It’s easy to underestimate the physical and mental poker stamina needed to go deep in poker tournaments
If you want to play poker professionally you need to look after yourself, which can prove tricky for the average poker player.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that playing online poker can turn you into an extremely lazy person. But what’s the alternative? Get changed and drag yourself out of the comfort of your home and drive down to the nearest cardroom, which could be hours away? And then stand around and wait until a table is free? Why put yourself through that when you can play online and sit in as many cash games and tournaments as your screen will allow while watching football on the telly and ordering a pizza?
Sounds good, doesn’t it? And don’t get me wrong, I’m as guilty as the next man when it comes to stuff like that. But, where I think I have an advantage, is that I usually keep myself mentally and physically fit. Unfortunately, when I was in Vegas this year I lost the discipline.
I drank too much virtually every night for seven weeks. I thought I’d be fine – after all, what had I got to do apart from wake up in the morning and sit down all day? How easy is that? I was so wrong.
If you’re hungover or tired your mind is not in any condition to win a big poker tournament. You have to feel fit and raring to go and be prepared to sit for many hours making crucial decisions. I wasn’t mentally fit in Vegas to win a big tournament. In short, my preparation sucked.
Sobering thought
Things were a bit different for me at the recent EPT Barcelona where I felt good and had a lot of patience, which was lucky, because the one thing I really noticed about the strong field was the enormous amount of Scandinavian players.
Everyone knows how aggressive our European neighbours can be and sitting on a table against eight of them is sheer poker hell.
The constant raising and re-raising around me made me take a more passive approach. I thought that the best way to combat their aggression would be to sit back and wait for the goods to arrive before pouncing.
And it seeemed to work. I ended up finishing 28th out of 600 for €17k, which wasn’t bad considering that in the 30-odd hours of play the only big hands I got were pocket Queens twice. It was sooo frustrating. I just couldn’t pick up a hand at a crucial stage when we were nearing the money.
If I wasn’t mentally and physically right for this event I would never have lasted as long as I did and would have gone home empty-handed. And that’s worth missing a drink or two to avoid.
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