Hi! I’m from the UK and am in my early 20s. I’m jumping into forex because the idea of crunching numbers in my head, sitting in front of a computer, and making money appeals to me. I also think making money from the forex market is probably more sustainable than poker.
In terms of online poker, I play (and have won in the long run!) against some of the tougher competition. I figure that poker and forex are kind of similar - you have to predict how people are going to react, you have a premium charged by the broker to beat, and you’ll need mental stamina to endure the inevitable ups and downs.
I’m expecting it to be more complicated though …I’ve heard figures of 3-10 years it takes to learn. Is it really 3 years at a minimum? I feel like I’ll pick it up better than most but everyone probably thought that or they wouldn’t be here.
I’ve played a little bit of online poker, a few years ago. It’s [I]not[/I] my game, but I’ve read probably 15 books on it and kind of “have the flavour” of what it’s about. (Backgammon, now, that’s another story … )
Anyway, my guess (especially from the perceptive things you’re asking in another thread) is that the statistical/probabilistic approach you’ll take with you to the forex table, if you’ve won [U]in the long run against tough competition[/U], will be a really good asset, and that the odds of success will be distinctly less adversely stacked for you than is the case for the “average person” (whoever he is!).
And welcome to the forum.
(Let me know if you want trading book recommendations “suitable for an experienced poker player”!).
Ahh, I know nothing of backgammon.
I’d love any book recommendations from a TA perspective - it seems the best place to start from my background. There’s so much to look at as well, I don’t know where to begin. What recommendations do you have?
There are indeed a lot of similarities between poker and trading, even more so depending on your trading perspective philosophy.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always said that trading is like of like playing poker without knowing how many of each card is in the deck or how many suits there are etc. As a trader you have to learn all the base probabilities from scratch, and that stretches the process much longer. Additionally, it is very easy to prove specific spots in poker as profitable or unprofitable, such as shove or fold situations, or the pot odds pre-river. The number of factors left to calculate are slim, and the probabilities conclude a very simple correct decision. Again trading is much more grey, and you never quite get the “vacuum” to test ideas.
IMO it’s because of all the grey area and unknowns that people get ‘trapped’ so to speak in limbo. Arguing over what is correct is very difficult and messy in the trading world, and only certain perspectives can “share notes”.
Good luck! If you have any questions I’m always happy to help a fellow poker player :]
For TA, I recommend books by Joe Ross (a bit expensive), Bob Volman (two good books available from UK Amazon) and Al Brooks (for later, not yet - outstanding content but not at all easy to read “cold”, to put it mildly).
I advise you to try to avoid anything “written from an indicator perspective”. Personal opinion only, of course, but my expectation would be that these aren’t a good use of your time.
The Volman/Brooks books are written from the perspective of relatively fast-moving intraday trading, but can also be very beneficial for all their general principles even if that kind of trading isn’t your objective: in other words - unusually for textbooks - they actually apply in different contexts, too.
For statistics/probability I won’t recommend the couple of normal beginners’ books I often do, in similar circumstances, but Michael Harris’s book [I]Profitability & Systematic Trading[/I] (Wiley 2007) will still be enormously useful to you, on position-sizing and so on. And much easier for you to get through than it is for most people, doubtless.
As lexus said, you can take some parts of your poker knowledge and use it in forex. Especially money management and how to handle your emotions. What is known as “tilt” in poker, it is called “overtrading” in trading.
There are quite many differences however. In poker you can choose your preffered opponents which is definitely not an option in trading. There are no different levels of players, only one market is out there.
Also a huge difference is that if you are sitting at a table in poker, you have a limited amount of risk, you the what could be your maximum loss. This is not really the case in most trading environment.
I have some experience in the field, so just ask me after you get some book reccomendations from lexus
