Whether you want to make the leap from hobby gamer to professional, or you just want to be able to reliably beat your friends, improving your gaming skills is a good thing to work on. Many of us enjoy kicking back with a video game to unwind from a long day and that’s absolutely fine, but have you thought about kicking things up a gear? From data tracking apps to deep focus playlists, there are a whole host of ways to unlock your inner master-gamer. Here are some tips.
Focusing Playlists
We all have our own opinions on what makes a great gaming playlist. Some of us enjoy rocking out whilst we get properly stuck into a shoot-em-up game, others enjoy listening to the soundtrack as the developers intended, though there’s one category of people who we haven’t mentioned yet; those who just want the ultimate focus. If you are a great gamer, but only when you really get into the zone, then carefully curating your gaming playlist could really help you to see improvements. Many professional gamers enjoy classical music as it enables them to relax, some of them enjoy deep house music, as it encourages concentration. The aspect that both of these types of music have in common is that neither have words. Lyrics can be incredibly distracting for a brain that is trying to focus on something else. We’ve all tried talking on the phone to someone, whilst a friend yabbers away in our other ear. It’s confusing and totally distracting, and it might just be that your music choice is doing exactly the same thing to your gaming ability.
Data Trackers
Some of us prefer games of the mind over games that involve dexterity. If this is the case then a focusing playlist is still important, but there’s another tool that could help even more. If poker is your game of choice then the chances are you feel like you’ve heard all of the poker tips in the world, but in reality, there is always something new to learn. One of the best tips for aspiring professional poker players is to use a poker tracker to keep tabs on your online play. Using your tracker you’ll be able to review your data and make notes of where your strategy shines and where it slips up. Any professional who plays online will use a poker tracker. Some of them are free, others are subscription-based. Start off with a free package and see if your game improves. If it does, then you can work out how many more games you’re winning and, therefore, whether you can justify the cost of a full package.
Reaction Training
Not everyone is into the deep thinking of games like poker, some of us want games that rely on lightning-fast reactions. If you enjoy this style of gaming more than anything else, but you seem to have reached a plateau, then it could be your reaction times that are letting you down. The natural choice is to clock up more and more hours on the game and see if our reactions improve, but this could actually be counterproductive. Many of the top eSports gamers choose to spend time away from their game of choice and focus on the core skills necessary to be good at it. If the reaction time is one of those, then you can play a reaction-training-based game for a while. Once that game sees your reaction time improve, you can test out your newly honed skills on the game that you were struggling with before.
