The 14 Virtues of a Winning Poker Player: Motivation to Succeed

What It Means: Being motivated to succeed means that you are constantly pushing yourself to succeed, and doing what is necessary to make it happen. Like any other endeavor, success in poker doesn’t come easy; it takes a lot of hard-work and dedication.

The Flip-Side: A poker player who lacks motivation tends to pass the buck for why they are struggling: “It’s not my fault, the cards are cold”, “and that donkey got lucky”, are just a few of the typical responses someone playing ‘the blame game’ may come up with. Most of the time these players are not doing the necessary leg work, at and away from the tables, to make sure they are covering all their bases.

How It Relates to Poker: Motivation is what makes you read poker forums, read and re-read poker books and articles, and talk to other players about specific scenarios. Motivation is also what drives you to play -having an absolute love for the game– where you not only want to play, but also want to succeed and learn the game inside and out.

Studying up on the game and hearing different points of view is what keeps your poker mind sharp, and keeps you from falling into a rut. Even if you think you know more about poker than the person or persons you are discussing the game with it’s always good to see the other side of the argument; especially since this is a core concept in poker: Understanding what your opponent is thinking.

The drive to play is so important, because as soon as you start to think of poker as just another job -and even worse, a job you hate-your drive to succeed is already gone. You’re inviting failure. The best way to stay motivated is to always realize there is more to be learned both at the tables and away from the tables.

If you don’t truly love the game of poker you are going to find success extremely elusive. Your love of the game is what keeps you motivated to continue learning, reexamining different concepts and situations, and frankly just getting enjoyment from talking about poker to anyone and everyone.

How to Cope: If you lose your motivation it’s difficult to get it back, but not impossible. Some players take an extended break from the game, other players switch to one of the different forms of poker which causes you to start virtually from scratch, and still others try something more original like cashing out all but $100 and challenging themselves to rebuild it to $5,000 in x amount of months.

Ways to Increase Your Motivation: The best way to increase your motivation is to track your results: By doing this you will get enjoyment from your wins, and be able to pore over your losses with a fine-toothed comb in an effort to spot leaks or mistakes you can correct. By doing this you are essentially saying, “Yeah you got me this time, but it won’t happen again!” And you will actually be looking forward to getting back to the tables with your new knowledge and insights.

Another way to increase your motivation is to find a list of 10 or so motivational quotes that really touch home with you, these quotes can be your way of staying level-headed, and wanting to keep plugging away at the poker tables.