Poker Pro needs Career Advice: Trading --- Work and Compensation

Background:
-24.5 years old
-Made 2-3M playing poker
-Expect to continue to make 7 figs yearly (1M up to 4M (function of #hours and effort))

Right now I'm in the middle of The New Market Wizards and have to say that if trading is really this intuitive/lucrative I might be in the wrong business. I really don't like the glass ceiling I've hit in the poker world.

What I want to know is how difficult it is to pull in 5M+ yearly trading on your own or with an investment bank/hedge fund? How much of my life would I commit to make these kind of earnings assuming I do better than 99% of all other traders? Am I looking at 80 hour weeks?

If you know of anyone pulling in these kinds of numbers please share.

As much as I enjoy the freedom poker affords me the thrill of something more lucrative is enticing.

 

I love how just because a few ex poker players succeeded in trading it's now considered just an easy career switch. Also I find it quite hard to believe that someone making a million dollars a year playing poker would be researching a career change.

What decent investment bank/hedge fund would throw money at a random poker player who makes that kind of money.

You'll either sound like a liar or a moron, take your pick.

 
Best Response
jktecon:
I love how just because a few ex poker players succeeded in trading it's now considered just an easy career switch. Also I find it quite hard to believe that someone making a million dollars a year playing poker would be researching a career change.

What decent investment bank/hedge fund would throw money at a random poker player who makes that kind of money.

You'll either sound like a liar or a moron, take your pick.

SIG has a pretty strong tradition of higher ex-poker players.

Look at SIG and other prop-shops. Don't bother looking at trading for a bank, you'll probably get thrown into a normal analyst program.

 

So quick to judge. He was told to post his question here after putting it on another forum (poker-related). After running through his post history (2.5 years, >200 posts), nothing seems out of place. Made 100k+ in 2008, and was playing 1k hunl (and higher) online in 2009. Recently mentioned looking for a 50/100+ PLO game in Austrailia. Perhaps his annual range is overstated, but if he figured it based on his hourly x 80hrs a week, which he mentioned in the post, his winrate is $1k / hr. Reasonable number depending the stakes he's playing in 2011. He'd also have no reason to troll this site, he asked the same question on another.

 

lol... I know plenty of people made millions yearly from online poker, spending 40 hours a week. Just because you guys haven't done it, doesn't mean OP is trolling.

But I wonder how you are expecting to continue to make 7 figs yearly, when everything online just got shutdown. Playing poker in a casino is much slower, therefore earning potential drastically decreases.

 

Just because I'm making a killing in poker it's somehow unreasonable for me to seek an avenue to greater profits....makes sense. I cannot make any more playing poker, 1-2k/ hour is about the max you can ever expect to average.

What I want to know is how much effort can I expect to expend to see personal profits in the mid 7 figures (5M+)? The other forum I posted on one response quoted 4k-10k hours to maybe see those kind of profits, can anyone confirm or deny? Factoring in opportunity cost and time value of money is this ever the right play? Also, I'm not looking to fetch coffee 80 hours a week so that will somewhat narrow my options to prop shops, right?

Don't bother posting if you're just going to claim that I'm lying about my poker success.

 
Fluck:
Just because I'm making a killing in poker it's somehow unreasonable for me to seek an avenue to greater profits....makes sense. I cannot make any more playing poker, 1-2k/ hour is about the max you can ever expect to average.

What I want to know is how much effort can I expect to expend to see personal profits in the mid 7 figures (5M+)? The other forum I posted on one response quoted 4k-10k hours to maybe see those kind of profits, can anyone confirm or deny? Factoring in opportunity cost and time value of money is this ever the right play? Also, I'm not looking to fetch coffee 80 hours a week so that will somewhat narrow my options to prop shops, right?

Don't bother posting if you're just going to claim that I'm lying about my poker success.

That depends on a lot of things. What product do you want to trade? How much leverage do you want to use? Your trading style? If you are looking for a job, you probably start as a trading assistant. You won't be trading much during the first year. Mid 7 figures takes time.

 

Mate your not talking about a straight conversion here. Not every ex poker player makes it to the promised land of millions of dollars in trading just because of this risk management skill transfer that you supposedly get from playing the game.

If you do have such balls and determination to trade why wouldn't you just start on your own. You clearly have the capital but now you want someone to stand over your shoulder and teach you how to play? Jesse Livermore accurately describes trading as a lone wolf tactical game. With your capital if you had the confidence to be trading you would be doing it and not looking for some glorified place to make you look good on paper.

 

I think you need to learn more about the career path of a trader before you make such a leap. If you're talking about trading at an investment bank for example, you won't be breaking 7 figures for at least 7 years at best (and that's if you're REALLY good) which equates to 21k hours assuming you work 60hrs a week.

At a prop shop, you eat what you kill so you could break 7 figures a lot sooner .. but it's far from an easy path anyway and just because you've been successful in poker does not mean you will be successful in trading.

 

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