IMO, trading and poker can be considered financial ‘games’. Games where insights into the human nature and into our own emotions are crucial.
The trader/player knows when it is time to push hard and time to retreat. Some of the traits that have to be developed if one aspires to succeed in the long run are alertness, relaxation, detachment and other complex mental traits.
I play alot of poker and I can tell you that managing risk in both trading and in playing poker are very similar. As a poker player you start with a bank roll and with that bank roll, your goal is to make it bigger (obviously). In trading, you also start off with a bank roll and your goal is also to make it bigger. The question is how do you manage your risk? How much exposure do you take so that you have a chance to increase your bankroll but at the same time prevent yourself from massive losses. In poker, I can control my skill all I want but there is still never a gaurantee I will win. The same is true with the Forex. You can be a very talented trader but there is never a gaurantee that your trade will win. This is where money management comes into play. I’ve learned a great deal about managing risk through poker and it has definitely helped me transition into the forex.
Thanks, bobia, I believe they are really similar in most ways. In both ways, you invest and in both ways, you depend on luck most of the time. I think it is better to learn about money management if this is the case so that you will not end up being very addicted to the trade and lose all your hard earned cash.
I agree with my friends replies, that playing poker and trading forex are somewhat similar in much ways, but can anyone tell me that being an expert in playing poker may help in trading forex or being expert in forex may help in playing poker. Though both of them are linked with the tacts and risks, so there might be a particular strategy to get along the way. I am fond of both playing poker and trading forex but am not good enough at both, so need your advice, should get expertise in poker or the forex first.
There are definitely some similarities between poker and trading, but it is important to point out the big differences.
- With trading you can choose when to stay out and when to enter a trade.
- With trading you have more control over the outcome of a trade. You can only choose to take the best possible trades. While in poker there is that huge uncertainty factor of what the next card or cards will be.
- When you have a good hand in poker and want to hold it until the end and try to win, it forces you to keep risking larger and larger amount of your stake in order to see the outcome. With trading you can set your risk in the beginning, then as your trade goes in your favor you can reduce your risk. As the trade goes in your favor you never increase the risk, you can always reduce the risk. With poker you have to keep betting larger and larger amounts.
But isn’t poker “gambling”? 
If you have $5000 in you poker bankroll you can choose to only sit down at the table with $100 or 2% and it would be no different than setting a stoploss in forex
When you sit down at a poker table, every so while you are required to post a blind to play. With forex there is no such thing.
That would be like saying you need to pay half a pip to your broker every time you look at a chart and try to find a trade to place.
Poker is an odds game, but you will suffer huge, bad beats that are unrelated and divorced from mathematical reality. You get rivered and lose your whole stack.
With trading if you have a really good trade you can trail your stop up and actually reduce your risk, and not risk your whole stack.
Just my thoughts, hope it helps.
Fair point with the blinds and it should be noted that I was never claiming forex and poker to be first cousins or anything.
But where you say it’s an odds game “but” IMHO there is no but, so you lose a few you were sure that you would win it doesn’t matter as long as your wins are bigger than your losses and again your stack in any giving game represents a percentage of your account so if you do get rivered and lose your whole stack it shouldn’t break you.
In poker it’s recommended that when showing a decent profit that you move to another table and play with the profit and should you go bust then you broke even no harm done
And yes I have enjoyed reading the viewpoint of someone else who can appreciate the similarities in these fields I myself am just learning. Good day to you sir.
Poker is ALL about human psychology. It’s all about you being able to intimidate people when bluffing. It’s also a little about luck and a lot about skill. Same as Forex. Lots’ of skill, little luck and good discipline 
The only thing Poker and Trading has in common is that you need appropriate money mangement. Meaning spreading you load wisely. If your average skillset beats midstakes(200nl-1000nl) than it is very foolish to sit @ a 2knl table or higher if there aren´t any fish on that table(meaning you are actually the fish at this table). Even if your bankrollmangament is good and you can afford it. Thats money management in poker in general. Sitting in games that are +EV for you. Finding out if this game is +EV or not is a whole different story I´d say it takes a lot of hands and experience to know if this game is profitable and within your money/risk management.
In trading there is a similar aspect regarding money management and risk management. You have to know in what situation you will enter according to you rules if the rules doesn´t apply you will not enter the market.
But I would guess that if you understand risk management in poker you have an advantage over other starting traders. But it doesn´t mean you beat the game.
I think if you want compare other aspects there is a lot more psychology in poker than in trading. I don´t want to offend anyone but if you play like 4 heads up tables at once you know what I mean.
Conversly you don´t really know your opponent in trading. You don´t know who took the short if you are taking the long. The main difference is that in Poker you can quit and there is another day. In trading if you have your trading plan, you have to stick to it even if you have 10 losers in a row otherwise you will lose the game.
I´m sure I could come up with other aspects regarding MM in poker and trading but I´d say it that way: My trading isn´t anywhere near to my poker game.
This is maybe the worst assumption about poker ever!
He got it somewhat right -skill and good discipline. He must watch too many of the edited poker tournaments where they emphasize the bluffing action for the tv audience.
It was the assumption that Poker is ALL about bluffing and trapping your opponents. That’s just BS
I´m pretty sure this assumption is from the TV shows. It is better for entertaining purpose but it has nothing to do with the game itself. The game nowadays is in some way very technical, just like chess. There are strategies that some of your opponents are using and you have to counter those strategies. Thats all. If that counter strategies involve more bluffing so be it.
But how often will a trader extend their stoploss when price is moving towards it? For the undisciplined trader, quite alot.
At the poker table, there are certain “distractions” which you don’t have to contend with in forex trading:
Those chip stacks are quite impressive.
You’re right, Jay. They sure are stacked.
The chips, I mean.
I’m talking about the chips.
(Sorry, was I getting distracted?)
Go to poker listings website and look under blogs to see Eugene Katchalovs story of transitioning from day trading to poker
cant post link not enough posts
The thought processes for the two are very similar. I look to get my money in with a high probability that my hand is ahead of my opponents range of hands and sure there is a percentage of the time where I am weaker but as in trading not every signal I receive is going to be correct 100% of the time. If you played the hand correctly or planned the trade correctly the outcome will go your way more often than not which makes you profitable.