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First of all I'm not sure if this is the right forum, admin's feel free to move this thread if you feel it should be posted on a different forum.
I'm a high diamond player that's trying to make it into master but I've got major problems with my gaming stamina. When I play more then 3-5games in a row I start to get what I like to call "brain lag", my reaction time and decision making drops A LOT. If I don't play mass games I find myself beating players on master level frequently but when I try to ladder a lot I get "brain lagged" and just go on a losing streak. If I have a free day I can get 20-25 games in if I make Sc2 the focus for the day, taking small breaks and bigger breaks for meal and such but I feel I could and I would like to play more.
Anyone got any advice what I could do to increase my gaming stamina? Should I just press on and thus gain it or is it just something you need to be born with?
Any advice helps because I'm seriously considering leaving the game since I feel I can't play the amount of game's I need to get to the "the next" level and I feel very frustrated being stuck at my current skill level for a long time.
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Eat food. I'm not even kidding, you're probably hungry. SC2 takes more out of you than most people think. Maybe take a nap. I like to take SC2 breaks when doing homework sometimes if I have the time for it, that way when I get tired of either homework or SC2, I switch, and get both my preferred amount of play time in, as well as completing my homework and studying 
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The immediate advice: When you start getting that 'brain lag' do a break. If you want to use that time for SC2, you can do a 'soft' break: just chill watching an stream, VODs or here on liquipedia, it's the perfect time to review some guides or whatnot. If that 'soft' break isn't enough, step away from any SC2 or even from the computer for a bit to charge your batteries.
Now for increasing your 'battery' capacity: eat well, sleep well, drink enough water, do some exercise. All this is important for your energy levels for anything you do in life and of course in gaming. I used to be a competitive chess player and one big advice you got from Great Masters on how to prepare for a long tournament was to do regular physical exercise, so don't underestimate this for your brain stamina in general.
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My opinion is:
This will always happen. To pros, to "newbies", to everyone. It happens differently depending on how trained you are, and how much time you've been awake, and a lot of different factors. Pros train on a daily basis a lot, so they get used to playing more games on a row; but when they play like 30 games or something like that, they also "brain lag" or in other words, their brain gets tired. It is Pretty normal.
What happens to me is that my eyes begin segregating more of that liquid that lubricate your eyes, so i begin getting wet eyes, and my vision reduces from game to game. So by the time i do 10 games, i see blurry.
It might happen differently from person to person, and some persons just can't stand even 3 games, some can stand almost 40.
Hope that helps,
Yours Truly,
James Lake
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I would suggest eating something. What I do is I eat something while I play a custom game every 5-6 games. I can play about 30 games in a row without decreasing in skill (my eyes never blur as I was raised to be on a computer, but I get bored and can't think about starcraft; only mindless micro and macro) if I have just woken up, taken a shower, and eaten a healthy breakfast; however, if it is late at night I can only do 5-6 games in a row without playing terribly badly. Be well rested; treat starcraft like you treated a chapter test in High School.
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You need to eat certain foods.
I have a large tub of trail mix right beside my computer. Between each game I would eat a handful. That stuff is amazing for keeping your stamina high.
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Some people can chain more games than others. It's the way of life. If you start toget this brain lag, you must take a break. It's like when you want to get a few more victories before go sleep, but you are tired. Don't do that, because you are not going to have good time and you are not going to play good. The only moment where you chain games even if your brain is destroyed, is to train very hard.
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Honestly if you keep thinking of how you'll get better by playing this extra game you can play for hours longer.
The key is to have fun and not rage when you lose, also try to find out what you could have done to win the game.
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Don't play the game if you aren't enjoying playing the game.
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It's because if you're not used to keeping your brain going for 100% for a good period of time, your brain thinks it can go on cruise control. Some good ways to counter that are to:
-Intake some caffeine, not too much, or you'll be twitchy for a bit. Drink some tea or something
-Eat good food. Eat stuff like trail mix, certain fruits (I think foods high in antioxidants are good?), bagels (preferably w/ cream cheese), toast, yogurt; energetic foods in general
-Practice going several hours once in a while. If your brain knows to stay at the top of its game, it'll do so, but like everything requires time and training
-Stand up and stretch between games. It helps relieve stress
-Watch some replays. Keeps your brain going :D
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Take a 30 minute power nap, or just let your brain muscles relax~
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To increase gaming stamina is to on a consistant basis play when you feel too tired. When you start pushing your limit consistantly, you will in turn increase it.
My best run has been 58 (63 if I include five 6-pool games I did), I averaged about 5 games an hour for a total of a little over 12 hours PLAYING. (To note, that is not like saying you spent 2 hours playing, where 5 minutes goes to loading screens and so on, the combined time of every game was a bit over 12 hours.)
I ate like normal, 4 meals a day that is for me, but an important thing for stamina is water. Untill you start massing up the 20+ games a day you can go by the rule of 1 glass (not a big glass) of water after each game.
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The only way I've ever been able to mass game (30 or more in one day) is by taking my adderall prescriptions. Definitely helps, but without this is something I definitely also struggle with.
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On September 04 2011 05:04 Dazz3 wrote:
Anyone got any advice what I could do to increase my gaming stamina? Should I just press on and thus gain it or is it just something you need to be born with?
Any advice helps because I'm seriously considering leaving the game since I feel I can't play the amount of game's I need to get to the "the next" level and I feel very frustrated being stuck at my current skill level for a long time.
I think it'll come with time. When I first started SC2, I could only put in 1-2 games a day. Now I can play 3-5 a day ^_^. Seriously, just play until you feel satisfied or until your brain tells you "no more". I suppose you could push yourself for a couple extra games; that might help increase the rate at which in acquire gaming stamina, but it's a game. Don't stress about it.
Also, I am confused about why you're considering leaving the game entirely.
I don't understand what you mean when you say you can't play the amount of games to get to the next level. I assume by "the next level", you mean "Master league".
It only takes about 200 to 300 1v1 games to get into master league starting from bronze (from my experience). It should take a little over 2 months at 4 games per day to go from Bronze to Master.
From the point where you get promoted to diamond to where you get promoted to master should take roughly 2 weeks if you average 4 games a day. However, you said you're currently high diamond. I can't imagine it taking longer than 1 week at a rate of 4 games a day for you to hit master league.
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A lot of people in this thread are telling you to eat but its not as simple as that. You should have a meal thats high in complex carbs. And you should wait 30 minutes or so after eat to begin playing. After a couple hours of playing if you feel sluggish you should eat something small with simple carbs.
The difference is complex carbs take a long time for your body to break down into glucose (energy) so they release over time. Simple carbs are the opposite. If you get to much glucose in your system your body releases insulin to remove the excess from your blood stream. So the key is to supply your body with enough glucose so that you remain alert but not so much that you overproduce insulin and crash.
Oh and when you're looking for food that has a lot of simple carbs don't pick up candy bars and coke. There are plenty of healthy foods with simple carbs such as fruit. And make sure your portions are small gaming is not as intense as exercising.
The other important factor in how long you're able to sit and play is your interest level. Most people have trouble really focusing on something for more then 30 or 40 minutes. So you are definitely not alone. Like it or not as soon as your brain loses interest you will perform worse. There's a few things you can do to combat this. Number 1 most effective thing you could do is take a break. Doesn't have to be long but it has to be non starcraft related. Another thing you could do is find things to peak you interest. If you've just played 5 ladder games in a row go find an interesting forum post to read or talk to a friend about your strategies. Watch a replay from your favorite pro player. I'm sure if you brain storm for a while you can find many other things you can do to stay interested and not be a zombie clicking the mouse buttons.
So summary. Eat right, exercise, take breaks, have fun, stop if you're no longer interested in the task at hand.
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On September 04 2011 06:30 Hikari wrote:
Take a 30 minute power nap, or just let your brain muscles relax~
Your brain muscles?
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one thing I found out is real great to "reset" your mind and restore energy is doing some physical exercise.
I for ,example ,like to go to the gym for some cardio and wights , but i guess everything that makes your heart go faster is good.
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Just take a 20-30 minute break, and then go back to playing. Also, being in shape and staying hydrated help a lot.
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okay, here is how it works:
you go team management, click your players name and set all three training goals to endurance. in a view days you shouldnt lose that much stamina while playing.
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Sleep, Eat, Exercise. Make sure you're doing each of those correctly. It works wonders.
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I had exactly the same problem, except it probably was a lot worse. During a time I would be able to play like 2-3 games and then I found out that my brain just stopped thinking completely. This happens more on a intense or close game or against a tough opponent. Starcraft2 requires a lot of focus and thousands of decisions to be made and somewhat higher apm. It's not really surprising that after a while you start losing focus. If I got really "tired out" I could just stop thinking completely. Sometimes I see 2 banelings run in and I just stopped splitting lings/drones or sometimes I would scout a dark shrine and yet just does not respond.
This doesn't mean that "if you don't enjoy the game don't play it duh", as some has suggested. In fact, I do enjoy the game so much it annoys me that I am unable to enjoy more games in a row. In my experience I feel that this can improve with
- Practices: The more you play the more "routine" some tasks become and you're able to execute it with less effort (for example, larvae inject, mules, and chronoboost timing) and your brain is also more accustomed to the tasks required. Just slowly increase the number of games in a streak you can play over time and eventually you will be able to play a lot more games than you used to.
- Attitude: I find that if I got very upset with losses then it's a lot easier to "tire out". Keep your optimism high and it's important to keep remind yourself once in a while that it's just a game and you're supposed to enjoy it. Of course, from time to time you're going to get very upset about that stupid game where you should not have lost, just try not to let it get to your head too much.
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brain burns an incredibly amount of energy and various chemicals when you heat it up. You just don't experience it because there are no receptors in your brain to feel it, like you feel when you work with muscles. if you really go far, you will just have distortion in cognition, vision and other senses.
it's not only glucose and oxygen, but the neuronal networks implementing the "thought processes" are supported by a second, vast network of support cells whose function is to provide a literally hundres of different types of chemicals to the neurons, neurotransmitters and the like. These supplies drain out, and they ran out fast. You can't fix it just by eating something, it may take more time; in fact, often you need to put the system offline for a while.
What happens is that many neurons just do not function properly, and you get lag: what you want to do just does not get done. This affects reaction times, vigilance, and anything that relies on massive amount of conscious neural processing. The same happens if you have a brain lesion, say, in the speech areas: you stil want to talk, but it just doesn't get done properly. That's how people who recover describe the condition.
When you automatize something by repetition, there is a direct connection from what you see into what you do. These connections are implemented by totally different neuronal systems that those which support higher cognition. There can be a really severe dysfunction in higher brain processing while the motoric skills remain intact, and of course vice versa.
Such processes drop to the outer horizons of our consciousness and can be repeated almost endlessly, assuming there some motivation to do so. All professionals who have to practice a lot use this method, mindless automaticized repetition without serious involvement. you don't need even pauses unless your physiology breaks down (which often happens, you will eventually harm your hands, eyes, back, and neck and not brain). The motivation becomes a crucial factor, as well as the conditions which allow you to not to get involved too much. If you ladder and want desperately to "get into masters" or something, the situation might not be ideal, and you might hit the wall after few games. It's just that your brain refuses to let it go and desperately wants to give its full attention to the task. Also, just "losing a game" might be cognitively and emotionally demanding experience, which prevents detachment. Emotion truly is one of those factors which keep people alerted and responsive. I am sure that the pro players ladder in a very detached and causual way, most of the time.
there are individual differences here, and many factors affect the outcome. Age, amount of sleep, personality, motivation... My sense is that what regulates this mostly is just motivation and ability to sustain senseless, detached, mechanical repetition.
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Eat.
I eat between games, during games, before games, after games...
As long as you're eating, and also, once in a while get up and move around a bit, get that blood pumping man.
Don't be like those 2 Korean dudes who sat there for 48 hours straight and died
Make sure you sleep well
Drink lots of water
Also, stamina (if not from lack of food) is something that develops over time. I can play for about 12 hours straight (getting up for bathroom/food of course), but it took a few years to get that. 
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Start running a marathon runner prob has the most stamina.
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Watch some streams. It usually gets me going again after half an hour or so of watching Idra stomp people xD
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It might have more to do with how much thinking you are doing in the game than how mentally fit you are. Most pro or high level players do most of their thinking outside the game and the game itself is simply a platform for executing their build & gameplan, their game becomes natural and instinctive in playing and reacting, rather than a streneous mental task. They already know what to do in 9/10 situations, they just need to do it.
So perhaps you are thinking too much within the game about the buildings/units/strategies you're making/doing and not simply following a set gameplan with deviations here and there. If you have a well thought out game-plan in your head from past experience you should be able to play a good deal of games without getting tired.
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580 Posts
I think the key is, that you stress you that much. Don´t think too much about winning, just play calm and clearly think about everything that happens in the game. If you have a really intense game, just take a break for some minutes. Just chill an the couch or your bed and try to think about nothing. Then after you feel relaxed, start playing again. Try it, it will help you a bit to not hestinate you in a game.
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Here is the real secret:
-The human brain can only attain ~100% focus for 25-30 minutes at a time, maximum.
-A five minute break is enough to recover and be ready for another 25 mins of 100% focus
A 40 minute game is like what, 24-25 mins in real time? You can notice that even the top players start to make obvious errors once they go beyond 40 minutes ingame time in tournament games.
Edit:
Oh and have you ever had the problem when you are studying and you cannot buckle down for longer than 30 mins without losing focus? Your body tells you something aka take a small break.
Since you won't even store 15% of the info after your focus falters.
It's even a natural thing, just that most people do not know about it, which is a sad thing.
Should actually be the first thing they teach you @ school.
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treat it like actual exercise. eat right, pace properly, play in sets. experience always lets you play more, though
like, i've been playing games since i was 6, mass gaming since i was in middle school. i can play like 20 hours straight if i ever get the time until my body starts going numb from lack of sleep even if i ignore all the previous advice. but since i'm older now i have times in my life where i'm not gaming all day every day. i have to kind of ease into mass gaming with the tips in the first line, it helps, even if it sounds silly to treat it as seriously as real exercise
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Eat something, or go for a walk
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For everyone talking about taking a nap after playing starcraft. Personally, I can't even sleep after playing a few games of starcraft:
1. It's stressful and gets my heart pumping
2. When I lie down and try to sleep I think about the games I played
3. I'm still thinking really, really fast. Even if I try to not think about starcraft I think about other things really fast.
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After 5 Games, go to your wife and ask for a special massage. After 5 Minutes, you should not need longer because of wasted time, its time for the next 5 games.
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Prepare as if youre going to run a marathon. Eat proper food, drink water etc etc.
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I would recommend you go out for a 10-15 minutes jog right before you play your ladder games. Its amazing for the brain 
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I'd say stay relaxed as much as possible. Music helps, even during games; I find I can play better for longer when I got my j pop/rock/death metal/ A7X blasting in my ears.
Eating and exercise with occasional naps helps too.
Staying as relaxed as possible though, is the key.
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On September 04 2011 05:09 xlava wrote:Eat food. I'm not even kidding, you're probably hungry. SC2 takes more out of you than most people think. Maybe take a nap. I like to take SC2 breaks when doing homework sometimes if I have the time for it, that way when I get tired of either homework or SC2, I switch, and get both my preferred amount of play time in, as well as completing my homework and studying
this is fricken genius! you may have just changed my life sir, bravo!
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1. play in a clan you will be able to play more and get motivated and you will also be able to make the most out of your practice.
2. eat properly, trust me on this one.(looks like you do though)
3. practice one build and make the timings routine for each game. even if you get tired you at least will have some solid mechanics to fall back on.
These three things got me into master and i can definetly feel your frustration that you are good enough, but just can't seem to get there.
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are you just mentally tired or is being physically tired also a factor? Perhaps you could lower the brightness of your screen when playing so that your eyes are less tired and you would be able to play longer.
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Keep fit, keep healthy and ladder frequently. Think of it like running, if you don't run a lot and keep yourself in a healthy state, you're not going to run for very long. The flipside, you do.
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lol, i think people are taking SC2 too seriously just because of the e-sports tag...
I don't see how playing 4-5 SC2 games in a row can make you much worse...
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Good advice from alot of people. thanks!
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Exercise. It seems counterproductive, but when you exercise, you improve your oxygen intake, increase muscle stamina, and get yourself used to bursts of adrenaline. You'll end up feeling less tired after a gaming session.
When you exercise, other things will fall into place as well. You start paying attention to what foods are good for you, when you need to get some sleep. etc.
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On September 04 2011 05:04 Dazz3 wrote:
First of all I'm not sure if this is the right forum, admin's feel free to move this thread if you feel it should be posted on a different forum.
I'm a high diamond player that's trying to make it into master but I've got major problems with my gaming stamina. When I play more then 3-5games in a row I start to get what I like to call "brain lag", my reaction time and decision making drops A LOT. If I don't play mass games I find myself beating players on master level frequently but when I try to ladder a lot I get "brain lagged" and just go on a losing streak. If I have a free day I can get 20-25 games in if I make Sc2 the focus for the day, taking small breaks and bigger breaks for meal and such but I feel I could and I would like to play more.
Anyone got any advice what I could do to increase my gaming stamina? Should I just press on and thus gain it or is it just something you need to be born with?
Any advice helps because I'm seriously considering leaving the game since I feel I can't play the amount of game's I need to get to the "the next" level and I feel very frustrated being stuck at my current skill level for a long time.
MMA plays around 25-30 games a day, cause one of his fingers(index) paralyzes if he plays too much.
Rest of the time he watches replays and debates SC2 strategies with his teammates.
You don't need to play many games and some pro players have your problem as-well.
To get better i suggest:
1.coaching, get the best player you can find to coach you, might not be cheap.
2. Switch race, some people suck at terran, but are good at zerg, vice-versa, also if you play other races you understand the other races weaknesses and strengths better and can determine which race is the most suited for you.
3. See whats your biggest weakness and try to correct that thing alone for a considerable amount of time instead of only massing games on ladder.
There are several maps out there for this.
4. Healthy life style. Exercise and eat good food. Jog maybe 1-2 hours a day
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EPT
