Essential: Establish your loss limit!

A loss limit is a limit you set on what your losses will be for a certain day, game or table.

It's the limit of what you can comfortably afford to lose. You never bet down to your last chip. A session should last until your win goal is achieved or your loss limit is reached. When you lose that predetermined amount your play is over.

Loss limits completely eliminate the possibility that you will ever go broke. A loss limit of at least 50% of your bankroll (and no more than 60%) should be observed. This means I can lose anywhere up to 60% but never more. The reason you take more money with you than you put at risk is to eliminate playing with scared money. If you are tempted to play with the extra money then you have no discipline.

You can make the loss limit lower, but never below 25%. You give up your recovery power the more you lower your loss limit. When you are losing you don't have to wait for your exact percentage to be reached to quit. When I'm losing at a certain point and can't get going, I realize I'm in the wrong spot and pack it in at less than my established loss limit.

Fail to do this and you risk going home broke.