I've never thought that there was a close relation to trading skills and poker skills. The mechanics of success in both games are different and trading requires much more dynamic skills. Poker has only so many variables but trading the markets has a seemingly infinite number of variables that affect prices. I am biased, but in general, I believe those that are successful at trading are more talented than those that are successful at poker.
That being said, the chances of success for being a professional trader are higher than a professional poker player. One, the rake in poker is higher than in trading and the market is so much bigger that the opportunities to make money in trading are much greater than in poker.
In poker, playing by the book is playing tight and aggressively. I don't think that's the best way to trade. If you trade waiting for only the best setups, you miss a lot of 60-40 setups which are positive expected value. Also, there is less luck involved in trading than in poker. In poker, the randomness of the deck can win you a big pot or lose it for you. Sure, there are economic and earnings reports that seem random, but there are often small clues to whether the numbers will beat or miss. In trading, the action is less random, there are patterns, which repeat often but with slight variations. In poker, the way the cards come out is totally random, there is no pattern. There is a pattern to the way people play their cards, but no pattern to how the cards come out. In trading, there is a pattern to the way people trade and also there is a pattern in the way prices move. Thus, trading rewards pattern recognition skills much more than poker.
There is one thing which I do think is similar to poker and trading. That is a person's psychology when winning or losing. In poker, players tend to play worse when they are losing and better when they are winning. Poker players often go on tilt and stray away from their strategies to try to make their money back quickly. In trading, it is the same way, when traders are losing, they tend to question their strategies, chase trades, and lose their patience. When down, poker players as well as traders are in a hurry to make their money back. It is easy to be patient when one is winning. Hard to do when one is losing.
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I think trading is like fishing. One of the best trading movies in my opinion is not Wall Street or Rogue Trader, which just glamorize finance, but the Perfect Storm, a fishing movie.
You see this? LMFAO. I never realized what a corporate cheerleading circus side show CNBC was and how ulterior-motived these reporters are. Owned by GE, they are definitely full of shit. Erin Burnett is majorly full of shit. She should suck dick for a living. I bet she does behind the scenes.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cnbc-guest-tells-truth-calls-cramer-shallow-yanked-air
Looks like someone finally called out Cramer and he got booted. CNBC is useful to get a pulse on what the general investor thinks, but most of the anchors are unbearable.
I haven't gone fishing in ages, I know Livermore was an avid fisherman, though.
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