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Comment by conistonwater | Hacker News Reader

For anything specific to do with statistics, risk management, finance, or programming, you are always better off studying it directly, the normal way, instead of going through poker. The same is true for basically any hobby. It's a crutch that people use, and an excuse for them to slack off.

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As someone that had both studied and researched statistics (publications) and played poker, I disagree. Studying these topics will leave you with an academic knowledge, not a practical and deeply learned knowledge.

There is a reason trading firms and hedge funds prefer to recruit good poker players. It's because it (i) teaches these concepts at a visceral, muscle-memory level, (ii) it teaches you to apply the concepts while under emotional strain (you may be surprised at the % of statistics professors will crumble totally when they have skin in the game), (iii) it teaches you to merge the concepts together (game theory, stats, etc) in a single cohesive decision-making framework. These are not skills that academic coursework can give you.

Consider an analogy: Is it better to learn programming through merely coursework/textbooks, or by picking up a project where code is required to complete that project?

It's also fun. It's the only reason many people get exposed to these important concepts without ever wanting to study statistics etc formally.

No one (prop/hedge funds) really does that anymore. Hiring poker players directly that is. Outside of really niche small firms with really specific cultures. It kinda almost happened with SIG and Jeans89 but Jeans already had a relevant degree on top of being a top 0.00001% player.

The direct analogies between poker and market making are already way thinner than many people make it out to be though they still exist. But I’d argue poker experience is basically completely useless for quant investing.

Nobody hires directly for it but it is considered favourably. SIG also has Bill Chen heading stat arb. Most firms I know of have a reasonably vibrant poker culture internally.

Is the head of stat arb now? I thought he was messing around with sports betting in Dublin or something.

Anyhow having played/discussed cards with quite a few trading and research people from SIG I can safely say the poker thing there is more marketing fluff than anything else. Pretty effective marketing though it seems. Which is fine of course, because trading is a completely different game.

For a very large set of people, motivation to study is absolutely key. If your motivation comes directly from learning the concept itself, you may be right that studying it directly is more effective. But for many, trying to do that because it's "better" will lead to worse outcomes when they end up not completing the study.

Calling it "an excuse to slack off" ignores that different people's motivations are different. If being interested in poker makes someone want to learn the underlying math, then that probably is the most effective way _for them_ to study it.

What I specifically found useful about poker is helps you internalize the process of applying theoretical knowledge through repeated practice playing and analyzing thousands of hands. The incomplete information and multiple factors involved also are a good training ground for the real world.

As a former professional player whose last two employers use poker as a marketing tool for hiring, I strongly agree. If you want to be good at a game, learn that game specifically.

What you say has the benefit of sounding like it might be possibly true, but years of scientific thought paying dividends in other areas in unexpected ways demonstrates the exact opposite.

For example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies

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