DanLieb Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Poker = Trading: > > Most poker players can’t win in the long term. You > need more than a slight edge due to the house > rake. > > Trading: EMH: Most traders can’t beat the market > above the cost of transactions, etc. Couldn’t agree more. Most people are more than happy to accept the former though. Check out the leaderboard on http://www.sharkscope.com/ and you will see that despite playing 16 hours a day, 7 days a week the few who beat the market don’t exactly do that well. I think sports markets are probably the most inefficient and with the largest edge as the proportion of money bet on emotion with no analysis is a lot higher than in poker and stocks. For example, I know the odds of winning with AA and how to calculate them, I know different ways to value stocks, but I’ll bet money on 2-0 to Arsenal without batting an eyelid.
I will bet my money 10000000000:1 on JETS GO JETS GO JETS GO JETS
Anyone who plays online for a living gets rakeback, around 25-35% so it is very easy to make a large amount of money playin cards if you are a break even player.
IMHO, poker = trading. I’ve just starting to get into trading after 5 years of off/on poker (I’ve worked my way up to be confident/competent at the $5/$10 blinds no limit hold’em games) and they work on the same principles, if not using the same terminology, mechanics, and method of “betting.” Some observations: - Psychology[self] - You can know all the probabilities and theory, but if you can’t take a hit without losing your cool, you’re totally useless. The trick isn’t to maintain your decision making at an A-game level, but never to let it slide past your B-game. - Gambling - Whatever you call it, calculated risk or gambling, it’s the same thing. It’s good if you have positive expectation and bad if you have negative expectation. You use your abilities to make decisions that give you positive expectation. - Risk management - Same principles apply, no matter how competent you are, bet-sizing (in poker) and position-sizing (in trading) are key. You don’t put a huge part of your bankroll in a single trade or a single game. - Relative ability - You have to beat the broker’s fees, taxes, etc. for trading and the rake, tips, etc. for poker for them to be viable in the long run. This is “very” hard to do and is a function of relative ability, you have to be above average just to survive and much, much, MUCH better than your competition to be successful since they’re both “negative” sum games if you include the broker or house. - Psychology[social] - Ultimately, theoretically correct decisions may entail an optimal strategy that makes you a bit of money, but it’s possible to make theoretically unsound decisions in unique circumstances - based on your ability and experience - by accounting for the other people involved in the game to make more than the optimal amount, whether you call the game markets or poker. - Skill vs. luck - There is skill in both, and skill becomes more of a factor as the number of trials or length of time increases. Pure dumb luck can make a poker/market god look like a chump and vice-versa, but usually in the short term. - Feel - Ultimately, intuition or feel, is an intangible factor in both that has very real monetary effects. Feel isn’t anything paranormal, but rather the result of a lot of experience backed up by theory and hard thinking, that let’s you assess the situation on a holistic level rather than a step-by-step level. That’s why people like Doyle Brunson and Steven Cohen exist that can tell you exactly what they are thinking, but you can’t duplicate it. - Marginal decisions - You can only choose to take the “no brainer” decisions (there’s a blog dedicated to this, I’m not that person) where you are guaranteed to win based on some system, or you can put yourself in the position where subjective judgment becomes more of a factor. In poker, it might mean only sticking to premium starting hands (Ace with high kicker, suited) or more marginal hands (Ace with low kicker, unsuited). In trading, it might mean that you look for more clearly defined trendlines or support/resistance levels on shorter timescales than relying on more iffy ones on shorter time scales. Marginal decisions are what separate the gods from the ones who are decent. As I’m learning about trading, it feels as if I’m repeating the steps in learning poker all over again. Ultimately, I think poker is a good distillation of the complex world of markets into an elegant and (mostly) closed form with simple rules. That said, simple rules do NOT necessarily imply simple behavior, look at the complexity of Chess or Go based on very simple rules.
goldenboy09 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > can a good poker player be made? how about a good > trader? Have you read the Schwager books on his interviews with traders? It goes into this kind of stuff.
Anyway, in one of Schwager’s books, The New Market Wizards, two traders debate if a trader can be made. One of them takes on a team of “turtles” and trains them, and they are successful. However, I don’t think these were random picks of people off the street, I think they interviewed random people and screened them to see if they would be a good trader even though they hadn’t traded before.
Found a link, a separate book on this it seems: From Publishers Weekly Covel (Trend Following) revisits a famous financial trading experiment conducted by Wall Street trader Richard Dennis and extracts its lessons with mixed results. Dennis, who quickly learned how to trade after starting as a runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1966 at age 17, had made a reported $200 million by 1983. To settle an argument with fellow trader William Eckhardt about whether trading ability was innate or could be taught, he put an ad in the Wall Street Journal offering to teach candidates how to trade in two weeks, and then backed them with his own money. Of the thousands of people who who applied, 23 turtles were accepted. Their trading made $100 million for Dennis, leading some to become highly successful traders in their own right. Having tracked down most of the people involved, Covel describes the turtle training, including rules for entering and exiting trades as well as Dennis and Eckhardt’s personal lessons, and speculates on why some turtles succeeded more than others. http://www.amazon.com/Complete-TurtleTrader-Legend-Lessons-Results/dp/0061241709
sublimity Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > IMHO, poker = trading. I’ve just starting to get > into trading after 5 years of off/on poker (I’ve > worked my way up to be confident/competent at the > $5/$10 blinds no limit hold’em games) and they > work on the same principles, if not using the same Ok, I’m going to admit to being a bit tight here, but that’s proper money. Presumably you’re buying in for a good $1000?
Yep, the min/max buy-in for $5/$10 blind no limit games, depending on the casino, is around 1k/3k. It was my main source of income for a couple years, but the problem with poker for a living is the boredom playing live, the boredom intellectually, and the illegality online (hopefully a Democratic president + Congress fixes this nonsense). Furthermore, ceiling is way higher in the markets.
Poker isnt illegal online, its illegal for banks to do transactions with with these off shore sites which doesn’t seem to matter as it is still very easy to put money on and take money off.
I never said the “illegality ‘of playing poker’ online”, I just said “illegality online,” though it could easily be interpreted like the way you did. Anyways, it is effectively illegal for me online since I’m not going to risk tens of thousands of dollars online - look at what happened to Neteller. I also can’t link directly to my USA-based bank account. Furthermore, it dries up the base of newbies/suckers since it is perceived to be illegal and they can’t simply use their credit/debit cards to put money online. What you’re left with is a population of players outside the USA (which isn’t as much as before including the within USA players) and some very good players within the USA (which severely destroys your edge).
I know a lot of people are thinking poker is drying up, but online the tournaments have been getting bigger and bigger each week. Also, you can deposit using your visa card on both pokerstars and full tilt.
sublimity Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I never said the “illegality ‘of playing poker’ > online”, I just said “illegality online,” though > it could easily be interpreted like the way you > did. > > Anyways, it is effectively illegal for me online > since I’m not going to risk tens of thousands of > dollars online - look at what happened to > Neteller. I also can’t link directly to my > USA-based bank account. Furthermore, it dries up > the base of newbies/suckers since it is perceived > to be illegal and they can’t simply use their > credit/debit cards to put money online. What > you’re left with is a population of players > outside the USA (which isn’t as much as before > including the within USA players) and some very > good players within the USA (which severely > destroys your edge). The US is a funny old place. I’m never quite sure how all this fits in with Las Vegas. Also, I think that Betfair is one of the finest things to grace the net, but I discovered the other day that you can’t even access it in the US. Oh, and good poker skills. Making money at that level is far from easy. I can do it at low stakes, but at a high level my “edge” would definitely not beat the rake. I moved on to Omaha H-L to avoid boredom, but I’m sure I would have got bored of that after time.
Making money consistently in poker is hard, DAMN hard. A mediocre person with an advanced degree in many fields (finance, law, medicine, etc.) can make money much more easily than a very talented poker player. Anyone who is talented, smart, or hardworking enough to make money consistently for a long time (years) at mid-stakes or high-stakes poker could easily make 10x as much if only they could pull themselves away from such an “easy” lifestyle and got a good education. Poker is good for a few years (< 5) to learn that way of thinking, but it is ceases to be intellectually satisfying very quickly. Changing games (to Omaha, Stud, limit/no-limit, cash/tourney, etc.) delays the boredom, but that boredom is coming and almost inevitable.
You fold matmutte Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi guys, > > i would definitely say that traders and poker > players share some common features. Main one being > to be able to stay cool when money at stake is > very high and not loose your composure when you > have losses. > > But other than that, it has nothing to do. Trading > is mostly based on skills. Success in poker has a > lot to do (i would say 75%) with chance, i.e the > combination of your hand and the flop (im talking > about Texas Hold Them poker), the rest being the > ability to read other players hand and know when > to fold. But you can be as smart as you want, if > your hand and the flop are bad, you can`t do > anything in poker.
Sublimity, If you are any good at online poker and treated it like a job you can easily make 100k a yr playing 1/2NL and that is without rakeback.
That 100k/year is not nearly enough to compensate me for: - pure mindnumbing boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation - the money I can make, now and in the future, with a CFA charter + quant PhD Furthermore: - ceiling is MUCH higher in the markets - the wealthiest people in the world are not poker players - I’m not someone looking for an alternative career in poker to leave some crappy job - once you get much higher than 100k/year, you are facing some pretty nasty competition in which you can make the money much more easily in another field with much less effort
Common features yes, but don’t tell me that poker is <25% skill. There is a reason why professionals can grind out steady long-term results at the tables. If you’ve read any poker texts, the fundamental theory of poker should really stand out to you. Yes, luck is a factor in specific flop situations, opponents drawing out, etc. Remember, if you make a mathematically “correct” decision over an opponent’s “incorrect” decision, in the long run you are a winner. Variance is a bitch but it’s part of the game. As far as similiarities go between traders and strong poker players, they are numerous, but I would agree with the crowd who says success at one doesn’t necessarily lead to another. The ability to stay focused for long periods of time, have great analytical skills, keep composure, and not go on tilt are crucial components of many jobs, not just these two we are examining.
I have a few friends that have made over 500k in less then a year playing online. It is sick how you can do on a crazy run and make a ton.
@ mildeg It is a matter of perspective, in this case that perspective is timescale. The influence of skill might be something like: - 10^0 hand = ~0% (this is the influence of skill, not the probability you will win the hand) - 10^2 hands = ~1% - 10^4 hands = ~10% - 1 year = ~50% - 1 lifetime = ~100%