Since several of my friends have been thinking about leaving poker after the DOJ seized the domains of several poker rooms I have asked Brian Wideman of Fifth Street Trading to write a guest post about their investment coaching program for professional poker players.
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Fifth Street Trading is an educational resource created for fiscally responsible Poker Professionals, by a Poker Professional. Our goal at Fifth Street Trading is to educate Poker Professionals who are interested in the management, preservation, and growth of their own wealth. By creating a small, highly motivated, tight-knit community of like minded individuals, we hope to greatly lessen the learning curve associated with the trading and management of one's own savings.
By providing our clients with the knowledge and skills necessary to generate small, consistent monthly returns in the FX market, we hope to create a new breed of poker player, one that is both in control of their own financial well-being and prepared for the uncertain future of poker. A competent Poker Professional will be able to diversify their income and in a short amount of time become less financially reliant on poker in general.
The Fifth Street team is currently comprised of Brian Wideman and Sam Patterson. Brian is a long time professional poker player that for the past two years is transitioning into trading and small business development. His goal is provide poker players who are serious about diversifying their income a community of like minded individuals. He created http://fifthstreettrading.com/ to fill the current needs of those poker players struggling to keep up with the ever toughening games. The current legal development in U.S. online poker is a major wake up call to thousands of professionals out there that relying on one source of income is not only risky, but possibly just flawed in general. By providing members with a community of hungry, highly skilled poker players all interested in trading, he foresees more well rounded players emerging from the community with new income streams.
Sam Patterson is the lead instructor at Fifth Street Trading. He has over 20 years of trading experience and has traded everything from stocks and currencies to commodities and options. Sam is an active part of the community and provides members with coaching lessons, mentoring, chart analysis, trade feedback, and our cornerstone service, a live video stream of his actual charts and trades.
A lot of poker players approach us and ask, "Why should I learn to trade when I make money playing poker?" First off, we do not recommend anyone quitting poker, or any job for that matter. We do recommend possibly looking into trading as a way to add an additional stream of income though. I highlight some of the main reasons below:
- Learning to trade is a lifelong skill. The market will ALWAYS be there. Online poker....we are not so sure, and this recent Department of Justice indictment of Full Tilt, Poker Stars, and Absolute is a perfect example of why having only one income stream is risky.
- The income ceiling for a professional poker player is pretty low, and it is getting harder and harder to make a living online. There are only so many Phil Ivey's and Tom Dwan's. Unless poker is legalized, taxed, and regulated in the United States sparking a second "poker boom" the games will continue to get tougher, and players will watch their incomes plateau, or even decline.
- The income ceiling for a trader is MUCH higher than poker, and it takes the same skills to make 3% a month on 10k as it does to make 3% a month on a million dollar account, at least that is the way it is in the Forex Market.
- Learning to trade can lead to great opportunities in the financial industry. Whether it's a job on Wall Street, or a job in Venture Capital, learning how the markets work can be a major plus for your resume.
- A diversified income is MUCH better than one variance filled one!
The next question most people ask us is "Why Forex? I like the stock market!" And like before the answer can be quite lengthy, but the main points are below:
- The Forex Market trades 24/7 from Sunday night to Friday night, allowing someone with a 9-5 job or someone who puts in a lot of volume at the tables the opportunity to trade and learn around the clock.
- Liquidity. The foreign exchange market's average daily turnover is estimated at nearly four trillion U.S. Dollars. Just the spot currency market alone absolutely dwarfs even the largest stock markets in the world. This allows large traders to get in and out of big positions quickly and cheaply.
- The Forex Market's size and turnover is increasing every year meaning more opportunities, and no real restriction on account size and liquidity anytime in the near future.
If you want to trade stocks instead, that is not a big deal at all. We just trade currencies and use currency charts in the training and analysis. The skills you will learn and develop are applicable to any market though, so don't feel like a membership is limited to those who want to trade Forex. A membership with Fifth Street Trading comes with a number of services, but the one I want to highlight for everyone is our live video stream of Sam's desktop and charts. Picture being able to watch a professional poker player grind the tables all day and talk about why he is making the plays he is making. This is impossible because those with the live feed would sit with the unsuspecting pro, see his hole cards in the live feed, and take his money. With trading though it is possible, and we are providing this to our members. Sam will be streaming live, trading a real money account for everyone to see with complete transparency for 20-30 hours a week! Our membership gives you access to this live stream for four months. This allows you to pick the brain of a professional trader for over 400 hours during your membership. He is there to coach and mentor you for anywhere from 4-8 hours a day! Try getting that sort of access to a professional trader anywhere else without paying 100-400 dollars an hour for it.
We provide a free consultation AND a 2 week free trial to anyone and everyone that is interested. If you have interest in learning to trade, but you are in need of advice, direction, and coaching, please contact us today and we would be happy to discuss your personal situation and goals for free. We would then let you try everything for 2 weeks, and if it's a fit, you can purchase a membership and training package.
You may email us (look under "join") to set up your free consultation and trial. We look forward to hearing from some of you and adding you to our growing community.
Sincerely,
Brian Wideman
CEO, Fifth Street Trading LLC
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