Anyone here with background in Poker?

I’m just wondering if anyone else here has a background as a Pro/Semi-pro in the poker world. A lot of the skills overlap and there are a lot of similarities. Further, the comments I hear on this forum sound a lot like the biggest Poker forum out there (two plus two).

I like to play texas holdem but never really got all that good at it.

I have played some poker, not pro/semi-pro though. I do see an overlap too!
The way I see it, FX can be looked at as mass-psychology, while poker is more individual psychology. For me, mass (sheep) psychology is easier to predict than individual psychology around a table, where people hide as much information as possible. You can`t do that in a public market :slight_smile:

I come from a poker playing backgroud. I think the best carryover lesson is bankroll/money management, vital for long term success in both fields. I’m new to forex but really enjoying the study as I did when I started playing poker. In poker you have to pay the house rake/hand or tournament buy in which is like the spread in forex. In poker your opponents actively try to relive you of your money and in forex the market passively relieves you (well me) of my virtual bankroll. I agree there are many parallels.

Wow, what a coincidence. A friend gave me a poker magazine because some casinos have camp grounds where I could trailer & enjoy casino buffets. But many of the articles was almost like reading forex; don’t hope for good cards (ie, don’t chase trades), protect your stack (m/m), wait for the cards to come to you (patience), etc., etc. Blew my mind plus I started thinking about poker positives - news events won’t disrupt, you only worry about the 8-10 players at your table, play anytime and so on. I am using play money on a poker site and hope to develop some skills for playing the real thing. We shall see. d.

I started trading a little after I started playing poker about three years ago. I was an awful poker player until I learned how to trade, how markets work, etc. Trading helped me to de-mystify money, and after that I realized that in poker, money was just another tool to use, like the cards.

Playing poker, in turn, helped me to keep my cool when things were looking bad (or good), and that has helped me to learn how to hold positions that I have already analyzed thoroughly but seem to be under pressure from the markets or talking-heads on TV, like the guy next to me telling me I don’t know how to play poker.

I have no problem spending money on a bad hand to learn something new about my opponent or to prevent him from learning something about me or for getting a feel for the table. Similarly, when trading, I will take positions in something I am curious about but do not fully understand to get myself thinking about how it works, knowing that I am likely to take a hit doing so.

I don’t know how to play poker, but my brother does. I don’t get why he’s so addicted to playing it. Is it that addictive?

I put myself through college on online poker. Same thing as trading, really – most people lose, but you can find an edge – and the psychological factor is huge.

Downside – it doesn’t scale.

Was gonna start a new thread but figured I’d put this here, Does anyone think the recent crackdown of US online poker players will bring more people into the forex fold?

Not enough to make any significant difference in the market whatsoever.

I agree: you won’t notice any increase in volume, volatility, or the range of price moves.

But, there will be some migration of former online poker players to online forex trading, for two reasons:

• those guys (and gals) will be looking for action, and forex definitely offers action, and

• the skill-sets of successful poker players overlap the skill-sets of successful forex traders, to a significant extent

Regarding transferable skill-sets, here’s an interesting newspaper article from 11 months ago —

Poker - Trading firms put their money on poker experts - Los Angeles Times

At the risk of re-opening that whole debate on whether forex is gambling, let me make a couple of observations.

The forex market serves a vital economic function, essentially making efficient global trade possible. It exists for that purpose, not to provide a casino for speculators.

However, it’s precisely the casino aspect of forex trading that has brought us all here. So, like it or not, you and I are here to gamble and win.

I’m a speculator, and I can’t tell the difference between speculating and gambling — and I’ll bet you can’t either. And I’m perfectly okay with that. I hope you are, too.

I predict that a lot of frustrated poker players — whose online poker “tables” have been shut down — will show up here in our online “casino”.

If you go to Full Tilt Poker.com, here’s what you’ll see —

There’s your Nanny State in action, America.

Gary Gensler loves this.

What’s next, if many players will go from poker to forex and will lose/make lots of money I’m sure USA will try to take down Forex next by a 10/1 leverage or overtaxing. From what heard US sued Full title/PokerStars because they couldn’t tax the winnings and because lots of money where leaving the economy.

Lots of ex poker player will definitely switch to forex but I wander if all these new traders will make the market trend better or worse, I wander if all this new volume will make it harder for the market makers to do their thing. Can an experienced trader share some light here. What we should expect?

I don’t see why market makers will have an hard time with this. But that’s me.

As for how the markets will react… well… markets are chaotic in nature, so anything can happen, and one thing is for sure, they will keep on being chaotic

PS: Pokerstars.com also down :expressionless:

My wife who was a full tilt player said for her F**K NO! LOL

I used to play online poker a lot. it sux that they are shutting them down. I bet if the govt had some way of collecting taxes on it they would keep them open.

They do collect, but apparently not enough.

The people that win money, spend money.

I think our income tax system is completely ineffective, and outdated. Do away with income tax altogether.

It’s a total joke. If there was a national sales tax, everyone would pay equally. There would be no escape by working under the table, the illegal alien problem would be less hurtful, as they would be paying into the system as well.

Drug dealers, cash labor, gamblers, tip earners, and all things associated with usually a “tax free” environment would all have to pay.

The IRS gestapo wouldn’t even lose their jobs.

They would just transfer over into auditing sales on businesses.

We could make it simple too. Use a card, and it comes right out of it. It wouldn’t even have to go into the business your purchase came from. You could even effectively help the people in the lowest income brackets by issuing a card with an exemption, or discount rate. They would just show it at point of purchase, a code gets punched in, or bar coded and done.

No more April 15th travesty, everyone would pay their fair share, and the only thing problematic is how congress spends it.

Congressman Barney Frank weighs in on the FBI crackdown on online poker sites:

Rep. Barney Frank slams online poker ban - 04-18-2011

Congwessman Bawney Fwank

MSNBC picked this up from the Associated Press (AP) —

Online gambling fight now about when, who — not if - US news - msnbc.com

Key sentence:

“A recent U.S. Justice Department opinion opened the door for cash-strapped [B]states[/B] and their lotteries to bring online gambling to their residents, as long as it does not involve sports betting.” (I bolded that one word.)

In my view, this represents only a [B]partial[/B] victory for those of us who want the Nanny State out of our lives.

A free-market, entrepreneurial, capitalist business model was destroyed by the government attack on online poker — and it now appears that competitive, private-enterprise online poker will soon be replaced by who-knows-what?, run by [B]state poker bureaucracies.[/B]

So, the position of the great, moral, compassionate Nanny State is now crystal clear:

Online poker is evil, because it victimizes the stupid public — unless we, the government, run it.

I used to play a TON of online poker back in College… now I just drive to Tampa and play at the Hard Rock :slight_smile: I can see how a lot of people compare some of the skills in poker to the Forex as well. I’m also really hoping that they bring back online poker… I sometimes need to cure the itch and waste some time and money here and there.

I bet more poker players will trade forex in the coming years with poker sites being shut. You can do it online from home etc so the set up is the same. Given that poker is a very psychological game, it makes sense that they’d be good traders.