I used to play a lot of poker, but I quit while I was trying to bring my grades back up and also had a long streak of losses. Recently, I began playing about 2-3 games a week just for fun and realized that a lot of what I’ve learned about business, entrepreneurship, and finance are key to the game. You don’t have to play poker to understand these principles that make it easier to be a winner in life and on the felt.

1. Bankroll Management:This is definitely one of the largest keys to the game of poker, making sure you can still be in the game when your opportunity arises. The concept is that your allowing yourself to achieve the maximum value at the lowest risk possible. If your good at managing your stack you can take a small stack and still come out on top, do the same with your skills, talents, and money and you will can build a great life. This is the foundation that you build off of.
2. Aggressively Take Chances: The more you risk in the early stages the easier it will be to recoup losses or exploit your massive advantage in mid- and late-game. This becomes especially true if you are good at managing your bankroll.
3. Know When to Back Down: The corollary to number 2, being aggressive can put your in a winning position in most situations, but if you get cocky you might end up losing everything. You may scare away the source of your income. It’s up to you to toss a few hands, either due to the fact that your hand sucks or just to provide an incorrect position to your competition.
4. Opportunities are not Rare: Yes, this may not be 100 percent true in life; it is in poker though.  Every hand your dealt is an opportunity to advance, in life you have probably on average one opportunity every day. The problem is that most people don’t have the skills to see opportunities in their peripheral, only the obvious ones that stand out right in front of them.
5. Luck is a Factor: Every person is dealt a different starting hand, sometimes you will be beat before you ever see your hand. The only thing that you can do is try to take advantage of what you’ve been giving.