A strong Texas Hold'em poker player is a rock. Effective poker play, if you read up on it, is all about only making plays that you estimate will, over a long period of time, net you positive winnings. A player who has memorized how to play a given hand for each position on a 9-person table is immediately better than any other player who does not know these rules. What complicates the game is the human factor. After the first three community cards (out of 5) come down and bets start being placed on the table a poker player must be able to predict his opponents' movements on the table. Is he betting because he has a better hand? Is he bluffing me? What do I know about this player from the time I've been playing with him? What is he likely to do?

Very often a poker player will go up against another and lose terribly. The effective poker player remains a rock and brushes the loss off of his shoulder, telling himself that he must stay consistent to his play style and not succumb to the emotion of losing a significant pile of money. A player who does the opposite and tells themselves that they are going to bust out the next person that goes up against them is on tilt. This tilt can break the player's concentration and often they make predictable moves that everyone else at the table can capitalize on.

DoTA 2, like any strategy game, is also one of calculated risk. Everyone must know and play their part in order for the team to be successful. In poker everyone is playing solo, but in DoTA 2 you have 4 other teammates that are relying on you. One player going on tilt in DoTA 2 can bring down an entire team. There are many ways for someone to go on tilt, and I probably don't need to explain them here in detail as everyone has done it and seen it at one point or another. Through experience, though, players are able to understand that sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and if they hope to play a better game they absolutely need to keep their composure.

I urge everyone in this community to understand that each game is a learning experience no matter what the outcome. You learn at least one thing from every match, whether you recognize it or not. The more you learn to observe, the better player you will be since you will learn more with each match, and your experience gained with each game will snowball. If you combine effective observation with calm and collected composure you will put yourself in the very best position to be able to win matches.

I think it's crazy when you try to consider how much a professional DotA player might consider between action in a given game. Sure sometimes I glance at my mini-map and team-health at the top before rushing into a fight to decide if it's a good idea or not, but I'd like to believe top-tier players out there are thinking a few steps ahead of that, and accounting for way more than I do while deciding to go in or not.

Even simple things like whether to rush to the side-shop quick or to just use the courier, or when its safe to farm a lane and just how far you can push. Hell I often feel like there should be some serious rhyme or reason behind which tree I tango haha.

The idea that you learn something every game is so valid. If you do exceptionally well, you will (hopefully) reflect on that and note what you did that helped your team to victory, and if you lose you should both learn from the team that just outplayed you and also reflect on the mistakes you made that you are able to identify.