Definitely (note the spelling) readable - your English is better than you give yourself credit for. I agree that confidence is huge.

As a general note - all of this debate about the importance of each pillar, or even the existence of some pillars, while certainly interesting, is somewhat moot in the sense that the OP reflects my own beliefs and experiences. As such, it's certainly possible that I'm over-rating my natural talent, or overvaluing the importance of professionalism.

Certainly for each individual, a different set of factors may be more or less detrimental or productive towards their success. I've simply provided a framework for the measurement of success, and one based on my own experience.

Some posters have said that life balance is not important to poker success or that happiness is more important than life balance. I'd pretty strongly disagree and say that having life balance (or at least eating, sleeping and exercising well) both leads to happiness and should improve your poker results. Many studies have demonstrated this in the former case, and in the latter case, a new DeucesCracked instructor recently wrote his Masters thesis about the relationship between exercise, a healthy lifestyle, and poker results. It was well received by experts in the health field and based on scientific research.

It's pretty ridiculous to say that life balance has nothing to do with success in poker.

Life balance = healthy diet, sleep, exercise, friends & family time, hobbies etc. = mental & physical energy, more positive attitude towards life = longer hours playing and studying, better concentration and thinking etc.

Some people may reach the top despite a lack of life balance, not because of it. Few might even stay a while at the top without life balance, allthough not many I think.

Yep this.

I've just read this. Very nice post, rum!

Lol, maybe there are even people who have reached the top because of the lack of life balance.

Natural Talent: C. I'm probably in the top1% of the best math students in France (I was at "Normal Sup"), studying cryptography right now. So obv maths help me. But overall, I don't think I have other talents to help me for poker. Never been good at hand reading or "feeling" things if it makes any sense.
Work Ethic: B. I have worked a lot at the beginning but I don't work much right now because I'm happy how much I win and I feel like I'll improve by playing a ton of hands.
Professionalism: A+, 50k hands / month is not rare for me. For the last 4 years, my motivation has almost always been super high. In life, I'm a lazy man, in poker I'm workaholic.
Life Balance & Confidence: C, I have sleeping problem. I NEVER go to bed if I'm not completely down/sleepy/supertired because I hate to wait more than 20sec to start sleeping. That's why I usually sleep like 3/4 hours every night and I'm a zombie every day. I guess I should see a doctor or something but ... too lazy.

Nice post Rum ty for all your contributions whether good or bad (I thought most were great)

Barge Ass
Natural Talent: C (once upon a time I was good at math but not doing any school work and smoking copious weed helped that problem)
Work Ethic: D (now it's a bit better, maybe B)
Professionalwahh: D (getting better recently, I'm playing 40-50hrs live a week, table select most of the time, play alert, eat ok, rarely tilt and even then it's not major, no table games either, so B+)
Life? Whats that?: D (I have few friends little social life and not many interests besides poker and being lazy AND I still suck)

1. Natural Talent - C
2. Work Ethic - D (making this an A next month)
3. Professionalism - B
4. Life Balance & Confidence - C (Just recently improved from a D and swongs hard)

Thanks rum, you're a great poster and i appreciate it a lot

v nice post.

Hey guys. Long time lurker, first time poster.

I had another account on 2p2 I signed up for back in like '04 or '05 that i never posted under, but forgot the e-mail it was reg'd under so, decided to just create another lolz.

I've been playing and specializing in super turbo STTs for the last year and change and just started playing the HU supers recently...Been doing alright but realize that I still have A LOT to learn about them.

Rumnchess. I see you reg'd in the high stakes supers all the time and have watched some of ur games whenever I get some down time from playing... I just had to post here, b/c I thought that this was easily one of, if not, the BEST post I've read this year. This post not only made me think, but also self-reflect on how I grade myself in each of the 4 aspects. Srsly, a GREAT read imo, and thanks for taking the time to write it.

Nice post, sir

Near perfect percentages breakdown imo

b/c everyone else is doing it:

Talent: A (strongest suit is logical thinking, also very good at analyzing hand ranges, figuring out my opponent very quickly, metagame stuff, etc..)
Work Ethic: B- (I have a super love of the game and love to embrace challenges but I'd much rather play and acquire more experience than take a step back and reflect; I read strat threads on 6 max regularly but almost never touch hu threads, even though 90% of what I do online is hu sngs)
Professionalism: C (though I'd give myself an A for money management, I get a D+ for tilt control/playing conditions/overcoming ego when down/playing when tired or bored)
Life Balance and Confidence: B (confidence in my game rarely wanes, have a very lucrative job, am a sleep nazi, but eat terribly, am in horrible shape, and have other bad habits)

Dont know why i havent read this before now, its really good but I think you overvalue Professionalism abit maybe because that where you rate yourself the lowest. Actually i think the % depends on who you are as a person.

Besides that most of your lifestory could have been written by me

#1 58%
#2. 92%
#3 97%
#4. 17%

Read it yesterday. Amazing thought material.

Amazing post. I remember you from Casino NS when I first turned 19. Seemed like an incredibly articulate person and a great poker player. Good to see you doing well; I assumed you were a good online player.

gl wherever you're at!

bump +29735

bump

rum is a ***/thread

??

joke/4 real?

Jokes obv before anyone gets their knickers in a twist, he is a **** tho.

thank you very very much for this post. I can't express how much I appreciate this.

great thread...

hi rumnchess

1. Natural Talent - 17%
B I truly believe most people estimate themselves higher then what they probably should, similar to how an average let's say 5/10 looking person would rate himself/herself at least a 7/10 usually. I think, this was first brought to my attention in a documentary with umm "TRaehoe" Alec Torelli in it.
2. Work Ethic - 25%
F I have twice in my career, literally stopped playing poker for periods of over 10 months, to play ... sigh... computer games. I have an extremely addictive personality, and have always loved competitive video games. To this day, I am still addicted to Warcraft(WoW) and probably play 20ish hours a week. (during the periods of no poker, i would play 80+ hours a week) I've actually considered going to AA to talk about addictions and learn how to deal with them better. I'd probably try to not mention my computer game addiction the first few sessions as people who have/had alcohol/drug addictions most likely won't take me serious. Honestly, I was addicted to marijuana for 3 years, and I think WoW may be a worse addiction, I know for me specifically it is... It has been my escape, and obsession for way too long now, and I believe is the single handedly biggest thing that has held me back. With pot, i would usually play 4-6 hours in the morning, then get blazed out of my mind with friends and enjoy the night, possibly playing an hour or two after they left but never really harming my self too bad as i'd quit if I we're losing a bi or two.. with WoW I'll go weeks without playing a single hand, and not even think about it, the only thought will be when I can get back into the game faster..
3. Professionalism - 40%
B+ I think I'm very professional when I actually do grind. I've always been able to take great shots at higher limits, and been able to jump down if I failed quite easily. I rarely gamble more then I can afford at casinos on degening and a lot of the times I just watch my friends go off. My biggest leak in this pillar is spending habits.. when I'm winning big, i blow money stupidly. I can't tell you how many times I've had to basically create BR's from nearly scratch because my combined poor work ethics and spending habits...
4. Life Balance & Confidence - 18%
C I have similar issues to OP, I can't go to sleep without being exhausted. I actually believe I have like 28 hours days where the rest of the world works on 24. It seems i wake up 2 3 or 4 hours later each day then the previous one. My solution to this is, to pull an "all nighter" which basically means just stay up all frigging day until my eyes are practically bleeding so that when I do go to bed it's closer to a "normal" hour. Even as I write this, it's 6:30 am and I haven't slept yet... pathetic. I think to correct this I have to start using an alarm, so I don't oversleep so much. I think this is the problem but after about 8 years of not having to use an alarm clock it sure is hard to get back into the habit.

Great post in general rumnchess and I just want to say I feel you on the whole thing, we still got a lot of **** to figure out, especially if we ever want to look back at our poker careers and be proud. If anything this has been an eye opener for me, and I'm sure the same for many others. It's time to start to "give poker the respect it deserves". I believe if I try to fix everything overnight I'll get simply overwhelmed, so I'll try to clear my mind and figure out how I'm going to quit WoW, this time.. hopefully for good.

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