is. They want to have fun and tend to take a lot of time with almost every decision.

If you have a player like this at your table, where they take an extra 30 – 40 seconds on every hand for no real reason, your best course of action is to ask them politely not to do it.

How Long Does A Game Of Poker Last

In most cases, this will work. They probably aren’t doing it to annoy anyone, they just don’t see the total number of hands they play in a session as an important factor.

How Long Should A Poker Game Last

Calling the Clock

Calling the clock on someone isn’t really popular in cash games but it’s sometimes a good option in tournaments. Since blinds increase overtime, taking too long to act on your hands is inconsiderate and rude to other players.

If you notice someone is tanking all the time and stealing valuable time from others, you can (and should) start calling clock on them. Every time you call the clock, the tournament director will come around and give them 60 seconds to make up their mind. If they don’t do it in time, their hand is declared dead.

The same goes if someone is stuck on a particular street and they’ve been thinking for several minutes without a decision in sight. You can’t really let someone steal an entire level just to play a single hand.

Online vs. Live: Number of Hands vs. Quality of Play

If you’re just looking to play as many hands as possible every session, the choice is clear. You have to play online and fire up multiple tables. You’ll be able to put in a huge volume. If you really want to maximize the time / hand ratio, you can even play speed-fold variations like Zoom Poker.

Live, the number of hands you’ll get to play is clearly limited by external factors that you have no control over.

At the same time, you can achieve much higher win-rates playing live poker. For example, a good $1/$2 player can easily win 10 big blinds per hour. A solid online player in today’s environment can maybe expect to make 2-3bb/100. You can still make more money online as you can play more tables but it’s much more challenging.

In the end, it gets down to your personal preference and what you enjoy more, provided you can beat both online and live games. Going any deeper than that would be out of scope of this particular article, but at least now you know long a poker hand takes and how many of them you can expect to see in a session.