Poker and the Beginning Trader
- Thread starter FanOfFridays
- Start date
As you guys may know, we have several professional poker players among our traders. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson is the most well known (www.fulltiltpoker.com), and my brother won the Ultimate Poker Challenge (on TV back in Jan), and is entering a $50,000 cash buy-in tournament at the Plaze on May 16th... that should be fun to watch (the "tournament" players, playing with their own money).
Anyway, we hosted a hold-em game at our last expo in Anaheim, and did a discussion showing the similarities between trading and poker. You may find this of some interest:
http://www.stocktrading.com/tradingandpoker.htm
All the best!
Don
Anyway, we hosted a hold-em game at our last expo in Anaheim, and did a discussion showing the similarities between trading and poker. You may find this of some interest:
http://www.stocktrading.com/tradingandpoker.htm
All the best!
Don
How do you guys feel after a bad beat, vs. after some bad trading luck? Why does it hurt to lose so much more in poker??
Now I think the "hurt" comes from dashed expectations. I have been trading long enough not to really expect much from a particular trade. However I have only been playing poker for about a year. The previous tourney I came in 15/2000 and in the one with the bad beat, I was doing a lot better. So I expected to make the final table even though there were ~400 still left.
It is funny how expectations can rule emotions. Even though the tourney loss was 3x less than the trading loss it stung about 1000x more.
On the flip side, when I have a trade tear in my direction I feel very happy (because I was not expecting much out of it). When I win an SNG, I feel good but it is not nearly as satisfying. When I come in 2nd place in an SNG, i'm sort of pissed off even though I just won ~3x the entry fee. I think my expectations of poker are just way too high, and that takes away from the winners and adds sting to the losers.
Now I think the "hurt" comes from dashed expectations. I have been trading long enough not to really expect much from a particular trade. However I have only been playing poker for about a year. The previous tourney I came in 15/2000 and in the one with the bad beat, I was doing a lot better. So I expected to make the final table even though there were ~400 still left.
It is funny how expectations can rule emotions. Even though the tourney loss was 3x less than the trading loss it stung about 1000x more.
On the flip side, when I have a trade tear in my direction I feel very happy (because I was not expecting much out of it). When I win an SNG, I feel good but it is not nearly as satisfying. When I come in 2nd place in an SNG, i'm sort of pissed off even though I just won ~3x the entry fee. I think my expectations of poker are just way too high, and that takes away from the winners and adds sting to the losers.
It may be superstition, which is not very smart of course, but I just find that in SNG games, especially at the lower limits, there is no way to know if your raise from i.e. early position with a hand like JJ or AK isn't going to be called by 5 guys to follow, thus reducing your odds significantly. I prefer to wait and let a few guys knock themselves out. I am not sure if this is optimal strategy but it works for me. Another reason is that I am usually at the SNG tables when I have just received the kind of bad beats you were talking about. They tend to get under my skin as well, and I am still capable of playing badly after a particularly bad beat, even though I know that the call I got was the exact call I dream about getting!! My goal is to mellow out a little, so I just sit there and watch the play.
Generally speaking, I have found that I can make more money/session playing the ring games vs. the lower level SNG games. I want to do an experiment soon where I take a $1000 stake and try the $50 SNG games exclusively for a while.
Pretty good...he's not the "rascal" he appears to be. He has a degree (perhaps even a PhD) in computer science, and his dad is a professor of gaming theory at UCLA. Great guy...
Don
It is perhaps rarer than you might think. I usually go 4-5 BB if I am first in, but a lot more if there are already folks in the pot. A 1/2 pot continuation bet with 2 or 3 players in the pot is also a must. Is that not exactly what you do in your NL games??
Quote from peterfigliozzi:
How do you guys feel after a bad beat, vs. after some bad trading luck? Bad beats kill me, while I can laugh off bad trading luck. I don't really understand why.
I have thought about this same thing before and I believe it is because poker is personal and trading is not. I mean in poker there is an ego clash especially if youve been involved with a certain player before. The market does not have an ego so you dont take it quite the same. Just my 2 cents.
lol... yes, it is. I guess my excuse would be that when I sit down at an SNG, I have just suffered one or more really bad beats and my goal is to decompress a bit. Now, the best players don't need to decompress (although I have even seen the pros go on tilt on TV). But you are right, strategy at this table should be no different than that at the ring games.
BTW... playing right now at Stars
