BOREDOM, DISTRACTIONS & ENVIRONMENT

When you play poker in a bricks and mortar casino you are surrounded by your poker environment. You can feel the felt under your fingers, the chips in your hands and hear the chatter of the players around you. At that moment, poker is your world.

Playing poker online is a totally different experience. Your screen is your poker world, which is just a few square inches out of your surroundings. That pile of bills that you haven't got round to sorting out, the email from your friend that you should have replied to by now and a plethora of other things are available to distract you whenever you mind chooses to wander.

You need to find ways of making sure that you can pay proper attention to your game and to your opponents. Some people will even have a hat or a cap that they choose to wear when they are playing to be give themselves a fixed reason to not do the other things: I'm wearing my poker hat, so if I want to do anything else I have to take it off and stop playing first.

Some people like to play in the dark so that the screen becomes more obviously the focal point of their environment.

Whatever your reason for playing poker, whether it be just for fun, to make a profit or for the challenge of the game, fundamentally you want to win. The more you pay attention to the game and to how your opponents are playing, the more likely you'll be to succeed.