For no-limit limit holdem the most important skills a player can have are patience and hand-reading abilities. Having patience includes good starting-hand selection, as well as waiting for trapping situations and the nut hand. It also includes having the sense to fold second-best hand when certain players make large bets. A patient player always plays in the proper-sized game for their bankroll, and they don’t tilt out when they experience a run of bad luck.

Having the ability to read hands includes using betting patterns and memory to guesstimate what an opponent might be holding. It means that certain actions from certain players will point to them holding certain cards. This ability comes with experience and continues to improve the longer one plays the game.

If you can train your abilities in those two skills, you should have success in today’s over-aggressive no-limit holdem tables.