The 5 talents of winning poker players: Mental Toughness

There is a lot that goes into becoming a winning poker player, and perhaps just as important as studying and learning the game is a set of natural talents that few players possess, and still fewer can teach themselves to do. Unfortunately these traits are hard to teach, but if you browse this list and find you have an aptitude for most of them than maybe poker is right for you!

Here is a look at five traits that you will find most winning poker players possess:

1. The Ability to Think on your Feet
2. Focus and Awareness of your Surroundings
3. An Innate Intellectual Curiosity
4. Mental Toughness
5. Ability to Avoid Temptations

Over the course of this five-part series I’ll explain why each is important to poker success; next-up will be: Mental Toughness.

Mental Toughness

When it comes to the talents of a poker player the words mental toughness will often be thrown around, but what does mental toughness really mean in poker? A poker player with mental toughness is able to do a number of things that fall under the umbrella of “Mental Toughness” including discipline at the tables, the ability to overcome bad beats and bad runs of cards, and even the ability to stay unflappable when another player is chewing your ear off.

Players who lack mental toughness at the poker tables are not only easy to put on tilt, but they tend to remain on tilt (or go on full-blown life-tilt) far longer. These players usually lack patience as well, making it far less likely that they will exercise good game and seat selection, use proper bankroll management, and stay focused on the game.

Mental toughness allows you to do things you normally would rather avoid; players with mental toughness can sit by while another player rants; they can deal with the bad beats that will inevitably happen; and they can do it all with a smile.

A good example of a player who lacks mental toughness at the poker tables is Phil Hellmuth. Hellmuth is known for his bouts of tilt, and that once he is on tilt he goes from a very good player to one of the fish in the game. The same can be said to a degree about Mike Matusow. Matusow may avoid tilt better than Hellmuth, but once he is tilted you can soon expect one of his patented “Blowups”.

Mental toughness may very well be the genesis of every other trait I have listed in this series, since without mental toughness it’s extremely hard to do things like think on your feet (or think at all for that matter) focus on the game and your surroundings.