This is something that breaks my balls too, the late phase play. Until now i thought that it is with luck that i made a final table+recovering from being short stack. Then i adjusted some things in my play and i get ITM more than before (the feeling of making some progress is awesome
), most of the times avg. or a bit below avg. But from ITM i don't really know what i need to change to make more final tables.
I too think that it's something psychological, because even if i were to blame the (unplayable) cards or the coolers or the bad beats which leave me short stack, my play still ... well, it kinda sucks. Not because i'm tilting or anything, on the contrary, i'm calmer, but i think it's some sort of fear, my subconscious or whatever keeps messing around with me.
side note: i remember one day my cousin came to my house to play poker, his wifi wasn't working, and we both played 2 tournaments simultaneously. He went out for about an hour and i continued to play at 4 tables. Made the final table at 3 tournaments that session. Which now kinda makes me wonder, because i remember playing with a lot discipline. Could this be some sort of solution to my still unknown problem?