Could you explain your analogy between trading and poker?
I learned how to play poker at a very young age. My father taught me the concept of playing the percentage
hands. You don't just play every hand and stay through every card, because if you do, you will have a much higher
probability of losing. You should play the good hands, and drop out of the poor hands, forfeiting the ante. When more
of the cards are on the table and you have a very strong hand—in other words, when you feel the percentages are
skewed in your favor—you raise and play that hand to the hilt.
If you apply the same principles of poker strategy to trading, it increases your odds of winning significantly. I
have always tried to keep the concept of patience in mind by waiting for the right trade, just like you wait for the
percentage hand in poker. If a trade doesn't look right, you get out and take a small loss; it's precisely equivalent to
forfeiting the ante by dropping out of a poor hand in poker. On the other hand, when the percentages seem to be
strongly in your favor, you should be aggressive and really try to leverage the trade similar to the way you raise on
the good hands in poker.
Bielfeldt's story provides an inspiring example of what is attainable given patience on the one hand and an
aggressive trading style on the other. Here is an individual who, starting with a minuscule amount of money, working
independently, and without benefit of staff or elaborate technology, became one of the world's most successful
traders. Moreover, because of his long-term goals and actions, his ultimate success positively impacted an entire
community.
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The portion of Gary Bielfeldt's interview that I found most insightful was his analogy between poker and
trading. It is also interesting to compare Bielfeldt's key point in this analogy to the similar advice offered by James
Rogers: Have the patience to wait for the right trade to come along.
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