Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

Late in an offline multi on Sat night (3 handed) I moved in with a marginal hand for no good reason.

Five hours of play, and my first mistake was a doozy, costing me a likely 2nd and very good shot at 1st. Though 3rd place money was nice, we all know the difference between Bronze, Silver, and Gold in poker tournaments.

Fatigue made me impulsive, that's for sure. Contrasting it to a similar situation I was in a few weeks ago, I can recall a clearly different state of mind, one that allowed me to exploit my opponents' fatigue and take 1st.

I suppose you should do what you can to prevent it, but that won't always be possible. And I don't think you can do much to eliminate it once it is upon you -- I was on my second Red Bull, had stepped outside at the last break, slapped myself even -- so I figure I should focus first on detecting my fatigue, and once detected, preventing my pitfalls.

My plan then is to pay attention to feeling light headed and punch drunk, and of feeling overly satisfied at having cashed. Once detected, I will tell myself to refocus, and remind myself that the stakes get higher with each person knocked out, and that my goal is 1st place and nothing less now that I've cashed.

I will then remind myself I have to make an extra effort to contain my impulsiveness. There's no reason I can't count to 10 in my head after every decision I've made and then review it again.

Also, I must continue to go through my mental checklist:<ul type="square">What do I intend to get from this action? What is the short term goal?
Is that short term goal in line with my long term goal of first place?
Are the risks commensurate with the likely outcome?
Have I viewed the decision from all angles and perspectives, including my opponents'?
Have I scanned all my opponents for tells and included them in my decision?
Have I reviewed all my opponents' potential responses to my action, and am I prepared for all of them?[/list]Fatigue will have different effects on many of us, but I suspect the first task must be learning to recognize it, followed by specific techniques to overcome the effects.

What do you think?

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

Bump. Any comments?

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

Cocaine is helluva drug.

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

sorry, but you already did a really good job of answering yourself.

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

[ QUOTE ]
Cocaine is helluva drug.

[/ QUOTE ]I figured that stimulants might be popular, but my personal experience suggests they wouldn't be an ideal palliative at the table. Good for you, though, if it works.

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

[ QUOTE ]
sorry, but you already did a really good job of answering yourself.

[/ QUOTE ]OK, thanks.

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

Its something that late Rick James said in a more serious than joking way.

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

Drink lots of fluids. Being dehydrated (which most people are most of the time) is shown to impair mental as well as physical ability.

Just remember that you need to be able to take regular pisses tho!

Tim

Re: Fighting the Effects of Fatigue
 

Scott:

This is a very good post IMO. I think that many of my mistakes can be attributed to fatigue. When fatigue strikes, I sometimes do something that I have no idea why I did it.

Good poker decisions require one to perceive a lot of subtelties. It is really hard to take those subtelties in and process them when you are tired. Decisions become more robotic.

Really, it is a matter of concentration. Being able to concentrate hand, after hand, after hand; even the ones you are not in. Even when (when tired) you make decisions that seem to be easy (throwing away T3o) you have to wonder whether a better decision could have been made if you had been more focused (e.g., maybe this was a perfect time to steal).

A person can know a lot about poker and have a lot of tools and skills, but unless you are able to concentrate hard enough to put all the information together and make the right decision they are only going to get you so far.

It's about concentration and clarity of mind. I think Greg Raymer talked about this recently as a big key to his victory.

I equate fatigue with difficulty in continuing to concentrate. I'm not sure I have any tips for solving the problem, other than to recognize it and tell yourself to concentrate before every single action. Sometimes, I find myself mentally repeating, "concentrate, concentrate, concentrate . . . " Puts me to sleep though.