I've just finished my PhD in stochastic processes in a theoretical physics group and I want to get a quant job. (Are there any at the moment?!) I've been playing online poker lately and have been supporting myself for a couple of months with my winnings. Should I mention this on my CV? Maybe just under hobbies? It seems to me that it could indicate certain desirable skills and might even seem sexy to a recruiter, but I don't want to seem like a degenerate gambler!

depends a lot on the bank or HF you are applying to. Most banks would not want to advertise to their clients/investors they are a bunch of gamblers.

Susquehanna make a big thing about insisting on their traders playing poker regularly.I've always seen it as a positive on a CV. How can you be trusted with OPM if you haven't experienced risk for real with your own money?P

QuoteOriginally posted by: motsziI've been playing online poker lately and have been supporting myself for a couple of months with my winnings.Inexperienced poker players - players under 30 - should never mention poker to more experienced players in an effort to impress. You will almost certainly come off as ignorant and childish if you do. Are there any real poker players at places you might apply? I doubt it, so you are probably safe swapping nonsense tales.Anyway, if you play poker for a living then your job is playing against idiots. If your hobby is trying to play well against good players, then your job success is neither relevant to whatever they do at Susquehanna, nor proof that you are good at your hobby.

QuoteOriginally posted by: PaulI've always seen it as a positive on a CV. How can you be trusted with OPM if you haven't experienced risk for real with your own money?Many of the most successful poker players got into it because they are degenerate gamblers. And they play well enough, and well often enough, and long enough against bad players, to maintain their habit. I don't think people at the poker tables learn risk-taking lessons well, or that the most successful players stay around because they measure risk better. They time bluffs better, and pick up betting cadences better. These two skills are at least 20 times as important as risk management, which cannot turn a loser into a winner.Also, given a limited number of games to choose from unless you live in LA, given the fact they will be mostly limit games, and with the constraint that you want to sit next to an idiot, there is not much room left for risk-management decisions. The size stake you need to sit in many profitable games is also small relative to the amount of money someone who is smart enough to play poker can expect to stack in a month of non-poker work.Anyway, the 5% of idiots who run good for a few years is a larger population than the top 1% of players.

QuoteOriginally posted by: PaulI've always seen it as a positive on a CV. How can you be trusted with OPM if you haven't experienced risk for real with your own money?P There are many different types of risk taking. Gambling risk on rolling dice or poker is not the same as leverage buyout risk -- particularly if you think you have special talent evaluating leverage buyouts but no talent for rolling dice or bluffing.

If I were the interviewer, I think it's a good source of interview questions that are related to finance like risk-reward, probabilities, etc.

KT, I agree. In the UK there was a lot of fuss not so long ago about building a "supercasino."It was considered a good thing because of the jobs it would create. There wasn't much discussion of the downsides, all the new gambling addicts, or about what games of chance there should be, i.e. ones with skill, without skill, ones you can win if you are good, pure stats (e.g. dice) versus more subjective (horses).There are at least two aspects to this that may be of use:1. Understanding probability and risk, money management, etc. Taleb talks about the "ludic fallacy" i.e. that you can't learn anything from games with known odds. I disagree. You have to learn to walk before running.2. The physical and emotional experience of making and losing money. The 3a.m. cold sweats are similar whenever something big is on the line, money, house, etc. People should experience this with their own money before they go near mine!P

Some firms specifically ask for Poker experience in trading, quant/trading roles.

QuoteOriginally posted by: PaulTaleb talks about the "ludic fallacy" i.e. that you can't learn anything from games with known odds. I disagree.There is a very simple lesson that just because something works four times in a row doesn't mean you should do it a fifth time. And just because something fails four times in a row doesn't mean you shouldn't do it a fifth time. But poker has a finite epoch. In trading, the task of classifying new situations is relatively enormous compared to learning this simple lesson.

farmer, I agree. But that's no different from any walk of life. (It's also why children should be allowed to fall off a swing occasionally.) If you look at the technical forum here recently you'll see that people are not fantastic at picking up lessons in the classroom, judging by the number of people who don't undertsand basic option theory!P

So if I include it, which I think I will given the advice here, should it be under hobbies/interests? That's basically what it's been, I've just done well enough recently to pay some bills with it. I don't want to claim that it's more than it is, or that it uniquely qualifies me for any particular role in finance. I just think it's an interesting way of experience risk and randomness, and very human responses to them.I'm in the UK by the way, if that makes any difference.

I think it's like anything else you put on your CV, it is a subject they may question you on.

if the interviewer likes poker then its a big plus! Right on brother!

Poker is a story of the utter failure of human industriousness. The use of the Kelly criterion suggests you have abandoned marketing, money-lending, or any sort of investment or finance. The fact that you try to improve your own game, rather than hiring people who are experts in the different games, suggests you have abandoned commerce and specialization. The fact that you choose to play a zero-sum game suggests you have abandoned production and trade. Poker is an antisocial activity, and a portfolio of some of the worst habits that lead to the least success in business and in life.