How long can you play and stay mentally sharp?

Was curious about how long other players can stay mentally sharp in ring games. What are some of your tricks to stay fresh? I'm fairly new to poker, which might account for my problem. I can play only about 4 hours before I hit mental fatigue. Trying to analyze each hand and player just takes its toll. I walk around at least once an hour. How do some players go 8+ hours/day, day after day?


Your comments would be appreciated.

get good sleep, drink coffee, get fresh air, fold. dont always make your mind work ovretime. once you get into the groove of things, you can pay less attention to the hands you aren't in. that doesn't mean go to sleep when you fold, but after you get decent at putting people on hands, etc. you can cool off a bit and take a break when its not crucial. getting enough sleep is important. also, have fun, when it becomes work, the energy goes like that...

It takes lots and lots of experience.


As you know, there are a million different things that can happen in a poker hand, and every one of them can be analyzed and navigated properly using the kinds of tools and ideas you find in Sklansky books, for instance. But what is much less wearying is if, of the million different things, none of them is new, and you have a time-tested stock response lined up for every one of them in your mental stimulus-response catalog.


Once you have put in enough thousands of hours, it becomes just like tying your shoes - even sorting and classifying what sort of shoes you are tying at a given moment becomes like tying your shoes. If I had to think - and when I had to think - I would last about two hours. A tourist, even if he is much smarter than me, cannot help but start giving up those extra calls or unecessary folds around 4:00 AM - because neither of us is thinking, and only one of us has a full-spectrum auto-pilot program loaded into the bottom of his cerebrum somewhere.


- the guy

if you only play on weekends like i do, you can try to lay off caffine for a day or two until you get to the table.