In poker, it is often said that to win, you have to bring your ‘A-Game’. To the untrained eye, however, that seems impossible to do in every hand you play. Live poker is full of big names winning huge events, but the reality is that poker is a difficult game that is impossible to master.
What your own personal poker ‘A-Game’ is we have no idea, but there has to be a balance to your play if you’re looking to play long days and multi-table tournaments in 2022.
We’ve broken down a few ways that you can look to play the best you can by adjusting your focus during poker. It’s important to train yourself to do so in the healthiest possible way. This helps not only the development of your game but also the sustainability of your top-level over the long term.
Hard Focus and Soft Focus
If you’re totally focused during a hand of poker, then you’re often performing at a very high level and completing many mental tasks. You’ll be studying your opponent, calculating the odds of both the chance of your hand being ahead and the relative odds of the cards on display, and whether you should stay in the action for a start. There are a number of other thoughts that will be racing through your brain during ‘hard focus’.
It’s impossible to play like this for every hand, however. When you’re not in a hand, everyone is still playing poker, but should you study everyone’s actions with the same intensity as when your own chips are on the line? Of course not. Drifting out of hard focus to rest your mind is crucial to having the kind of longevity needed to survive long days at the live or online felt. As we discussed with some of the biggest names in poker in 2021, poker is a balancing act and there are many ways to succeed at the game.
There are a number of things to try to keep an eye on if you’re involved in the hand or not that shouldn’t tax you too much. Watching what players have at showdown is vital and you should never miss this kind of information. It helps build a picture of each of your opponents and how far they like to go with a variety of different holdings. Other tips would include looking for betting sizes, watching which betting streets players tend to favor and who plays the most (or least) hands.
Training Your Mind for Peaks and Troughs
How often have you read poker players of all levels documenting the end of their tournament in terms of having been ‘card dead’? To be card dead is to constantly receive low-ranking hole cards, such as three-deuce, seven-deuce, or five-four. Players often talk about being card-dead and follow up with a story of their resultant elimination. These bust-outs are often caused by frustration, and in poker that can be as damaging as raging tilt.
Whether you’re playing in your home game or at the World Series of Poker, training your brain to resist frustration is a tricky one. It can be helped by many activities, however, such as physical exercise or meditation, as well as setting targets for your own behavior.
In planning for a poker tournament, every player in the event mentally prepares for that big hand that will likely define their result, but very few do a lot of work on the hours of boredom that are just as big a part of poker tournaments. Events can last for days at a time, so you need to be prepared for periods of observation rather than active participation.
Before you begin playing a long poker tournament, prepare for hours on end where you don’t receive the kind of premium hands that are opportunities to make a profit or low cards that you can quickly toss into the muck. Instead, look at marginal spots where you know that you’re not as confident about playing the hand perfectly.
If you can improve your ability to ride out marginal spots with confidence that you’re making the right decision, then you won’t be as frustrated when it comes to throwing about bad cards or even great cards in bad positions.
Balancing Mental and Physical Tolls
The game of poker may be one that is mostly fought in the space between two or three players’ minds in any given hand, but it is a physically demanding pursuit too. The toll of long, mentally taxing days sitting in chairs either in a casino or at your computer screen can be huge, so how can you rectify any impact?
Making sure that you have an exercise regime is a great way of making sure that your body stays in a good condition, especially if you’re looking to up your poker volume in 2022. Spending more time sitting down needs balancing by adding in some fitness work on days off or between online sessions is vital.
Mental health is a zeitgeist subject if ever there was one, so make use of the amazing tools that are out there if your head is struggling. Learning skills to combat low mood, losing at poker or even anger management could be the difference between you being in the headspace to compete or not.
Making sure that you’re able to bring your ‘A-Game’ isn’t solely about performing at your best all the time at the felt. It’s also to do with protecting both your mind and body from being unable to do its best. Whenever you are able to play, stay healthy and in the right frame of mind to play poker and enjoy doing so.
Ready to test your poker balance? Check out our favorite online poker rooms to perfect your online strategy.
