[Dogpile]

I highly recommend reading the books by Ed Miller:

for newbie: start with 'Getting Started ni Hold 'Em' by Miller

once you have read that a played a while: read 'Small Stakes Hold Em' by Miller (this book is considered the bible for online players).

there are a ton of parallels between poker and trading. most especially regarding bankroll and going 'on tilt'. 'on tilt' refers to how you much more poorly you play after you face serious adversity -- bad luck or a series of events where you think it is unbelievably unlucky. I can't tell you how important this is in both poker and trading. Every single person in the world will go 'on tilt' to some degree -- the question is how much. It is much much better to face this 'tilt' situation at a small stakes poker game than it is when trading futures. you need to learn to control this or you will blow out your account -- either poker or in trading. honestly, you would be amazed how your breathing and heart rate change when you have lost money. the issue with poker is, how much worse do you play when on tilt versus how much do you win when others go on tilt.

poker is actually a 'cleaner' game than the markets. after a hand is over, you can see the other persons cards and then go back and calculate precisely what % of time you would win the hand and what % you lose and therefore can see in retrospect what you SHOULD have done and compare that to what you did (cost of a bet versus the payoff -- called 'pot odds'). you can't do this in trading -- but the concept is the same.