Poker is a game of risk and more Wall Street firms are turning to Texas Hold’em to help train new hires about investing. The Wall Street Journal’s Gunjan Banerji recently headed to the table with some investment traders to get their insight on how the game can help investors.
Some of those in the game included Susquehanna International Group associate director Todd Simkin and Jeremy Wien, founder of Moo Point Capital Management. The two outlined some key similarities between playing No Limit Hold’em and trading stocks.
“There are a lot of parallels between poker and trading,” Simkin told the Journal at the poker table. “There's the difference between making the right decision and having the right outcome. So even if you made the right decision, sometimes you lose and sometimes you make the wrong decision and win both happen at the poker table and in trading, you have to get comfortable with the variance in your outcomes.”
Risk Management & Much More
For Susquehanna, some poker training has become a regular part of the company’s risk management training for new recruits.
Wien is no stranger to poker either and has just under $1 million in live tournament winnings in a career dating back to 2007. That includes winning a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event at the World Series of Poker in 2018 for $537,710.
He said poker can help traders determine risk tolerance and to weigh many aspects of a deal before pulling the trigger. Those lessons came early when he learned the game in college.
“Poker came first for me,” he said. “It taught me patience because I was not a patient child and (also taught me) risk management.”
The two executives further expanded on their beliefs about the risks and rewards that can be found in poker as well as on the trading floor and in the boardroom. Check out the complete video below for more on this topic.
