I can say that my biggest attribute is my ability to read hands. I think this comes from a home game I used to play with my friends. We used to play 7 card stud usually with 9 and low hole card wild, roll your own. What this was is that you are dealt 3 cards and you each choose which card to initially flip up. With everyone having at least 1 wild card it was sometimes very challenging to figure out what your opponents held and they often would hold a very hidden 5 wilds. When I started playing Hold em this summer it was fairly easy for me to get a read on my oppoenents cards considering there were many more possible combinations in our 7 card stud game. As far as studying goes I have read Advanced Holdem, Small Stakes Holdem, HOH I & II, NLHT&P, most of Theory of Poker and I am currently trying to get time to read Psycholgy of Poker. I feel that my studying of these books and this forum has more fined tuned my game, it also taught me what is being taught to other beginners. If you don't now what your opponent is trying to do, how do you expect to beat them?