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i know you're prob pseudojoking

Or a catheter like they have in hospital. Problem painfully solved. Lock dooooown!

The thing I find fascinating about poker and specifically high stakes winning players is that they exhibit a lot of traits that are direct opposite to some of the suggestions in this thread.

I would say arrogance is more highly correlated with a great player than humbleness for instance.

Strongly agree on analytical and logical. I think KRANTZ's post was the most succinct one that I fully agree with. If I had to take just one trait alone it would be a toss up between logical and competitive. You seriously need to think you are the best player in the room and any other winning regular winning money in your game should offend you.

unconcerned with reputation--

But doesn't your reputation have a lot to do with how your opponents view you and therefore play against you? I think your reputation (solid / spewmonkey / nut peddler / etc) is pretty important

analytical, logical, competitive, open-minded and great at games are the first things that come to mind for me

There's a key component missing for sure, I can't tell which, but there's at least one missing. All of those are some of my biggest strength..but I've been struggling at nl100 for 2 years.

I would say arrogance is more highly correlated with a great player than humbleness for instance.

you are more in a position to judge this than me but I would argue that you see a lot of arrogance amongst bad players also. The ones who complain all day about getting bad beat while theyre losing and how bad you are. but when they are winning theyre also getting abusive in the chat box?

I have heard a lot of pro's define competitiveness as something they see in themselves and other succesful players. Any ideas as to what makes competitiveness lead to becoming a good player?

The only thing I can think of is that it adds determination and motivation to put time and effort in to really beating the games.

Here's my opinion:

Intelligence (especially inductive reasoning i.e. the ability to draw right conclusions from present material --> usually measured by most abstract intelligence tests like fullfilling matrices etc.)

Emotional stability and a high tolerance for ambiguity

Novelty Seeking

openeness

"Need for cognition"

need for a achievement

self-efficacy

btw all these traits have shown a moderate genetic component :-)

The thing I find fascinating about poker and specifically high stakes winning players is that they exhibit a lot of traits that are direct opposite to some of the suggestions in this thread.

I would say arrogance is more highly correlated with a great player than humbleness for instance.

Strongly agree on analytical and logical. I think KRANTZ's post was the most succinct one that I fully agree with. If I had to take just one trait alone it would be a toss up between logical and competitive. You seriously need to think you are the best player in the room and any other winning regular winning money in your game should offend you.

There's a difference between a player who's arrogant because of his ability and a player who is arrogant in spite of his ability, as long as you don't let your arrogance prevent you from being self analytical it's acceptable ... the opposite is pretty much the hallmark of every break even or losing reg.

analytical, logical, competitive, open-minded and great at games are the first things that come to mind for me

I feel special because KRANTZ replied to my post.

I feel special because KRANTZ replied to my post.

So is sycophancy a winning poker trait?

Ouch, dude.

LOL. just fucking with him.

There's a difference between a player who's arrogant because of his ability and a player who is arrogant in spite of his ability, as long as you don't let your arrogance prevent you from being self analytical it's acceptable ... the opposite is pretty much the hallmark of every break even or losing reg.

The difference is a bit more subtle. There are example of players to whom the adjective 'arrogant' would apply who were beating one or more games back in the day. They weren't necessarily good at poker overall, but they had managed to stumble upon a strategy that worked well in the game they played. As they tried to play other games or as their regular game became harder, they lost and lost. Worse, they maintained their arrogant attitude and consequently could not accept that they were now a loser in the game they were playing.

I have talked with DD before about the importance of arrogance. I think it's not really important as a characteristic of winning players. On the other hand, it is a crucial characteristic to have if you want to play in the highest stakes games (regardless of whether that arrogance is well-founded or not). And there are reasonable arguments that to one of the very best poker players around, you need to play in (and win in) the highest stakes games. Thus, arrogance is a necessary trait to being one of the biggest winners, but not necessary to be a solid winner. Arrogance is also necessary to be one of the biggest losers.

But doesn't your reputation have a lot to do with how your opponents view you and therefore play against you? I think your reputation (solid / spewmonkey / nut peddler / etc) is pretty important

i was meaning more like unconcerned with making an unorthodox play and getting it snapped off. then when some nitty guy starts berating your play, you don't feel the need to start lecturing them on your thought process at the table and/or second guess yourself.

and also generally not caring that you spend hours a day thinking/playing poker while people who don't know you think you're some losing gambler. this last point could turn into a longer discussion about a fine line between ambition and blindness, but there's a couple recent threads here that touch on this already i think.

Arrogance is also necessary to be one of the biggest losers.

Unless you're a billionaire circus owner. I mean, I never met the guy, but he never came off as the slightest bit arrogant.

The difference is a bit more subtle. There are example of players to whom the adjective 'arrogant' would apply who were beating one or more games back in the day. They weren't necessarily good at poker overall, but they had managed to stumble upon a strategy that worked well in the game they played. As they tried to play other games or as their regular game became harder, they lost and lost. Worse, they maintained their arrogant attitude and consequently could not accept that they were now a loser in the game they were playing.

I have talked with DD before about the importance of arrogance. I think it's not really important as a characteristic of winning players. On the other hand, it is a crucial characteristic to have if you want to play in the highest stakes games (regardless of whether that arrogance is well-founded or not). And there are reasonable arguments that to one of the very best poker players around, you need to play in (and win in) the highest stakes games. Thus, arrogance is a necessary trait to being one of the biggest winners, but not necessary to be a solid winner. Arrogance is also necessary to be one of the biggest losers.

Excellent post, I think its fair to say arrogance is a trait that may be extremely detrimental, may be somewhat helpful, but nevertheless is super common among high stakes winners.

Along the same lines I will say I strongly believe that degeneracy / exhibiting degenerate behavior is a trait I often see in the "best" players. That doesn't mean those guys win the most amount of money, however, because it is a fatal flaw. But with very few exceptions, guys that have moved up to and crushed the highest games are quite degenerate. I believe the disassocation with money allows them to sometimes make extremely great plays that a more rational person would not consider.

Both arrogance and degeneracy can be really bad, but I mostly believe a humble, non degenerate probably has a lower poker ceiling than some other guys.