Poker vs Crypto

Due to COVID and other reasons I have not been actively involved in Poker for a while, and so I was kind of forced to look for alternative sources of income. Since then I have found what I've learned from playing poker to be applicable in my Crypto strategy, for example Bankroll management, reading and analysing your competition, finding ways to increase my edge, maximising value and minimise losses, etc. In this article I want to use poker as a comparison with crypto and why I feel that crypto is so much better than poker. Most of my readers are poker players and using this analogy might make more sense for you. I want to encourage all my friends to get into crypto before it is really too late, and you can thank me later. 

I look at my crypto investments as buy-ins in a poker game. As any responsible poker player would, I would split my bankroll into at least 20 buy-ins. So say I have a $20,000 bankroll, each buy-in I would spend on a coin would be $1,000. Some coins that I have more faith in I can buy in 2-3x but generally one unit is 1/20 my entire roll. 

1. ODDS OF WINNING / LOSING

The best hand you can have in poker is AA, and the best scenario you want is getting it all in preferably heads-up vs KK. In this situation you're risking all your chips for a 100% return (assuming similar stacks and there's no rake) However even in this ideal situation you still have a 19% chance of losing it all. You have no control of it at all.

On the other hand in crypto, you can decide the fate of your buy in yourself. You can sell it at any price, all or parts of it. Sure we won't know the odds of winning/losing however you can take profits or cut losses with full control. In poker you can't take profit before the river even if you have your opponent drawing thin. You always have to see it till the end/river and have to survive the variance. In crypto, there is almost zero chance of you losing ALL your money. Barring a world-ending apocalyptic event, your coin value will never drop to zero. And if you do your homework right, and set a stop-limit/cut-loss say 20% of your investment, then you can never do worse than that and all the room for the upside. 

2. RISK VS REWARD

On a poker table, at any given hand, the best return you can have is to get 9x your money, assuming the whole table goes all in. Which NEVER happens, unless you're in a flip out tournament. But yet in that scenario, even if you were holding the best hand your chances of winning is at best ~30%, meaning there is a ~60% chance of losing it all (keyword ALL) Most of the time the best return you can get on a hand is to double or triple your money, minus the rake. 

In crypto, if you pick the right coins, (especially now that the market is bullish), you stand to earn 300-1000% of your investment. If you have a diversified portfolio, you can multiply your chances of hitting a gold mine. 

Took a calculated gamble on XRP

3. PREDICTING FUTURE MOVEMENTS

How many times have you looked down at a premium hand, build the pot preflop only to see a disappointing flop like 789, or a monotone flop but you don't have that suit? Raising preflop with KK or QQ only to see an Ace on the flop? We all know the best hands to play but no one can predict what will come on the flop, turn or river. 

In crypto, you can sometimes predict how the price will move based on price history, market bull/bear, market news, coin announcements, regulatory decisions, market capitalisation, coin supply, market adoption, heck even Tweets or YouTube videos! In some cases you can buy/sell in anticipation of what will happen in the future, hence increasing your chances of making a profit. 

4. FREEROLLING / RATHOLING

You're running hot on the table. You manage to turn your 100bb buy in into 500bb, which is a good day for you. But there are players on the table that covers your stack. One wrong move might cause you to lose everything. You want to switch tables so you can down stack, or come back after one hour to restack, or worse, I've seen players sneak chips off the table. I have zero respect for people like that. Please don't be like that.

In crypto however you can sell your coins anytime you're satisfied with the profits. Some players have a strategy of selling a portion of their coins to recover the initial investment and keep the rest as a freeroll. Taking profits along the way but still keeping some in case the coin price continues to rise. Then you can use that money to invest on another coin or consolidate your portfolio by increasing your BTC or blue chip holdings. 

5. EARN / LOSE WHILE YOU WAIT

The small and big blinds are there for a reason. It forces you to play more hands otherwise if you just sit there you will lose 1.5bb every round. Most players don't realise when your stack dwindles, your potential profit does too because you can only win with what you have. 

In Crypto the prices do fluctuate and sometimes you find yourself having to wait for the market to recover. I waited 4 years for one coin which is now 10x my entry price, but am still waiting for it to go higher. But with savings, staking, lending and yield farming products, nowadays you can earn passive income on most coins. Most returns range from 1-25% per annum.

While some people may not be swayed by modest returns, many people do not understand the difference between crypto earnings vs bank saving products. Say you have $10,000 and you put that amount into a savings account / fixed deposit at your bank for a 3% annual return. At the end of the year you will receive $300 as interest. However in crypto, you invest that same $10,000 onto a coin. If the coin is $1 each, then you would buy 10,000 coins. Then you put it into crypto savings/staking for a 3% return. At the end of the year you will have 300 coins from your interest/dividends. But if during that time the coin you bought appreciated to $3 a coin, the 300 coins you earned are now worth $900. Your ROI is actually 9% instead of 3%. Of course your coin price might fall as well, but like I mentioned above, if you study and pick the right coins, they should appreciate over time (especially at this stage of the market), but the money you put in your bank would have depreciated because of inflation. 

Let your money work for you ~ Kiyosaki

6. FISH VS REG RATIO

During the poker boom, making money from poker was very easy. A lot of players didn't know what they were doing and any pro worth their salt had such a big edge. Because of the hype there were many new entrants to the game. I remember making a decent living playing poker in 2008 but looking back I was such a bad player! I just happen to be slightly better than the players who learned from Zynga. But now, you have to navigate GTO math freaks that do not tilt, have deep bankrolls and play with no fear. Solvers, HUDs, hand charts, you name it. 

Crypto may have been around for about 12 years, but it is still very new to most people. But it is slowly becoming something you cannot ignore. In the coming years there will be millions of new entrants bringing new investment dollars into the market. Not only does that mean the market will grow stronger and bullish with the injection of new blood, that will also mean there are more fishes in play. You might think in crypto you're going against the market, instead of individuals. But these new buyers/sellers that are prone to making mistakes will allow a seasoned trader more opportunity to capitalise on their lost value. 

One of the biggest mistakes a crypto fish can make is they get excited when they see the market moving up, so they buy as the prices increase. But a sudden dip makes them panic and they sell at non-optimum prices. An experienced trader would be make preemptive moves therefore buying cheaper and selling higher than the newbies, therefore maximising their value when others mistakenly loses their value.

A crypto fish BUYS when prices RISE, and SELLS when prices FALL. A crypto pro BUYS when prices FALL, and SELLS when prices RISE 

I am not an early adopter of crypto but I have done well for myself in a very short time, and I foresee the coming 5 years there will be more money poured into crypto than ever causing it to bull for the longest time we have ever seen. If there is a time for you to enter the market it is now. So far quite a few people have come for me to help them get started. I AM NOT A CRYPTO EXPERT nor financial advisor but I know more than the average person and can explain it to you in the simplest way that makes it easy to understand. All I ask is to use my links to sign up as your way of helping me back. 

HOW TO GET STARTED

Binance is the largest crypto exchange for you to start your journey of buying and selling. 

Kucoin is another exchange but has a great lending system where you can earn much higher interests (for example the USDT interest on Binance is 6-7%. On Kucoin you can earn 40-48%)

On BlockFi you can earn higher interests than on Binance

In order for you to capitalise on the profits of newer coins, you need to buy them before they are listed on the major exchanges because most people are lazy. This is an easy way to get another edge on the other market players. So some smaller and sometimes slower exchanges are:

Hotbit I bought some high potential coins here like Statera (STA), Rocket Pool (RPL) 

Bitforex is the exchange that launched Ecomi (OMI), one of the hottest NFT companies that have partnerships with Superman, Batman, Ultraman, Star Trek, Disney, Capcom, etc. 

You can also contact me at happyriverpoker@gmail.com if you have further questions or if you have any tips you would like to share with me!