Winning Strategies in Texas Hold'em Poker

Janak9955

Long-term poker training, seeing through the illusion of the stock market

In fact, I've always dreamed of becoming a stock trader. When I was a child, I found it very interesting to watch my family members watching stock analysis programs on TV. At the age of eight, I curiously asked, "Can you make money from this?" "Yes, you can, you can make a lot of money!" "Okay, then I want to do this." And that's when I became very interested in stocks. At the age of twelve, my parents really took me to Wall Street to visit the New York Stock Exchange and even took pictures with the bull. "This is where I'm going to work in the future." Unexpectedly, I later found a more interesting way to make money and plunged into the world of Texas Hold'em poker.

On the journey to becoming a professional player, I once felt disheartened due to bankruptcy and even considered giving up. It was during the summer vacation of my junior year when I lost 2 million in just half an hour. The last time I went bankrupt, I went to the bookstore and bought a bunch of stock books to study, trying to rediscover my childhood aspirations. Later, when I returned to the poker circle, I realized that my life was not destined to be a stock trader. But from then on, my stock investment never stopped. Whenever I had spare money, I bought stocks, continuously investing 50,000 or 100,000. As the number of stocks in hand increased, I became particularly sensitive to fluctuations. With each decision, it was hundreds of thousands or even millions at stake, just like playing cards. So, I began actively studying stocks again.

Stocks are very similar to poker; you need to clearly calculate the value of each target. Everyone knows that in Texas Hold'em, AA has the highest value before the cards are dealt, but as the community cards are revealed and other players act, the value of AA fluctuates, sometimes up and sometimes down. You must follow these cues to adjust your perception of the "value" of the current hand. Stocks are the same; find good targets, calculate the intrinsic value, buy below the intrinsic value, and sell above it. Don't worry about daily fluctuations because they don't affect the intrinsic value of the stock.

However, stocks are different from poker. The difficulty of poker increases linearly with the level; the higher you go, the harder it gets. With stocks, even a small amount of capital can be operated with no significant difference between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. Moreover, there are many "fish" in the stock market, with a bunch of uninformed, chaotic investors focusing on "prices" every day and investing based on gut feeling.

Warren Buffett metaphorically said that the stock market is like an automatic pitching machine, throwing many balls to you every day. In this baseball game, there are no strikeouts, no limits on the number of swings, but in real games, if you don't swing, you'll be out.

Texas Hold'em has blinds and time limits; you can't wait for cards all the time and are forced to take action. Many times, you have to swing even in bad situations. But stocks have no time limit; you can wait for whatever card you want to play. Even if you don't swing, you won't be out until the right ball comes along, the quote is right, and then swing hard.

Don't fantasize about historical prices, focus on the present value

I once tried hard to find investment tricks and stock secrets, attended many stock investment classes, and carefully studied Buffett's investment principles, only to find that stocks, like poker, have no tricks—they're just about finding good companies and calculating their intrinsic value. Buy when the stock price is below the value, then hold for the long term, become a shareholder of the company, earn from stock splits and dividends, and wait for the power of compounding to make money for you. The principle is simple, but the hardest part is execution, which most people have unrealistic fantasies about.

I once researched the Taiwan stock market and found that "Yifeng (8464)," a company that makes curtains in traditional industries, was very impressive, with beautiful reports and steady profits. When I mentioned this stock to a friend, the stock price was 250 NT dollars. "Why are you picking this kind of stock? Where did you find it?" He didn't buy it because he thought it was expensive. Later, this stock rose limit up for several days in a row, and my friend, who only loved chasing stocks, was eager to get in. But I calculated that the reasonable entry price was between 200 and 220, so I begged him not to get in and to wait a little longer! My friend didn't care: "But this stock once reached over 400 NT dollars, and it's still far from its historical high!"