A Hard Way To Make An Easy Living

Stock Girl gave Mr. Multi and me an informative introductory lesson in stock trading yesterday. It seems that  that trading is both a very different animal than poker, but also very similar. Risk-Reward calculations, planning a trade/hand, different styles of trading/playing, tilting and emotion, TAG vs. LAG, etc. Quite a few very successful poker players have gotten their start in day and swing trading before making the jump to poker, and the opposite is true, also. I've been interested in learning how to trade for a while now, and these lessons by Stock Girl look promise to be a great source of both basic and advanced information.
Anyway, one of the bullet points that was included in the slides she presented was a question: "Why do you want to trade? Primary Income? Supplementary Income? Fun?"

This question struck me afterward as being very applicable to poker. Further, I would guess that many of us who play poker never ask ourselves this basic question. Nor do we then tailor our learning and/or play to match the answer.

Mr. Multi and I talked about this a little after the trading lesson. MM and I have a a lot of similarities in our interest in the game, but our actual reasons for playing poker are in fact quite different. Mr. Multi is fascinated with the interplay of a poker hand, what the psychology of the players are, and how different players approach the game. Many times in the past, MM has talked to me about the concept of player persona's, and "changing personalities" during the course of a game or tournament. Said another way, MM's primary reason for his poker interest is largely a study in psychology and human nature. The money is almost a secondary consideration.

For other folks, money is the only thing. Take the pro Dusty Schmidt, aka "leatherass," for example, who has a total and overwhelming focus on how many dollars he earns per hour. Poker is his primary source of income, so this is understandable. In his book Treat Your Poker Like A Business, Schmidt writes that when when he's watching TV or spending time with his family (i.e., when he's not sitting in front of the computer screen, multi-tabling high stakes NL cash), he's acutely aware that he's not making his potential hourly earn. Money is everything for players like Schmidt.

I'm definitely somewhere between these two extremes. I play poker for a number of reasons. I certainly am focused on growing my bankroll, but not strictly for money's sake. Said another way, I seem to like the challenge of building a bankroll from nothing more than I like the actual end result of a pile of money. It's more about process than results. (Now, don't read this the wrong way: I definitely like the money I make playing poker, but there are much easier, much less stressful ways in life to earn that same $15 per hour I make at the micro-stakes tables.)

Way back when I started this blog, my main focus in poker was on getting good enough to win my way into a major tournament, such as the WSOP Main Event, and then go deep. This is still one of my big poker goals, but I have to admit that if it never happens it will be okay. As I slowly master this silly game, I realize that the learning process is never complete, but that's exactly what I like best about it. As someone once said, "poker takes minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master."

The reason I play poker, I think, is to continually get better at something that is difficult to master. Winning money is important, but it's secondary to (and will follow from) learning and mastering the technical aspects of the game. For me, it's the journey, not the destination.

All-in for now...
-Bug