The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Tournament Players

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Yes, the title of this column is a blatant rip-off of the best-selling book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (which all poker players should read by the way), and just like that book this column is designed to give you an idea of what the best poker players are doing behind the scenes that you don’t see and don’t hear about. So much of what goes into being a successful tournament poker player is overlooked in favor of their amazing reads and ability to make split-second decisions for massive amounts of money: The hard work, the non-poker commitments and obligations they live up to, and the way they go about their business. But it’s the way they conduct themselves and prepare behind the scenes that allows them to do these seemingly superhuman acts at the poker tables.

A Balanced Life

One of the first things aspiring poker players forget is that when you officially decide to make playing poker a “job” you have to treat it like an actual job. Wow, groundbreaking stuff right! What I mean by this is that when you are a semi-pro or casual poker player taking time off is easy; you just don’t play; no harm no foul. But when you are a pro, you HAVE to play, you are forced to play because it is your livelihood, and this obligation can sour you on the game really fast.

Additionally, some poker players take playing to the extreme, putting in fourteen hour days six or seven days a week; causing you to become a poker shut-in who does nothing but live and breathe poker. The problem with this approach is that you lose touch with reality, you lose your relationships (which are hard to repair), and you eventually lose your sanity when every decision you make is poker, poker, poker.

Poker can be all-consuming if you let it, and it will control your life if you let it, so the trick is to find a balance; a balance between being a hard-working poker player and maintaining your relationships and social life outside of poker. I once heard David Chicotsky say something along the lines of, “You don’t win poker player of the year and boyfriend of year in the same year”, and that single sentence sums it up almost perfectly: It’s ok to be passionate about poker but don’t let it consume you and destroy other important relationships in your life; you’ll find these harder to repair than your poker game.

It’s tricky to manage, especially when you love playing poker, but don’t let poker be the end-all be-all of your existence; continue to read, play sports, and engage in the hobbies and activities you loved before poker. And most importantly, maintain the relationships you have outside of the poker world as these will keep you grounded –which segues to the next header.

Poker Relationships

I’ve already touched on non-poker relationships, but there are two kinds of relationships you have as a poker player: Poker relationships and non-poker relationships. When it comes to poker relationships you have to remember it is a two-way street. You not only have to find honest and trustworthy peers in the community, but you must also conduct yourself in an honest and trustworthy fashion. In the poker world, your reputation is all you have as it’s a closed, gossip-filled segment of society and despite all of their quirks and their idiosyncratic tendencies, poker players are highly intelligent and will not suffer fools lightly.

Thrifty

Believe it or not most poker players are actually quite tight with their money. This may seem counterintuitive considering the way they make a living, and the way they are portrayed on TV, but remember that most of the people on TV tend to be the filthy rich and ultra-successful players and represent only a small percentage of poker players; secondly many are only talking the talk.

Unfortunately, the way poker players are portrayed tends to encourage up-and-coming players to “show-off”, and spend money they may need in the very near future. In reality it is almost a necessity for poker players to be extremely frugal outside of the poker room, as it will allow them to make it through the “Dark Times.”

Staying Positive

When players start to become pessimistic they generally end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Staying positive won’t help you avoid a bad beat, but when you expect to take a bad beat it can subconsciously affect the decisions you make and actually help create the situation you are looking to avoid.

For example, I see many players make a small bet and get rundown on a later street only to complain about their bad luck and how they “knew” they were going to lose so it’s a good thing they made a small bet. The truth is, if they were confident they would have made a standard bet and possibly forced the other player out of the hand.

Staying positive won’t solve all of your poker problems, but it will keep you from bringing on any more of your own creation. Pessimism leads to over-thinking and doubt, which both take up valuable amounts of mental energy –energy you will need to play your best poker game– and can lead to more serious issues like anxiety and depression.

Detail-Oriented

Virtually every successful poker player I’ve ever met is very detail-oriented (they are terrible when it comes to deadlines but they always remember the details) and there is very little data or information that they let pass by them unnoticed. Detail-oriented poker players make better use of their time, which allows them more free-time to work on those non-poker relationships and living a balanced life. On the flipside, players who have to spend 50% more time doing the same task will find it far more difficult to find that balance and will often get burnt-out with poker far sooner considering their lifestyle will be more rushed and hectic.

Healthy

To perform your best mentally you need to be at your best physically. Regular exercise and a healthy diet are not only +EV for your life expectancy but also for your poker results. This is especially true of tournament poker players who may put in 12-hour sessions sitting on the butts.

You don’t have to be a gym rat or go on one of the new trendy diets like Paleo eating or Kale Shakes for breakfast, but you should put some time and energy into your physical well-being. If you don’t think a healthy lifestyle will improve your tournament results I challenge you to take a look at the Global Poker Index list and see how many of the Top 100 players are “out of shape”.  

Even-Tempered

Having emotional control at the poker tables is of the utmost importance, but your ability to avoid tilt shouldn’t end there. All of the other things I mention in this column can easily be undone if you lose control of your emotions. Furthermore, if you are on life-tilt it won’t take very many bad beats or missed draws before your life-tilt creeps into your poker game.

Think of emotional control as the glue that holds everything together: your relationships, your money management, staying positive, eating right and so on. Showing up for a WSOP tournament or sitting down at the computer on a Sunday afternoon after having a yelling match with your wife, is a surefire way to ruin.