Even if you have the best poker skills of anyone in your city, and everyone is always dreading to sit with you at a poker table, you can never go to a land-based poker room with anything less than you’re A-game.
Because you know that if you do, you could get beaten and ridiculed in front of all those that have been hailing and cheering you. However, when it comes to online pokers, it’s not uncommon to find players coming to the game without being on their A-game.
Not that they intend to, though, but the absence of onlookers and the possibility of playing with micro stakes means that players are not under pressure to deliver their best at all times. Since no is there to judge your every move and you can even play with as low as a few bucks, why place yourself under unnecessary pressure?
Unfortunately, not being on their A-game is one of the primary reasons why many poker players suck at the table. If everyone were always at their best, then online poker would be a far more difficult game to win. Not that we expect anyone to be on their A-game during every minute of every session. But you can maintain your poker A-game more often by using the following tips.
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Get Enough Sleep
Sleep, as we know it, is one of the essential parts of human existence. If you get enough of it, it’ll reflect in your productivity and efficiency. But if you’re deprived of it, well, you know how that always ends.
As an online poker player, the amount of sleep you get can determine to a great extent, your mental status when you go online to play. As a general rule of thumb, you should catch at least 3-4 hours of sleep before your first poker session every day. And if time permits, you can add a few naps in between poker sessions.
Back in 2006, a certain Robert Stickgold of Harvard Medical School conducted an “emotional memory” study on a set of individuals to rate the emotional content of words as positive (e.g., calm), negative (e.g., grief), or neutral (e.g., willow).
Half of the team were sleep-deprived for 36 hours, and the other half – the control group – was made to have enough sleep. And after two nights of recovery sleep, the subjects were given a surprise test of their memory about what words they had seen. Compared to the control group, the sleep-deprived subjects were 40 percent less able to remember test words.
That severe hit to memory all by itself should be something you’d want to avoid. But that’s even all; the result also suggested that when you are sleep-deprived, you effectively form twice as many memories of negative events in your life as of positive events, producing a biased memory of your day.
Maintain A Healthy Diet
According to a study by WebMD, the quality of diets you have can go a long way to determine your mental energy and focus. But due to the sedentary nature of poker, it can be pretty difficult for an online player to have enough time to prepare quality meals. The common practice amongst most poker players is to sit in front of their screen for long periods, surviving on fast foods, junks, and energy drinks.
But guess what? Living on such diets will only cause you more mental crashes and blocks. As a general rule of thumb, you should take out 20 to 30 minutes per day to make good meals before logging in to websites like link Dewapoker to play at the tables.
Do Not Rush Yourself And Take Things Slowly
If you want to be on your A-game every time you visit an online poker site, then you need to slowly increase your playing volume and not rush things. In truth, the prospect of winning big money at the table might be too tempting to ignore, and you might want to jump from 300 hands per day to a thousand.
But, trust me, the last thing you want to do is to drastically increase your playing volume, as this could lead to an overload and poor decision making. If you’re shooting for huge profits, you can gradually increase your playing volume day by day, by setting a specific hand limit and raising it by a hundred extra hands every day.
Kick Distractions Out Of The Window
Take it or leave it; you cannot be on your A-game in poker if you’re always talking with friends, chatting on social media, and engaging in other activities while playing online. The habit of scrolling through your phone, opening other tabs on your desktop browser and doing other things on the side while playing online poker is something you really want to kick out of your game.
If you know you have other things to tend to, concentrate on them, and go back to your game once you’re done. Trying to multitask while playing for real money on a poker site will cause you to lose more money than you could possibly imagine.
Incorporate Meditation Into Your Schedule
Constant meditation can also help you maintain an A-game in poker. From relieving you of your mental stresses to helping you kick out distractions, incorporating meditation into your daily schedule as an online poker player can help set the tone for a profitable poker session.
Have An Adequate Bankroll
When it comes to the effect of bankrolls, poker is just like every other gambling game out there. The more adequately sufficient your bankroll is, the better your chances of limiting risks and winning real money.
You can’t be on you’re A-game if you’re always worried about not blowing the last few bucks you have left in your account. But when you have a more than sufficient bankroll to bet with, you have more liberty to make the right decisions.
If you are interested in even more entertainment-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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