Jun

9

Socks on the handsI believe the absence of routine may be a critical factor in creating failure. All the distractions, including the physical and mental act of taking phone calls is enough to throw a game off. I liked to do very normal things throughout a tournament, as I reached the finals, and I would recommend that for a trader. Whatever you do, don't use the hands and mid level organs before you play.

Nick White comments:

I also hold that routines are essential to success– no doubt about that. But is there some wisdom in allowing for the fact that life throws the odd curve-ball? Are there circumstances whereby following a usual routine will get one badly hurt or killed (market or otherwise)? What ought to be done when a personal disaster strikes 2 minutes after one has placed their largest position and it then gaps half a percent against? What principles of training facilitate adaptation to the wild rather than adaptation to the expected?

One society in history seemed to grasp this - the Spartans. Their routines seemed to emphasize preparation for both the expected and predictable, as well as to develop faculties, skills and resources to deal with that which was difficult to prepare for…in other words, to build up so much personal and corporate redundancy in capabilities that there was very little (bar hubris) that could steal the victory.

Jeff Watson writes:

Whenever I am in any kind of competition, trading, poker, surfing, whatever I try to follow the same script., In poker, for example, I pick up the cards the same way every time, look at them once and leave them face down on the table. I handle my chips the same way every time and time my reaching for the chips do it in the same manner. I keep the same vacant look on my face and time my eye blinks. I keep conversation at a polite minimum as tremors in a voice can give away tells. I wear a high collared shirt as I don't want a pulsing jugular to be seen. I have several other proprietary methods to minimize any tells and other methods to create false tells. still, according to one of the ex-world champions of poker, I have less tells than anyone he's seen, but the tell I have makes him able to read me like a book. From past results, I believe that he's telling the truth.

Nick White asks: 

Can tells in a closed-form game compare to tells in a wild environment? If one lost a comparably ruinous percentage of bankroll in the market as their poker game, would the displayed tells be the same? Or concealment easier? 


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