Session

Detailed Explanation

A session is a discrete gambling period — from sit-down to walk-away. Treating gambling in structured sessions is fundamental to bankroll management: each session has a pre-defined buy-in (session bankroll), a stop-loss limit (maximum tolerable loss before leaving), and a win goal (a target profit at which the player considers stopping).

Session tracking enables performance analysis over time. Maintaining a record of session results — game, stakes, duration, result — allows a player to calculate their actual win rate, compare it against theoretical expectations, and identify whether results are within normal variance. For professional poker players, session logs are essential tax records.

The psychological framing of sessions matters. The 'gambler's fallacy' — the belief that results in one session should be balanced in subsequent sessions — is mathematically invalid. Each session's starting conditions are completely independent of prior sessions.