Attention

The importance of focus in poker

Managing your attention in poker is very important because often you have to process very large amounts of information and accept that situation the best solution in a very short space of time, so it is essential to be able to concentrate, to keep an eye on the table and the opponents, to be able to shift attention quickly when circumstances change (e.g. from a difficult previous hand to the current one), to be able to split your attention when playing at many tables, and to maintain your awareness and interest in long tournaments, sometimes lasting several days. Do I need to go on about the importance of focus in poker... ?

Automatic moves

Automatic moves save us a lot of time and energy, and in most cases they are very useful (e.g. when you turn on a light, you don't concentrate on the switch, on the process, you just press it automatically without thinking, you've done it a million times before, and when you get to the next switch you don't really start to think about how you can press it better with your other hand? It's so routine that it's completely automatic). In short, in many situations automatic actions are very useful ;). But In poker, every hand and every situation is different, so you should approach each situation in a conscious and deliberate way, i.e. paying attention rather than making an automatic move.

For example, I often consider a common error in both novice and advancedif they are pre flop aggressors, so after the flop they automatically place a continuous betforgetting all other considerations, let's say you completely missed the flop and are up against 3 opponents. The worst thing about this situation is not that the player makes a bad decision, but that the player does not learn at all by making an automatic move!!!

One of the simplest and most effective methods of learning is to think as broadly and deeply as possible about the current situation now, and to fully analyse the same situation after the session or just after a certain period of time.

Tilt

"Insulation" is a kind of attention, but that attention is unconsciously directed to the wrong thing, we start thinking about how to lean, how we're failing, how stupid our opponents are, etc., instead of thinking about it, what solution would bring us the most benefits or how we could exploit this weakness of our opponent.

General advice

When you play poker, play poker, not watch movies, read Delphi or write back.

Try to focus on the game during the game, not just watching but thinking about poker and not about other things or problems.

What we playing more tablesthe less time we have to make a decision, the sharper our focus needs to be in order to immediately notice and process all the relevant information and draw conclusions. A common mistake made by players starting to play a lot is that they start with so many tables that they don't even have enough time to gather the necessary information, e.g. how much BB do I have, am I in danger of getting knocked out? How many BBs do the opponents to my left have? [Situation from SnG Turbo]. In this case, not only does the player not have enough time to make a good decision, i.e. to process the information, but he is also unable to gather it due to lack of time. However, the opposite is also true for a small number of tables, e.g. a player playing 2 tables is able to maintain full attention, i.e. make good decisions, and still has time to think about other things, or to read some news, emails, etc., so that such a player could theoretically play over 4 tables and show the same or even better results.

The better we feel, the better we manage our attention. If we are tired, hungry or sick, our ability to manage or concentrate our attention is severely impaired because attention requires energy. It is therefore essential to eat well, rest well and develop our attention to perform well in poker and in life.

Attention training exercises, We'll talk about them in the next article. 

Attention features

• Intensity - focusing on the object, distancing oneself from extraneous influences.
• Persistence - a sustained focus on a single thing or activity over an extended period of time.
• Volume - the amount of objects that can be covered by a person at one time in a short period of time.
• Distributed - a person can perform different actions at the same time, with each action receiving a portion of the attention. There are many activities where a person needs to perform two or more different operations at the same time, e.g. playing the piano, driving a car etc.
• Shifting - a conscious - voluntary or involuntary - change of focus.

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