Fighting the Effects of Fatigue

[ScottC]

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?