Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 22 July 2008 / 1 Comments

The higher you take your game in the world of poker, the more it starts to become as much a battle with yourself, as with the players at the table.

This is true for a variety of factors, including tilt control, bankroll management, and general spending habits. With the WSOP finished, and no doubt a lot of tired players, what I want to look at here is one of the hardest factors to deal with - fatigue and self judgement.

The first key point to think about is that poker tends to lend itself to being played in binges. In the case of tournaments you cannot leave until you bust, and in the case of cash games you want to try and stay at any table with weak players for as long as possible. As a result of these long periods playing, fatigue is one of the most common factors that players have to deal with. High stakes pro Andrew 'good2cu' Robl writes a great piece about his own experiences with fatigue in a blog post at www.andrewrobl.com:

'I have played more hands of poker over the past three years that almost any other individual. At times I've played unbelievable poker. I have perfectly narrow down my opponents hand range by street, having their exact hand range pegged by river. This has lasted for whole sessions, whole weeks even a whole month. During these time frames I'll be in everyone of my opponent's heads knowing how they will react to bets on every street of every size and I can trick them to making mistakes. The money pours in.

Then there have been sessions, weeks and even months where my brain seems unable to focus and think through a hand. I play on autopilot, playing a standard tight unthinking game, making countless mistakes and having all of my opponents on a default hand range, not even trying to figure out how they are thinking and playing. The money slowly flows away.'

This is a classic example of how the human brain seems to just shut down when fatigued, concentration lapses, easy observations get missed, and the 'money slowly flows away'. Yet just by writing like this Andrew is showing the first key thing that is necessary to start minimising the damage done by fatigue: he is recognising it.

It is easy to blame losses on outside factors like luck, but I suspect many of the times players complain about running bad they are actually quite fatigued, are making small mistakes, and missing out on extra opportunities to accumulate chips. Try and really be honest with yourself about why you seem to be running bad. Once you can start to identify when you are tired and not playing your best game the second problem becomes how to overcome it.

There is only one way to adequately relieve fatigue in any walk of life, and that is rest. In the case of cash games, it is easy, you can just stand up and leave. In the case of tournaments, it is more complicated, but still achievable. Playing tournaments fatigue free requires the player to adhere to a decent routine that enables them to get adequate rest before and after each session of play. Try and think about the long term affect of your actions in the free time you have around tournaments - it will really pay dividends in the long run.

Mastering the ability to leave cash games when tired and down, or sticking to a good routine around tournament time is a critical part of being a successful player. Try and be as introspective as possible when the deck seems to turn against you - it may be that lady luck is not the only thing making the chips flow away.