I'll try to remember that! Let me add my badly devalued two cents: It seems to me that there are not all that many similarities between poker and trading, although both are gambling and both depend on probabilities. It does seem to me that in trading more of the cards are face-up, but they are much harder to read.
Apparently you're not in the loop. I know quite a few very successful traders and almost all of them have a poker background, some even as pros and a few bracelet winners as well.
There are many proprietary trading operations and hedge funds that ask poker and poker strategy questions as part of the initial interview for new hires.
Sorry for the long delay fickletrader, I do not know if I get banned now, but here's the link to my blog JohanLinden.com. Not that hard to figure out right? Sentiment is obvioulsy hard to measure, anything that can make you millions or billions should be hard. Markets are not so easy to trick. bwolinsky, really your first sentence shows that you are way out of your league and don't know what you are talking about: "It really does bother me when people who like to gamble feel that those skills transfer to trading." Poker professionals don't gamble. You cannot win in the long-run gambling. End of that discussion since you obviously haven't played poker or understood it. Secondly: "I've not heard of any poker players having any success in trading, and knowing a card game's odds is not the same as assessing the value of an investment." I never said that poker player have an edge in trading, did I? However since I have shown they share some traits they probably have better odds than the avg. Joe. I also clearly stated that trading is harder than poker. Read more carefully next time! Thirdly, "Trading is not poker because investing has positive expectancy whereas poker does not." First of all Sir, trading is not investing. And neither trading nor investing has any more positive expectancy than doing other things with the money. There is no such thing at investing without taking a risk. And also, not taking a risk, is taking a risk, since you lose relative to the risk-takers. Fourthly, "The kelly criterion only applies to card games. " Well, I do not even bother to read any more. You clearly shown that 90% of what you write is false.
cool this thread... i would say poker and trading are almost the same. need clever thinking to be a winner.
In some ways trading is easier than poker: When in poker you have the very best hand and make a very big bet - often times that bet will not be called. In the markets when your hand is going your way you can make any size bet and as all market orders are filled you will be called. In the markets you can add when things are going well which is like raising your own bet which you can't do in poker. In very liquid markets like ES, if you can beat it for 10 contracts you can beat if for 100 contracts. In poker the game gets exponentially harder as stakes rise. In poker there is an ante and or blinds which means you must contribute to the pot whether you play the hand or not. In the markets you can wait for the right setup before you play and pay nothing until you play. In both poker and the markerts Information = Equity that is the player with the best information wins. In poker all the players at the table have access to the same information - they can see each other's actions and reactions, see the chips in front of each player, see the community cards and see the money in the pot. The player with the best analysis of odds, cards, money and the other players is the favorite. In the markets short term trading is based on technical information. All charts, profiles, bars, candles etc are constrcted from combining transaction data, ticks. Everybody has access to transaction data, ticks. The best processer of this data into the best information is the favorite. "Success in the markets is not about instinct, divine inspiration or spontaneous intellectual combustion. It is about intelligent data processing, sound method and the management of risk and resource that is both effective and adaptive to change."