Pro Poker Player + Pro Trader?

EricP · Oct 29, 2005

Quote from Samson77:

Deng

The ONLY similarites between the two skills are self control and money management.

POKER is about luck

TRADING is about edge

Samson,

I can't argue about your trading comment, but you obviously don't know much about the skilled play of poker. Saying that poker is about luck is like saying you believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis (Random Walk) in the stock market.

There are many similarities between poker and trading, and someone that is good at poker has an excellent background for trading IMHO.

-Eric

DegenFarang · Oct 29, 2005

"
POKER is about luck

TRADING is about edge

"

This is a rediculous statement. Sure in any one hand, or even one bad day...its about luck. But in the long run...its is ALL edge. It is about putting yourself in positive expectation situations, over and over and over and over-and not being worried about the outcome. Like trading, right?

-also, i don't know the etiquette here...am i supposed to group all of my responses on one post or make multiple posts?

OldTrader · Oct 29, 2005

Thought you might be interested: I went to the "search" function, typed in "poker", and got 100 pages or so of posts with the word "poker", some 2400+ posts in all.

OldTrader

gkishot · Oct 29, 2005

Yes, poker is also about edge. But when everybody plays hands correctly edge is equal to 0 and money just exchanging hands. So in the game like poker to increase the edge one has to be constantly on a look for the weak players ( newbies ). At the higher stakes tables with more experienced players edge practically goes down to 0.

FanOfFridays · Oct 29, 2005

Quote from gkishot:

Yes, poker is also about edge. But when everybody plays hands correctly edge is equal to 0 and money just exchanging hands. So in the game like poker to increase the edge one has to be constantly on a look for the weak players ( newbies ). At the higher stakes tables with more expericenced players edge theoretically goes down to 0.

Wrong.

First of all, experienced players don't always play optimally.

How many poker games occur duirng which everyone is playing correctly?

Most importantly, however, and I will say this again - the way that experienced players make money against other good players is by playing aggressively and by making good reads on their opponents and by making their opponents lay down winning hands.

I suugest you get the DVD of the World Series of Poker or some other high level tournament. In them you will see one good player making a big bet and another good player folding - you will also see the cards both players had, and you will realize that sometimes people fold the best or winning hand. You will then understand how poker really works, and how the best players make money.

DegenFarang · Oct 29, 2005

TraderNik that was an amazing response...thank you very much.

And OldTrader when I said i used search I meant for 'Getting Started In Trading' stuff..not poker. I had a feeling that this would get off on a poker tangent, but then I figured putting poker in may be the only way to get a lot of eyeballs

Anywho...I suppose my main issue is not knowing how most traders start out:

Do you usually work for a firm first? Do people just read books and declare themselves a 'trader' one day?

TraderNik I do see the inconsistency there...when I said 'successful' i meant profitable...I have made money over that time with my investments. Though they have been Buy and Hold, I make very few trades. And as I'm buying solely on news and companies that i know and like....I may be like the poker noobie playing Ace Five off-suit under-the-gun because they think it is a good hand....just because they flop a full house (as I have done w/ google and did with both HAL and EBAY

) doesn't mean they are making proper decisions.

I want to get a full education to be a badass trader (excuse my french). I am asking what the best way to do it is.

IV_Trader · Oct 29, 2005

Quote from gkishot:

Yes, poker is also about edge. But when everybody plays hands correctly edge is equal to 0 and money just exchanging hands. So in the game like poker to increase the edge one has to be constantly on a look for the weak players ( newbies ). At the higher stakes tables with more experienced players edge practically goes down to 0.

strongly agree , and if the game runs on neutral territory (like casino) , the edge goes to negative because house takes small %

FanOfFridays · Oct 29, 2005

Quote from DegenFarang:

I suppose my main issue is not knowing how most traders start out:

Do you usually work for a firm first? Do people just read books and declare themselves a 'trader' one day?

I want to get a full education to be a badass trader (excuse my french). I am asking what the best way to do it is.

Most of the traders on here probably started out as 'privateers' or independent agents. You don't have a business degree so it's unlikely that you are going to get a job at a trading house unless you can show some audited results. Others can help you with that question.

Seems like the best thing to do is just make a list of the different kinds of trading you can do, learn a little about them by doing searches here, and then pick one or two and start experimenting in the ways I described.

Plenty of people just take $5000 and put it in an account and start trading the E-Minis. I wouldn't recommend it though.

DegenFarang · Oct 29, 2005

Quote from IV_Trader:

strongly agree , and if the game runs on neutral territory (like casino) , the edge goes to negative because house takes small %

well personally, i play tournaments...and the majority of my edge comes from people who are fine poker players, but do not understand proper tournament strategy.

At any given table of ten players, on average i'd say that 2-4 of them understand proper tournament strategy, and 2-4 of them are just plain horrible poker players who neither understand how to play poker at all OR proper tournament strategy

assuming those numbers i've given are true...are you telling me you do not see where there is an edge?

FanOfFridays · Oct 29, 2005

Quote from IV_Trader:

strongly agree , and if the game runs on neutral territory (like casino) , the edge goes to negative because house takes small %

Wrong. You are assuming that the edge in poker is statistically quantifiable, as in blackjack or roulette. It is nothing of the kind. Good players go in with a big edge, easily enough to overcome the rake.

You seem to be confusing poker with the other casino games. Your statement applies to them only. You seem to be assuming that a good player's edge in poker is somewhere close to 50%, otherwise why would you say that the small % taken by the house would push a player into 'negative' territory?