[maddog2030]

First off, I know that there's plenty of these type of posts but I didn't see what I was looking for. Most people were just asking for books for beginners or something along those lines. While those would be good advice, I think there's enough of those posts already that I can get that information readily. I'm sure what I'm about to say has been discussed many times but I couldn't find much doing a search. So if it has, search terms or links would be appreciated.

To give you a better idea of what I'm actually going to ask, I'm going to explain my situation in a nutshell:

I'm a college student and have been playing poker for a few months now. I've made a few grand and haven't really cashed out any of it (with the exception of purchases of poker related software). Over this summer I have a well paying job, and I think I'm going to sit tight with the limits I'm currently comfortable with (and now fairly overbankrolled for), so I have no need or desire to withdraw the extra money for any real purpose. Also, I don't expect this poker fad to last forever so I want to get started in other oppurtunities while it lasts. I've wanted to get into the investment arena for a while now but I've never really had any money to do it with being a broke college student. So I figured what better way than to get started than with a portion of my poker profits.

The problem arises that I have absolutely no idea where to start from. You can pretty much assume I have no idea how the market really works, or anything in the investment arena really... I have a passing understanding but that is all. Nor do I know what type of investing I even want to do or what would be best for me. What are my goals you ask? Makes as much money as fast as possible with as little risk as possible, but I'm sure that doesn't help. I'd basically need to lay out my options on a table and then decide from there but, again, I have no idea where to start.

I want to learn how the market works, the various theories/models predicting its behavior, etc., and in the end, to turn a good profit. Yeah, wouldn't everyone.

So what I'm asking is what would be the best place to get started? A lot of the threads asking for books are geared to specific types of investing. I couldn't tell you what type of investing I'm interested in doing because I have no idea. But I want to learn.

Any resources, books, other possibly more active message boards, general advice, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Also, do you think $1,000 would get my started pretty well? More? Less? (It probably depends on what type of investing I'm doing but I figured to throw a figure out there at least)