This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Guest Post: Poker And Trading
Submitted by Pater Tenebrarum of Acting Man blog,
An Interesting Statistic
We have previously written an article discussing the parallels between games like chess and poker and trading. Although we mainly used the opportunity to present a fascinating chess game by Valery Salov, poker is probably a little closer to trading, as it involves things like incomplete information, bet sizing and 'reading opponents', none of which play a role in chess.
Recently a representative of tradimo.com (a trading education site) sent us the info-graphic depicted below. It lists a number of famous traders and poker players who are good at both activities as well as a number of characteristics applying to both trading and poker. What really caught our attention though was the statistic right at the end...
Apparently the percentage of successful traders is more than three times higher than the percentage of winning poker players. We're not certain how this statistic was arrived at and cannot vouch for its correctness, but if it is indeed accurate, then we admit to being quite surprised (we'd have thought that the percentages would be closer together, near the lower end of the range).
Trading and poker compared, via tradimo.com
One possible reason we can think of for the higher trading success rate may be the persistence of trends in financial markets. For instance, the average bull market in stocks is quite lengthy, so short term mistakes can get 'repaired' when the market resumes its primary trend. Obviously it is not that easy for futures traders, unless they have both very deep pockets and strong nerves. Most successful futures traders use stops, but not all of them do.
We recall that, e.g. among the traders portrayed in the 'Market Wizards' book there was one quite taciturn bond futures trader who was reportedly trading huge volumes, but eschewed stops. Similar to different trading styles, there are also different poker playing styles that can be successful - however, just as there is a consensus about the usefulness of stops in futures trading, there also seems to be a consensus that certain styles of play in poker are more likely to succeed than others.
A common thread is definitely money management and the concepts associated with it. These would be aggression in playing good hands – equivalent to 'letting winners run' in trading and 'knowing when to fold' – the equivalent to cutting trading losses short.
»
- 40297 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
I bet the horses every day and I think professional handicappers are so much smarter than poker players.
I can sell you a share of the tranche that contains the top 3 finishers
doesn't pay a high return
if you want return, I can sell you a share of the tranche that contains the bottom 3 finishers
Trading has trends, fundamentals, research, reasons. They aren't always right, but they help. That's why the trading winning chance is higher. The cards are always random.
One hopes.
A horse can break a leg and an executive's mind can snap and take a whole management team down with him though group think. That's how companies like Enron, countries like Nazi Germany, and systems like the EU happen.
Even the best due diligence can come down to a massive crap shoot.
Knowing when to fold is a very real skill that is only developed over time.
> and systems like the EU happen.
nice. lol
When trading noise (low timeframes) the movements are random in for example FX. However, even random strats, if you have good money management skills, a 50:50 strategy can win. Out of the 3Ms - mind, method and money management, method ranks third IMHO. Get the risk and the mind sorted first...but it takes a lot of time and screen time for that to eventually sink in.
the track take is near 20%--thats not too smart to play that game---the best handicapper can only hope to break even one year at a time
Not close to 20% on exchange markets (banned in the U.S.). Try Betfair sometime.
I understood it was 17%. A small trader who counts commissions and slippage is paying about the same per trade.
You did not say you earn a living betting horses every day. Do you have another source of income? People who use half truths are often politicians.
They only mention the winnings in those poker matches.
Funny thing with poker... the money is on the table and only one steps out rich and they don't win every time.
A lot of my friends play poker, I even have a friend who plays it proffesionally.
I'll never play for money knowing what I've seen on several occasions.
I always say....."I hope I break even because I need the money."
Lately, I get the feeling that if I don't win, I'm at least gonna break even.
I agree, seasmoke....I've always said, take someone who makes money betting horses to the poker tables....within 6 months, 90% will be making money. Take a pro poker player to the track.....within 5 years, only 2% will be able to turn a profit.
LOL... True Poker Players are not stupid enough to bet on the horsies.
Let me know when you hit the Poker tables in Vegas if you believe otherwise because I certainly want to be on that table.
quant model and crap shoot..
if you looked at some of their models in 3d you would say WTF?!!
House (of Elite bloodline lineages) always wins.
.
for now...
it's their casino and it's rigged against everybody except their tribe
Trading in these days of HFT machines is insane.
Agree and disagree. The same constants are there every day, retail traders just look for the wrong things. Low latency programmes can win, retail traders operating from no more than a smartphone with; orders, stops and take profit limit orders can win if they start to look for the most basic constants.
on a long enough timeline a gamblers chances of winning drop to
the 'take' from trading are just the broker fees
the 'rake' in poker is 5-10%
thats your difference in being successful
horse racing take is approx 18%---do that for pleasure, you'll never beat that take
just the broker fees? there is much more vig being scraped off the top than that. You must be new to ZH.
Poker's for girly-men. Riding a motorcycle is a lot more like trading.
36.7% seems really high to me, but then again that's a trading education website. If you're selling hope, statistics encouraging buyers helps of course.
Keep in mind that QE is alot like having 4 extra aces in a deck.
mo' like duces & jokers wild
I suck at both games.
Well, are you good at sucking? It's something, right?
only when he has to pay his losses :)
Wrong. Here is a quote from Mike Hofmaier,
Also add the adage, another sucker born every minute... to be eaten alive. Guessing in poker you run in similar circles and you have the best in there competing.
If you do not know who the pidgeon in the is, it is you.
*cough* insider trading *cough cough*
Martha Stewart can whip you up something from the kitchen in no time for that cough.
INDEED .... Hello out there
My thought on why the traders win more:
The stock market is manipulated by the FED, which allows all bulls to win. A parralel comparison with a poker player would be them playing a game of poker while knew that the flop was going to be all face cards. They could play much more aggresively. Of course, this would only benefit the poker player if they were the only ones privy to that information at the table. Insider information is the name of the game folks.
Provided that no one is cheating, Poker is still a pure game that when a true student of the game plays, they will always beat a novice. The market is not like that.
Many poker books have been written, and many are still relevant to this day. The game may have changed in the publics eye, but the same skeleton still exists. The same cannot be said in regards to trading. HFT control volume, talking heads keep the sheep buying, numbers are manipulated, etc.
Sitting on a long trade for 2 fvkin months is not trading.
It's called praying.
This is a great comparison. The Fed is nothing more than a card cheat working in tandem with the dealer.
I like your analysis, but I think we are moving away from the point of the post.
The original comparison was Traders Vs. Poker Players.
You're contrasting the Stock Market to the Poker Table. The Market is obviously tilted in favor of big firms with big computers. Whereas the Poker Table is a nice comparision what I call a "forced free-market", where no one can tilt the odds by changing the game, and the market is "forced" to be free and natural.
Like I said above, a nice analogy to QE is 4 extra aces, and HFT Algos possibly could be compared to card counting.
It is the FED that controls the market...just look at the people that do M&A, trading, brokering, run the exchange and advise companies and the FED and are the analysis. Goldman and the like...aren't traading that barrel fishing with a gun!
How to trade in 2013: Buy a fast computer, develop an algo, move it as close to the exchange as possible.
And get a good insider to give you tips. Works like a charm!
If you are a congressman , insiders come to you to trade tips for votes.
I always thought that Dating was a bit like trading.
They like you mostly for what you can do for THEIR lifestyle.
"They like you mostly for what you can do for THEIR lifestyle."
Holyfvk is that the truth. Go to a dating site and look at all those ugly fat cunts wanting.. NO DEMANDING a rich young rockstar with a 10 in 24/7 hardon to worship them for eternity. What happened to real men in this country? When are men going to say "shut the fvk up you fat ugly cunt and sit the fvk down b/4 I feed your ugly ass to the fishes." And then do it if necessary.
http://elitedaily.com/elite/2012/ceo-jp-morgan-replies-pretty-girl-seeking-rich-husband/
crackup smash boom
CIA Poker: The Puzzle Palace with smoke & mirrors. Distraction, misdirection & Action.
Check out this to see that the Tsarnaev brothers were -- as stated by Yours Truly before anyone else did -- double agents:
http://www.debka.com/article/22914/The-Tsarnaev-brothers-were-double-agents-who-decoyed-US-into-terror-trap
But, unlike the FBI or Israel's DEBKAfile, I don't think that they "turned". They were "played". Played as Useful Fools. They were supposed to have success -- limited success -- to further a specific national security agenda and Chechen agenda. That's why those security guys were around... to make sure they limited their detonation success.
The Russians were smart to have washed their hands of it, by having flagged them to the FBI, who 'investigated' and found them to be 'harmless'. And 'harmless' enough to be Naturalized as a USC -- when this should have been very, very difficult under the circumstances.
I always cringe when proponents of gambling stress all the "positives" of these "athletes"..
healthy body, sharp mind, good recordkeeping...
at the end of the day it is about exploiting another's weakness for your advantage. the essence of a predator.
So let's evolve. Let's not load up on gold, guns and goulash and pray for societal annihilation. Let's be the first life form in existence not to be driven by the instinctual desire to propagate its gene pool. Or let's just admit that even the most devout Jain is, in the end, merely a predator.
my question is more why do so many "pray for societal annihilation"?
Because they fool themselves into believing that in the next iteration they will do better than they did this time.
I look at the USSR-turned-Russia and see that the exact same folks who sat on top under Communism are sitting on top under Oligarchism. That suggests to me that those who have the skills and traits to "achieve" (no value judgment) in one type of society will find a way to achieve in any society. Darwinian Socialism. Similarly, those that bombed out this time are not going to end up any better off even if society goes back to Square One a thousand times. As Yogi Berra might have said, 99% of success is just where and how you show up, and the other half is luck.
Yep. No matter how many times you 'reset' the system, and give the chump back his money; he will still go out and lose it again.
"Because they fool themselves into believing that in the next iteration they will do better than they did this time. "
There always has been, and there always will be, "The Powers That Be". There alway has been, and there always will be, "The 1%".
"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun."
MFB.
Unless the new "Smart Money" is developing world retail and current and former Communist governments, a trader's memory suggests the PM rout may not be over. Back when I sat on the fund desk, and we had a very large position we were trying to liquidate, after each lump dump there was a guy who would walk around the floor and say, "let it breathe". We'd let the market think the worst was over, and sit back while others ran the price up again. Once the price rose and bids turned less than cautious, we'd hit it again. It's the only way to trade size. Sometimes we'd even take out a substantial number of price levels just to create the impression that the sale was a margin liquidation, over and done. On the list above, that's "Patience". Often you'd end up seeing "once burned, twice shy", and liquidation of a single large position would start a more serious rout and a reassessment of everything that had made the asset a "buy" in the first place. Markets are fickle.
It wouldn't surprise me if in the next month or so this pattern shows up again.
+100. After awhile you start to sense some sort of weird "logic" going on. I'm not confident enough in my observations to dare trade them, but it's fun to try to predict the moves and see what happens.
What if they aren't trying to sell? What if they are trying to accumulate all they can at low prices?
What if they aren't trying to liquidate? What if they are trying to accumulate gold cheap?
"what makes them tick" = asperger syndrome?
Poker, there's a ton of luck involved. It is impossible to predict what's coming on the river. I busted out of a tournament I should have won with AA v KK. That won't happen in the stock markets.
Oh really? wont happen until you maybe get flash crashed on a goog trade?
Skill repeats, luck doesn't.
I was looking up flights to Vegas the other day and was really disappointed on the prices I had heard rumors about cheap subsidized flights but wasn't seeing anything cheap on skyscanner.
Flying sucks now.
Instead of bait to get you into the casinos, hotels and food are profit centers now also.
A good poker player doesn't even have to rely on his underlying cards, he plays against the other players, a zero sum game, just like trading is now. Fundamentals? nah, its about supply and demand just getting in and out just a bit in front of the crowd.
If you look arond the table and don't recognize the idiot mark, YOU'RE it.
I think the difference has to do with intrinsic value. Since most of these stocks have a bottom line breakup cash value, you are buying something that can only go down so much before rather large traders come in and bail your butt out(unless we are in a generational epic stock slump). So maybe 30% of the time, your money is bullet proof. That is one reason I trade stocks and usually indexes. They come with built in training wheels. If the stock/indexes I own are going to suffer below a certain point, well, it's probably the end of the world anyway.
In poker, how often do you have a bullet proof hand? Probably a lot less
How does this article arbitrage a stogey old Fed Govenor on the MSM (monetary) calling out the Mouthpeices in front of the "secular" buerocrats (fiscal)?
Answer: Get timmay on speed dial and live like a qua(i)nt rockstar.
So, when do we start hanging the fuckers?
Hang them hell.....we can't even charge them.
There is one glaring difference that I'm not surprised isn't mentioned....in poker the consequences of your activity are limited to the number of people willingly playing or betting against you.
In "trading" the consequences can extend to everyone on the planet as you saw when grains were the game of the day a year or two ago.
in poker gambling you can be easily forgiven your lack of moral character.
in 'trading" (when you and your kind) affect some poor bastard trying to eat on the other side of the planet, you cannot.
It bothers me that everything americans engage in now is a speculation. That gambling is a national pastime.
It bothers me when the word "investing" is used to cover it up and make it palatable in polite company
It bothers me most that ethics and morality are never mentioned let alone considered as you all merrily support the criminal syndicate called wall st all the while enabling the very thing you curse.
Well said.
I like that you bring a contrary opinion to ZH, as for the most part the place is as one dimensional as can be. That being said, I don't know the answer to what you raise, or even if there is anything legitimate in your argument. First, in markets other than food, one can say all players know the rules of the game and cannot complain when things move against them. Even in the food markets, however, the place where the line is drawn is in position limits for specs. Take away the specs and the market is virtually useless. It is unlikely two non-spec sides to a trade have complete information at the same time, so they require ongoing liquidity in order that the spread is not canyon-wide when they need to place a trade. Take General Mills (unsure of demand and cost) and a Nebraskan corn farmer (unsure of yield, input costs, and selling price). Love'em or hate'em, specs provide a service, and exchanges have decided to allow speculation within reason so as to insure maximum liquidity at all times. Yes, it goes bad on occasion, but is the alternative less harmful? Also, spec is not always the sole source of price runaways. Weather and crop disease play a role, as does bad infrastructure. India, with 1.2 billion hungry mouths, loses 35-40% of its farm production owing soley to a bad infrastructure the government refuses to fix (or allow outsiders to come and fix). Lloyd and Jamie might have a lot of things for which they are responsible, but hunger in India is NOT one of them.
(Incidentally, I'm surprised all the PM crowd hasn't jumped all over your food argument. After all, don't they all insist the "paper" price is not the same as the "physical" price? Farmers are required to sell at the expiring futures price?)
Condemning traders is really just directing anger at those who do something we all do better than we do it. They accumulate "stuff" in the markets, perhaps more than they need, but if you are typing on your own computer in a warm (or cool, as necessary) home, you have more than you need and more than your "fair share", whatever that means. Instead of acquiring what you don't need, but just like for the comfort or the entertainment value it provides, you could send the earnings from your "production" to some widowed mother in rural Bangladesh to help close the gap between what you enjoy and what she can enjoy. Make both of you equal, and address the gap 'god' created. If you are not willing to do that, then (pardon me) you are being hypocritical.
I know you are not a gold fan, but let's take that element as an example (as it is otherwise so adored around these parts). There are perhaps 5.5 billion troy ounces of gold in the world. There are 7 billion humans. Anybody who has accumulated more than 5.5/7ths of an ounce has more than his Earthly "fair share", and anything above that amount is a speculation (or greed and selfishness). Even the poster who first responded to you (ebworthen) has more PMs than his "fair" share. Above in the comments, that same fellow wants to start hanging traders (or poker players, I can't tell which). Since he, too, is a speculator (by acquiring more than his "fair" human allocation of PMs), one might think he's just envious that those traders have done what he is doing himself, except infinitely better. And if he says he deserves what he buys because he worked hard for it, he should be reminded that relative to that Bangladeshi woman in my above paragraph, he won the Birth Lottery. Character and "deserve" are relative to one's life circumstances, though we all like to applaud ourselves for our "achievements", ignoring the fact that under different circumstances, we would not have anywhere near the same "achievements".
Now if you want to go back to the Big Bang, and find a different god who's a little more evenhanded in dispersing gifts and opportunities, perhaps we can revisit this entire argument. Yes, I've jumped around here, but if you are in disagreement, please tell us how you would solve the issues you raised.
Again, let me say I appreciate your willingness to bring different arguments to the table here. It's...what's that word...refreshing.
The speculators, not the poker players.
If speculators drive the price up or down, isn't that creating volatility rather than dampening it?
If there are two sides to every trade, and they are making money hand-over-fist, where does that money come from?
Does them making money speculating in say wheat or rice help the hungry widow in Bangaladesh and the Farmer, or make it impossible for them to budget and plan?
Liquidity and speculation create volatility and remove market forces of supply and demand.
No doubt there are droughts and floods in the world that can ruin crops, but that means the successful crop somewhere else will take a higher price and be shipped.
To me arguing that liquidity and speculation make things better for the average people of the world is a cul-de-sac argument.
How do liquidity and speculation improve the normal supply and demand curve and price structures?
a cul-de-sac in the Hamptons with Monsanto in the mix
Wait! I thought the "paper" price and the "physical" price were unrelated? Thus, if two opposing forces speculate in a "paper" futures market, isn't it (according to opionion on this site about gold and silver) the equivalent of a bet on the Superbowl or a synthetic CDO, completely unrelated and with no impact whatsoever on the actual event or physical market?
As for liquidity, is it better for the farmer to sell in January, if that is when General Mills wants to buy, but well before the farmer knows his cost structure and his competitors' yield? Should the farmer hit that bid that's 20% below the ask, since everybody in the market is a legitimate player and not a speculator? I suspect farmers prefer liquidity and the tight spread it provides, plus the information the market gives them as trading is ongoing from planting to harvest.
"There is one glaring difference that I'm not surprised isn't mentioned....in poker the consequences of your activity are limited to the number of people willingly playing or betting against you."
EXACTLY.
Playing against 9 other people is FAR different then playing against millions of suckers.
I love internet poker, and trust me on this one, no one is cheating, you are just a bad player.
LOL, I know a guy who runs shitty poker online site and no one knows that they are playing against bots and guess what? That guy says everyone runs same sites
See you in Vegas Tylers!
What happens in ZH stays in ZH...
But what you get at ZH may stays with you a lifetime ...
Surely there's some type of cream, or even antibiotics, you can get after being exposed to ZH? ;)
nop, once you turn cookcook you stay cookcook... :)
What has been seen cannot be unseen. Know the truth and the truth will set you free. It may not make you happy but it will set you free.
Interesting thread.
When I first started in trading, I was "paired" with an experienced trader named Myron, who used his trading profits to underwrite his real profession, which was playing the ponies.
In one afternoon at the then-Las Vegas Hilton, I saw him parlay his daily trading winnings of $2,000 into $15,000, which he tucked into the breast pocket of his hand-tailored silk suit.
Curious, I asked him about how he did it. He said the same discipline applies in betting as in trading - study the fundamentals (in his case the Daily Racing Form), POSITION SIZING, and knowing when to bet and when not to. Same discipline applies in trading as to betting.
When you're a trader living in Vegas, what happens here stays here.
Interesting thread.
When I first started in trading, I was "paired" with an experienced trader named Myron, who used his trading profits to underwrite his real profession, which was playing the ponies.
In one afternoon at the then-Las Vegas Hilton, I saw him parlay his daily trading winnings of $2,000 into $15,000, which he tucked into the breast pocket of his hand-tailored silk suit.
Curious, I asked him about how he did it. He said the same discipline applies in betting as in trading - study the fundamentals (in his case the Daily Racing Form), POSITION SIZING, and knowing when to bet and when not to. Same discipline applies in trading as to betting.
When you're a trader living in Vegas, what happens here stays here.
NFLX is more volatile (+42.99 +24.65%) than BitCoin so does that make it more like Craps or Roulette?
Face it, People: The house has gone bust!
"poker is probably a little closer to trading, as it involves things like incomplete information, bet sizing and 'reading opponents', none of which play a role in chess.'
Disagree. Reading opponents can play a big role in chess. I once came this >< close to beating a Spanish national champion, and I have never even competed - I'm just an average player - middle of the bell curve. I am, however, a crafty bastard. I knew I couldn't beat him, so my goal was to make him sweat - humble him a little - which I did by playing sub-par at the outset, which met his expectation of what sort of player I was, thus he started getting careless.
He beat me, but there were only 6 pieces on the board when he did and it took him over an hour. He would have cleaned me in the first five minutes if I hadn't foxed him.
How did I get the match? He was my (then) wife's uncle..lol!
His wife, needless to say, was delighted.
"I suggest a new strategy: Let the wookiee win."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO6M4ngKRp0
I have no solution for being a bad poker player, but if you are a bad trader than there is something you can do. There is the possibility to copy the trades of the best and most succesfull traders in the world. You can read about it in this article: Copy the best traders
I live in Vegas and play the 10-20 NL @ Bellagio. To be successful in no limit one must eliminate the word "luck" from your vocabulary. The word is far too limiting, used by losers and winners alike to brush off a variety of seemingly rare events that display characteristics of patterns over long periods of time. An observant player may occasionally ponder the possibility of the unseen presence of a "poker choreographer" with a very wry sense of humor. The purely mathematical players eventually exit the game with their minds spinning. It may be true that the cards have no memory, but it often seems that they can recognize faces. Some, in search of an explanation for the unexplainable, simply resort to superstition. Many times i have seen seasoned players inexplicably abandon all reason and be rewarded handsomely for it; and confide (solemnly) later that they simply "knew" and had the guts to go with it. Conversely, it is sobering to see a "one-outer" River card wipe out a bankroll carefull ammassed over a period of months.
"Life (poker) is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more matematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait." C.G. Chesterson
I also live in Vegas and play at Bellagio... Maybe I'll come across you if I have not already.
"Conversely, it is sobering to see a "one-outer" River card wipe out a bankroll carefull ammassed over a period of months."
Really no different then the rookie trader who reads about a hot stock tip in the media and bets the farm after some good luck chasing tips and does not know how to read an income statement / balance sheet. You don't bet the carefully amassed bankroll with a pair of kings when there is always the chance of a pair of Aces out there. ;)
You bet the Bankroll when you know you can't be beat. I've been in HUGE pots where I folded out when my whole bankroll was at stake because there WAS a chance to get beat.... and I would have ended up winning if I would have stayed in.
ALL IN on a huge pot Means there is NO Chance I'm getting beat.
Sure... there's times to chase a pot but NO seriously good poker player is going to put in several months of earnings if there is a chance of being beat unless it's tournament play. (Which I'm sure you know is different then regular play.)
The only redeeming value of this article is how it points out the utterly dysfunctional state the populous of this nation is in.
There was a time when Franklins quote "a penny saved is a penny earned" represented an honorable and noble national mentality. A time when leverage, derivatives, credit cards, scratch tickets, indian gaming casinos,power ball, off track betting, online slots, mobile gaming, video poker, keno,options, futures and etfs didn't occupy every facet of american life.
I think the real takeaway should be a self examination of you as individuals and collectively as a nation with the question being not how is trading like poker but what have we become.
I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a list of positives and social benefits from this country's shift from frugality and thrift to recklessness and impulse for instant gratification.
I see no virtue in this piece other than to encourage more of the same dysfunctional behaviors that have brought us to the brink of collapse
+1 I'll uparrow you every chance I get, just to see your Troll commissions drop incrementally. Most posters should be aware by now that PUDster will attempt to negatively influence a topic with his current meme of "dysfunctional behavior" infecting everyone but himself, which alludes to the suspicion that the ZH board is a reflective surface with which PUDster can identify.
lolololol
Thank you for the up arrow. I got seven of them on my comment which you can find on page 2.
Sorry you think that everyone with an independent mind and critical thinking skills is a paid troll.
lololol - This is page 2, TROLL. And you don't have the 7 as you claim.
Must be depressing to think of yourself as "perfect" in an imperfect world.
lololol
Edit: Time to catch your latest anti-pm diatribe in the newest article.
Yea, if you hang out w/ too many flatliners, you eventually start to think like them.
You really have no clue. When Franklin came up with that quote, money was real money and the Fed was not printing up $85 Billion a month.
Regardless... People like me betting it up on the Poker Tables after a very successful career and just having some fun employs tens of thousands of people that make a very good living.
In your world... I guess I'm just supposed to stash my money in the bank and do nothing with it?
Personally.... I DESPISE people who don't share their wealth being "Frugal". I have several colleagues that hoard their money and have very boring lives. Quite pathetic if you ask me.
Don't get me wrong... People with no true wealth need to save for true wealth. People loaded with money though need to go out and share the fun.
Share the fun otherwise you are just a Bankster in my book.
Luck is not a part of good poker player's vocabularly. Much like trading, poker is non-stop, high speed probability management. When you're watching poker players in tournaments on TV, they give little indication of the constant probability calculations they are performing. Expressed odds, pot odds, and fold equities must constantly be reassesed with each new event. Plus you have to read your opponents and keep a mental history of their play. Between NL Holdem and options trading, I'd have to say options trading is far less stressful.
The reason is because when you play Poker, you are playing against a limited amount of players. Rarely can you find a whole table full of suckers when it comes to playing with real money. When trading, there are a lot of suckers out there that don't have a clue and just blindly send money into their 401Ks, IRAs, etc.
Pretty simple explanation actually.
+1
Didn't see your post until after I posted mine.
One of the fastest growing sub-groups in the Gambler’s Anonymous Organization is compulsive stock and securities traders. Many of them are otherwise highly successful people with relatively high paying jobs. Most of them trade on-line, and most have lost their entire life savings (i.e., retirement funds, security accounts, checking, savings) by the time they show up at their first meeting.
Thank You so much! I'll be looking for a meeting because on the mid-April gold smash i realized i was Thrill Trading on the stop-running, without stops, because it usually happens too quickly to set up a proper bracket order. My data was showing that the typical/median "run" is 3 minute bars and it takes a minute to set up the bracket order. While i no longer have the margin to trade GC, that's not just because of my drawdown. I still have the margin to trade CL and TF and the other night i was watching crude on a "stair-step" gradual buy program and had working a bracket order in where it tagged my entry price three times before moving twice as far as my initial target was set and didn't go even one tick towards my stop. but it was after 11 PM and i was getting sleepy so i didn't wait the 15 minutes it took to hit my entry price and then another 10 minutes to run way past my target on stops. so i need to be more patient and be able to wait at least 30 minutes for these things to play out instead of being after a 2-minute thrill ride. instead of letting it play out as expeected i only let the order be active for 5 minutes before cancelling it out of sleepiness. so there's the learning from experience and also the "base success on decisions not results." it sure would be nice to find other traders at a GA meeting! your claim about "most" already losing their entire life savings is surely an exaggeration, which seems to be the norm in "news" these days. 12-step groups are CHOCK-FULL of both dry drunks and those still struggling with active addiction; they usually are the clear majority (outside of some AA groups for old-timers only).
Easier to cheat at trading.
+3 Cherries
I would say sports betting is closer to trading than poker, of course like minded people are attracted to both of them but doesnt mean they are compatible, it used to be Xmas time on poker tables when City boys got their bonuses.
But closer to trading is really sports betting, specially with betfair where you can "sell" the odds. Other things are covering your bets. Meaning from a multibet of 2 games you get 1 right with good odds, you might now want to counter bet with a small bet the last remaining match. Other similarity is research.
Poker takes great math, pattern recognition, huge balls and little bit "mental" additude towards the chips. Also loads of luck.
But all in all great picture :)
There are ways to cheat any rigged market through capitulation, including poker.
Imma guessin' that a big factor in the different success ratios has to do with the fact that in trading, most of the other players don't even know they're in the game.
There are lots of parallels between the two activities. But, the biggest parallel of all has been left out. In 2013, in both the markets and in poker, the biggest winner is the house. The biggest online sites return a tiny percentage to the players, probably on the order of 2%. The rake has been raised so much that most real poker pros had to return to brick and mortar casinos over the last five years. The single biggest flow of money in the poker world is from credit cards to the Isiah Sheinberg's (ie PokerStars') bank account in the tax haven on the Isle of Man. I believe the daily profit is about $1.4 million. The typical pro poker player, a player in the top 3%, can't beat online poker. Poker isn't rigged like the markets, but because of the rake, it might as well be. They sold the dream to kids in 2003-2005 with low rakes, then jammed up the rake so high that few can win. The rake/rent to play online for 24 hours at middle stakes for one player is over $1000 dollars. If you play a home game, that rent/rake would be $0, or whatever you chip in for beer. I believe only one of the players pictured above has made significant money online and that was at very high stakes where the rake doesn't matter as much and over five years ago.
Online poker like the market is a scam.
I'm certainly going to have to do a post / infographic comparing successful real estate investors with poker players.
Trading right now is a Ponzi scheme until the market tanks which is certainly due to happen.
Thanks!