How to Manage Long Tournaments

Long online poker or live poker sessions will happen when you are either playing big poker tournaments or you have decided to play a ton of poker on any given day. Most commonly you will encounter a long day of poker when playing live poker tournaments. These days seem to never end and you will find yourself losing sleep, not eating as healthy as you’d like to, and gaining a bunch of weight or losing a bunch of weight. Ideally, you want to maintain the same weight you are at when coming in to the day, but often times when you sit at a poker table time will seem to stand still and drag on for hours on end. Live poker tournaments are the hardest things to do well in with poker because one or two bad hands that don’t come your way could mean the end and no money. To make sure you get some money for your efforts and have the potential to go on a run and win the tournament, you have to keep a number of things always in the back of your mind.

First, when dealing with a long day of poker you need to maintain your focus. This could be as simple as drinking water or eating foods that will allow your brain to function at a high level for an extended period of time. If you can extend your brain power and have your brain functioning on a higher level than your opponents, you will be able to make more moves at pots and win more hands over the course of a day. Any professional player will tell you that even they can go on tilt or lose focus for an extended period of time throughout a long day of poker. These long days turn into longer nights and to have common goals set is what you want. If you are playing a poker tournament that lasts two days total, your first goal to start the day should be to build your stack and to make it to day two. This is important because day two is the money day and it is where you will turn a small buy-in into double, triple or more. In order to ensure that your buy-in wasn’t wasted you should look to maintain focus and a solid image at the table. If you start to play too many hands in games with elite players, you will get picked off and dwindled down to no chips in a matter of time. Time is of the essence in poker tournaments and it is not a race to see who will accumulate the most chips right away. Long days of poker are journeys and you want to be there at the end of the long journey.

In order to be there at the end of a long poker day, you should look to maintain a steady diet of protein and carbohydrates. Foods like grilled chicken are great for long days of poker and you should avoid things such as pizza or any fried foods. Fried foods will weigh you down and cause you to not be as focused as you’d like to be. These are little things that go in to big things. Not many poker players will look at the little things as imperative points in poker tournaments, but to be the best you have to have your body performing the best. Most will not see poker players as professional athletes, but if you want to have a lot of money someday it is important to maintain the little things as well as the big things. Managing your time and what you put into your body will help you in the long run. This also means that if you are playing 15 hours of poker in one day, you should avoid things like coffee, energy drinks, and other stimulants and depressants like alcohol, or cigarettes, and obviously marijuana or drugs as well. When you put bad things into your body, bad things will happen in poker tournaments. It is only a matter of time before you slip up and play a hand you wouldn’t have played otherwise. When you use stimulants and depressants at the poker tables, you are only hurting yourself and you should never look to put those types of things in to your body. Instead of an energy drink like a red bull have orange juice. Instead of smoking cigarettes go for a walk while you’re on a break and think about what you can do to improve. Constant improvement is what makes losing players winning players, and what turns winning players into degenerates. Little things and bad health patterns can easily be shown over time and if you want to be the best, you have to have your brain power there with you at all times.