To make a long story long, I've spent very little of my free time in the past couple of months playing poker. And regrettably that means I also have spent very little time on the boards. Not for a lack of desire, it's just that I'm in a position that it would be stupid of me to not spend my time more wisely educating myself financially right now so that it pays off in the long run.
I'm talking about investing. I've turned recently to researching publicly traded companies, spending on average 10-12 hours per week (about the same amount that I would previously have spent playing poker and on the forums) learning as much as I can about making high quality small cap equity picks and what to look for in a top tier fast growing company that I can own for years and not worry about. At this point I've gotten experienced enough to really understand the basics: reading balance sheets, cash flows, and income statements, and what they mean for a company. I've gotten an understanding of how various things like risks, equity, and forward earnings estimates are priced in, how to cut the crap out of CEO speeches and cut to the chase about whether they have true prospects for future growth. So of course I am still a novice, but I also feel confident enough to take the plunge and sink 13 grand into my choices. David Lynch helped me do that.
But wait, this blog post does have something to do with poker and could be of enormous financial value to those of you who take the time to learn.
This is an excellent article very much worth reading for anyone with a poker background that finds themselves with extra cash that won't be needed in the next few years and looking to get better long term returns than a crappy CD or, gulp, savings account.
All that said, there have been some private messages flying around with various folks on the boards who do day trading with forex and whatnot. You'll note in the article that the opinion of the author, which I agree with, is that this kind of short term trading is like taking a big gamble on one particular hand with a narrow edge instead of making your moves when your edge is much more clear. Here's a teaser from the article that cuts to the chase about what it means to be an investor vs a short term speculator.
So now we can get a bit better definition inside the category of gambling. Those players who attempt to ride variance are speculators. In the long run they have no expectation of having a positive expectation. This includes any casino game played against the casino, short term forex players, daytraders, etc. Those players playing in such a way to minimize the effects of variance are investors. These include long term investors and skillful players in games that have a skill/randomness combination (poker, backgammon, bridge, etc.).
One famous poker player, Phil Gordon, remarked in the introduction of his Little Blue Book: “Nearly every day people email me or stop me on the street and ask me: ‘What’s it like to be a professional gambler?’ I invariable answer the same way each time: ‘I’ve never gambled a day in my life.’ I consider myself a strategic investor. For every $100 I put in the pot, I expect to take more than $100 back out. If I can succeed more times than not, hand after hand, tournament after tournament, year after year, I ensure a long term positive expectation. That positive expectation applied over thousands of trials is what makes me a winning player.”
I quoted this because it simply can’t be said any better. Technically every time someone puts money at risk (i.e. not a government backed treasury) they are gambling. Played properly over the long haul, however, a skilled player can overcome the variance and ensure a long term positive expectation.
As always feel free to PM me if you have similar interests or questions about any of this. It is always good to bounce learnings off of others who are on a similar path. I'd love to hear from others more experienced in long term investing as well.
Been really busy with work and other stuff around the house and with family, plus vacation mixed in there, so poker efforts have been appropriately pushed way down in priority. Recently time has opened a bit more though....
I'm officially setting my 10K BR goal for 12/1/07, assuming I will not be blessed with any more time. I do believe that if I could focus on poker I'd pretty easily be there within a month but I have to give myself tons of padding given that I only have 8 to 10 hours a week for it.
To brag a little, (yes I realize it's mostly just variance) I have been on fire in the $27 turbo 9 man sngs on stars, really starting to get good with laggy play and reads. Tonight I played 10 games and here are the results. Seriously.
1st
3rd
1st
2nd
1st
2nd
1st
8th
1st
2nd
In that order.
Positive variance to be sure, but still it's good to see the positive more extremely pronounced and with more frequency than the negative. I scoped myself out of curiosity and if you do, you'll note "super hot" designation and my old 36% ROI bumped up to 37%, which I am pretty proud of because my ROI extends way beyond my recent upswings (although I still don't have 1k games on stars.) I'm sure it will settle back down once I get more games under my belt, although I only 4 table so that helps to allow me to focus on the games at hand rather than being too mechanical about it. I don't ever want my ROI at the $27 level to sink below 25%.
Also I'm contemplating moving up in stakes. Best wishes at the tables.
mid march i switched back to stars from FullTiltPoker.net and gradually moved away from 6 max. Of course, back to turbo donk-n-gos.
I also stopped tracking every single sng in my spreadsheet and instead am just relying on PT, although the point is that I am no longer actively monitoring stats. So I checked just now and as I expected, my ROI stats jumped mightily, from 24 to 39 (lol! ) over 550 games, although it's obviously some decent amount of variance. Won a few multitable dng's so that helps it too, but my 4 tabling of 9man sng games was quite successful and I'm sure the ITM was well over 50% there for a good streak of 25 games or so. It was so hot it was scorching.
I say this as if it is over now.
Anyway. Back toward the end of 06 (December? ) I set a goal to hit $5k by April 1st, then had to modify my goal based on the fact that I withdrew about 75% of my roll. Well, today I am definitely significantly above the 5k mark and will not likely dip back below. So I'm only 1.5 months late on something that I thought would set me back at least a few months.
It has been so busy at work I apologize to Xianti for not keeping up on the boards so much. He seemed pretty pissed, at least in the PMs that someone forwarded me he said he was thinking about booting me for not logging in over a 1 week period. So I'm back because I fear his wrath. Actually that never happened but I like to play up his powers.
My next target is 10k. I haven't calculated what a reasonable date is for it. Based on my biannual increase % in the past 2.5 years I'll have to guess it will be somewhere around late fall. Updates to come, keep it real.
Making money is easy: just get pocket aces all of the time.
Step 1.Get pocket aces and do a standard reraise against your opponent.
PokerStars Game #9282531408: Tournament #47158173, $15+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2007/04/06 - 14:04:30 (ET)
Table '47158173 1' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: loonatwok (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: DenLaw (1670 in chips)
Seat 3: RRRRR (1460 in chips)
Seat 4: Green Tara (1370 in chips)
Seat 5: Beachflower (1410 in chips)
Seat 6: CrazyM1 (1470 in chips)
Seat 7: FlyingSaucy (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: carpy001 (1390 in chips)
Seat 9: kewlstang (1730 in chips)
carpy001: posts small blind 10
kewlstang: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FlyingSaucy [Ad Ah]
loonatwok: folds
DenLaw: folds
RRRRR: folds
Green Tara: folds
Beachflower: folds
CrazyM1: raises 60 to 80
FlyingSaucy: raises 210 to 290
carpy001: folds
kewlstang: folds
CrazyM1: folds
FlyingSaucy collected 190 from pot
FlyingSaucy: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 190 | Rake 0
Seat 1: loonatwok folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: DenLaw folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: RRRRR folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Green Tara folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Beachflower folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: CrazyM1 folded before Flop
Seat 7: FlyingSaucy (button) collected (190)
Seat 8: carpy001 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: kewlstang (big blind) folded before Flop
So I took it down preflop. No biggie.
Step 2. Get pocket aces again two hands later.
Step 3. Against the same opponent raising preflop, reraise that sucker to tick him off.
PokerStars Game #9282546681: Tournament #47158173, $15+$1 Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2007/04/06 - 14:05:28 (ET)
Table '47158173 1' 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: loonatwok (1480 in chips)
Seat 2: DenLaw (1700 in chips)
Seat 3: RRRRR (1460 in chips)
Seat 4: Green Tara (1370 in chips)
Seat 5: Beachflower (1410 in chips)
Seat 6: CrazyM1 (1390 in chips)
Seat 7: FlyingSaucy (1610 in chips)
Seat 8: carpy001 (1380 in chips)
Seat 9: kewlstang (1700 in chips)
loonatwok: posts small blind 10
DenLaw: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FlyingSaucy [Ac Ad]
RRRRR: folds
Green Tara: folds
Beachflower: folds
CrazyM1: raises 40 to 60
FlyingSaucy: raises 230 to 290
carpy001: folds
kewlstang: folds
loonatwok: folds
DenLaw: folds
CrazyM1: calls 230
Step 4. Flop quad aces.
*** FLOP *** [Ah As 7s]
CrazyM1: checks
FlyingSaucy: checks
Step 5. Show you are scared of his preflop call by checking behind on your quads.
*** TURN *** [Ah As 7s] [Qd]
CrazyM1: bets 1100 and is all-in
FlyingSaucy: calls 1100
Step 6. Call the donkey over push on a Q turn.
*** RIVER *** [Ah As 7s Qd] [8h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
CrazyM1: shows [7c 8c] (two pair, Aces and Eights)
FlyingSaucy: shows [Ac Ad] (four of a kind, Aces)
FlyingSaucy collected 2810 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2810 | Rake 0
Board [Ah As 7s Qd 8h]
Seat 1: loonatwok (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DenLaw (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: RRRRR folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Green Tara folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: Beachflower folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: CrazyM1 showed [7c 8c] and lost with two pair, Aces and Eights
Seat 7: FlyingSaucy showed [Ac Ad] and won (2810) with four of a kind, Aces
Seat 8: carpy001 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: kewlstang (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
I'm pretty sure I still bubbled out this sng, btw.
I'm frustrated with my gauntlet performance this season so far.
I build my stack with some questionable plays (the turn of hand 1) and then donk it away mid game because I can't get a read on why my opponent might have me beat (hand 2). This pattern has been happening a lot in the gauntlet for some reason but not in the rest of my tourneys.
-----Hand 1----- FlyingSaucy's M = 41.11 PokerStars Game #9200496650: Tournament #42024191, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level II (15/30) - 2007/04/01 - 15:26:06 (ET)
Condensed history provided by the Tournament Trimmer (v1.1.1w) from http://www.FlopTurnRiver.com
Table '42024191 1' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: K 2the ArmA (1510 in chips)
Seat 2: Phew72 (750 in chips)
Seat 3: Puckst0pper (725 in chips)
Seat 4: xxJimmyMacxx (1515 in chips)
Seat 5: HalvSame (1290 in chips) is sitting out
Seat 6: FlyingSaucy (1850 in chips)
Seat 7: LD Poker Art (3035 in chips)
Seat 8: I_Lie_2_U (2735 in chips)
Phew72: posts small blind 15
Puckst0pper: posts big blind 30 Preflop: FlyingSaucy dealt 6 6 xxJimmyMacxx: folds HalvSame: folds
FlyingSaucy: calls 30 LD Poker Art: folds I_Lie_2_U: folds
K 2the ArmA: calls 30
Phew72: calls 15
Puckst0pper: checks Flop: 6 3 4
Phew72: checks
Puckst0pper: checks FlyingSaucy: bets 90
K 2the ArmA: calls 90 Phew72: folds
Puckst0pper: calls 90 Turn: 7
Puckst0pper: checks
FlyingSaucy: checks K 2the ArmA: bets 330 Puckst0pper: folds
FlyingSaucy: calls 330 River: 3 FlyingSaucy: bets 390
K 2the ArmA: calls 390 Showdown:
FlyingSaucy: shows 6 6 (a full house, Sixes full of Threes)
K 2the ArmA: mucks hand 5 5
FlyingSaucy collected 1830 from pot
-----Hand 2----- FlyingSaucy's M = 15.20 PokerStars Game #9201201603: Tournament #42024191, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2007/04/01 - 16:09:07 (ET)
Condensed history provided by the Tournament Trimmer (v1.1.1w) from http://www.FlopTurnRiver.com
Table '42024191 1' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: C2Knuckles (1900 in chips)
Seat 3: Puckst0pper (1640 in chips)
Seat 4: xxJimmyMacxx (2645 in chips)
Seat 5: Anosmic (1028 in chips)
Seat 6: FlyingSaucy (3420 in chips)
Seat 7: LD Poker Art (5206 in chips)
xxJimmyMacxx: posts small blind 75
Anosmic: posts big blind 150 Preflop: FlyingSaucy dealt K A FlyingSaucy: raises 300 to 450
LD Poker Art: calls 450 C2Knuckles: folds Puckst0pper: folds xxJimmyMacxx: folds Anosmic: folds Flop: 8 A 4 FlyingSaucy: bets 900 LD Poker Art: raises 1050 to 1950 FlyingSaucy: raises 1020 to 2970 and is all-in
LD Poker Art: calls 1020 Turn: J River: A Showdown:
FlyingSaucy: shows K A (three of a kind, Aces)
LD Poker Art: shows 8 A (a full house, Aces full of Eights)
LD Poker Art collected 7065 from pot
My Bonus period ran out without me even tapping into all of it. So now I've got something around 1.2k online, and trying to withdraw $500 of my amount from FT and transfer it over to stars since I like stars so much better, especially for tourneys.
So if any of you folks feel like I am trustworthy and want to transfer me $500 from your stars account I will gladly and reliably transfer you $500 from my FT. Just a little advert... It is crippling working with a small roll.
Favorite hand of the night.
PokerStars Game #9122227780: Tournament #46360235, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2007/03/27 - 20:48:43 (ET)
Table '46360235 3' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: FlyingSaucy (830 in chips)
Seat 2: 24spencer (2800 in chips)
Seat 3: triche7 (1045 in chips)
Seat 4: bts2004 (2350 in chips)
Seat 5: boomSQuizzle (1105 in chips)
Seat 6: skogs007 (1450 in chips)
Seat 7: WpEoEkDer (1370 in chips)
Seat 8: murco11 (1145 in chips)
Seat 9: Elle 129 (2235 in chips)
boomSQuizzle: posts small blind 25
skogs007: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to FlyingSaucy [Ac Qc]
WpEoEkDer: folds
murco11: calls 50
Elle 129: raises 100 to 150
FlyingSaucy: raises 680 to 830 and is all-in
24spencer: folds
triche7: folds
bts2004: folds
boomSQuizzle: raises 275 to 1105 and is all-in
skogs007: folds
murco11: raises 40 to 1145 and is all-in
Elle 129: calls 995
*** FLOP *** [Ah Tc Qd]
*** TURN *** [Ah Tc Qd] [8s]
*** RIVER *** [Ah Tc Qd 8s] [2s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
murco11: shows [Kh Kc] (a pair of Kings)
Elle 129: shows [Kd Ad] (a pair of Aces)
Elle 129 collected 80 from side pot-2
boomSQuizzle: shows [9s 9h] (a pair of Nines)
Elle 129 collected 825 from side pot-1
FlyingSaucy: shows [Ac Qc] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
FlyingSaucy collected 3370 from main pot
FlyingSaucy said, "i deserved that big time"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 4275 Main pot 3370. Side pot-1 825. Side pot-2 80. | Rake 0
Board [Ah Tc Qd 8s 2s]
Seat 1: FlyingSaucy showed [Ac Qc] and won (3370) with two pair, Aces and Queens
Seat 2: 24spencer folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: triche7 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: bts2004 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: boomSQuizzle (small blind) showed [9s 9h] and lost with a pair of Nines
Seat 6: skogs007 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: WpEoEkDer folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: murco11 showed [Kh Kc] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 9: Elle 129 showed [Kd Ad] and won (905) with a pair of Aces
Initially this past fall I set an operation for myself to get to 5k by April 1. That's not likely to happen given that I withdrew 75% of my BR, forcing myself to drop down in stakes.
I've got a little over 1k online, and 3k offline, so effectively I only have 1k to play with any regularity.
I've been spending virtually all of my spare time lately reading up on investment strategies rather than poker. I'm sure I'll return to poker soon, but for now I've got to get my ducks in a row.
My best annual return on investment was not stocks but poker. Let's see, started with $50 2 years ago, now at $3600, that makes it a +800% annual increase. not too bad for part time and low multi-tabling.
Hi folks. This isn't for you really, it's mostly for me. I want to use this as an opportunity to chronicle my poker activities and experiences, and if anyone wants to comment, all the better. It really won't be organized. Just random observations and the types of things that I don't think are worthy of starting a new thread for but I'm compelled to post anyway.
So first - a little of my history.
I've been playing poker, almost exclusively NLHE, as a serious amateur since the summer of 2004. My brother introduced me to the game quite a while before that, I saw some ESPN poker, read Poker for Dummies, Caro's book of tells, and caught on to the craze. I started playing on Party at the play money tables, focussed on 1 table sng's, learned what "gg, nh, and fu" meant, and played a stupid amount of play money sngs thinking that I dominate the world. I even kept stats that I have to this day saved for prosterity, lol. Something like 80% ITM. I learned to fold my A9 against a 4 way preflop AI in the first hand of the sng.
I eventually subliminally convinced my wife to come up with the idea to offer me the opportunity to deposit some cash and play for real money. I deposited $50, played a few nervous $5+1 sngs and placed itm on 2 out of the first 3. So I was like "this is a little tougher than play money but I still dominate the world." I sat down a few days later to play at $25 NL FR, the lowest stakes offerred, where the blinds were .25/.50 at the time. So I opened up 3 tables and had almost my whole roll in play. Inevitably (although I didn't realize it was an inevitability at the time) I dropped down to around $25 in my roll after maybe 400 or so hands, started getting worried and all paranoid that I was not as good as some of these players who seem to be raising me a lot and sitting with $75 at a single table! Well, I was right, a lot of them were much better and were properly rolled, not playing scared. The next day I figured, oh well, here goes my last $25, opened up a $25 NL game, and proceeded to double up twice.
Took a few deep breaths, found FTR and started to understand the concept of BR management. I quickly realized I should never be playing at Party with only $100, and especially not the ripoff 17% rake at the $5+1 sngs. I withdrew and transferred $50 to a brand new UB account, keeping $50 in Party for whatever reason. I proceeded to grind away at the $1.10 10 player sngs, keeping stats all the way in an excel spreadsheet. Grinding $1 sngs from $50 to $110 was wonderful. Eventually the $5.50's, eventually the $11's, eventually the $22's, eventually the $33's. I rarely varied my choice of game, but focussed and got much better as I went up the levels. I rarely played cash. In the first year of serious playing, I rarely played anything other than 1 table NL sngs. I rarely multitabled during that first year too. Sounds like a major grind, no? Well it was but I liked it. I like the concentration it takes to get deeply involved in the hand-by-hand action of a late game, low M SnG. I focussed a lot on a steady BR progression with low variance.
Lots of history in between but that's my background on the first year. SnG born and raised.
and my old 36% ROI bumped up to 37%, which I am pretty proud of because my ROI extends way beyond my recent upswings (although I still don't have 1k games on stars.) I'm sure it will settle back down once I get more games under my belt, although I only 4 table so that helps to allow me to focus on the games at hand rather than being too mechanical about it. I don't ever want my ROI at the $27 level to sink below 25%.
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