Any Poker players?

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HaloTrader

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Does anyone on these forums play online poker?

I play with a system and i have done for 3 years now - I'm starting to notice just how similar trading and poker is... Like psychology, money management, probability. Finding high prob setups and playing them with low risk for longetivity... I can see how in many ways they are similar, so i wouldn't be surprised if many players become traders?
Anyone a trader, who became a poker player after?

Anyone else found this these similarities to be true?

x
 
I see you are a senior member!

I'm quite disappointed in you Halo, with the amount of posts you do, I would have easily had you as veteran by now!

I do find similarities between playing poker and trading. Just wonder if its as easy to become consistent in one as the other?

HaloTrader said:
Does anyone on these forums play online poker?

I play with a system and i have done for 3 years now - I'm starting to notice just how similar trading and poker is... Like psychology, money management, probability. Finding high prob setups and playing them with low risk for longetivity... I can see how in many ways they are similar, so i wouldn't be surprised if many players become traders?
Anyone a trader, who became a poker player after?

Anyone else found this these similarities to be true?

x
Click to expand...
 
I play one or two low stake tournaments once a week. I play very conservatively, preferring to fold many - many - hands, playing positional poker, trying to let others make the mistakes, waiting for the big hands. I'm the guy folding AJ off-suit in 4th position early in the tournament.

Last night, I played a tournament with about 2600 entrants and overplayed a hand, setting my position in the game back at about 1300 out of 1340 players left - I had about $900 in chips; this was 1 1/2 hours into it. A lot of players at that point will say the hell with it and do an all-in or just bet aggressively on any marginal hand. But I just continued to play my stodgy game - the blinds weren't too bad - and eventually won a few hands that propped me up. Then, I hit a big hand that essentially allowed me to eventually 'limp' into the money after a few more winning hands, in about 240th place. I really didn't get that many great cards.

One of the reasons I play poker is to keep focus on conservatism in active trading. So the similarities for success I can think of are, compared to tournament poker only:

- Folding lots of hands equates to passing up lots of trades
- You can go up a lot with only a few good hands/trades if you aren't playing too much the rest of the time
- Good poker positional play equates to trading only around 'clear' support/resistance levels on the chart or pullbacks in a trend
- You need to get lucky once in a while :)
 
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Took me a while to find this thread, which seems written for me. I was a poker player before I started trading, but the similarities are very obvious to me.

To be a good poker player you need to have a grasp of probability, maths, psychology (your own and your opponents), risk management, bet sizing etc. And you need to be able to cut your losses and maximise your gains.

I would say that I am a better poker player than I am a trader, but I have 4 years poker playing behind me and only 12 months very limited trading experience.

I do think trading is more difficult to learn than poker for the following reason: when you play poker you can choose the level you play at, which means you can sit down at the low stakes tables and play against people who have no idea what they are doing.

If you sit at a $10 table you know that most of the players are donkeys and you can take their money with a basic strategy of only playing your good hands. When you sit at a $1000 table you know that most of the players are going to be good and you will need to be much more creative in order to win money from them.

This means you can find easy opponents to play against depending on your skill level. So you can develop your skills and confidence at the most basic level and then take their money.

I haven't yet figured out how to do this in the market.

The flip side of this, is that if you find a good basic strategy to take money from the market, you won't need to change this as you increase your stake. In poker the more money you stake, the harder the competition becomes. I recently moved up a level and got my ass handed to me on a plate by the other players and I quickly realised that my skills were not adequate to play at that level yet.

I am hoping that when I can consistently take money from the market, I can increase my stake without coming up against tougher competition (apart from my own psychological response to the increased risk).
 
PokerBrat thats interesting... I've played poker around 3 years now (Not obsessively, just a random hobbie) and i'm not consistant, mostly due to getting bored and just playing EVERY hand that comes up... Trading on the other hand, i've dedicated many many many many more hours to, i see it as more of a business/proffesional/serious whereas poker for me is just abit of fun but i do try to win.
I can't seem to win at poker on consistant levels, i get bored after an hour of no system hands to play and then just take everything... When i'm winning, i feel the need more to play hands in a 'may aswell attitude'...
Personally i've found profitability in poker harder than trading!
 
PokerBrat said:
fold more ;)
Click to expand...

"If you sit at a $10 table you know that most of the players are donkeys and you can take their money with a basic strategy of only playing your good hands. "

Actually, that's exactly it though I think the optimal equating of folding in poker to trading should be in not taking trades in the first place as opposed to getting stop lossed out of a trade.

Selectivity is the key in trading and it's the hardest 'skill' to learn.
 
heywally - actually folding more is only good advice under certain conditions. If you are playing a full ring (9 players) $10 table then folding 90% of your hands will be profitable as people will pay you off when you have a good hand. That is because bad players don't pay attention to you and call too much.

But if you are playing shorthanded (6 players) $200 table then there is no way you can make money by folding more. You will need to bluff more in order to disguise your good hands. This is because good players pay attention and will just fold everytime you play if you are that tight.

This was my point about trading vs poker. The higher the stakes in poker the more creative you need to be in order to make money. There is a metagame level to poker that I have not yet discovered in trading. (that is not to say that it doesn't exist).
 
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PokerBrat said:
heywally - actually folding more is only good advice under certain conditions. If you are playing a full ring (9 players) $10 table then folding 90% of your hands will be profitable as people will pay you off when you have a good hand. That is because bad players don't pay attention to you and call too much.

But if you are playing shorthanded (6 players) $200 table then there is no way you can make money by folding more. You will need to bluff more in order to disguise your good hands. This is because good players pay attention and will just fold everytime you play if you are that tight.

This was my point about trading vs poker. The higher the stakes in poker the more creative you need to be in order to make money. There is a metagame level to poker that I have not yet discovered in trading. (that is not to say that it doesn't exist).
Click to expand...

You are correct and I should have been more specific (or at all) - I was referring to online tournament play, up to the $10 buy-in's. Especially in the earlier rounds with full tables; in general, I will sit back and wait for 'the hands', folding lots and lots, depending on position which is very important to me. And of course, online, you are often getting moved from table to table, making it even more unlikely that anyone will get a good bead on your style.

At any rate, I strongly maintain that you need to have a LOT of selectivity (do nothing a lot of the time) to make money in the market and that's what I was equating to the type of poker I play.
 
poker tracker graph

Hi poker brat


I'll teach you how to win at poker if you teach me how to win at trading.
Click to expand...

Could you post your poker tracker graph just want to see how profitable a player you are.
 
I play a bit. Got bored of the NLHE and learning the PLO. Much more fun. I prefer poker to trading - it's always been a bit of a problem for me.
 
Hi Guys, newbie here, a friend of mine is a big poker player, he's currently in Vagas getting ready for the world series ( he won a $12,000 buy in/hotel package online) , he was telling me that loads of the pro players in the USA are from a share trading background.
You can google his name "Allan Peers" for a bit more detail , he will be quitting his job in the next 2 years to become a full time Poker player ..

Ste
 
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