Quote from goldenarm:
The poker/trading analogy is mostly suited to stock traders who follow a select number of stocks and know them intimately. The rules for poker are fairly simple, but what makes excellent poker players is the ability to learn betting patterns and "tells" of his fellow players to swing the odds in his favor.
In trading a few stocks, traders learn who really moves the stocks, whether it's a major market maker/specialist or ECNs (often a disguise used by market makers). Market makers and specialists are people with their own distinct trading personalities and tendencies. Good traders can learn these "clues" after careful study.
After watching a stock for several months, a good trader can see how market makers accumulate stocks at certain levels, or jump from the bid to the offer (disguising himself as an ECN), etc. Then the trader keeps track of how the prices are affected or which other market makers follow the "axe". This can lead to high probability trades.
This type of price action study for specific stocks and how you subsequently trade them is the main analogy between poker and trading. It's all about the "tells" and betting patterns of the other participants in the stock.
Quote from PohPoh:
Trading is not meant to be FUN...
Neither is playing poker, if you are serious about it...
Trading should be boring...
In both games, success is always dependent on good Money and Risk Management. Everything else is fluff.Quote from trader3:
This is a very astute perception. Perhaps the best post in the first 7 pages of this thread (which are all the pages that are here so far). I would add money management (especially in No Limit) to the skills that are applicable to both.
You need to get over your problem, pal.Quote from traderNik:
And I see Cheese is still here - every post completely lacking in content or relevance.


Quote from trader3:
Both should be fun. And both often are for the experts in each.
Although live poker is more often considered fun than the much less intricate online poker. As a matter of fact, live and online poker are much different games, online being considerably less complex and far drier. The main advantages of online play are that it's possible to get in many more hands per unit time, there is no commute, and if you are prone to giving tells or not especially good at picking them up you are better off. The main disadvantages are that your edge is much smaller, it's far more boring once you've played it enough, and that you can't make use of a tremendous amount of information you have available to you in live play.