For those that ball or claim to...What makes the difference? Please discuss.

Many of us have been playing poker online about the same time....following the Moneymaker win and the hoopla surrounding it, about 6 years, yet you ballers have found a way to take the game to a whole new level.

What makes the difference here between a winning player at the low and mid stakes to a crushing player at all stakes? What is it you have done to get to where you're at?

I'm sure that for some it was winning a big payout tourney but that doesn't make a player a true baller...consistency, endurance/stamina/staying power, adaptation etc downswings/upswings, doesn't matter, relentless desire to improve and succeed at the highest levels imo make a baller.

Change is apparent...I remember when I started you couldn't pay me to play turbos because I didn't understand why these would be +EV or yet what +EV even meant, now I'll play 25 at a time. I started playing just 1 or 2 tables yet now I'm playing on 4 lcd monitors and pushing for supernova status, early on I never thought of bankroll management or playing staked/staking others...Change just happens when you let it I guess.

Now there are so many tools that become 2nd nature and at one time seemed so hard to adapt to...ie Pokerstove, PokerTracker, TableNinja, HoldemManager, strategy forums, Using HUDs, video training sites etc.

Some step into high level cash games, big buy in tournies, live tournements etc. and simply crush the game and build a fat piggy bank. Sure lacking respect for money is a good trait when your not a degenerate gambler but someone who knows why they are playing the games they are playing, and why a pot is just a pot not a new car in the back of your mind.

So how much time and dedication does this really take, is it luck? Perhaps but luck is when preperation meets opportunity. For those grinders that think the day stops when they close their last table..you have it wrong, that's when the day really starts....

For example you want to be a doctor...great! So what do you do to get there and stay up your practice, medications, laws, etc. Sure you go to work everyday after years of study with no payout but now your done with that and you have your own practice and are making some good money to pay back those student loans, does this mean you made it? Well kind of but the real question is do you have staying power which takes relentless hours of study not for a degree but so you can be the best practicioner you can be, stay up on hippa compliance etc.

The ballers have this figured out imo, they study their game, discuss strategy with their peers, fixing leaks finding new edges to push for that slight edge that can bring them a win not just a final table finish. I mean you ever watch a baller towards the end of a tourney...usually the most active and often the most successful finishes...sure moving up in payouts for most of us is on our mind but then we are just sheep to those that push edges risking failure to make a bigger success of their time, and to be honest without the cards falling our way when we are up against a baller we really have no shot, the baller makes their own shots.

So what's the secret? What do you ballers do that the average winning player does not? How much time do ballers dedicate away from the tables working on their game? What have you found to be the best way to improve your game? Please discuss....I'm sick of being a sheepish player!

One Love