There's a lot of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed young folks that dream of playing poker professionally...but what traits do the successful ones have?

And what % of serious poker players are they?

This has been covered in here before. Just look at the sticky on this very sun forum regarding where people fail on their poker journey. Just a couple of big ones, though:

1. Work ethic. Most people wanting to play professionally want to do so because they don’t want to work a standard job. They dream that poker is easy money. That’s not the case, however. Successful players probably work harder at poker than most people in the work force do. You can have a bad day at a regular job or call in sick and still get paid. Not so for a poker player. You have to grind many hours, plus schedule study time away from the table. It truly is a lot of work.

2. Mental discipline. If you’ve played any poker at all, you know that it can be frustrating. You sit for hours without a playable hand. You finally get something and lose a big pot to a bad beat. It’s very easy to go on tilt and stop playing your best game. Pro’s must have the discipline to play correctly regardless of what happens.

3. Math ability. You must have at least a basic knowledge of probability, statistics, and game theory to succeed. There’s really no way around it. It is essential that you understand equity, expected value, and know how to apply these concepts to real poker situations.

This is not exhaustive, and I’m not a pro, so actual pros may have other qualities that I’ve missed.

Yes, use the search box to find other threads.

4) Be able to self evaluate .. or take hard critiques from others without emotion

5) Bankroll management and separation from 'life' roll

6) Ability to allow others to play 'their' game .. good or bad .. even if it hit you with a bad result GL

7) Mental stability and maturity-The game is brutal, and there will be months where things don't go your way, you aren't winning, and rent is still due. You have to be able to stay emotionally even keeled during these times
8) Patience-there will be a temptation to play higher stakes than you are rolled for in order to make money faster. There are no shortcuts. Build up your stake slowly but surely
9) No ego-if you start taking what happens at the table as an attack on you personally, and start responding personally, you will start to play suboptimally. And if you are playing against someone who is intentionally provoking you because he knows he can til you without getting tilted, you will get crushed.

Discipline
The first and the main place in this list is occupied by discipline. And all other qualities depend on it. In order to achieve good results in poker, you will need to learn this skill.
A good poker player has a high level of discipline, can wait for a suitable opportunity or a good card.
-knows how to quit when needed;
-abstains in the absence of advantage;
-risks wisely;
-drops bad cards;
Makes mistakes and analyzes your game
A professional will never sit down at a table intoxicated, tired, morally unprepared and unsure of his victory.

Control your emotions
Excessive emotion during the game session is the scourge of a modern player.
During play sessions it is hard to accept that you are ticking. It's not that difficult to recognize this condition, everyone has their own "markers", which can be quickly recognized. But it is not easy for many to admit the existence of a tilt, which means to "reduce" their ego. This is where the discipline we have just mentioned comes in handy.
Poker is your job and all negative factors should be minimized. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, including yourself.
There are a number of techniques designed to facilitate your work of holding emotions in an iron sleeve. And books are not so little written - study these materials, work over yourself.

The thing in addition to this is that you need to schedule breaks, and by that I don't mean just having an hour or so off in the middle of a session. Or doing work away from the table, that is not a break. There's a reason why regular jobs don't have you working seven days a week and give you holidays. Poker is no different.

I would actually guess that most players would actually make more lifetime if they just played a few hours during the week and then ramped up during the weekend when the player pool rates to be softer (particularly for MTT players). Cutting out the 25% of your schedule which is lowest EV, even if it still makes you profit, is surely worth considering

Not qualified to do anything else/degen (most low stakes live "pros")

From an region of the world where economic opportunities are limited. (those micro/low stakes online grinders from Eastern Europe that people think are bots)


Then you have the true professionals who could probably make more money doing something else but they enjoy the freedom and playing the game. Those people have the positive qualities mentioned previously.

I have no doubt that most regs on the high roller circuit could be earning 6 figures minimum in the corporate world if they chose that path.

Agreed. I never meant by work ethic that you have to play all the time. But you do have to put in a certain amount of hours to succeed and you do have to possess the work ethic and discipline to be able to tell your friends on Friday and Saturday nights, “No, I can’t go to the bar/club/whatever with you; I have to play poker.”

If you spend more than you earn your never going to be successful.
Best to save a % of money from your earnings each week/month before you pay bills.
I like a 10% amount. I also like the idea that churches use and that is giving 10% of your earnings to charity before you decide to pay any money on bills.

i know a lot of people who play full time because they have to.


everyone's different, but i see smart competitive thrill junkies who like poker and have higher intelligence / know how to keep degen tendencies controlled

- self control - no gambling or spending all your money on drugs or hookers
- love/hate to lose - losing needs to drive you to work harder on your game, losing is inevitable even for longer periods of time
- drive to get better/improve or to get as good as you can - the drive to improve as much as you can will help a lot more than just wanting to be better than the players around you, being better than the average player isn't very hard, but it won't get you very far either
- the desire to master something / become very good at something
- loving to learn and improve, challenging yourself
- being independent - only you control how you play, you can't blame anyone else or rely on anyone else to play for you
- connecting with other successful players
- self awareness - you need to know when you're tilting and fix it, you need to realize when games are too though or when you're not playing well

for live players:
- being social - like meeting new people

for online players:
- being ok with spending most of your time alone behind your computer