I've been making a decent living playing poker and I've just started day trading at a prop firm and was wondering what's harder.... making money playing poker or day trading? Also, is there more potential for profit in poker or day trading? hopefully there's some poker players turned day traders or vice-versa in this forum. 1 more question.... is there a good resource or book for understanding how to use level 2 properly and understanding how the specialist trades? Thank you for your responses as a new trader I appreciate any advice.
The founders of a number of hedge funds started out as poker players so I would say there is much more money here if you are good. Cheers
Have a friend who plays poker part-time, auditor 2-3 days a week (bosses let him go part-time, half-salary, full benefits, just to keep him). He plays online poker during all of his free time, up $80k in 9 months last time we spoke. While that's good, I don't see his annual income growing sizeably with that strategy, since poker involves a good deal of luck no matter how skilled you are. Other friends in hedge funds dwarf his earnings. Don't have any prop trader friends tho to compare
sure poker involves luck... its 100% luck when you play 1 hand. But as you play more and more hands the % of luck involved turns to 0. I've been playing for many years and I've never had a losing year. I think trading is the same way. As long as you have a good strategy, money management skills, and discipline you can beat the game over time. Sometimes you'll win a trade sometimes you'll lose even if you had great reasons to make the trade but in the long run you'll do well as long as you stick to your strategy. I have friends who make over 1million a year playing poker. But still the question is can a successful poker player be even more successful in trading? Is the money better? and which is harder to make more money at? poker players turned trader or vice-versa please respond! thank you
I'd learn everything you can about how your friends play and just try your hardest to emulate them. If you don't have similar friends/mentors/connections in the trading world doing that well, you're not going to be making $1M/year from duking it out alone. If my friend starts to break 6 figures consistenly playing poker, I'd definitely give that lifestyle a closer look. If I had friends making millions at it, I would need no further convincing.
This topic has come up before... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60080&highlight=poker http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12455&perpage=6 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70730
thanks for the additional topic links... even though i make decent money in poker and have friends who make great money i'd like to change into trading... starting to get bored of poker unfortunately. but i do have access to traders who do well at my prop firm but none of them are former professional poker players... however i don't know them as well and just wanted to see if anyone had experience changing from being a poker player to a trader and what I can expect in terms of money expectations. i don't expect to make any money trading my first year but down the road i'd like to think there can be huge profit potential. also any suggestions for a good book or resource on level II and market makers what I should be looking for when i see the prints go off and how to use that information?? thanks
I am a successful poker player who is learning how to trade. So far I would say poker is easier. The deck always has 52 cards, 13 ranks, and four suits. Your opponents are sitting at the table with you and you can observe them play. Through moderate stakes your opponents are mostly complete jokers who know nothing about how to play the game. The "deck" in trading is a nearly infinite amount of interconnected economic activity. Your "opponents" are millions of people you can only observe indirectly and collectively. You are competing against many professionals and institutions who are not total hacks. The flip side to that is that if you can beat the game, you can scale it up much more readily than in poker, where you face tougher and tougher competition as you move up. Best of luck. Fletch
i have always belieeved that trading is more like blackjack than poker. Kind of like finding a long term statistical edge which u can mechanically exploit.