Keeping Focus with Background Distractions
Some games of poker have an eerie quiet looming around them, others having a cacophonous eruption of sound. Quieter games seem to benefit the players the most as they have a peaceful mind set with just the game at hand. The ones that are electric with sound often cause a loss of concentration as there are many things to get distracted upon. Background noise -unless pleasing- is normally a concentration breaker causing a lack of strategy and focus on what is happening at all times on the table. With this lack there is the chance to miss key betting habits, bluff characteristics, and so on.
The best way to avoid losing concentration due to background noises is to find someone or something on the table to focus on. This causes the background noise to, in a sense, “drown out”. Most likely it is best to stay focused on an opponent; one at a time, to catch any habits in their game. By staying focused on one person and switching after picking up all of their habits (hopefully their poker chips too) and not letting the background distract you, the game can only go uphill.