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Tournament nerves and such.
 

So, as the title basically explains, I get nerves during tournaments. REALLY bad nerves.

I've had this problem for a while, but recently i've been getting it worse and worse every tournament I enter.
I try drinking some tea, try getting fresh, try pre-game meditation, try everything! Nothing works!
I remember one time Light told me "it goes with tourney experience", well, i've seen my fair share of online tourneys and I still get the nerves, and it's gotten to the point where I need to make a blog about it asking for help.

What can I do before game? What can I do between games? What can I do if i'm 1 game down? 1-1 situation? Any help would be fantastic, and I know a few people from the community could benefit from any help in this blog.

Thanks.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Meditation.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

#weed

Ask Santi he has heaps of it

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

i get the same, i get shakey and sometimes start sweating and get really nervous. Ive been playing online tournys for 3 years, been streamed a fair few times, but it doesnt go away. LAN events im even more nervous.

I cant remember where i heard it, but someone said getting nervous is just a sign that you really care about something.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Play more tournaments.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

This. It's kinda similar to stage fright. Say you're a musician, and this is your first time going up stage to perform. You've practised a lot and you're ready to give your best for the audience. Similar to SC2 tournaments, you've laddered and played lots of custom games. You think you're prepared already and you're ready to bring your A-game to the table. In both situations, you're likely to be nervous. That would be normal.

From there, the more you go up stage, the more you join tournaments, the nervousness will slowly wear off. Performing on stage will slowly become somewhere you're used to, you'll start to be able to express yourself freely on stage. Jumping around with your instruments, doing power slides and smashing your guitar against the floor and what not. Likewise, if you join lots of tournaments, slowly you know what is it like to be at a tournament (be it online or offline) and you'll know how to deal with the different situations of nervousness you've been caught in.

But that's just not enough. Apart from going up stage enough times or joining enough competitions, you have to do that regularly as well. If I go up on stage regularly for a few weeks, and then suddenly for months I don't do that. Next thing I know my friend asks me to do a gig at somewhere but I'll just be caught off-guard and all the nervousness like the first time I go up stage would come back at me again. Likewise for SC2 tournaments, if you don't join tournaments regularly, nervousness will come back and hit you in the face again.

However, this does not work for everyone. Everyone has their own pace of dealing with nervousness. Some much longer (maybe a few years), some much shorter (maybe just the second time will do). For me, it took me about 4 times to go up stage before not feeling any form of nervousness ever again. For SC2 tournaments, maybe like my second time I started not to feel nervous anymore. Could be because I got Lobo for the second time in first round, so I know I'd get ez'd, and just played it like ladder. Back when TL Opens were still around I got HasuObs second round. Was very nervous even though I knew I was gonna lose.

But yeah, TLDR, consistency and quantity is the key I guess.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Do I even know you?

Admins: I find this really offensive since I don't know this guy and I don't even smoke weed. Report bottom doesn't work.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

yea i have to agree with hut ray and elusory here.

I had big nerves at LANs until recently, I've sort of gotten over them they're still there but not to the point where my hands shake and I can't play properly. I remember at ACL brisbane I could hardly play, but at ACL melbourne I managed to perform pretty well.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Having been someone who has gone from getting nervous in tournaments, to not getting nervous, then going back to being nervous, a lot of it comes down to your expectations of yourself. Most of the time you won't get nervous when its a game you are 95% going to lose, because there is no negative emotional response to you losing when you feel like you should lose. Playing against pig? No worries its Pig he's a pro I am supposed to lose, and thus you don't get nervous.

In line with the 'negative emotional response, "Getting nervous" is actually just a feeling of having increased adrenaline pumped into your system. Adrenaline is one of the most powerful chemicals in the human body, and is excreted in dire times so you don't die/have negative effects to your body. Getting rid of the worry about being negatively affected rids the response for your brain to send adrenaline into your body causing you to get nervous. So, in order to not get nervous, you pretty much have to not care about losing. You can do this in a variety of ways, and most of them are the same shit everyone has been telling you since the beginning:

Play more tournaments: This helps since you'll realise losing in a tournament isn't the end of the world. No negative response > no fear of being negatively impacted > no adrenaline.

Get better: Being better at the game and practicing more CAN mean you are so confident in your builds/abilities that you don't consider losing an option, hence no negative impact hence no adrenaline. Ironically for me this is what gives me the most nerves, as the better I get the better I feel I should perform and thus the more I feel I have to lose, so this one is iffy.

Being in a different mental state/taking drugs: Pretty obvious, if you're to fucked to realise you are gonna lose/something bad might happen then no adrenaline gets injected into your system.

and so on and so forth.

Ever been playing a game and not be nervous until you realise you're in a position to win? Yeah chances are you got nervous because now you have something to lose.

My advice for dealing with nerves? Find a way so you don't care if you win or lose at the game. Lets say you're a billionaire who never has to worry about money for the rest of his life, are you going to care if you lose a grand? A million bucks? Probably not. But suddenly you're a broke dude and you're gonna get nervous as **** if someone gives you a coupla hundred bucks because you might lose it.
Same with sc2, do you care if you lose some randi online tournament game if you're MC and you've won 400k in tournaments? Probably not.

Now, obviously, pretty much everyone gets some degree of nerves, and you have to understand you'll never be able to fully get rid of it, but as long as you can avoid nerves for 95% of your matches you should be in pretty good shape (the 5% being grand final of prize money style tournaments like ACL, IEM etc etc)

Lastly, you can use nerves to your advantage, they only become a problem when they become debilitating. As I mentioned previously, adrenaline is just about the best drug ever. Nothing else comes close to giving you heightened attention spans, increase in strength, mobility, dexterity, everything. So if you can learn or get used to being 'slightly' nervous and just using the added adrenaline as a tool for playing better then you'll be in great shape. This is why some people play much better in tournaments than others, It's not because they don't get nervous, but its because they've learned how to control it and use it to their advantage. To do this just have a routine prior to a match. Ie. listen to a song, then drink some water, then play a practice game, then think this then do that then try this etc etc whatever works for you.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Kez pretty much nailed it.

My TL;DR - Play more tourneys and don't put too much pressure on yourself to perform.

Take it from someone who used to almost pass out/shake/break into cold sweat for public speaking. After casting for 2 years I hardly bat an eyelid at such a thing anymore. It's all in the repetition

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Yup repetition is key. Whatever makes you nervous you can always lessen it by just doing it more, so you get used to that feeling.

For me, it's when I play someone I respect and I get a game up on them or close to winning. For example, like 2 years ago when I first played Mafia at Cityhunter I respected that guy a shitload and when i got close to taking a game off him i was shaking like crazy. When I did take a game off him then in the next game I would be even worse, I remember my APM in the game where I was nervous was literally 150 higher than my average, haha.

Nowadays it's getting better, last ACL where I played moonglade and was up 1 game I got nervous too, but nowhere near to the extent that I did 2 years ago against Mafia.

Just try and put yoursself in those situations that make you nervous the most and you will stop being as nervous!

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Thankyou all for this amazing feedback! It's so good to come back after a day of school to such nice people giving incredible tips and feedback.

Thankyou all so much! I hope this not only helps me (oh, it will) but helps anyone else that is reading and has the same issues

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Everyone's is making the same point about dealing with the nerves and they are all correct. But at ACL Melbourne, before my first games Fries gave me some great advice: "Learn to love the nerves. Players who love the nerves end up playing so much better in tournaments than those who are worried about them." Well it was something along those lines at least but moral of the story is repetition is great but learn to love the nerves and your performance should improve drastically. Best of luck in future tournaments!

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Treat every game like the grand final. Treat the grand final like every other game. #deep

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

its funny im never nervous at all on lan, but sometimes online aswell, i remember one go4sc2 i was so ******* nervous all throughout quarters to finals but i somehow play better when im nervous (i guess that depends what kind of nervous you are, if ur sweating like a pig and trembling in fear of losing its obviously not good for you)
for lan its so different, im usually just so happy im there with cool ppl i like that the competition and result is simply put in second place and i can just play without worrying.
all in all i guess being nervous about a game isnt all too bad, you just have to learn to control your nerves, realize its not the end of the ******* world if you lose. moreso than trying to control your nerves perse, its more important for you to be in the right mental state about yourself and the game. if you approach everything about the game realisticly and calm, a random online cup game wont be nerve-wrecking anymore.

tl;dr yolo

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Practice with your hands or a wet towel first, then yes repeat til you can perform.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

It is only game.

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

listen to rock music while playing.. helps...

Re: Tournament nerves and such.
 

Ur probably putting a little bit too much pressure on ur self man. At the end of the day its a game and we all play cos we enjoy it. Try and focus on the game its self instead of external factors like your tournament standings, what other people will think if you win/lose. When you are in the game, only think about what you need to do in that game. Obviously its easier said than done, but its worked for me in the past.