Ok, I can appreciate that. I do recall messing with real money poker online for a short bit around 2008-2009. I did not know it all went away a couple years later.
One year a friend gave me a book about "pool legends". Fun read 'cause I knew almost every name. Pool players have lots of stories, of course.... one was about a poker game that got crashed and robbed. While the robbers were collecting everybody's money, jewelry, wallets, etc... one of the players went up to another one and handed him $5,000. Said, "here's that 5 grand I owe you".
You can't "only take winning trades"... but you can learn to take trades with better probability of success and you can limit your losses through discipline. In poker if you try to "play only winning hands"... that is you only play when you have a big hand (sometimes referred to as a "monster"), you'll have a hard time making money off of it. The other players will recognize that you are a "tight" and will only give you action if they too have a strong hand. Part of the table gamesmanship is to let others know that you are willing to bluff and to give marginal hands a chance to develop. That is, you'll play your Jack/Ten suited and hope to catch a good flop. But that's got nothing to do with trading.
Contrary to popular belief, you dont bluff everytime. You will be losing money very quickly depending on table dynamics. If you do bluff alot, you have to play a huge range of hands and also value bet a wider range. Commonly known as LAGs or loose aggressive. Actually it all depends on what kind of players you are playing against. Like trading, there is no Holy Grail. There is an optimal strategy but it doesnt earn you the most money as it is a defensive strategy to prevent you from losing money. An exploitive strategy against your opponents weaknesses is what makes you bank.
The above exactly equals true. And that is why gambling cannot equate to trading. Poker can kinda', but because of that reason above, it does not.
%% I seldom remember any of those names-LOL,. But i do remember the Money Mag M Steinhardt, by the pool, hedge fun......WE were typical pool gamblers; played in a dark, smokey room, not enough light to spot a silver quarter LOL. Fast forward LIVE + learn,
in trading you can ramp up a monster hand but enough others will keep playing. poker is like trading only in the sense you can knock people out the game but this would not be through bluffing.
imagine that. everything in trading can be learnt by watching bookie. predicting low probability events below 1/22 and doubling the price then assuming accuracy of modelling until the 50th time it pays out then declare black swan. bookie can be forced to buy the fly or arbed to half profits. probably bookie has complicated predictive models as well
i won my first vegas hold 'em tournament 6 years ago; i prepped years earlier by doubling a pokerstars sim account (1 to 2M i think, over many months multi-tabling) biggest help in trading is Negreaneu's "small ball" strategy (see many flops at low cost), eg position sizing, play many w/low upfront risk. i used to be active on the excellent 2plus2 forum favorite games in vegas = venetian, aria, ceasars ... in early years i also played mgm & bally's a lot; easy pickings; eg recognize/avoid local pros and play instead tag/tight-aggro vs drunk tourists midnight; like trading all i drink is coffee/water; trading is easier since you can 'take chips back' if you miss your draw on the turn, so to say my biggest wins (& losses) come from long-odds plays like shoving an A-high flush on the flop/turn only to get beat by board pairing on the river & villian hitting his boat/fullhouse bad beat story (bally's 2011): villian shoves preflop with cowboys seat4, i'm in seat9 with bullets & shove, and he hits trips on the turn, his 3 kings beat my aces, players groan/cheer... that's poker! gotta love it yes poker & trading are totally complementary, plus fun