trading & poker

I started out trading this year and managed to achieve a 83% ROI annualised (38% in 191 days).

My next step will be to get together a good trading stake so that I can trade fulltime. I think I can beat the market big time. I think I have a good feel for it and the skills required (analysing a situation, thinking in a broad perspective, etc).

I'm getting serious about poker and figured that would the best way to make some money to get together my trading stake. I worked as an IT-consultant last year and taxes & rent ate my earnings alive.

I started out this august and beat 1$/2$ Limit from the start. Unfortunately I lost my earnings to NL games. This week I'm taking another shot at Limit, including using PT, bonus-whoring etc. I want to move up to 3$/6$ by the end of the year.

Q1) What do think of the idea in general?
Q2) At the moment I'm out of work. Should I get a job again for some non-variant income? I'm getting unemployment benefit, which is quite a lot. (~150-200$/month)
Q3) When should I shift from my poker BR to my trading account? I guess I want to have at least 10G$ before cashing out.

I'm 24, got a B.Sc. and would like to do a M.Sc./Ph.D. but I don't have the money.

[Paluka]

For the love of god, get a job.

what were you trading?

[zerosum]

[ QUOTE ]
For the love of god, get a job.

[/ QUOTE ]

[tek]

Work during the day. Check your stocks while working. Play poker at night.

For the love of god, post if have to say something and stay away otherwise.

My salary when I would get a job again, would be ~45G$. tax is about 18G$. So my net salary is about 27G$ for which I would have to work 45h/week 46weeks/year =~2000h/year. I have to substract extra expenses (car etc) ~3G$.
That would be an hourly rate of 12$.

This about the bottom end, what I can think I can achive playing Low Stakes LHE, not including moving up to mid/high stakes.

More importantly is the growthrate of possible earnings. In a standard average career I would guess that would be max 5%/year. This is the absolute bottom end of what I think I could achive playing poker.

Another benefit would be more free time to study the markets. My performance would improve perhaps 15-25%. That would be an extra of 1.5G$. The dole is an extra of 1.2G$.

To sum it up:
1.year:
day-job: 24G$
poker: 4 tables x 2$ (1bb/h)=8$x50h=400$x46weeks=18G$
+dole 1.2G$
+trading 1.5G$
=20.7G$

2.year:
day-job: 26G$
poker: 4 tables x 4$ (1bb/h)=16$x50h=400$x46weeks=36G$
+trading 3G$
=39G$

I the extra $$$ pays off the negative effects:
-> not much contact with people
-> parents won't be very happy

Any substantied critism will be greatly appreciated.

[MrBlue]

Are you day trading?

What products are you trading?

How are you getting past the PDT rule without 25k if you are trading equities?

[Paluka]

The idea that you can beat the market, but you somehow aren't smart enough to get a better job than the one you describe makes zero sense to me. If you are such a master of trading and poker, you shoud be able to get a great job. From your posts, I don't think you know the first thing about poker or trading.

[zerosum]

[ QUOTE ]
For the love of god, post if have to say something and stay away otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

OK. You have asked for advice from strangers. You have thereby demonstrated that you are NOT ready to undertake your propoposed course of action.

Right. Anyone who has a clue doesn't use this forum! How about contributing something meaningful, proving a line of argumentation, instead of just spamming the thread.

[ QUOTE ]
If you are such a master of trading and poker, you shoud be able to get a great job. From your posts, I don't think you know the first thing about poker or trading.

[/ QUOTE ]
1. Not in the country I live in.
2. How do you tell?

1. No, longterm investing & a few shortterm trades.
2. European Stocks 1:1
3. I don't live in the US.

[zerosum]

[ QUOTE ]
Right. Anyone who has a clue doesn't use this forum! How about contributing something meaningful, proving a line of argumentation, instead of just spamming the thread.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now you're tilting.

I incorporate by reference my previous response. It was offered with sincerity.

The fact that you viewed it as *spam* and the fact that it tilted you should give you pause.

Good luck.

[Sniper]

Salary: You should move to the US, even an entry level IT consultant doing tech support work makes more than double your annual salary!

Poker: 50 hours of 4 tabling, every week, is not as easy as it sounds... based on your other posts, it sounds like you could use some more experience here... additionally, in my opinion, you shouldn't consider yourself a poker pro, until you can show consistant profit at the 5/10 level or above.

Trading: If you intend to have any kind of life outside of "work", your not going to have much time to devote to stock research, after playing 50 hours of poker every week... also, while your short term results may look good, have you established any kind of a trading plan that would allow you to continue to maintain that type of performance over the long haul?

Remember, both in poker and trading there is a time requirement beyond just the actual playing of poker and the trading... to be truly successful, you will also need to do research and post play analysis in both cases.

I highly recommend you pick up a few "Starting a Business" and "Working from Home" books, and give serious thought to the "Do you have what it takes?" chapters. You might also find the "Quiting your day job/Going Pro" Threads in the 2+2 forums (The mag forum has had a few, so you can start there), interesting reading.

Finally, it is important that you not only be appropriately bankrolled for your poker and trading careers, but that you also have your expenses covered for at least 1 year, while you go through the growing pains of the transition. Unlike a regular paycheck, in both poker and trading it is possible to have a losing month... and you can't start out on weak financial footing, or one bad month could put you out of business, or worse!

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you are such a master of trading and poker, you shoud be able to get a great job. From your posts, I don't think you know the first thing about poker or trading.

[/ QUOTE ]
1. Not in the country I live in.
2. How do you tell?

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhh, cause Paluka is good at both?

What you said up to now: You can't do it. When you don't provide any argument the information is useless for me. If you would say: your plan is naive, because X and therefore Y that would be helpful.

All I'm saying I think I can do is stated above. Simple statements like "you suck" wasn't quite what I was looking for. How can you judge me like that with no or little information?

And if somebody was good at trading & poker their advice should of more value than zero.

[Degen]

Applying my poker knowledge to trading (and i know very little about trading) I'd say your approach to trading, and high opinion of your abilities after your run of good luck (results) makes you sound like a fish.

I'd suggest reading Fooled By Randomness and some other books that aren't so keen to the idea of GET RICH IN STOCKS!!! so you aren't hit in the face with a brick at some point (or at least you can reduce the liklihood of this happening).

I'm good at poker and trading.... I also stayed at a holiday inn......

[MrBlue]

If you're swing trading, why not hold down a job and trade on the side? If you are as good as you think you are, you'll be increasing your networth much much quicker than just living off investments alone.

Thx for the link, I will read the book. How much time do you consider to be a minimum for judging skills? My data for the stock market is ~20 months where I did better than my benchmark (SX5E) and 90% of the mutual funds in the same market.

[DesertCat]

Why don't you post one of your successful "trades" along with the analysis you used to make your purchase and sell decisions? Just like posting hand histories, this might provide you with more serious feedback on your trading/investing abilities.

[AceHiStation]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm good at poker and trading.... I also stayed at a holiday inn......

[/ QUOTE ]

Lets quit butchering the Holiday Inn Express jokes please... i like the jokes, just get it right =)

Anyways, to OP, are you calculating taxes into your poker winnings? Cause Jail for tax fraud is most likely -EV
-Ace

Thx so much for your advice.

1. You're talking about the cities, right? I will seriously consider your suggestion.

2. I don't have a trading plan really. At the moment I'm gathering experience and study books etc. My next step is to gather a significant trading stake.

3. I'm currently out of work & so I will probably give it a shot anyway the next months. Do I really need a thing like a "poker-business plan"? What would it contain?

My plan up to now is to
a) work really hard on my game (analysing hands, taking notes, reading articles & books)
b) play regular hours and leave enough free time for recreation etc

[Paluka]

This has been covered in many, many threads on the forum already, but for a beginning poker player it is clearly better to have a job too. This is because very few people end up being able to put in "full-time" hours playing poker. Basically, having a job and playing poker in your free time means you will end up playing at least 50% of the poker you were going to play anyway.

[Girchuck]

How are you set with bankroll and reserve living expense funds? What are your actual living expenses?
Do you think that earning 24G your first year will allow you to accumulate large bankroll necessary to advance in stakes?
Are you prepared for several years of grinding at poker tables? How long have you been playing poker? What intensity? Do you expect burn-out from poker? Are you prepared to deal with burn-out psycologically?
What is your current win-rate approximately? Over how many hands? Do you expect the current poker environment to stay at present skill mix for long? Do you have a plan of improving your poker skills?
Unfortunately, none of these questions are addressed by your posts. People in these forums want to see most of these questions addressed by posters deciding to go pro.
If they are not addressed, the automatic assumption is that the prospective new pro will go broke. I am surprised no one asked for your handle on the sites you play.

[zerosum]

[ QUOTE ]
What you said up to now: You can't do it. When you don't provide any argument the information is useless for me. If you would say: your plan is naive, because X and therefore Y that would be helpful.

[/ QUOTE ]

I truly wish you all the best in your endeavours.

[smb394]

[ QUOTE ]
This has been covered in many, many threads on the forum already, but for a beginning poker player it is clearly better to have a job too. This is because very few people end up being able to put in "full-time" hours playing poker. Basically, having a job and playing poker in your free time means you will end up playing at least 50% of the poker you were going to play anyway.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is indeed the way to go. And if you haven't discovered it yet, the best way to build your poker bankroll starting at $1-2 is through smart bonus whoring (of course, solid play helps /images/graemlins/smile.gif)

Yeah, you're right. I'm now taking into consideration taking a job in the financial industry. I think the magic number where trading income exceeds fixed income additionally is very very high.

Now you are on the right track:
What people are trying to say to you is that you are asking the wrong question. That alone alows them rightly to assume that you probably wont make it neither in poker nor in stocks with your current knowledge and concepts. You have to be really careful with your future plans and heavily improve on both fields before you can make a serious attempt to beat anything - and not end up as sushi yourself!
You seem to be in some early stages of a learning curve to a master of games. Until you reached a competitive level (and right now you dont have) look out for a job first, spend time reading books and 2+2. The job wont necessarily hurt you on your way. Its not how much time you spend with learning, but the quality of your studies - which are quite suspicious (from what i see in your posts).
good luck
u

Good advice, thx.

You're right: I am at the beginning of a learning curve. But I am ready to do whatever it takes to master the game(s).

[Goodnews]

first, get a job, even if its part time. at least if you ever decide to go to a more formal interview, there wont be a huge gap of unemployment to be questioned.

second, you mentioned playing on regular hours, this is proven to be not your maximized +EV, you play only when you have an edge, whether that means for 3 minutes, or for 3 days.

i tried to go pro during my summer (i am an 18 yr old engineering student) for a month, i made some good money but i burned out and it was a very valuable learning experience. hopefully you will understand that what you say sounds romantic and give you freedom, but it is in fact a different kind of ball and chain.