That statement just made tilt less.  Thanks

If the word 'gamble' ever actually goes through your brain during a poker hand, there's probably a leak to fix somewhere, since you should in theory be able to analyse the play - even after the fact - and say "this was a big mistake" or "this was fine", or perhaps the closes thing you could get to a gamble, "this was a breakeven, high-variance spot". So, what the top pros have, rather than 'gamble', is an incredibly well-honed ability to intuitively calculate the profitability of a situation, combined with three other things:

Fearlessness - a simple disregard for the consequences of a wrong decision, or a bad end result. One factor that contributes to this greatly is simply having deep pockets - if you can play in a high-stakes game and have a huge losing session and still have millions of dollars in the bank, it's natural that you'd care less about losing.

Focus - an ability to filter out the extraneous influences that obstruct the decision-making process of a hand. An ability to forget about the possibility of looking stupid if you lose, ignore the guy on the other side of the table chattering away, ignore the fact you just lost a huge flip for half your stack, and spend as long as it takes thinking about nothing but the hand you're playing.

Confidence - this is perhaps the most important one. A steadfast belief in one's own decision-making skills. We've all had those moments where we feel like we should maybe bluff the river but we check back out of uncertainty, or we make a tight fold because we're not quite sure we know the guy's range well enough. Great players don't hesitate to back their own decision-making - they know that if their instincts tell them it's a good spot to bluff or a good spot to call, it probably is. They have the experience to know they're usually right, and the analytical ability to examine the hand after the event and learn from it if they weren't.

In fact I would probably invest most of it in things outside poker.

I think a lot of it at the highest stakes cash games is about ego, and although I have a healthy ego haha I still don't think I have dreams that big.

For full time players it might be different. Would love to here thoughts of the pros here, especially the grinder types, ginger might be a good one to respond.

Now the million dollar question is, assuming those four things are true is being a top-tier pro something you/me/we truly want to aspire to? It seems like an awful lot of risk, the chances are against you, and you can make a decent living without playing at the nose bleed stakes. Just some thoughts.

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i agree with you, but i'm not saying you need to play roulette to be a good nosebleeds poker player. i'm saying you need a really high risk tolerance to achieve that confidence will let you play your A game.
the first question was "how much "gamble" do you need to be a top tier pro", and if we understand that gambling is not just playing casino games yes, we need a lot of gamble in our hearts. i.e. if we don't wanna be outplayed we need to treat money like shit if we believe that's the right move, even if we're playing a 100k SHR. and there is no microstakes player who can ever treat money in that way.

i think if we want to be a top tier pro, we can't burn money on any other felt when we don't have an edge. in the same way we can't eat snacks all day and pretend to be awake and playing our 100% after twelve hours of deep run. if you wanna be the best you have to work all day on your mindset, and every decision you take from the moment you wake up will affect both our wallet and performance.

btw imagine you're a top tier pro. you have pretty millions on your bank account and you're a consistent winner. you will invest your money on some spots you think are +EV, like staking horses or idk, funding your own company. you will have your eyes really opened waiting for those spots where you can earn money. if some day a fish comes to you and he offers you a bet, you have to do some numbers… i think if the proposition is +EV, you have the money and the risk tolerance, if you don't take the bet that would be a huge mistake. i mean money is our work tool, we just need to find the right spots to bet and win in the long run. you don't need to be only a good poker player, because all that stuff you learn playing can be used away from tables.

ps: cant quote dont know why

almost all of them would have had to take a big shot at some point in time that paid off.

but dont forget, there is a significant bias in that. there would be a ton of players that were playing mid/high stakes, took a shot at the nosebleeds, got their ass kicked back down to the lower stakes, and stayed there.

im not saying you have to be lucky to be a top tier pro, but i believe there are plenty of people that have very good skill levels grinding out the mid stakes, just waiting to take their big shot (or maybe their risk tolerance is such that they never will). i mean thats what we all hope for when we play the milly right?

maybe youre not talking about this, but i think in some way all had a connection with every side of the game. and if youre climbing stakes you NEED: a) a healthy disregard for money, like killingbird said; and b) a lot of confidence on every move you do, even if you have not a lot of "std equity". that feeling wich let you make a 5bet light without any fear or a big river bluff with T high is, in my opinion, at least a little love to gambling. what i mean is: if you're not ready to gamble, maybe you're not ready to crush high stakes. so, in certain way, gamble is a bit needed to take an important improvement in your game. 

really sry if my english is not good, im argentinian and learned this language just to become a better player :p

btw i really hate casino games too

I can say I've never spent $1 in the pits. It may well be true that the absolute highest stakes players have more "gamble", because to get up the bankrolls to play those games most made some, let's say, aggressive bankroll management decisions. Basically they took shots that panned out. Who knows how many other potentially great players took shots that didn't pan out and ended up stuck in the small stakes or leaving the field entirely?

I think the majority of people who make a living from this game consistently over a lot of years aren't so gambley, and that includes a good number of people with very respectable, if not seven-figure, incomes.

To be clear, that's not the same as being irrationally risk averse within your bankroll. I don't consider it remotely gambley to make a big thin call, value bet, or bluff that you believe to be +EV - that's just good poker.

I really need to re-read posts before I decide to post the same thing with more words lol. wp.

cliff- Group B could be 1/3 the size of Group A, and on average you see Group A players in Set C more often. That doesn't mean Group A makes Set C more often than Group B. 

A coworker also came up as I was typing this out, so I lost my train of thought for a bit sorry haha.