Bringing your A Game

[kardmania]

After being lulled into medicrity how do you go about bringing your A game?

[Penneywize]

IMO - step 1 is to stop playing.

Get into review-mode; go over your tourney histories, pinpoint the poor decisions you made and figure out the faulty reasoning that brought them about. Read, or re-read, great books like Winning Tournies 1H at a Time and Kill Everyone, and go over your play again. Posting your more difficult, marginal spots in this space won't hurt either.

Don't play again until you both feel like playing and feel like you can win.

If you continue to lose, stepping down in tourney buy-ins - even if your roll doesn't necessitate it - isn't such a bad idea. Sure, it can take quite a while to make any significant amount of money this way, but the generally softer fields you're facing will eventually break in your favour.

When you start winning consistently again, move back up in stakes with your renewed confidence and lay the pwnage you know you're capable of.

[drmcboy]

well, I'm going to assume you're posting because you feel you are playing bad rather than because you are losing. Losing is the MTT game, if you need to win consistently to play good you're in the wrong format.

saying that, agree with everything Penney said. poker always seems so simple when you read/watch it. If I don't want to study, I'll watch old WPT/HSP/WSOP on the TiVo.

Reducing the amount of tables you play is also good. Maybe even drop down to whatever a low number is for you and turn off the hud.

Also, play some new games/cash to spice things up. when I switched to around 30-50% plo cash compared to 100% MTTs I started playing a lot better in MTTs. This is true even though cash losses tilt me much more than MTTs.

[danoxford]

Read books, read forums, play a different form of poker for low limits, play NLH for tiny limits and set yourself a challenge. It's like a marriage, renew the love.

[kardmania]

I could definitely do more reading and its not about losing.

What I am looking for deals with state of mind. Its more about finding the eye of the tiger. Its about feeling that you want to win and nothing else matters.

[Pnjs_dad]

Taking a break always helps me. I get bored with review too but i'm gonna have to get better at it before I get to where I eventually want to be. Why I invested in HEM. Thought that I could easily review there. GL to ya. I know it can be frustrating.

[kardmania]

I find that some of the tournaments just last forever (rebuy addo on games).

They do create some nice pots and pay outs but a 50 player game can last 6 hours.

I make a final table and decide I need to get up in under 6 hours....knowing I have cashed and made a few bucks and lose focus and desire.

[Penneywize]

I find that some of the tournaments just last forever (rebuy addo on games).

They do create some nice pots and pay outs but a 50 player game can last 6 hours.

I make a final table and decide I need to get up in under 6 hours....knowing I have cashed and made a few bucks and lose focus and desire.

Well, in terms of losing focus and desire, the final table is the absolute worst place for that to happen to you. If you get that far, you should be pumped up, especially if it took you 5 hours to get there. Honestly, when I get that far in a tournament, I don't need any extra motivation. I'm in the zone.

Here's a tip though. If long tourneys get you down (they bum me out too sometimes - especially the long ass middle part before the money), play more turbos, or at least avoid rebuys and deepstack tournaments. Sure, the play is different, but you can squeeze a 1500-player tourney into about 4 hours in a turbo. It's pretty sweet actually, once you get decent at playing them.

600 player turbos take like 3 hours tops, and the norm is about 2 and a half hours for like 400-. Pretty small time investment for very nice money, provided you make the FT.

[drmcboy]

Your A game starts with logical game selection

EDIT - also what Penny said.

If you don't like playing for 6+hours MTTs are not really the future for you.