It feels like lately I can't focus at all when playing. There's no awareness, no clarity, and I feel like I have to overthink even the simplest spots and still can't come to a decision.

Whenever I'm reviewing spots where I had some trouble I can pretty easily come to a conclusion on how to solve it. But it feels like in the moment I just can't focus enough to reach the unconcious competence or data to make the correct decision. Even though I know I've played a certain spot well 20 times before without thinking twice about it.

I'm using ritalin for my ADD for about 2 years now, even though I'm not really sure if it's still that effective.

I exercise almost daily but have terrible sleep patterns and even after a good 8 hours sleep I feel groggy when I wake up and feel like sleeping quite often 2 hours after waking up.

I saw a video where some pro was talking about Adrenal Fatigue and how that was holding him back for a while and he described some of the things I can relate to. He basically said his adrenals burned out of playing so much poker that they didn't produce enough hormones to focus anymore so he could never play his A-game.

Anyone have experience on "Adrenal Fatigue"? Or any other thoughts on what it could be that could give me trouble focussing?

if changing your living habits will not yield better focus, then maybe do something other than poker for a while until the focus comes back.

Yeah but that's not really a solution. Then whenever I get back into poker I'll make the same "mistakes" again that lead to the same outcome of me feeling burned out on poker...

Maybe you should talk to a dr about this, or maybe you've just lost interest.

I was asking someone earlier about what % of their decisions were close, easy, or tough. Even a crusher has tough decisions. Maybe you indeed are over thinking easy decisions. Or maybe your opponents have noticed a pattern in the way you play close decisions. Everyone has their own unique reaction to close decisions. I tend to call down a lot because I play mostly limit holdem. When I play no limit and I'm facing big bets, I call down much less and I err on the side of tight.

the solution might not be fun to consider...ADD is an illness, that would by definition mess with your game, if not kept in check.

no one here could know if what you're going through as a poker player could be helped with a med adjustment. or if your skill decline is caused by demotivating factors.

here's the solution: get an opinion from your doctor about your concentration. meanwhile, take a break. yeah, you'll get burnt out again eventually. but the brain is basically a muscle, and muscles find recovery time more useful than doing work pretty regularly. there should be no time outside really good games running when a professional can't take a week off to center themselves.

during your break, think of things you could do differently that would help strengthen your play. if you're functioning with an illness, your strats should be that much better to compensate. ex: add 3 hours of study and 1 hour of theory to every week.

you also didn't mention age. if you're old, it could just be natures way of telling you to find a small limit game to breakeven in

Haha well I'm 24. Feel much older tho..:-]

Hi eenvis:

My comments are below.

best wishes,
Mason

I could be wrong, but I suspect that what is happening here is that you have moved to learning/memorizing a very large an unmanageable number of situations. Thus you feel over whelmed.

A better approach is to stick with a smaller and more manageable number of concepts that govern your poker strategy and bring them into play (in your mind) when ever a decision needs to be made.

Unconscious competence is garbage. If it was required for playing poker it would mean that you would have no longer than two or three seconds to make a decision. Poker is not the same as having only an instant to hit a fast moving tennis ball.

In fact, this may be where your problem is. By forcing yourself to make instant decisions in situations that can take time to consciously analyze, your mind is not able to bring in the proper concepts and you get nowhere.

There's a big difference between being mentally tired and physically tired. Most good players can still play quite well when physically tired, but if you stay awake for let's say two straight days and become mentally tired, expect your strategic game to deteriorate.

It's also possible that you've played too much poker over a long period of time. For instance, it you were to play poker 40 or 50 hours a week and have done this for a long time without a break, your brain may be getting mentally tired relative to poker. A short vacation should do the trick.

Why wouldn't you always play your A-Game. To not play your A-Game means that you would begin to make plays that you know are wrong. I don't know anyone who does this. Of course, you may enter a state like tilt which can affect your decisions, but that's something different from the A-Game C-Game non-sense most of these poker mental coaches talk about.

What does focusing mean? Obviously when playing poker you need to pay attention. And to hit a 95 mile per hour fastball requires intense concentration, sometimes called focus, and unconscious competence. But this is not what happens at a poker table.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Mason!

While it's true that some people don't do well when they try to play 1K hands an hour online (which would indeed require making decisions every 2-3 seconds), it's utterly depressing for us to be told that we physically can't put in as many hands an hour with decent cognitive quality as mass volume grinders. This ability is great because it allows to earn the same money per hour at lower (hence softer and with smaller variance) stakes. Far not everyone is able to crush high stakes, but someone can compensate for that by playing at a lot of low stake tables.

'Adrenal fatigue' is not an officially recognised medical condition. True adrenal insufficiency is rare.

In fact, I've just returned from the endocrinologist and he has preliminarily (pending urine and blood tests) agreed with my suspicions that I have high cortisol (which would be low if I had adrenal insufficiency; cortisol production is actually boosted by stress, excessive weight and sleep deprivation, things that are all quite common in poker players) and low T (testosterone) levels. T is known to boost cognitive activity in males. So the first thing I recommend you to do is to visit an endocrinologist who will probably tell you to have your total T level checked, especially if your facial hair growth rate has slowed down recently or if your chest and stomach hair is growing too slow.

But don't inject T without prescription - a diet low in carbs and fats and especially any kind of moderate exercise like walking or swimming are better ways of raising it. Bodybuilders who inject T sometimes get gynecomastia (female-looking breasts) because too much of their T is turned into E2 (estradiol) in the body. And he's told me that aromatase inhibitors (drugs slowing the T -> E2 conversion down) are usually not prescribed because they have serious side effects.

Anyway, I think that the Other Topics -> Health and Fitness forum can help you greatly if you ask there.

Taking a break, even for just a week, can do a lot for mental game / concentration.

As far as during the actual session, is this an immediate effect where you can't focus right away or is it after 30 mins, etc.? If it's immediate then you've got bigger problems, but if it's more gradual just take more mid-session breaks to stretch your legs and review a few spots, then see if you are ready to dive back in.

While taking a break can definitely help, I've kinda been in a similar spot as you and taking a break without tackling core issues won't really help. Get to the root of the problems when you're on your break.

Sorry for not responding real quickly guys, but thx for all the help and comments.

Yea, that's often where I get myself in trouble. I can get a little obsessed whenever I really want something and just try to improve on every little aspect of it at the same time.

I'm aware of this and don't really think it matters much. I believe the stress 'we' poker players put on ourselves is also rare.

Tough spot. All drugs are dangerous, and there is an argument that we would all be better off without mind altering ones. Just try to live right, by eating well and sleeping enough.

I think it's possible to process information for decisions without thinking about them, without focusing on them, in fact, this may yield the best decisions. Forcing yourself to focus may interrupt this process.
Of course there is lots of information you will miss unless you pay attention. But that is acquisition, rather than processing. But some acquisition is subconscious too.
As Mason rightly points out, snap decisions can remove from your processing bits of information/theory that could have helped you had you brought them to mind. With those extra things removed from the equation, however, I think that (paradoxically) a snap decision has the edge over a ruminated one.
We know as experienced poker players that there are loads of situations where you're not really going to bring much new info (e.g. about preceding action, learned theory) into our minds by sitting there ruminating. In such situations a 10 second decision could be better than a 3 minute one. Sit there and talk yourself into a decision you otherwise knew was wrong.
I do like the idea of just focusing on a few things, Mason on to something there.
And yeah, be super-cautious with the Unconscious Competence literature.

I'm not saying you that you "physically can't put in as many hands an hour with decent cognitive quality as mass volume grinders." In fact, the idea that you can reduce variance and keep a good win rate by going to lots of hands at smaller stakes is addressed in my book Real Poker Psychology.

Furthermore, when you read much of the poker psychology literature, you'll see that an emphasis is placed on the variance being huge and that part of the poker mental game is learning to deal with this issue. But another part of the reality is that the large short term luck factor will dissipate over time (as your sample size grows) and that expert players do things, such as playing multi-tables at lower stakes, that will also reduce it.

Best wishes,
Mason