i have no illusions of playing the WSOP main event anytime in the distant future and agree that most players are caught up in all the hype anything u can recommend over the counter besides redbulls and coffee to keep sharp?
I actually have not ingested caffeine (except what's in chocolate, which isn't negligible) since I was a kid.
It seemed like you were asking for a serious response from me, so you're getting one. Redbull, Coffee, Prescriptions, etc. are essentially just legalized speed. Hell, sugar too for that matter, but I don't mind that as much. ANY of them are going to shoot you up, and, of course, what goes up must come down.
I do not envy the man trying for his 100th cup of coffee in a 12 hour (or even less) tourney. I'd much rather be trying to make sure I still have some liquor available so I can misread my hand, thinking I've hit my golden ticket and shove, garnering a fold. Since, clearly, under optimum operating conditions I'm 99% never making that play.
So it seems like I'm just shooting down ideas and not offering solutions. So here is one. But realize it is counter-intuitive, flies in the face of conventional wisdom and most GOOD players here would disagree with me. I'd say, to remain focused at the table you need to LOSE your focus. Multi-task and do something else. It can be as simple as making 275 posts in a couple weeks on a pretty cool
poker forum!
You're already on a computer, so any other form of Net surfing and things that have NOTHING to do with what's going on at your table are GREAT. You can spend the time watching footage of great tourney poker that was broadcast. Or you can read about strategy and other great poker topics once you've folded your hand.
Because, I contend that once folded, (unless you're a woman who can immediately shrug off the last hand and move to the next), you should NOT AT ALL consume yourself in the outcome of the hand. People will tell you to always be vigilant at the table and watching for patterns that give away information to be exploited later. You're in the top 5, maybe 10% of players if that is ALL you're doing post-fold. MOST players get caught up in the "what if?" game and read the post about the guy who "folded quads twice in 30 mins"...when he really folded 2 junk
hands that happened to hit the board 3 times out of 5.
At your level, VERY FEW players are leveling, sending false
tells, and doing other things that would trip up an amateur in successive hands. Instead, they play their hand with no regard for their opponent, and ANY "worthwhile" information that you might wish to glean from what happens post-fold you simply grab from Hand History. But if you're not using software/HUD then BEWARE. Pretty much at any level you'll find the sharks who just got your to believe they are a LAG because they played an actual LAG kinda LAGGY but had the best of it and TID. But they're smart enough to realize you're either TAG or TP and are going to approach you in a different way. You'll be sitting waiting for the next tourney EVERYTIME when you hit bottom two and wrongly think you have the perceived LAG over the barrel. They'll show up with better and relieve you of your chips.
But more likely you'll just run into pure donkeys that, regardless if they are 50% to win or 2%, will find a way to get there and leave you wondering how that happened. Don't bother posting about it here, the NITS (who usually play at Stars and have no idea how bad WPN is) will just claim variance.
Good luck!