Investing Lessons from the Felt
Even if you’ve never invested in your life, you may be more equipped than the majority just from playing poker. Sound ludicrous? I thought so too until I read a few articles on investing and realized the similarities. First off, as a poker online player, there exists a basic truth that you don’t play every hand. Actually, you don’t play the majority of them if you’re going to be successful. Well the stock markets are no different, you don’t invest in every good thing that comes your way. They may be a time where you have to fold your AA because the board looks too bad to continue with just one pair. Sound similar to business outlooks? Then you realize you have to have different lines to take to win different pots, namely you have to have a diverse game. That’s no different than having the ability to sell when selling needs to be done (fold), betting when the buying needs to be done, and checking when you need to just wait out a situation and see if it improves on a later street. Finally, if you play no limit online poker, you have to pick and choose your attacks. And by attacks I mean your all in assults. You can go all in with a 72 and expect to get lucky every time, but what if you have AK (you buy a little stock in a promising company) and you see the flop come looking like AK3 rainbow, and someone is betting at you (asking you to buy more somewhere else) yet you have a great hand so you decide to repop the opposition with your two pair (buy more stock and put it all in one investor for a nice ROI). Looks like you had a skill set you didn’t know you had afterall, huh?
