Poker Tips - Trying to Aim for High Concentration Play

Strange as this may seem, playing online poker can be extremely tiring. The process of sitting in a chair sat upright all the time while staring at a computer screen can leave players feeling mentally drained in a short space of time. Also the process of constantly staring at a monitor can also have a very draining effect on a player as well. I started out playing full-time when I played online and I found that my earn rate improved when I dropped down the number of hours that I played.

There is little point in playing poker for six hours if for four out of those six hours, your concentration is so low that you are leaking money. If you are playing at a level where your opponents are not very strong then you can maybe play on auto pilot as mentally drifting off will probably not do you a great deal of harm.

What I mean by high concentration play is to try and play poker at all times during phases when your concentration is either at its maximum or is close to it. This will always be close to the start of the session. Now these cut-off points will vary from player to player as to when your concentration will start to diminish.

I could maintain my concentration for well over two hours years ago and recently it has shrunk to about thirty minutes or so. But it is vital that you accurately establish what your limits are with regards your concentration and when you hit that barrier for when you start to move into the danger zone of making plays that are on automatic pilot.

As I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with automatic play, multi-tablers or players who multi-table large numbers of games do this all the time. But the difference is that they are both good or playing against lower stakes players or more than likely both.

If you find that you are starting to drift in poker games where drifting would be fatal against strong players after say a mere forty five minutes then drop your sessions down to thirty minutes. If your aim is to be a full-time player and you don’t like the sound of doing this then don’t fool yourself. You cannot play profitable poker if you are constantly making mistakes due to concentration lapses.

These days, it is the non-playing poker skills that players need in order to be able to beat the game. Good money management skills, good discipline, good game selection, using good software like Poker Office (which I use) and maintaining good concentration.