ThatGuy
Smash Master
1. Week leading up to tournament: don't play 2 days before the tournament. Similar to how cramming for an exam at the last second is not very beneficial, you want to do your learning way before crunch time. Leave a couple days to have your mind relax and be fully fresh before the tournament.
Day of tournament: Wake up early enough. Eat an awesome breakfast. Show up a bit early so you don't have to stress about anything. Drink a coffee or energy drink as you arrive, to get you awake and alert, but not fully hyper when important matches begin (let the caffeine rush pass over the first hour or two).
Post-tournament: While the defeats are fresh, reflect on what went wrong in those matches, and why, so that you can have something to work on in friendlies at future smashfests. A notebook might be useful in case you're a forgetful sort. If you want to enjoy yourself, passively spectate the rest of the tournament, play some desired friendlies. If you got knocked out early, your mind is probably still fresh, so treat the tournament as a large smashfest and try to learn from every match. If you find opponents are sandbagging and auto-piloting because they don't care/don't want to waste energy, challenge people to money matches; you'll either gain competitive experience or free money.
2. Auto-pilot is the subconscious manner of playing in which you do not actively think about which action you are taking. It is habitual, it is automatic, and it is instinctual. It is always present, but the degree of how much you auto-pilot depends on what level you're thinking on:
Low level: Spacing, technical ability, movement, precision
Mid level: Zoning
High level: Prediction, deduction, timing
If you're looking at your own character, trying to be as precise with spacing and technical ability as possible, you're actively thinking low level, you're not auto-piloting at all, and you have no room to think about what your opponent is doing. This is bad. You want to actively be in a high level state of consciousness, allowing your mind to automatically process the low level stuff.
As you can see, it is impossible to be purely on auto-pilot, unless you are a robot, simply because you're always going to be thinking about something.
3. There is no 3.
4.
a) In order to keep your mind fresh, there must be a degree of automation. If you have to re-think everything you do every time, you thought processing will be much slower and inefficient than it could be.
Take a computer for example: it has a hard disk to store data, and a memory to bring said data closer to access it faster (the memory is located closer to the processor, and the memory is made of transistors instead of a disk, so the data access is exponentially faster). If a computer is going to use something often, it puts it into memory (or cache) so that it can be accessed faster and easier. If something is not used for awhile, it is removed from memory so that room for other stuff from the disk can be retrieved.
Your mind works in a similar fashion; you can only think of so much at once. There is no reason to think of a billion options you have if a select few have always worked and you know will work in this instance.
And yes, there is the physical aspect as well. Ever do a lot of really tough math problems that you don't fully understand in one night? Chances are you're a bit mentally fatigued after that. If you're thinking as hard in Smash Bros as you are in complex math problems, then you're playing the game right, but it takes a toll. If you're not tired at all, you probably weren't thinking hard enough.
2. Since auto-pilot is by nature habitual, it is by nature consistent as well. This includes execution and general strategy. It is essentially staying in a mid-level state of mind for the majority of the time.
3. Yup.
4. It's tied with #2. If you have something on your mind, such as a personal family problem or harsh breakup, you won't have much room in your head to cram in other stuff. In reality, you shouldn't expect to perform well at all in such conditions, but playing conservatively on auto-pilot without straining too much in the high level mindset is your best shot.
As for momentum, it's similar to personal issues in the sense that it gets in your head. Worrying that you're getting owned or getting cocky about the fact that you're in a huge lead takes up thinking power, and often leads to some serious mental meltdowns. Trying to tune out your thoughts and getting back to the basics might be a good way to get back on track and get the feelings out of the way.
5. Refer to #1.
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. Nah Im just joking but I know what you mean we have to step it up if we want to get Mario any recondition, It really is up setting when you here something like "Omg I lost to Mario that Low Tier scrub."