[The13atman]

Doyle Brunson has said this:

"The question I've been asked the most over the years is, "What does it take to make a good poker player?" Who knows what it takes? I don't know. It's an innate ability that you can't describe ... you just can't explain it. People have tried, but they can't do it. It's something inside you that causes you to pull away from the field. I do know that with just the knowledge and ability to play, you can play at a certain level, but you have to have that "something" inside you to pull away. It's a sixth sense, or an inclination to win, or something. How can you say, for instance, that I am a better player than David Sklansky or Mike Caro? I think that obviously I probably am, but the two of them are the foremost authorities on poker. They know everything ... the situations and what you're supposed to do... yet when it comes time to perform them, they can't do it. They chill up or something happens."
"The explanation I wrote in the book is the best one that I've ever thought of. And it's one that I had never thought about before I wrote the book (that's one reason why I'm glad I wrote it). It's a sense of recall that great players have. You recall what happened the last time you were in this same situation with a player of that caliber. Starting off, you put players in categories by watching their table mannerisms, the way they handle their chips, the way they handle their cards, and so on. You say to yourself that this guy's a certain kind of player, and that guy's a certain kind of player, and then when you get in a pot with them, you recall - subconsciously - the last time you were playing with a guy like that and a similar situation came up. So, you play according to the way the guy played previously. And that's the best way I can explain it."