Written by: Goshawk Trades
Compiled by AididiaoJP, Foresight News
Poker is one of the most powerful strategies in trading.
Jeff Yass, with a net worth of approximately $67 billion, requires every trader at Susquehanna, the hedge fund managing over $500 billion in assets, to learn poker.
This is the core content of their trading training.
Why?
Poker teaches you the key skills that distinguish professional traders from amateurs: placing proper bets, managing risk, thinking in probabilities, and controlling your emotions during market volatility.
These 5 poker concepts can elevate your trading skills.
1. Position Management
This is the most important lesson poker has taught us.
Even in Texas Hold'em, when you're dealt pocket Aces—one of the best starting hands—you'll still lose about once every five times. If you go all-in with Aces every time, bankruptcy is inevitable—not a matter of if, but when.
The same applies to trading.
Even your most confident trading opportunities can result in losses—and you may lose more often than you think. If you risk 30%, 40%, or even 50% of your account on a single trade just because “the chart looks great,” you’re just one losing streak away from liquidation.
Many people forget this mathematical truth: if your account loses 50%, you need to gain 100% just to break even.
That’s why professional poker players and professional traders care about the same thing: not how much they can win, but whether they can afford to lose.
Manage your position so you can withstand volatility—that’s what matters most.
2. Choosing the right table is itself an advantage
When playing poker, even if you're the world's 10th-ranked expert, it will be very difficult to make money if you're seated at a table with nine other top-10 players.
But what if this expert sat at a table full of amateur players? Over time, it would be nearly impossible to lose money.
The market is the same.
Choosing which market to trade in is one of the most important decisions you’re likely to overlook. Many retail traders start with forex or stock indices—the most competitive and information-transparent markets on the planet—then wonder why they can’t make money.
But markets with less active trading often present more opportunities—such as emerging markets, low-liquidity crypto pairs, and prediction markets—these are the “soft tables” in trading.
Large institutions may not be able to operate effectively here—either the market is too small, making it difficult to enter and exit, or the regulatory requirements are too high to meet.
This is your opportunity.
3. When the odds are in your favor, bet bigger.
When playing cards, the better your hand, the higher your chances of winning, and the more you bet. You wouldn’t bet the same amount with a pair of twos as you would with a pair of aces.
This sounds simple, but most traders completely fail to do it.
They place the same bet on every trade, regardless of signal strength.
Top traders and poker players adjust their position sizes based on the odds. When the advantage is clearly in your favor and the opportunity is strong, increase your stake. When the signal is weak or uncertain, trade small or stay out entirely.
Card counters understand this best. When the odds favor the player, they increase their bets. When the odds are unfavorable or unclear, they place the minimum bet.
If you can't calculate the odds, or if the odds aren't in your favor, don't place a large bet.
4. Always focus on the process, not the outcome.
This may be the hardest part to accept in both poker and trading.
You might have made a mathematically sound decision and still lost money. Or you might have made a terrible decision and still profited. In the short term, luck doesn’t care whether your process was right or wrong.
But what about in the long term? The process is everything.
The poker player pushed all-in with a 90% win rate and lost—but he won’t regret it. The decision was correct; he just had bad luck, and those are two different things.
The same applies to trading. You might get every step right for weeks or even months, yet still lose money. There will be times when you just can’t catch a break, and you may even start doubting your strategy.
Many people break down at this point—after a few consecutive losses, they abandon a good strategy because they confuse "bad results" with "wrong methods."
Professionals don’t do this. They review their decisions, not the outcomes. They ask, “Did I follow my system?” not “Did I make money today?”
5. Build the mental resilience to withstand volatility
Poker can teach you how to handle difficult moments.
You will definitely experience highs and lows. There will be periods when everything seems to be working against you, and times when you feel invincible.
Both situations are dangerous because they affect your decision-making.
Top poker players have a skill some call the "Zen robot state"—focusing solely on the current hand, not dwelling on the previous one. They observe only the present situation and take only the necessary actions.
In trading, it means not being driven by the profit or loss of each individual trade. Your goal is not to feel happy when you make money or upset when you lose. Your goal is to execute your trading system, allowing the probabilities to naturally play out over a sufficient number of trades.
That’s also why I’ve always recommended making your trading strategy automated—let the system place orders so emotions don’t get a chance to interfere. You won’t hesitate to enter, panic and make reckless moves after a loss, or hold onto a position out of anxiety because of a previous loss.
Automation can't eliminate volatility—no one can. But it can help you avoid the emotional damage that volatility causes.
Finally, I'd like to say
Ultimately, it comes down to these three points: knowing your strengths, understanding how probability works, and developing the mental discipline to consistently leverage your advantages over the long term.
Poker provides an excellent training ground, as it operates in a small, fast-feedback environment that simultaneously hones all three of these skills.