Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Here I come Las Vegas

Tomorrow I am headed to Las Vegas for the WSOP Academy. I have been waiting for this since I signed up in March. This weekend is going to go by fast so I want to enjoy the moment and also retain all that I have the opportunity to learn. I will be listening to the Pros talk and I want to soak that all in.

I have been playing quite a bit of poker lately. My Heads Up is now running at about the 50% level. I have also been able to pull off some wins in the SnG area as well. This last month I was able to come in 1st in a Live Tournament so I feel I am ready to take the game to a new level.

I have also been getting things ready for the start of the next three months of equities trading. I am going to be one busy person learning and trying to keep up with playing the games. Need to push the envelope and get it all done.

Flying is not one of my most favorite things to do. The last time I flew to Las Vegas the wind was really bad and the plane landed on one side then the pilot had to force the other side down in the cross wind. That was quite an experience. I have gotten so I don't have to take calm pills just to fly. Not much you can do when your inside a plane. You are not the one in control like driving a car.

I am not taking my computer with me on this trip since I will be in the classes and then in the casino watching the WSOP and may even try to play in a non WSOP event. Just depends on how things are going. I will have my phone with me so I may update FB and my Twitter accounts. See you when I get back.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Ahhh the Weekend

The weekend is here and it is nice to enjoy the calm and then to regroup for the next week. We will have grandkids here today while the parents are off enjoying themselves a little bit.

This past week I started a challenge for myself and I wanted to complete 25 games of Heads Up poker. My goal is to get to 65% win rate. At the end of the week I have completed the 25 games and I finished at 52% win rate and was 13 - 12 for the week. I squeeked that out last night by winning 4 of the 5 games played. This means I ended the week in profit for the bankroll. Now I will continue this next week.

I also started playing multiple games of 9 player SnG. My goal is to play 3 rounds in one session. That would be a total of 6 games per day. I did get 8 games in this week. I got two 1st places and one 3rd for the 8 games. That helped the bankroll as well. I will continue this next week as well.

I did get a chance to play a live tournament on Monday and for the fourth time in a row I was able to get to the final table. Unfortunatly I placed in 10th.

This week I will fly out to Las Vegas for the WSOP Academy. I am leaving on Thursday and will be back on Monday. I am excited about attending and am anxious to get back and to put to use what I have learned. This will help my Live Tournament game. At the same time the WSOP is starting their tournament schedule and on Friday they will be starting the TOC and I will have a chance to watch some of that. See some of the players I watch on TV. Maybe get a chance to get some autographs? We will see.

I have been silently sitting on the side lines with the stock trading. This market has been so volatile that I don't want to risk my capital on just trading to be trading. I have been working on the area I will start trading in to get used to what these equities are doing. They are the ETF's. They are not as volatile as the regular stocks. These ETF's are in sectors so it is like trading the fund market but it will be in one area at a time. I start my mentoring on June 1 so that will be 3 months of working with someone. This will be a busy summer getting all of this done.

I am ready.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Stormy Monday

Today I am starting my new poker journey. I have decided to start playing heads up poker and I am going to play five tournaments each day this week. I will also continue with my live tournament play at Jokers Casino and also play a 9 player SnG per day as well. Should be enough poker. So far today:

Heads Up = 1 win and 4 losses
Jokers = I am working on a streak of final tables now with 4 in a row winning one.
SnG = Ended up in 5th place in this tournament.

Tonight I ended up at the final table and went out in 10th place. My pocket 10's ran into pocket J's. It was a rough night as the table was playing a lot of aggressive poker. I tried to wait it out and play the best hands and I at least made it to the final table.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Saturday Night

I had a couple of thoughts today and I just had to write about them.

I was reading some forum letters and one of them was about reading books. Through out my life I have been a non reader of books. I just couldn't stand the idea to sit down to read a book. The mid 90's came around and that is when I got into the stock market and for some reason I was starting to gather a library of books around me about the stock market, commodities, futures, currencies, options. I have a whole library on this stuff. And yes I read just about everyone of them. If not all of a book I would read the parts that were of interest to me. After that I went back to not reading very much. I would try to read a fiction book at least once per year. Just to say that I did read.

Here we are now and I am back to reading again. If you read my blog you would see I am reading not one but two or three books at a time and then have magazines around me reading them too. Now I have quite a library on Poker. I again have been reading them and I must say like before I do learn from them. Sometimes I will get a book and just read the parts that interest me but I still have the book in my library. Oh yes, I have been buying stock books again.

We have moved from the Industrial age in our economy to the Information age. We have so much information out there that people are eating this knowledge up. Just my opinion. But think about it. We are thirsty for information and we will get it either by computer, phone, books, ebooks, anything. Now I am a very visual person so reading a book gets me the information but if I have a chance to see it in action I learn and do better with it. I guess I can regurgitate it back and do well. I prefer the visual. Anyway just my thoughts on reading material.

We were watching the Marriage Ref tonight and the episode we were watching had the couple on it that he was numbering his socks. Wow, what a concept. I have wanted to find a way that when you buy socks that the same two socks were always together and to not mix them up with other socks of the same kind. They should be numbered or have a letter on them to organize them better. From someone who likes their socks put in color coordination, shirts put in color coordination and then have t-shirts put in the same location on the hangers just makes sense to me. I am just saying.

Tonight was not much on poker but you get my drift? I am taking a new direction in my poker playing and will start this next week so after I get started I will write about it and let you know.

Stay organized.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

It is getting warmer

The market has not been very good to be trading as a swing trader. It is even harder for the day traders. I keep watching for the market to settle down and then start moving in a direction where I can start looking for trades again. It is better to be liquid than to be in a position of loosing your positions. The service I watch is now starting to give out some information on stocks but I will wait. I hate to loose as much in this as I do in poker. I work on emotions to keep them under control.

Poker is doing well. I have been playing at FT and PS and mostly live. Got to keep that bankroll moving. I am getting more excited to go to Las Vegas at the end of the month. I would like to be able to play in the evening when classes are done. Today I went to Jokers and played in the tournament. We started with T$5000 and when we got to the final table I was close to short stack. I have been getting better playing short handed. This is when I start getting more aggressive and by the time I got to 3rd place I was starting to get to the chip leader position. By the time we got rid of the 3rd place person and there was two of us left I really got aggressive and was able to pull out 1st place. Each time I do that I have good results with this live game. This builds my bankroll as well. Will keep working at it and hopefully Las Vegas will help as well.

Having fun with low stress.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Sorry Thursday

I was sitting at my desk watching the stock charts and all of a sudden it started dropping and in a big way. I was shocked at what I was watching. I immediately turned on CNBC to see what was going on. All I can say is WOW!!!!! I was glad I was in cash at this time and not going long in any of the stocks. Now if I was short then I could have made some money. I am maintaining in cash for now until the market settles down and shows some movement either to the upside or the downside. At least being reasonable in movement.

This past week I have played poker on FT and PS and have done well. Especially on PS where I am playing more cash than tournaments. On FT I am playing the tournaments or SNG's and am getting on the bubble right now. I did make contact with Susie Isaacs and she responded to me and we emailed back and forth. She wrote the two books "MsPoker I'm not bluffing". Two very good books.

I have also put in two sessions of Live Tournament at Jokers. Last week was a 4th place with money and tonight was 6th place. Both times at the final table. I am trying new things at the table and tonight I bet when no one else wanted the pot and also played position and bet or raised to show strength. It was working tonight and so I will work on that part of my game in the future. In real estate it is location, location, and location. In poker it is position, position and position.

Tomorrow is my visit with the dentist for the second time this week. I really tread going but this time he has given me some meds to take to see if I can calm myself down before I get into the office. I have such a hard time with this. I really have a past with dentists and it still shows almost 40 years later. He assured me yesterday that I am not the only one. Well, I still have to show up for the appointment. At least this time I will have a better attitude.