Published in cooperation between readwrite and San Jose Inside

Online poker is a game of intensity, wit and strategy. It demands quick thinking and constant decision-making. Players need to have an astute ability to use their intuition and evaluate all the given information under immense pressure. For most players, their dips in performance around the table are primarily affected by choice fatigue rather than the presence of excellent opponents or bad luck. The fatigue of accurate decision-making after spending a prolonged period of time at the table can be the biggest thing to unravel many poker players' games.

This fatigue is a psychological phenomenon that comes about after players have had to make too many tough choices over a period of time. This can become even more apparent in online gambling settings, such as at an NZ online casino. These platforms offer vast markets, rapid transactions, where tables are plentiful and distractions just a click away. There is more potential for things to sabotage your game in these settings. Fortunately, if you adopt some useful tactics to manage this fatigue, you can stay sharp and grind out tournaments to garner wins.

Quality Over Quantity

Limiting your table count is a quick and effective way to ensure that you reduce fatigue chances. Too many players think that by pushing multiple tables, they have a better chance of getting more profit. Players will push multiple tables at once to try to maximise their potential. But ultimately, this can require a lot of brain power and concentration. The more decisions you have to make over a shorter period of time, the more likely that fatigue is going to set in.

Instead, playing fewer games allows you to focus on one game at a time. Each game should only really be started when you know you are comfortable and ready to go, where your decision-making is stable and not working immediately on the back of other games or with emotions present. If you see yourself rechecking actions multiple times or have any form of hesitation in your game, then it may be time to call it and have a break.

Schedule Breaks

When it comes to fatigue, your brain needs rest. The rest doesn’t need to be huge; in fact, it can be just a few minutes most of the time. These minutes allow your brain to reset and come back feeling refreshed. Building structured breaks into your routine, whether it be 10 minutes every hour or an adoption of the Pomodoro technique, which has been shown to reduce fatigue by around 20 percent, is an effective way to manage choice fatigue.

Within these breaks, ensuring you are eating and hydrating is important. Looking after your physical health is only going to help with your concentration levels and your brain's concentration levels.

Standardize Decisions To Reduce Your Load

A helpful tactic to try and help with choice fatigue is by standardizing your decisions when playing poker. This can be a quick way to combat fatigue, as the aim is to reduce the number of decisions that you need to make. By developing a range of decisions you make in given situations then you can opt for preplanned decisions rather than in-the-moment choices.

Preflopping opening ranges and defaulting frequencies of your continuation bets can be useful ways to commit to this standardization. Managing your VPIP (Voluntarily Put $ in Pot) within the optimal levels of 15 percent-20 percent and your PFR (Preflop Raise) range around 2-3 percent less than VPIP can be a good way to optimize your standardized tactics. Automatically folding specific hands and predetermined bets on hands/cards is also another way of creating a strategy that can apply to all games and can allow you to have a plan even before things happen. This can allow players to reduce specific choice fatigue. These shortcuts mean that you don’t need to reinvent your strategy with every hand and every game. Instead, you will have established patterns and plays that you regularly use to commit actions that are more likely to give you wins for the least amount of work.

Recognize Early Fatigue Signs

Choice fatigue can creep on you all of a sudden. It is a gradual effect that soon starts to take over. But before it starts costing you, you will want to identify it early.

Realising that you are making decisions on autopilot. Becoming impulsive or having difficulty with basic calculations. Or generally growing in irritability or impatience, are all signs that choice fatigue is setting in. Making sure that you are recognizing these kinds of factors and noticing the signals is crucial. As soon as you recognize this kind of dip, it's recommended to stop immediately and recollect yourself. Take a break and adjust your strategy.