While it’s true that poker can be financially risky – and shouldn’t be viewed as a replacement for regular earnings – this doesn’t mean it should be discarded as a hobby. Moreover, poker can teach you startling abilities that can be transferred to other areas of your life such as how to better handle your money.
Risk management
Almost every decision we make in our lives has some risk attached. Buying a dog is a bet. Buying a car is a bet. Buying a house is a bet.
Like most things in life, poker too involves a fair degree of risk. After all without money on the line, it would be an incredibly boring game. However, poker teaches us that rather than try to eliminate risk, we should simply aim to manage it better.
In the same way that you would use your due diligence on a big cryptocurrency opportunity, or run market research for a fresh startup, you should also spend plenty of time on research. This means not only becoming a student of the game, but also making sure that the platforms you use are safe, reliable, and legal.
Analytical skills
Poker is a game of odds. To excel, you need to learn how to predict the chances of winning any given hand. Players learn in time that by calculating the odds in poker they stand to gain advantages that aren’t there when relying solely on intuition or emotion. Understanding those key terms like pot odds, implied odds, and expected value can help you determine your best strategy for the game ahead. Being able to spot trends can always help you get the upper hand in business.
Patience
Warren Buffet once claimed that the stock market is “a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient”. What he meant by this was that far too often, investors are scared out of their positions. Just like being able to keep a calm head when the cards don’t fall your way in poker, you need to have faith in your investments if you want to reap their rewards.
Budgeting
It’s easy to get carried away in poker, but exceeding your budget can leave you in a sticky situation. The best poker players live by their limits and make sound decisions accordingly. Practising good budgeting in your personal life allows you to control your spending, track your expenses, and save more money.
Humility
Failure is a great teacher. Many of the all-time business greats failed before they succeeded. Take Henry Ford, whose first car companies failed or Colonel Sanders who’s fried chicken recipe was rejected thousands of times. If they had walked away, they would have never had the success they later had in life.
Every great poker player has made silly mistakes, played too loose, and wished they had folded earlier. One poor poker game, like one poor financial decision, doesn’t need to be a setback.