I thought I might just mention what has happened so far in case anyone might want to know. I started with a $75 account at the cheapest tables I could find on the internet ( 2 cent - 4 cent ) plus a book, which has proved invaluable - yes really.
It took me weeks to inch my way up to a $100 account before moving up a grade ( 5 cent - 10 cent table ). Every time I dropped below $100 I dropped down a grade. This happened lots of times. Now thankfully I must have learned enough to survive the higher grade. Should I ever make it up to $150 I will move up another grade and so on.
This is really playing with other people's money - past the initial deposit - and a lot of fun

You will need more than luck folks.
So "Hasta la Vista" as Arnie said. ( Still not sure what it means but it sounds good ???)

Thanks for the tip BB, im up to $35 at DreamPoker now

Decided to watch some of the high stakes games there and both players had $20,000 at table and one went all-in with a straight draw and lost to a pair of kings. He didn't seem to bothered and brought another $20,000 to the table, he went all-in again, but it was a split pot. When I left the table he was down over $30k.

There have been numerous articles (and even a book) about how poker can help one to learn about trading and investing.

The two fields have numerous areas of common ground.

However, I have used poker to help me learn how to invest effectively for one main reason above all others:

1) You can play up to 20 hands of online poker per hour and therefore learn alot about your ability to deal with winning and losing money in a risky situation.

2) Unless you are a day trader (and you are unlikely to be one of those for a long time unless you are an adrenalin junkie with a "saved money death wish") you won't get to make 20 real life trades for up to 6 months in some cases.


Therefore, I view online poker as somewhat like a flight simulator - I can do lots of investing-related "flights", crash a few times and feel what it is like, but in the end not lose a boatload of money while learning about how I deal with investing.

I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this theme.

I think I am progressing at this game. Having learnt the book odds etc etc more or less I found I was folding hand after hand and getting pretty bored. so I experimented with marginal hands and now less than marginal hands. At the lower levels others don't keep to the betting advice. I think following the book religiously means one plays very few hands and when one does all the others fold, so a small pot anyway.
I am learning to play the other players and doing well even with pretty poor hands for starters. Great when a bluff comes off.
I can't quite see how this can be applied to trading except for the toughening up to take some losses without crawling away to a dark place to brood.

I agree with your perspective on the betting patterns at lower tables. Typically the money at stake on a hand by hand basis is small relative to the bankrolls of people playing.

However, I think that you understate the importance of "being able to take a beating and not crawl into a hole" (I know that I haven't quoted you exactly here).

To my mind this is one of the most important aspects of trading and investing.

However, there is a related aspect of "taking a beating" well that one can learn from poker.

In the long term playing Texas Hold'em well will result in you winning against opponents that are not good players. The corrollary to this in investing and trading is that if you develop a good system and stick to it you should prevail.

However, far to many people in both poker and investing deviate from their planned systems because they "can't take a beating". Everyone knows what Warren Buffett's system for selecting stocks is but very few people could adhere to it because they couldn't stomach their relative position during a situation like the dot-com boom.

Therefore, using poker to learn how to stick to a system in investing is an invaluable tool in my opinion. Naturally, others may disagree.....
But I know that I'm in reasonably good company. There are a number of top investors who swear by the use of poker as a way to learning some of the core fundamentals of investing and trading.

hi all,

just picking up on the poker books element of the thread, for me the best books bar none are by Dan Harrington and called Harrington on Hold'em 1 and 2. I find super system talks about concepts in games I don't play such as omaha etc, and harrington only does no limit hold'em, he focuses on tournament play but the concepts apply to cash games etc apart from the when to push element which obviously is not relevant.

But he teaches the maths of making good and bad bets, the guys are right about taking savage beatings in poker, you offer a guy 2/1 with the betting and he needs a 3-1 shot to get the card he needs and win the hand, if he takes that bet he loses, regardless of the cards and you want him to keep making that bet because in the long run he will lose to you.

When the shockers hit like a 2 outer you want to scream but you want him/her to keep making that bet against you, but they are top books and well worth a read.

cheers

just to finish ultuimately poker is a game of value and probability, yes you can bluff etc or have good reads on people but that is 20% of the game maximum, being solid first in the maths and starting hands is by far the better solution as you can play tightly and just make money off the guys chasing inside straights when they are not being given the correct odds.

Hi Bigbusiness, do you have a theory as to why this is? What seems to be the biggest difference in your experience?
I'd have actually thought it might be the other way round so would be interested in your experience.

I have found low level tourneys to be populated by people who mostly do not understand the game or do not have the discipline to apply that understanding if they do. This in itself can make tourneys a profitable proposition.

In cash games if you are disciplined, patient and have a solid understanding of the basics of the game then you can and should succeed. At least at the lower buy ins. To succeed in cash games has alot more to do with the psychology of poker than with luck. This is where most new players fall down. They play too many hands, they bluff too often, in short they do not have the patience or discipline to succeed. There is more luck involved in tourneys. However, with more luck also comes people who do not understand the right time and strategies to make that luck work in their own favour. They feel the presure to make a move and usually end up doing so at the wrong time or use the wrong strategy towards the wrong person. If you are disciplined and patient but also aggressive when you need to be, you can take advantage of these situations to win. Again, this is mostly about the lower level buy in tourneys.

I think tourneys are the perfect way to learn. You know what you maximum risk is before you sit down. Usually you will get to play alot more hands than you would at a cash game for the same buy in. Generally the people who don't know what they are doing are more likely to be reckless because they know they will only loose a certain amount if they bomb out. All these factors can make tourneys profitable right from the word go if you have even a basic understanding of the game.

Cheers,
PKFFW

If you lose a tournament, it probably wont take too much time and all you lose is the tournament fee. I remember one cash game when I spent 4 hours playing and was at break-even, when I hit a hand, put my money in as 95% favourite and lost. That was a lot harder to take than an exit from a tournament. I find the blind structure and constantly reducing numbers of players make tournaments more interesting to play than cash games.

At the moment, I have given up playing, as it is just too much time sat at a computer screen. Too many other things to do in the summer.