One other thing I suggest you prepare yourself for...Be ready for disgusting displays from yourself. What I mean by that is, playing great and dogging that money ball over and over and over in a match, or missing lots of dead straight shots in a match. If you can learn to accept those and simply move on from them and laugh at them, you will be on your way to being a champion. The worst display I have ever done myself was actually playing an AZ forum member (twelvesquared) and we were playing a fun 10 dollar race to 5 and I was getting the break. I broke and ran all 5 games and hung the 9 ball every single game. He won the set and never even shot a ball. I was so disgusted with myself but then I just started laughing and I went and practiced those shots probably 300 times until I couldn't miss it.
