just a little objective(?) thinking

[wrto4556 0]

Try and answer as in-depth as possible.What makes a good poker player good?

[jayistheman 0]

if you are a female, you need a tight ass to be good at pokerif you are a guy, its a little harder.ill stop trashing up a potential winner... sorry.

[wrto4556 0]

I should delete you post you pervert!

[BeanGW 0]

What makes a good poker player:You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,Know when to walk away and know when to run.Never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.:wink: Ok, sorry for the smart ass response.Honestly, I think most people knows what makes a good poker player, but it's easier said than done.1. Bankroll management.2. Playing the player, not the cards.3. Ability to take mental notes on villains whether or not you are in a hand.4. Protecting hands properly, no FPS.5. Discounting outs appropriately...6. Ability to lessen the effects of tilt.

[TheCinciKid 0]

What makes a good poker player:You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,Know when to walk away and know when to run.Never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table.There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.:wink:  Ok, sorry for the smart ass response.Honestly, I think most people knows what makes a good poker player, but it's easier said than done.1.  Bankroll management.2.  Playing the player, not the cards.3.  Ability to take mental notes on villains whether or not you are in a hand.4.  Protecting hands properly, no FPS.5.  Discounting outs appropriately...6.  Ability to lessen the effects of tilt.

Good post Bean. Interestingly enough, I think I'd consider #2 to be about my weakest point. I try to make up for it by consistently playing better cards than my opponents do (play tighter than the table), as I find it very hard to get reads especially online, but I think that this is probably one of the biggest things that separates the great players from the merely good players. A player like Daniel or Phil Ivey or Jen Harman, may not be a math genius, but they have great reading ability and this puts them above everyone else.

[TheIceman05 0]

Ironically enough, I think it's honesty. More than anything else, I think most players's biggest weakness is their inability to look at their own game honestly, and address personal weaknesses. So many players make the same mistakes- small and big- because they refuse to recognize them.Along the same lines, I think an even tempermant is key to being a winning player. The ability to stay focused in impossibly frustrating situations, during long runs of bad cards, is often what separates a winning player from a marginal one. Personally, this is the phase of my game in which I've made the biggest strides over the last few months. I used to have to get up from the computer a few times a week before I should have been done playing (sacrificing tons of greatly profitable situations in the process) because I could feel my blood beginning to boil. After these two quasi-intangible qualities, I'd consider the following qualities incredibly important:1) Pattern-recognition. Recognizing betting patterns with quickly and efficiently is the key to hand reading.2) Pattern-exploitation. Understanding your opponents sub-optimal tendencies is useless unless you're proficient at taking advantage of them. Underrated part of the game. Expert players are the master's of exploiting weakness.Iceman's couple pennies.Holla,Ice

[AlanBostick 0]

"Game Selection" should be at the top of the list. If you're the tenth best player in a field of millions, and you only play with the other nine best, you're going to lose. If you're in the bottom ten percent, if you can find a game where enough of the other players are worse than you, you'll win in the long term.

[PrtyPSux 0]

Allright, well I'll give it a shot.Ive been trying to figure out what makes a great player for a couple of months. You know, I kept asking myself "why?".. "why, is this guy so much better than me?", I know the game, I've read the books, Ive played the hands, yet I cant crush a high limit game and win so many tourneys like some of the people that I see play.I think I finally realized about a week ago:A great player trusts his gut. You cant be a great player if you just play by the books, play your cards and not take risks. Stu Ungar said: "You have to know your reads are correct. If you cant trust your instincts, you have no chance at the table. No chance whatsoever." I cant even count how many times ive missed out on money because I didnt trust my read. In tourneys the 4th card to a straight comes on the river, and I decide to check my set even though my read the whole hand was that my opponent had 2 pair. If I know someone is bluffing i rarely have the balls to put all my chips in to get them off their hands. Also, In cash games, you can miss out on HUGE money in terms of single BB's you lose by not going with your read, taking the safe side and only calling or folding.You can play it safe, play by the books and still be a winning player, but IMO those players arent good. I think that the difference between a winning player and a good player, is that a winning player knows the game, but a good player has feel for the game. The difference between a good player and a great player is that the great player capitalizes on his "feel" and extracts as much as possible from his opponents mistakes.That obviously isnt the only thing that makes a great player but IMO its the most important.Some other things that make players great include-The ability to maintain a balanced emotion at the table, after good runs and bad ones. Ivey and Greenstine are people that have that mastered. - The ability to master several games. DN has that down.- The ability to change gears and adapt many different situations.- these days, I believe being a good cash game player is not enough, you should excel in both cash games and tourneys.- the ability to learn from your mistakes.- BALLS. Some people mentioned money management and table selection, but honestly I doubt don’t think that’s a skill you must have to be a great player, there’s plenty of great players that don’t have either of those disciplines..(there’s plenty of great broke players :-))

[akishore 0]

i think "doesn't tilt. ever." should be at the top.aseem

[microtech 0]

Already some great responses that I think all have tons of merit. IMO a good poker player has to have one quality that hasn't been mentioned yet. The ability to look at poker as a game. I don't feel that you can be great or even good if you don't have this first. It factors into all the before mentioned qualities like guts and being able to control tilt. If you don't have fun playing then you don't view the game in a way that will allow you to ride the waves of success and disaster.

[wrto4556 0]

a lot of good responses. Iceman, I want to have your baby. Seriously, when i made the post I had something like that in mind.my 2 cents.In a nut shell, a good poker player makes the correct decision *every time*. How we come about making the correct decision is less subtle. Never tilting so that our head is clear, being honest so that our game is always improving, hand reading skills...obviously, we could go on and on as the post has shown. But the hardest part is really doing it at the table. Really being intuitive enough to put *so many* pieces to a puzzle together in real time.So what do I think makes a good poker player good? He thinks. What does he think about? Well, that's what makes a good player good.I tilted away a few dollars yesterday and I said to myself: "good players dont tilt." and it got me to thinking..."what do good players do then?"Lately ive noticed getting better is a lot like rereading TOP. TOP tells you everything you already know but it makes you apply it.im rambling...I could have said, just do it. Be a good player.

[matmaci 0]

i think what makes a great poker player is being able to limit the amount of mistakes that you make and taking full advantage of your opponents mistakes... you can be a great player get a hand cracked by slow playing too much then go on tilt and lose everything u have in front of you... If your even a good player but no expert you can notice when someone is frustrated or making numerous mistakes and exploite them for you... basically guess avoiding tilt, making educated decisions and outplaying your opponents will get you a long way.... also you have to be willing to take risks in order to win, if your too text book people will pick that up.

[GamblinLeaf 0]

Honest question: Can all of the (excellent) responses be summed up in the word "discipline"? The discipline to force oneself to do whatever it is that must be done at that moment. For some, it's the discipline to not tilt in a particular situation. For others, it might be the discipline to stay within your bankroll. For yet another, it might be the discipline to go with a read, even though it feels scary. In a nutshell (how did I get in this nutshell?? ... this is one friggin HUGE nutshell!) the "discipline" to control "self", in all its forms, might be the umbrella that covers it all.Just a thought.

[iggymcfly 0]

i think "doesn't tilt. ever." should be at the top.aseem

Agreed. There are a ton of players out there that can beat their game for a couple bets when they're playing their best game, but tilt off their whole stack whenever they lose a couple tough pots.I'd say that the top skills for a poker player are:1. Mental control (the ability to avoid and control tilt, as well as exercise general discipline)2. The ability to read opponents (yes, this includes picking up tells in a live game, but online it can be as simple as recognizing betting patterns)3. The confidence to trust the reads one makes on their opponents4. The ability to bet deceptively (this does not mean trying to make some fancy exploitive bet every time you're in a hand; it can be as simple as betting a set the same way you bet a flush draw, so that your opponents don't know what you have)

[AlanBostick 0]

i think "doesn't tilt. ever." should be at the top.aseem

Are we talking about an idealized poker-playing robot, or are we talking about a target that a real human player can aim for with a plausible chance of hitting?Everyone tilts sooner or later."I've had players tell me they never go on tilt. Usually it has turned out that their definition of tilt and mine differ greatly." (John Feeney, Inside the Poker Mind, p. 212)

[TheIceman05 0]

i think "doesn't tilt. ever." should be at the top.aseem

Are we talking about an idealized poker-playing robot, or are we talking about a target that a real human player can aim for with a plausible chance of hitting?Everyone tilts sooner or later."I've had players tell me they never go on tilt. Usually it has turned out that their definition of tilt and mine differ greatly." (John Feeney, Inside the Poker Mind, p. 212)

Just thought I'd "amen" that one for Aseem. He's too tough on himself.WRTO- I'd give that "baby" thing a second thought. I'm in the process of growing a beard, and it's U-G-L-Y.Cheers, and happy holiday,Ice

[screech 0]

"I've had players tell me they never go on tilt. Usually it has turned out that their definition of tilt and mine differ greatly." (John Feeney, Inside the Poker Mind, p. 212)

I found this to be a very underatted book. I like to hijack threads.

[anselm 0]

A player like Daniel or Phil Ivey or Jen Harman, may not be a math genius, but they have great reading ability and this puts them above everyone else.

Agreed, but you might be surprised at how quickly even the "non-math types" can calculate odds on the fly to surprising accuracy. Similarly, Paul Phillips and Howard Lederer - for example - don't ignore gut instinct either.