Which qualities do you need to become a good poker player? First of all, I'd have to say that experience is probably one of the most important qualities. Pro players have said that before having played 10.000 hours of poker you can't call anyone a good player. Nowadays, with the possibility of playing poker online, it is easier to play thousands of hands in a relatively short period of time. Obviously, the more hands you play, the more experience you get.

Most new players want to start at the real money tables as soon as they can but try to keep in mind that poker is so much more fun when you're winning so get experience at the free play tables. PokerStars is a really good room to practise your play because there are hundreds of people playing on the free play tables so you can get a lot of experience with different type of opponents.

Another very important quality to possess as a poker player is patience. The only way to become a long term winner is to wait for good situations and act upon those. Many new players have the urge to, for instance, play every Ace from every position at the table. 'I won the hand so I did well' is what I hear people say too often. A very important concept and possibly hard to understand in the beginning, is that the outcome of the hand is much less relevant than 'how you got the money in'. In other words, the way you've played a hand and the decisions you've made(and why)are really the only important thing in the long run.

I realise I sound like my math teacher and I always hated him for saying that he only cared for the way how I got to an answer and didn't for the answer itself. Unfortunately, he was right in saying this, the same goes for poker.

I've seen many people playing poker and from watching them I didn't really get the feeling that they wanted to win. I felt that they wanted to click and lose money. Whenever I tried to explain a poker related concept they wouldn't listen and even if they did, they looked at me like I was crazy. If you want to learn how to play poker you need to have some sort of passion or willingness to learn. Read the important books about poker and try to observe people.