3 Ways To Stay Focused at The Poker Table 

Most Important thing to do in a long poker game is to stay focused. The more focused you are the better the chance of winning. Human mind isn’t really trained to stay focused for 10 hours, which some tournaments can just prolong for. You can break the time down into small sprints. Let’s take a look at few techniques one can use to keep their head in the game. When you start the game every poker player goes through three stages.

1. Peak focus:

This is the stage when you look at the action on the table. Try to remember everything, try to process everything. Looking at everyone for weaknesses to exploit and storing it in your mind for later in the long game.

2. Maintenance:

In this stage, you will pay focus on only a few players maybe one or two. Carefully watching their every move and knowing their gameplay and accordingly adjust your strategy. In poker you don't play just the cards, you play the player.

3. Relax:

This is the last stage where you don’t pay attention to anything. Basically, it is about regaining yourself. Regaining confidence and calming yourself down. It's necessary to relax to avoid silly mistakes especially when you come near to the finish line

These stages can take any amount of time for every player. For example, some players can take 2 hours to focus 1 hour to maintenance and just relax for 20 mins before he makes his final move. Surprisingly this is a super easy way where you stay cognitive focus at the table. After all, poker is like a marathon, not a sprint. Being in the game is more important in any tournament. Apart from that, it is best to keep your cell phones and laptops away. Keep control on your eating and drinking to avoid getting sleepy or too many bathroom breaks. Stay focused and bring your A-game.