A few months ago I asked a friend who is a veteran trader and a former professional poker player for some advice before I participated in a charity poker game.  His advice was both very concise and very helpful. He simply said, “be patient”.  Of course, some part of me hoped he would share some special strategy or ‘pro poker secret’, but I quickly recognized the power of those two words.

There are many ‘rules’ in poker that can be applied to trading, and one that I talk about with my clients is the well-known poker rule, H.A.L.T.  Do not trade if you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Knowing when not to trade is an important but often ignored aspect of patience.

Of course, patience in trading can be applied in many ways, waiting for the right market conditions, waiting for the set-up, waiting for the trade to work, and so on. And lets not forget about being patient with ourselves.

As a side note, at that charity poker game I played fairly tight, choosing when to ‘go for it’ instead of overplaying, I played from a position of strength. At a table of 10, playing Texas Hold’em with progressive blinds, I came in third place…and the two people that beat me were very good and much more experienced than me. I’m a beginner poker player with very limited experience; I’ve never spent the time to memorize the probabilities in poker. I’m quite sure that I did as well as I did simply because I followed my friends advice and was patient. Sometimes the simplest of rules can be most effective.