I have received many emails asking for advice on navigating the waters of becoming a professional poker player. Despite considering myself only about 25% of a quality pro thus far, I thought this forum would be an interesting way to attempt to answer some of these questions, along with consolidating my own thoughts on the subject. Hopefully some of those thoughts will be of some value to you in your own quest to join the big kids on the green playground.

To begin with, my first piece of advice would be, "Don't do it, man! It's a sick and twisted way to make a living! You will wind up with no hair, if you have hair now, or no sanity, if you are lucky enough to be a sane man now!"

Alright, with that out of my system, it might make sense to identify what loosely defined qualities have served me best as I have been learning. These are some of the most important traits for being a successful poker player (so far), through my eyes:

Adaptability & Willingness To Learn
Most players, as we all know, think they are the best poker players to ever grace the planet. Many believe that the only thing holding them back from playing in higher stakes games than they do now is their limited bankroll. Some even go so far as to think they could contend with the toughest of professionals with a larger backing behind them. Sad to say that the only thing that would probably happen if they did have that access they so desperately say they need is their opponents would just have more cash to beat them out of.

Playing winning poker and moving up in limits is tough, and this attitude of, "Hey, I am all that and a bag of Cheetos" will do nothing but put you further behind where you want to be. You need to come into every game, or every tournament, with the idea that you want to learn something. I always consider it a failure of a day if I don't either make the final table of the event I am playing in or if I don't learn something that helps me to play more effectively the next time.

Even when you are facing weak opponents there is something to be learned. Perhaps you will be taught what not to do in certain situations. One of the best lessons to learn is how to beat up on those shaky players. That is, how to best take advantage of that match-up when you know your opponent doesn't have the same skills that you may possess. The fact of the matter is that most of the time you will be faced with these weak players. Let's face it; there are a ton more bad players than there are good ones in this world, despite all of us thinking we belong in the latter group.

Brutal Honesty...With Yourself
This is an area where most players are woefully lacking. In my early playing days, ha... about a year ago, I would suffer through losing sessions and be so frustrated by the end of the night I wouldn't know what to do with myself. I had been playing so well! Making great moves, always being sucked out on...what was the deal here?

The deal was that I was playing leagues below where I felt I was playing. I distinctly remember that if I ever had a hand such as 910, or 78 in any position, I would play it. I would play these suited connectors in an aggressive limit game continually, even in early position, where I would almost always be forced to put in two or even three bets. This is a sure recipe for disaster, and I had nights that were Titanic-esque. Somehow I had gotten it into my head that I wanted to play these hands though, and play them I did, regardless of circumstance.

The point of this example was that I wasn't being at all honest with myself about how I was playing. I also ran into similar issues playing no-limit and not being able to avoid certain kinds of traps. An example of this would be not being wary of playing hands like A10 or KJ, where you can easily get locked into a hand and lose all of your chips. In limit, you can get away from this hand, or at least gain some knowledge throughout the hand to decide that you either have the best of it or not. In no-limit, it often is going to cost you all of your chips to find this same thing out. Despite this, many people have hands they just fall in love with, whether those hands regularly choke the life out of them or not.

Of course these are specific examples. The classic case comes when you can't be truthful with yourself about anything. You play too many hands and you play them out of position. You call far too many bets in hopeless situations and bleed off all of your chips. If this is you, take a seminar with Liar's Anonymous, or consider finding yourself another vocation.

Ability To Handle Pressure Situations
As you move on in tournaments, the pressure just mounts and mounts, continually rising. If you are lucky enough to actually reach the final table in whatever event you are playing in, it ratchets up to levels where it may become difficult to think straight. A similar effect happens when many players begin losing in cash games. Remember, when we all are losing we feel much more pressure. I know when I am winning in a game, or have a big chip lead in a tournament; I am completely at ease and just having a good time playing. The ability to handle pressure becomes paramount in these situations when you aren't on top.

So often in the later stages of big tournaments one player makes a big blunder and the others are more than happy to collect his chips into their own stacks. I should know about this particular issue. I made two very large mistakes at both of the WSOP final tables that I sat at this past year. It wasn't in any way due to being outplayed by my opponents whatsoever. It was completely due to me making unforced errors that cost me either all, or most of my stack. There is just absolutely nothing as terrible as feeling like you just handed your chance to win to someone else at the table.

Those tables hark back to an earlier lesson I spoke of though. If I couldn't take down the title those days in June, I at least wanted to learn a few things to aid me in doing so next time. I certainly did so, and will be that much more able to close out the pressure and focus on the problem at hand next time.

This is because they are straight-up psychological bulldogs, plain and simple. There is no point to trying to beat them down, because it just can't be done. I try and emulate this and play accordingly. It is so impressive when someone at your table can take beat after beat, and then just come back at the end of a night and just run the table down. It's a huge sign of strength, and one which we should all try and acquire.

I love this concept especially in no-limit hold'em tournaments. It is so much fun to find players that you can just beat into submission. You know the ones. The players that you push around to such an extent that they really lose the ability to be able to play with you at all. They finally get to the point that the only hands they can play with any degree of confidence are those that contain big pairs or AK. Once they find one though...BOOM, you fold. It takes that mental toughness to keep pounding on them, keeping the pressure on, and it also takes the toughness to withstand a pounding like that, and then pick your spot.

At any rate, these are just a few of the qualities that I am thinking about everyday while I am playing. You will obviously need to identify the ones that you think are the most important, as well as the ones that you need to work on. As with everything else in this great game of ours though, if you spend the time and put the energy in you will be rewarded with the results. You may even get to keep your hair...or your sanity...or maybe if you're lucky, both.