Well it's obvious to say moving sucks!! It's pretty much killed all my recent poker action. It took about a week just to get about the most important 90% of our stuff out and into the new place. Then what I didn't realize was even a bigger hassle of trying to take it all apart and reorganize which is in it's 2nd week of coming together. The good thing about the whole thing is you get to get to clean up and you get that feeling of a new fresh start. This also applies to my office (which I no longer have to share with the baby) and I get to rebuild my ultimate computer setup! My previous setup I had (3) 24" Samsung monitors and a 32" TV. I exchanged my TV with our bedroom 36" and I plan to buy a 37"-42" lcd 1080 High Def. to put above my 3 monitors and use it as another monitor. I had an electrician add an additional plug outlet under my desk. I also use 2 battery backups with about 1 hour of power in case the power goes out and has multiple outlets with surge protection. If I can find a good plan, I would also like to buy one of those portable high performance USB internet connectors, in case my internet crashes or prolonged power outage. Everything I've seen is about $50+ per month and I'm not sure how reliable they are, so I might wait till I find a good deal.
I recently was contacted by Neal Gersony who wrote a fictional novel called "Poker Slam" asking me if I'd read and review his book. I am usually very happy to do reviews, which I have done on other books and poker related subjects, and I think I will expand and do more of in the future, however, during my move-in process it might be a week or two more before I'm back up to speed. I'd also like to do some posting or start a new blog related to stock picking, which I have spent alot of time tracking and analyzing over the last 6 or 7 years on a daily basis. With the financial markets in such a bad state lately, I have a feeling I'll either look like a stock picking donkey or superstar with such wild swings. Variance is just as much an issue to overcome in stocks as well as poker. If you think about it the returns of a succesful poker player are anywhere between 5 and 20%. This is also very similar in stocks except typically most people aren't able to invest in hundreds or thousands of different stocks for long periods of time as you can play hundreds of games of poker in a month. This makes me believe that trading stocks is probably much more risky and volatile than playing poker. If you think about it most pro poker players can at least over the course of a year show a profit probably 9 out of 10 years. The odds of that same feat in the stock market are very rare even if you are one of the best stock pickers alive, as obviously seen this year in which the whole market has lost over 20%.
As far as my personal poker results for the month of November, I started the month off pretty bad down the 1st week and was able to turn it around and finish up positive after finishing up 10 of my last 13 playing days. I also had my largest average tournament buyin at abiut $130. I have been having pretty good success with 2x double up sit in go's which basically 5 out of 10 players get paid double their money if you are part of the last 5 standing. At first I didn't think these tournaments were worth the time since there isn't any large payout for 1st place and the profit margin is slimmer. Fortunately, I improved my strategy and at a higher buyin level ($100-300) I am able to make a decent and consistent return (as of right now at least). It's really hard to tell until you've played hundreds or even thousands of tournaments, which is why many players can get big ego's on a decent run and other players who play to high for their bankrolls can eventually find themselves reloading their credit cards or quitting altogether. Now I'm saying most players would be winners if they just kept dumping money and keep playing, but I'm saying it takes a while to figure out a realistic return and that's not even factoring whether your game or the way to beat the game itself changes. Personally I think most players should just play really small till they show a consistant profit and slowly move up. It can be frustrating, but why not pay as little as possible to learn how to win?
