Should you be playing poker if you want to get ahead as a trader?

24 September 2010

2 minute read

Should you be playing poker if you want to get ahead as a trader?

Traders like poker. On Wall Street they have their own Wall Street Poker Tournament. This year it was won by Peter Muller, founder and head of Morgan Stanley's quantitative investment unit.

The The Quants by Scott Paterson begins with an entire chapter devoted to the 2006 Wall Street tournament, attended by everyone from Ken Griffin to David Einhorn, Carl Icahn and Cliff Asness.

Even when they're not playing poker against each other, traders are good. Having come 18th in the World Series of poker in Las Vegas four years' ago, David Einhorn proceeded to make a speech about how "trading and investing require similar skills."

According to Einhorn the "day traders" of the poker tables are those who, "play lots of hands... and try to win lots of small pots." The long only closet-index traders are those who "play any Ace or King or any two high cards. They play too many hands, but don't play them well." And the Berkshire Hathaways are those who keep folding until they get a premium hand a huge advantage.

Einhorn said his own personal poker style being patient and waiting for a big advantage: "I don't play a lot of hands. But I don't just wait for the perfect hand. They don't come up often enough. I try to pick out one or two people at the table I want to play against or who I sense don't want to play against me."

When poker peps up a CV

Unsurprisingly evidence of poker playing can be a constructive addition to a trading CV.

One trading firm includes a few hands in its interview process. Susquehanna International includes poker in its training programme.

Danny Kessler, managing director of London-based trading house Met Traders, says 75% of the traders who apply to him play poker either online or with friends.

Unlike betting on horses or roulette, which are down to luck, Kessler says poker can be a sign of trading aptitude: "It's a game of skill and is about working out probabilities. If it's sufficiently coupled with evidence that someone can be disciplined, that's a good thing."

If you're a trader and you don't play poker, now may be the time to start.

AUTHORSarah Butcher

Global Editor

Ja
James
27 September 2010
Dominic Connor - I think you are a complete waste of space
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Kv
Kv
26 September 2010
If it wasn't for risk takers, the world would be a pathetic shadow of its current form.
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po
pokerplayer
26 September 2010
Even somebody had a big tournament win and can demonstrate that, it doesn't necessarily mean he is a winning player or good player. Could buy into many tournaments and just get lucky once. In fact I made a big tournament win online when I just started. In retrospect it was luck and sheer stupidity.
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Do
Dominic Connor, Quant headhunt
26 September 2010
As a headhunter I can say that several very big name employers have specifically asked for poker players.
...but for specific roles as in algorithmic trading.
But I'm ot sure that poker is a good fit for compliance....
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Br
Brian
26 September 2010
There are some similarities....I view investment as identifying the price of an asset and then assessing whether the markets (most other participants) will likely agree with me at some stage thanks to events/catalysts that may change their perception. There are similarities but necessary criteria to be an investor?.... Inversely, one could apply investment principles to Poker but then it's no longer a game. 'traders play poker' - it's a sound-bite. What's the correlation between golf and trading - probably higher.
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