keeping mental focus in long events?

[bobby rooney]

Hello, I recently played in the Aussie Millions, and although I did cash for AUD 10K, I feel I could have done much better had I been prepared for the mental endurance required for this type of event. My concentration slipped for a couple of hands after we got into the money and I lost 100K chips when I should have lost a lot less and was pretty much crippled after that. How do you prepare yourself for the rigors of intense concentration for twelve hour plus days several days in a row?

[jennicide]

When I play for a long time live, I like listening to music for several purposes. For one, it relaxes me in case of a bad beat so I don't lose my cool and secondly it also serves the purpose of keeping me awake and alert. Although some cardrooms don't allow headsets, I would recommend a good night's sleep the day before so that you're fully alert and awake at the event. If you lose a big pot and feel you're losing your cool, get up for a few minutes and walk around and try to gain some composure. Nevertheless, if all else fails you can try deep breathing exercises. Deep breathing helps in all sorts of stressful occurances, on or off the table.

I'm not sure if this was your first big event or long poker session, but for me, my first one was a little stressful and it was hard to keep focus, but as I continued to play more live, it became less of that nature.

[bobby rooney]

The breathing exercises are a great idea, because I think maybe it's the adrenaline that is getting a bit out of hand. I don't seem to have any problems busting out a fifteen or twenty hour live session and maintaining focus, for some reason the tourney was a bit different. After the first day of the big tourney, I literally felt like I had run a marathon with my brain. The second day, I maintained good focus until about the eight or ninth hour, then I just hit the wall.

[snowmen]

I have never played a live tournament but when i play online i usually go to the bathroom wash my face and try to get confidence and focused.I never played listening music but now Enya relax my games. Good luck

[jennicide]

Breathing Exercise Article

This is a good article that could be useful to someone at the table regarding deep breathing/relaxing. Hope it helps!

[jackdaniels]

Excellent question! I rarely play marathon sessions (ring games) and the long(er) tourneys that I do play (in excess of 8 hours) have me pretty drained. I found that keeping my energy up by drinking lots of water and eating fruit/granola bars/lo-fat content type foods really helps me out. While I do run to the washroom more than other players [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] , it keeps my mind clear and focused on the game. All those inhaling cheeseburgers at the table or drinking coffee/soda for the caffeine/sugar are often drained at the end of hour 6 and start making bad mistakes which are easy to capitalize on.