A few months ago, a thread surfaced on PocketFives calling for readers describe their poker environment. Was total silence needed? What about a comfortable chair? Should friends be invited over? Can you surf the web at the same time or should you focus on poker? As the original poster, who hails from North Carolina, put it, “Usually, I get a dank drink from the Walgreens by my apartment like an Arizona Arnold Palmer, come back, throw on basketball shorts, and sit on my couch with my laptop on the coffee table.”

We thought the topic was pretty interesting, so we wrote the following feature article that contains a few replies from poker players around the world.

Alberta pokercommunity member vicvegas007 said that getting out of the house in order to be able to concentrate on his game is important: “I work away from home during the week, so I sit in my hotel room at night and play with just the TV on, not really watching, just for some noise. When I am at home, I find it hard to play with the wife, kids, and dog. I surf the net about 20% of the time while I play my one table.” vicvegas007 is the lone PocketFives member from the city of Tofield.

Over in Great Britain, music seemed to be the soundtrack to success. One player from Great Sankey wrote in the thread, “Always gotta have the tunes on. Usually have the same playlist on with chilled drum and bass and dubstep. Surf the web and have Facebook, TV, or whatever on my second monitor until I pass the bubble, then just focus on the tables.”

Across “The Pond” in the United States, silence was golden for a member of the Illinois pokercommunity: “I have to stack chips while playing and watch WSOP events on YouTube. Drinking the NOS is a must and a pack of Newports for breaks. No noise locked in computer room.” We’ve heard of plenty of players shuffling chips and watching poker on television to amuse them while they multi-table online.

Not everyone’s poker environment is serene. If you don’t believe me, check out this candid response from a PocketFives member with over $500,000 in tracked MTT cashes in his profile: “I play on a stepping stone turned chair on a round table that barely fits my laptop, let alone monitor. I live in a motel on the beach and while I’m playing, there are speed pushers [and] meth-heads.”

Other members of the PocketFives community relayed that they can get bored easily without something to occupy the dead air. In this camp was two-time Triple Crown winner OhScissorMe, who calls Minnesota home and wrote, “I play on a laptop and need to have other things going on or I get bored. I’ll usually be chilling with friends, watching movies, or even playing video games if I don’t have too many tables. If I’m just sitting by myself in a room, I begin to feel isolated and anxious. I’d much rather have things going on around me.”

Germany pokercommunity member RedIceRap(pictured), who sits at #24 worldwide in the PocketFives Rankings, revealed that a PlayStation 3 is his trusted companion while he’s battling online: “Either playing on my PC with 2×27″ monitors and listening to music or watching TV or sometimes playing on my bed on my laptop. I also play PS3 sometimes when 1-tabling and it’s not distracting at all. I had a lot of big scores while playing PS3 and 1-tabling, prolly should just tighten up my game.”

Finally, we’ll turn to John cracker9ball Reynolds, who regularly contributes poker strategy content to PocketFives. He suggested, “Getting up on breaks and eating and drinking properly to an extent can all help. I have seen several scores made when a player is distracted and plays a little tighter than normal, but I wouldn’t read too much into it; we have seen people win lots of different ways. Moral of the story is to probably try and reduce distractions as you see fit and get in you own comfort zone.”

What’s your poker environment like? Comment here and let us know!

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