Recently i have started grinding long hours(for me).After each 3+ hour i feel a little bit dizzy aka like a ''vegetable''.Can you give me some advice to improve my quality of grinding time and not feel like **** when i end up grinding?

So far i read some advices

-Drink water
-Have a nice chair
-Have a decent diet
-Go to a gym

THis was some useful information i found from online poker pros

Treat endurance like it's any other poker skill that requires work to cultivate.

Push yourself incrementally and record your progress religiously. If you currently max out at 3hrs force yourself to play 3hrs 15mins sessions until you're ready to push it to 3hrs 30mins. There may be an immediate EV cost from pushing yourself like this but the long term rewards of playing longer sessions should more than offset this. If pushing yourself leads to tilt you should break from this regimen and focus on resolving your tilt issues before trying again.

do drugs

1. Playing well for a long time period always starts with a good nights sleep + a morning jog!
2. Drink A LOT of water/tea. Most people don't drink enough as is and when you use your brain all day it's needed to continue functioning at a high level. Tea can be a nice booster/relaxer
3. Eat healthy in general, but specifically try to avoid junky foods and any huge meals before/during grind. Keep it to light healthy snacks till your done
4. Try n take a break every so often even if it's just 5 minutes away it can help a lot. Good for the eyes and a nice break for the brain
5. Try and just player poker. No skype, browsing, porn, whatever you do. By the end of a long sesh it's taken a toll on your profits and your mind
6. Good chair helps of course

All common sense, but there's not tmuch more too it really

Tomo you really helped me with your answer.I hope i can push a bit myself

Tomo's #2 is something I hear Galfond mention a bit. Drinking tons of water is just good for the brain.

Tomo hits it pretty well. I have one thing to add: get in a schedule/routine incorporating the exercise/healthy eating.

Good music or tv shows to watch help. But only if you play a format that doesnt require thinking.

But I agree with Stinbag too. Work your way up. Its similar to how back when you were 4 tabling you never imagined youd be able to do more and eventually you can 16+ with no problems. If you usually only play 90 minutes, a 4 hour session may seem insane. But if you work your way up incrememntly youll get to the point where 4 hours in the norm.

sticky this thread as is imo lol

all this info is good.

practice and concentration for long hours are the key points for any good grinder

Md261 and I collaborated on a video regarding this subject...it will be online on Wednesday. Don't want to infringe on the 2+2 rules but it's not tough to find out which coaching site I make vids for.

In terms of what can be done physically, most of this has already been covered. I swim every morning, and have a cup of tea and a berocca if/when my concentration starts to flag.

However, there's more to it than that. Grinding long sessions is so massively +EV relative to lots of short sessions. The analogy I always use with my students is this:

Say you like going to the gym. You go for an hour every day. Of this time, ten minutes is spent either side in getting changed, chatting to people, warming up/down etc. you actually only get a good 40 minute workout for your hour.

Now, say you decide to change your routine. Instead of one hour per day, you decide to work out for two hours every second day. The time spent changing/warming up etc does not increase in accordance with your workout; the same 20 minutes gets spent. As such, you effectively get twenty minutes extra workout and reap the rewards accordingly. in poker, the time spent waiting for games to fill/winding your session down knocks a lot of value from your hourly.

Now when it comes to poker, everyone has a peak. Only practice will improve yours, but it's a goal worth striving towards. Rest assured; putting in fewer, longer sessions is by far the most efficient way to increase your hourly for a SNG player.

Play music while you play.

(I can't talk though as I've tried all sorts to try and force myself to play more and still can't get in more than ~20h per week whatever I do...)

Juk

EDIT: Also try to work out if you're a "play sick amount today, take 2 days off..." or "play X amount each day, slow and steady..." type player early on and plan from there.

+1

nothing worse than a dry brain.

Get a real job and don't grind.

Not to be an ass but this analogy is awful. Usually when it comes to lifting weights less is more, to a point anyway. Guys who are spending lots of time in the gym are usually supplemented by drugs of some kind. Natural trainees function best on a three day upper/lower split routine. Now fewer guys have really amazing recovery and so they could get away with more but your average guy is going to burn himself out with more than three hours a week lifting weights (assuming he's not lifting girl weights like a pussy).

This is heavily dependent on what format you play. For games that fill quickly and end quickly, you arent losing that much by playing longer sessions. And no matter how well prepared and conditioned you are, you will wear down mentally over time. For mtsngs this reduced playing ability will be overcome by how many more games per hour you get in long sessions. But for shorter games like hyper turbos, longer sessions may very well be -ev.

If you take your example to the extreme, youre saying that working out a full 24 hours in a day per month is better than working out 2 hours a day 3 times a week.

I think a couple of you have taken my point a little too literally. In there somewhere, I said that there's an optimal point in terms of duration/focus and the goal is to lengthen it. It will, of course, be -EV to grind when your eyes are unfocused and brain like mush!

The gym analogy works absolutely fine as I used one and two hours as an example and not the hugely-impractical three hours plus. Assuming that it's not physically damaging (which it certainly shouldnt be for your average pretty-fit guy,the fitness equivalent to OP who says he can grind 3 hours before stopping), then anyone looking for optimal time usage/reward would achieve more in a single 2 hour session than two separate one hour ones.

So there's really no need to nit up over the details here and instead try to take on board the larger point being made No analogy is perfect as no two circumstances are identical, but they exist to make a concept easier to grasp and that's the goal here.

Also, a HUHyper player need not take onboard this advice as the loading/wind down is minimal. From 6max turbos plus, this is very relevant. A 9man player who plays lots of short sessions is damaging his hourly rate considerably.

fix

banderberg r u for real?

Idea stolen from Jared Tendler, just make small, steady improvements. You may want to play 6 hours/day 5 days/week, but currently can't play more than 3 hours in a day without getting burned out and you are super demoralized that you don't have any motivation. You have to build it up just like you build your muscle. If 3 hours a day is your max, focus on upping that max to 3.5 hours. Once you do that a few times you can up it to 4, 4.2, 4.6, 4.9. Next thing you know 6 hours in a day is comfortable and you have met your goal. Just respect the fact that it's a slow steady process.

Doing all the previously mentioned things like diet, sleep, fitness, etc are very important, and another I find that I don't think was mentioned is to maintain a social life, even if it's just meeting a friend for coffee or something. Poker is a lonely and isolated way to live a life and some people (myself included) go nuts when they aren't spending at least a little bit of time with friends to get a break/refresher.

guarana ftw .)

Thank you.Respect

Weird that so many people advise music. Music helps make it more enjoyable so that might make it easier to motivate yourself to play a lot of hours but it also takes a toll on your brain and will tire you out a lot quicker.
I play with music usually but i know that when full tilt had sng madness for example i would play 2 4 hour sessions where i'd be 16 tabling super turbo's in a day and i'd feel so much better if i did it without music.
I still turn of the music when i play 16 tables, although now i just try to avoid 16 tabling.

Also, set long term quantifiable goals for yourself. Reward system helps sometimes.

Making your screen less bright might also help. I use f.lux, its free and really helps in my experience.

Edit: link: http://stereopsis.com/flux/