Many people who play poker online or in a casino suddenly find themselves making foolish decisions and only realizing it after the fact.  There’s the famous player who threw back pocket rockets at the WSOP a few years ago and then realized what he did, standing up and cursing loudly before walking off for a bit.  Who can blame him?  When you’re playing in long poker tournaments and games, the mind wanders and you end up making stupid decisions.  How can you improve your concentration and ability to play for long periods?

Diet and exercise are recommended, of course.  Everybody benefits from eating well and going for the occasional walk.  You can even exercise at the table, performing leg lifts and isometrics subtly, but your body is only half of what you should be exercising: your mind needs a good workout too.  Taking time out during your games to perform additional mental exercises can hep sharpen your game and help your endurance at the tables!

First, try testing your memory.  Watch the cards as they are dealt and then try to put them into rank order as they’re folded.  If someone folds and you see their hands, rank them mentally very quickly and associate them with the other cards you’ve seen on the board.  If four hearts are folded on the turn, make a mental note of this fact and compare it to the other cards you’ve seen folded and on the deck.  You’ll soon fine that the simple act of noting these things has increased your situational awareness at the tables.

Another exercise that works best at live tables is calculating the size of the pot.  Doing math on the fly and keeping an eye on the total dollars and chips going into a pot helps you be aware of what your pot odds are  and can help keep your mind going, especially on hands where you don’t have a stake and could find yourself getting lulled into boredom.  There’s shortcuts you’ll discover by doing this: the pot size will multiply based on the number of players in a hand, for instance.

One thing you need to be aware of is the fact that you shouldn’t become so wrapped up in performing exercises that you don’t play the game.  If you’re in on an hand and can’t do both, then focus on your hand.  This seems obvious. but poker players love doing things that are complex and require brainpower, else they wouldn’t be playing the game!