Path to being a Quant? Math phd and current online poker player

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Hello to everyone,

here is a quick overview of my background. I finished a phd in pure math at Canadian university 3 years ago but knew towards the end of my degree I wasn't interested in continuing in academia. Because of personal circumstances, after graduating I ended up playing online poker full-time and have been doing this ever since (I started playing in grad school). However, as of recently I've begun looking at options for a career. I also have an interest in my personal finance and the crypto markets so I've been considering something in finance. Being a Quant researcher/trader seems appealing as it shares many of the things I love about both math research and playing poker.

So far I've sent out applications to a number of job listing for Quant positions in Canada but not gotten any interview yet. My current plan is to take some time to strengthen my applicant profile before starting to send out applications for US/international positions. There's no rush to send these out as I'm still making decent money with poker. Right now, I'm going through Hull's textbook to get a better grasp of the financial stuff and going through brainteasers/mental math stuff to prepare for potential future interviews. However, I'm also considering taking on a small project. Either,

1) A blog with a couple of posts detailing various facets of online poker and viewed through a quantitative thinking lens. Hopefully something that can convey the relevance of poker for a Quant job.
2) Some sort of programming project. Unsure about what it could be but potentially also related to poker.

How useful would either of these projects be helpful for my applications? I'm also open to the suggestion of doing something else entirely.


Thanks for the help
 
You may know this famous Black Jack player and also a quant who originally discovered Black-Scholes but not published it?


Read about his path.

Your mind will probably be more suitable for a trading job, as you are used to make decisions. Quants don't do that. They provide decision making tools, but decisions they don't make. That's the key difference.

Hull textbook is ok for starters. A more quanty texts are by Wilmott, for example. Or by Shreve.

To learn about what quants actually do at work, consider taking my course, www.qaprofession.com. Spoiler, it is not math or ML.
 
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