A lot of people are pretty good at poker, but what does it take to be great? That’s a good question, I’m glad you asked. First let’s talk about the most important aspect. Experience. You may think you’ve seen it all, but in Poker, you’re always going to be learning something or seeing something new. If you’re not, you’re doing it wrong. Until you’ve logged hours upon hours on the felt, you just don’t have that killer instinct it takes to move from pretty good, to good, to great. And there’s no reading material that’s going to substitute for experience, you just have to earn that one.
Next is a combination of things. You must be academic. This is a combination of intelligence and the will to learn new things. If you can’t grasp a complex concept, then you’re going to be at a disadvantage when up against players who do. And it’s even worse if you could grasp them, but simply refuse to learn them. Let me make this clear, I don’t consider myself a great player, but I can hold my own. However, when I first started, I had no idea what pot odds were, much less how they could benefit me. And I ignored the advice on it until several hundred dollars later I decided that I needed to learn. Ignorance can be costly tuition payments in the school of poker education.
One final caveat that you need to have as an online poker player is the ability to gamble. Sure, you could spend your time at the low levels, schooling fish all day, but are you getting better, or just staying pretty good? What you have to do to escalate to that higher level of play is to take the jump. You need to face players better than you, and you need to play at stakes higher than you’re used to in order to better yourself. If you don’t, you’ll remain stagnant at pretty good. And if that’s your cup of tea, then by all means do what you do. But I’d surmise that the majority of poker players out there have a similar attitude toward ambition to be “the best,” so there won’t be very many who wish to sit still in mediocrity.
