Tournaments, what many players aspire to but preparing your gaming skills is not always the only thing you need to be wary of at a tournament if you are not careful or not prepare and have the right mind set you can greatly hamper your performance. This article is here to help point out some of the things you need to do/ be careful of including your psychological side of things, if these things can be mastered you may find your tournament performance is enchanced greatly!
Leading Up to the Event
Leading up to the event there are a few things that can help out of the normally obvious things like practice etc there are some other very usful things you can do before hand.
???? 1) Knowing Your enemy
Gathering all info on other players attending this tournament can be very usful when it comes to choosing your tactics and things to concentrate if you come across this player plus it is very good to help you if other players have certain similar weakness watching demos is a great way of seeing this and watching closely with there performance with various weapons tactical play and general gaming smarts.
???? 2) Knowing Your Style You need to know your own strength and weaknesses (don't let anyone know of course) but to help build your plan against various styles you need to know what your up against and also what you have against the opponent.
At the Tournament
There you are. You have been working towards this you are there now to keep your chances up you need to make sure you do a few things even outside your game play.
???? 1) Confidence
You need to let the other players know you are a focused played and there to win, but don't go over the top because no one likes a over confident person well most people =). If you can even just act like you are and you aren't really it can make some players give you respect and may even help you in the psychological war of the tournament.
???? 2) Talking with Other players..
Tournaments are very social events as players talk amoungst themselves talking about the game they are there to play about the players in the tournament and of course your game play it is very important that you do not give away any of your weaknesses or your style to other players because the less people know the better it is for you... but try and get the most you can from other players the more the better =).
The Matches
After all the preparation it is time to play in the tournament, but jumping on to play isn't just the best way to do it... lets go into some things that may help.
???? 1) Have a plan...
Before you even touch your computer you need to have plan and you must focus on what things you need to remember or watch out for in your game this can save alot of nervous energy not having to wonder what the hell to do if you are down or winning... have a plan and stick to it.
???? 2) Pressure
By this point the pressure is beginning to build for many people this can be very hindering but also very usful, the best way to get around this is to focus what you have to do, completely and push everything out of your mind besides the task at hand, breathing and keeping your water levels up is also very important to help you concentrate at the best level you can and give it your best
???? 3) Warming Up
On a Psychological level if you are about to play someone you are not to sure about, try not to use them as a warm up partner because a few frags in even warm up can knock your psychological levels down and can even sabotage your efforts so try and warm up against someone you can keep your confidence against even though you may not have it hard... save the pressure for the matches you got to save your energy =).
After the tournament
Maybe you did not do as well as your thought or should have, but you have to keep in mind what doesn't kill you makes you stronger so what you should do is going over your games and learning from your mistakes as best you can and work on refining your game maximising your weaknesses and maximising your strengths. And at the next tournament you will only come back stronger... even the greats have fallen from grace so to speak on the road to the top, don't give in thats one thing I cannot push across enough stick in there.
Conclusion
If you can follow some of these I am 100% sure they will help you if you did not follow them I know everyone expects results first off and if they fail as many do they give up, thats where the big players come in as they stuck in there, learning from your mistakes and experiencing tournaments is the best way to improve. If you have any questions or comments you can contact me at .
