[rutang]

my primary circle of friends and I are all old magic pros/players who are now pro poker players, and there are tons of us. Hanging out at the WSOP was like a reunion of old magic pros...

Learning Magic probably won't help your poker game that much. There are a lot of reasons old MTG pros do well at poker, and few of them correlate to it helping a poker pro improve their game.

1. Magic does improve your poker skills. Hand reading, applying math concepts to a game, general game theory.

2. MTG pros are people who were predisposed to the skillset that makes for a good poker player. When the poker boom happened, it was a natural transition.

3. MTG pros grew up playing competitive games for money that is significant to them, and learning how to cope with the pressure and all that comes with that when you are a teenager leads you to head start in the poker world.

4. MTG pros learned how to improve their game through group dialogue and many other techniques that are far more unfamiliar to non MTG players.

5. MTG pros had a pre-existing network of gaming friends to learn poker with.

6. competitive magic players who were successful owed a lot of that success to the ability to adapt quickly to a changing game. This is very, very helpful in the internet age where the poker dynamic shifts regularly. (B&M, internet poker, multitabling, pokertracker analysis, HUDs, etc)

Personally, my first experience with Texas Hold Em was playing with other MTG Pros at a Pro Tour event.