Professional pokerplayer trys to shift over to trading

Hey guys, im kapitalo.english is not my origin language so dont expect to read a text of gramatically correctness! im a hopefully future former pokerplayer that hopefully makes a succesfull shift to become a professional trader! Right now this is my dream. poker is a very sociallife-sucking job that restricts u to work in the hours where everyone is having fun(17pm-2am). ive been a professional pokerplayer for like 7 years making arround 1Million$ in that time but the future of poker is not rosy since the pokerplattform im using is focussing more and more on gambling which is sucking away my cliente. so my income has been on a descending line since end of 2014 where they have changed their loyality-system, traffic got much worse as well. i used to play highstakes where the traffic is now as dry as a 70 year old(not that i have exp regarding this). its all kinda frustrating but thats why i decided to get into trading. maybe its a blessing since i am fed up of being a professional pokerplayer anyway.
anyways, there is some correlation in the concepts of poker and trading such as bankrollmanagment, risk aversion, momentum, gameflow, withstanding emotional stress etc etc. dont wanna ****ing bore u!

i hope thats gonna become a future historic blog that leaves a path of a former bad trader which is by then a succesfull one :slight_smile:
i am opening a blog for selfreflection, to have it as a trading journal to exchange thoughts about what is top and whats a flop. exchanging opinions is very important, especially as a amateur. i might hope to find some kind of mentoring guys which have a clue of what they do unlike me so they can correct my misinterpretations.

i will regulary post my trading-ideas here which i will apply to my demotradingaccount.
i have read trhough the school of pipsology so im very comfortable with my knowledge…nooooooooooot.
basicly i need support to get my equity spike through the resistance line which it is ranging on for years =D

I have this chart here visualised and i see a head and shoulders pattern which is a reversepattern, ill sell here. its a good momentum as far as i can see, cant see further then to my screen tho. i have no clue. which indicators would u use to find confirmation in that ?


soooooooo, ladies and gentleman. i hope u dont leave me all alone here :slight_smile:

Ill share alot of ideas, questions and more here.

Good luck and stay focussed

1 Like

Hi Kapitalo,

Also from a poker background, but micro/small stakes 6max NLH. Played part time as a hobby and for some side cash back before black Friday, im sure you know Jared Tendler who wrote the mental game of poker, he is on a “chat with traders” podcast I found it a to be very interesting as he compares the two to each other. Im very new to forex as well but im 100% sure if you could handle the variance of high stakes poker you will definitely be able to handle any forex draw downs and have the discipline to be successful, will be following this journal for sure.

Cheers man.

ofc i know jared tendler, havent booked him ever tho even tho hes a worldclass mental-coach. thanks for your input ! i played sitngoes highstakes up to 2k$buyin. i hope what u have said in the end is gonna become true ! :slight_smile: cheers !

btw: curently im trying to get my ass through these articles.

http://forums.babypips.com/free-forex-trading-systems/42378-forex-price-action.html

it is very interesting, im not in the position to judge if indicators are weather rubbish or not but his opinion is shared by alot of outstanding traders.

Ye nice article , i will go threw that as I am also using price action and technical analysis.

Hola,

i am very much into learning to become a priceactiontrader, reading every day a couple of hours.

below is a 4h-chart of eurgbp and as u can see it hit the resistance line (which i have drawn of the 1d-chart) and not only that, a reversal pin bar has formed as well. i think thats a a+ setup to go short which ill do.
Or do u think its not ghe best setup since ill trade against the trend ?
What do u think about using the trendline as a s&r line ?
Good luck guys

Ps: do u think it is profitable to purely rely on certain candlestick formations such as pin bar, in-bars or engulfing bars to decide taking a trade upon ?Im talking about just playing till the next candle comes up(on a 1h-1d timeframe).


I think your very first mistake is starting to learn forex by looking at the higher time frame chart. Being a non-professional and all, I would simply state that higher tf are not only have less accurate entries compared to the lower tf, but also, Higher tf will take you much longer in red as higher tf traders are more than likely to believe that the “market is hunting them”, much as how a poker believes that the “dealer” is the reason why he lost his hand.

Look at any 4 hr candle, and you will be shocked at the amount of things which has to/ will occur on the lower tf in order to make that candle look the way it does. It doesn’t mean that the lower tf has to much “noise”, it simply means that the lower tf CREATES everything you see on the higher tf.

In my experience higher timeframe are far far more accurate than lower time frames.

With that said it is hard to say if that is a good setup as I dont see a resistance just a line. Also keep in mind S/R levels mean nothing by themselves and neither does a candle formation. I would also zoom out on the chart the current trend might be going up but with a wider view the you might see this current trend is just a retracement of a longer term trend (probably how you got this area as resistance).

S/R are not exact lines either but more an area. So all in all it does appear to be a good setup I would personally look more into it as a few things can and will happen a lot. First would be banks see exactly what you see and know retail traders will be looking to get short with there stops just above the high of that pin bar. So it is in there best interest if they are trying to get short themselves to run price into those stops as they are buy orders. By doing that price will go through the stops and the banks profit but not only that they can get there money in at a better price and make even more money. This is why you hear traders all the time crying that every time there stops get hit price instantly reverses and goes in there intended direction. It not that there trade idea was wrong but they just have a misplaced stop.

So when looking at a setup like this dont just look at the setup as a good setup but also where is a logical spot to place your stop where if there is a stop run it should be safe but not to far away that if price proves your trade idea invalid that you will quickly get you out of that trade.

Next you have where you intend price to go (profit target). Looking at your chart I would assume you would be shooting for that lower line you put on the chart. That is fine but I see 3 other possible areas of support along the way that price may reverse at. So this could possibly leave you ways to scale out and lock in profits in case one of those areas actually holds. When you have the stop and take profit figure out you must decide if the risk is worth the reward and go from there.

If you determine that all is lined up and worth the risk now you are ready to place this trade. It is true sometimes as bestpickrus states even though in my experance higher time frames are far more accurate you can sit in drawdown for some time before price moves in your favor. If you are like me I like to see my trade quickly go into profit and not wait around. For this I will typically drop to a lower timeframe for an entry. Basically go to say a 1 hour and look for the exact same setup that is presenting now. This may take some time to setup as if price decides to run the stops on that chart you have are just sitting on your hands and waiting for the bloodshed to end. When it does it will typically paint a formation for entry on the lower timeframe that will be consistent with this setup you have spotted.

So yes that is a decent looking price action setup assuming your ducks are in line. But I would personally look a little deeper and if everything is lined up then pulll then trigger and good luck.

Although we have different opinions on time frames, the reality is I like your response to him. Reason being is that you are awaiting multiple TF verification before entering a trade. I myself trade that way, but using the 3 lowest TF. I think, understanding that formations have variations and if you don’t account for them, price action will eat you up quickly and leave you waiting for the train to come back to you.

So how is it going? you finding your feet?