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The recent online poker news smacks of an eventual full-blown legalization in the United States, with the major casinos profiting handsomely (along with governments on various levels). The last time I played online for any kind of serious money was back in 2006 on PartyPoker, which was basically the golden age anyway as far as the amount of “easy money” there was to be made. Since then, I have known plenty of players who kept large sums of money online, complacently assuming that they could always withdraw it if need be. That kind of assumption proved to be a costly one, as most of those accounts will likely be frozen for a very long time, if not confiscated. For me, though, despite my success a few years ago, I was much better at playing “live,” meaning in person.
My experience has been that many successful online poker players are not very good when playing in brick and mortar card rooms, as is my bread and butter. Understand that when you are sitting at a table with nine other people looking at you squarely in the eyes, most of them have only one goal in mind: To take every last penny to your name until you stumble to the parking lot as the sun rises the next morning. Sure, there are plenty of recreational players who come to the casino to have fun, but the higher the stakes, the more serious the players. Therefore, it follows that every single move or mannerism you make, and every single word you utter gives away information about your emotional state, quality of your poker hand, and how much you really “need” the money stting in front of you in the form of stacked chips.
Online players will argue that you need just as much, if not more, composure than playing live because of how fast-paced the game is. In other words, if you momentarily lose your cool and continue to play online, you will make many more mistakes than in a card room where you cannot obviously play several games at once like you can online. While this is certainly true, and there are some excellent online players for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, there is nothing quite like the nuances of playing in real life that tests the character of a person and caliber of a player.
In trading, you simply must have the ability to move beyond the education and theory, and take the inevitable losses with cool emotional detachment. Many traders become wildly emotional simply by losing money on a trade they had conviction in and really wanted to see pay off. Can you imagine how they would react if the person on the other side of that trade was taunting and goading them every step of the way, face to face in real life? Forget about taunting for a moment, how about having to watch as the person on the other side of your trade counts and neatly organizes your money with misplaced confidence, unaware of how “lucky” he or she just got on you.
It is only if you are capable of calmly sitting there, emotional equilibrium intact, offering a genuine smile while respectfully knocking the table with your fist and sincerely saying, “Nice hand, sir,” that you just might be able to last a few more years in this trading business of ours.
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{A Good Lesson on Composure–Or Lack Thereof}
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprGnEjm2oE 550 412]
Sigh…. As a canadian I was able to withdraw all the money I had on fulltilt surprisingly quickly… the wire transfer hit my bank account during the night… That said, it sucks for americans who had their funds frozen and it will make online poker harder than it already was… I might have to switch to b&m too if I want to pay the mortgage, but driving to the casino seems like such an hassle !!!
Cheer up. Poker is far from dead.
evil. i hate the fat guy. whatever happened to the russian?
LoL Tony G is a dick.
I agree Chess – I can’t play online poker for shit because I can’t see the person’s face. The minute I get to a table, I can use probability AND emotion – without that emotion portion, I’m worthless!
Nice, Moose. Agreed.
Good thing I lost all my online poker money a long time ago.
I guess it was better to have lost it in battle rather than stolen from you in the middle of the night.
Very honorable of you.
Ha! Thanks Forrest, I couldn’t get into Full Tilt because I couldn’t upload the software but I got it through the UK site which is still functional. Not only is my 39 bucks “apparently” still there, the site is still operational. I played one hand at a 6 max table to test it out and got some Russian all in with his trip nines. Unfortunately for him, I took his money with my King high flush. Not bad for one hand, lol. I’m leaving my money there, I don’t really care about it, I,m just more happy that I can stillplay.
Hahah
Good job Kelk… For months I refused to deposit on Loto-quebec because of the higher rake, but I gave it a go this morning and apart from the fact that there was not a whole lot of players, it seemed to be full of awful players… Maybe Quebec is the next Russia…
If I had someone like this Tony G beating me up after every trading loss, I would have quit years ago. Great post.
Thank you. Don’t sell yourself short, though.
Excellent post.
Thanks, Yogi. Appreciate that.
I don’t play poker, so I can’t comment on that, but re emotions and keeping it in check in light of others making fun of you, and taunting and goading: I’m a (now retired) champion action pistol shooter (IPSC, that’s USPSA for you in the States), and hell, I’d shoot on squads with my competition, and we’d tease, make fun of each other, try to play mind games with each other, anything and everything to fuck with the other guy(s) to screw up their game. Funny, I have no problem with that, face to face, I have a harder time dealing with a faceless “market” fucking with me 🙂 Face to face, we’d try and screw with one another in the match, and then go out for dinner/drinks/party together afterwards, most of us were able to keep the game persona and the real person separate.
I donno… I have emotions about trades, I’m happy about a winning one, and I’m not happy about a losing one, I can’t imagine not having those. I mean, come on – who enters a trade, thinking, I don’t care, one way or the other, if I win or lose on this trade? Of course we care… The moment you care, you have emotions.
The fact that we accept that losing is part of the game, and we can’t be paralyzed by the fear of losing doesn’t mean we can’t express emotions about the two possible outcomes.. Does it?
Just like I can have a huge, loud argument with someone about a specific topic, and then, once that’s over, go party and drink with them, I can be very happy or incredibly pissed off about the outcome of a particular trade (and express those feelings), and then move on to the next one without any lingering feelings affecting my future behavior… (excluding learning any lessons from the trades, I mean).
I remember reading in Trading in the Zone that one way of thinking about it is that every loss brings you closer to a win. Hell, I think I’m due for a lottery jackpot now 🙂
Cool
Thanks for your take on this. I used to play at Party too a few years ago, mostly I would open up 3 tables of 6 man Sit and Go’s and I really liked the speed of it. I suck at livepoker and get really bored with how slow it is, but I am sure I am at tables where the stakes are much lower than you are used to 🙂
Nice
When Matusow busts out the Shiek, that was my favorite poker moment.
2005 WSOP Main Event–Was a good one.
That Tony guy is a total wanker … wow.
I only ever played poker with my girl friends & sisters but I totally relate to your point, great post.
When you trade online you don’t see them but they are there. You need to be a bit obsessive / passionate / fascinated to do the work required for this job … because the guys on the other side of the market to you are.
Thanks!
That last paragraph of yours – think I’m going to print that out and tape to the top of my computer. Ties in well with the realization that every time I buy, there’s someone selling b/c he thinks the trend is done and vice versa…
Thanks. Appreciate that.
Thanks for the humor and it is a good message. Don’t let someone get the best of you
Cheers
One of my favorite poker moments…”what a horrible river card for you” lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kycdQnKPz0
Plus, I like how the guy puts on the fake show by splashing the pot with his ton of chips, saying “gamble”. Owned.
Chess: Love your comment on “Can you imagine how they would react if the person on the other side of that trade was taunting and goading them every step of the way,”
As one who plays at the biotech tables from time to time, my favorite contrary indicator is the degree to which the gibbering morons on the Dot-Com-That-Begins-With-Y Message Boards fling shit at each other. The more posts per day, the more likely it is that the only thing keeping a stock up is a mob of retail traders who’ve gotten in over their heads and become “true believers”: people who are long not because they reasonably speculate that the fundamentals will eventually bear them out, but people who are long to prove a point against the people baiting them. The shit that goes on out there is ricockulous, and useful only as a contrary indicator. If you’re at a poker table and you don’t know who the fish is, it’s you.
Poker fascinates me, but the funny thing is that when I’m at a brick-and-mortar casino, I play blackjack over poker. Blackjack is a card game that happens to be played for money – entirely unlike poker, which is a money game that happens to be played with cards. At the low stakes blackjack tables where I play, there’s no problem with people attempting to count cards, because the house knows that – over thousands of hands – n00b card counters who get it wrong even 1% of the time will [i]underperform[/i] players who merely play 100% perfect basic strategy.
There certainly seems to be a correlation between success at poker and success at trading. This has always struck me as odd, as one’s opponents on the trading floor are typically institutional funds so large as to make a retail trader irrelevant, and it’s become even more so with the advent of algorithmic trading. At blackjack, my mantra is “the dealer’s a robot, and to beat him, I need to play like one too”. Perhaps I’ve got the right idea, but have been playing the wrong game.
Added to the To-Do-List: Next time in Vegas, pay for some tuition at the poker tables. It’s cheaper than learning on a stock exchange.
If you feel that the adjustment for an online player going live is tougher than an adjustment for a live pro going online (not sure if that’s your stance, maybe you’re just pointing out some differences), then I am going to have to disagree. Fundamentals take you much further than picking tells or playing mind games. In fact, Daniel Negreanu would take my side —> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgLvTZf9i9A
Both sides have to make transitions but for the online player, it’s far easier. There have been many online pros that have proven their edge in the live game, far greater than live players proving their edge in the online game.
I see your points. Don’t necessarily disagree with them. We will see over the coming years just how much of an edge–if at all–many of the overly aggressive internet players have.
I swear, if i were that russian guy perry, i am right in tony G’s grill and let him have it, this is utter nonsense the way he behaves, same crap with hellmuth. Fucking disgraceful player, I don’t think KJ at that spot was too big a dog to his A2…