clarkatroid is not folding: 01/01/2009

JANUARY REVIEW

First up , share deals.

Im not going to go into detail as to the reasons why i hold each share, as its boring and better explained elsewhere, but at the end of each month im going to post my share trades,and results. Im doing this to 100% guarantee im honest with myself about whether or not im making a profit.

At the moment, im not, im 5% down.

Now if i blogged this yesterday i would have been 16% adrift, but last monday i was 5% in profit. This is what im doing with my poker profits from last year, and ive been having a heart attack at various times this month as the portfolio swings 10k a day one way and the other. Longer term, ie at some point in 09 ill be investing positively into the market, but for the time being im bearish on everything

I have found it really exciting though, probably because it taps into the inner gambler thats in most poker players. 6 months ago i used to wake up and my first job was trawling the 2p2 forums, now im checking market movements and reading the financial times, which is probably a sign of getting old as much as is it getting giddy about share dealing

Even though im down 5% atm, i like my positions on all of the 4 options, or i would have sold them. However i have made a mistake in my entry point though, buying in at slightly the wrong times, which im going to concentrate on for my next trades.

Basically, ive bought 4 covered warrants. 10k on a copper put warrant that profits as the price of copper decreases. This is the most geared and most risky warrant i hold, it got hammered 22% last monday, but gained 20% on tuesday. I bought at 64p, the current price 65p, and my target to exit this is 90p.

The other 3 are all put warrants on the FTSE100 which again go up at (a different pace) as the ftse goes down. I bought in at the wrong price ( around 4100 ) . If i had better timing, i would be in at the 4300 mark.
i will sell all the ftse put options if the market hits 3700, which im relatively optimistic it will before the end of march. and i should show around a 10% return

My stop loss is -25% on everything, and if that happens, that will be the end of my short term trading experiment. The bottom line is ill get wiped out if the markets rally in the next couple months. This very well could turn out to be a story of money won 08 in poker then frittered away in 09 in the stock market, but we will see.

Poker

My set up in action now looks like this. At the minute, best practice is 3 screens from 3 sites as per image, although frigging hard to execute.

month end result

profit - $9695

hands played - 113099

loyalty bonuses - $7500

weekly hours 46

This is the most hands ive ever played in a month, and the largest loyalty bonuses. Crap winrate, but im really pleased to be in profit after last months debarcle. All in all i gotta be pleased. i think my winrate is going to be much much lower than last year as the games are much harder, so i gotta play more hands, simple as that.

At the moment im in prime position to win a seat in the euro city poker tour competition in Salzberg, which is a 5k prize including 5 nights in a 5 star hotel. poker and skiing a sexy combination. Barring a catastrophe, i reckon i got a realistic 75% chance of winning this.

http://ecpokertour.com/

http://www.hotel-alpine-palace.com/en/alpine-palace/the-luxury-hotel-in-saalbach/?PHPSESSID=895ca7b4e7da71c79840d7b488161ff0

The joiners arms in hunwick

Sunday night we were treated to the delights of hunwick, which was our destination for a piss up at the richmeisters boozer. A few pints in the newly refurbed and very impressive joiners arms followed by a ruby murray and a bit kareoke, with the highlight probably being the big man falling down 3 flights of stairs and ending up on his back like a stranded giggling turtle.

Props to sav who, adamant he didnt want a curry, and wasn't hungry in the slightest, managed to squeeze in a couple courses for the sake of being social

Next morning we where treated like royalty when we got sainsburys extra special sausages and goose eggs for brekky. Funnily enough richie couldn't remember his accident but when it got mentioned he was mysteriously in agony all over!

rock n roll baby. rock n roll

up and down like paris hiltons knickers - $0 after 50k hands

8 comments

I was pretty negative about teh pokers after my last post, the poker devil finally catching up with me and variance slapping me around the felt like randy the "ram" , a simily drawn from a terrific film i watched with teh bird at teh flicks last week, called the wrestler starring Mickey Rourke. definately one of my fav films in recent times.

Back to pokers and nothing much has changed. Ive battered the tables this month playing nearly 60k hands, which i need to do in order to hit my 1 million hands this year. And i have S0 profits, . However i do feel like ive turned the corner a little bit. It kinda feels like a victory after dropping 27k last month. my new goals are to make $5k this month which is in itself a really good wage. Ive dropped stakes to playing mainly 2/4 and splitting this volume between stars ftp and ipoker. I decided to do this so i could table select better and seek out some softer spots, but im finding it difficult. Playing 10 games at once and constantly table hopping is really intense, and although ive got 2x30 inch monitors to help. the left monitor has the action on it, the right the client lobby.

Its early days but im trying to swap the lowest vpip table for the highest one in the lobby, and do this every 5 minutes. Ive got a roll on 3 sites and figure its criminal not to try and use this to its fullest potential. My preferred site is ipoker, i like and know the players, we have good banter in the ipoker thread on 2p2, as its mainly brit dominated, i have a good relationship and loyalty deal with centrebet, but ultimately i feel im losing tons of value by staying there exclusively. I was chatting to a friend last night and he agreed that at 2/4 there are more fish quota per reg on stars and ftp then ipoker, and i have to agree.

The loyalty program is not as good on the american sites though, so ultimately i have to find the correct balance between loyalty bonuses and winrate. Is is better to play 10 tables on ipoker but 5 of those are reg on reg, or 3 tables on each sites, sacrificing loyalty bonuses and being a more technically difficult task to deliver. I dont know is the answer but time will tell i suppose

As for the escort project, the respray is finished and it looks the dogs tesicales, which has cost a straight 2k, and its been serviced. the plan is to have the original looks of the 1969 escort, but with some really nice alloys, and modern mechanics under the bonnet. the engine is a 1.8 zetec with twin twin webbers so its gives out a surprising grunt when its revvved up. im trying to strike the balance between it looking classy but slighly understated but with some poke under the bonnet. that means no furry dice and no snakes graphics on the paintwork. clean simple lines. The main problem now, is its been lowered to the point where i literally cant go over a bump in it without metal bashing onto road and im struggling to find a part to sort this out. The interior needs retrimming, and some nice alloys, but financially this cant happen unless i buck up at the tables, so its 60% finished but the project is shelved for the time being to be resumed when if he money comes back in. Cost wise, it stands me at 7k, and will probably end up around the 9k mark by the time im finished.

2009 musings

5 comments

despite having a great year in 08, i have always had a feeling thats things wont last. im not a particularly good player, im just your average joe grinder. as each week passes, more and more avarge grinders like myself join the tables, less and less idiots compliment them, and the tables become tougher. in the last 3 months ive sat at many tables where im the worst player there and have had to hop about to find better tables. obviously that cant continue.

playing poker professionally full time for my first year has way way surpassed my earnings expectations but i have to be honest and realistic. there will come a time for a player such as myself that i cant beat the game anymore. i had 100k online, december i lost 30k of that. if things dont turn around for me, and i keep losing at my current rate, ill be busto my march. 100k is enough to lose, and ill draw a line under it at that moment and walk away, content that ive not given back all last years profits. What i dont want to be is that person who loses all his profits because i didnt spot that fact im not good enough anymore

With that in mind, who knows what 09 will have in store. i have no idea if ill be blogging this time next year, or how long this temporary poker job will last, all i know is its a temporary contract for sure.

here are my goals for 2009

1 MILLION NL HANDS

5K HANDS A MONTH OF PLO

1 DAY PER WEEK OF HU

LOSE 1 STONE IN WEIGHT ( CURRENTLY 14 ST 2 POUNDS)

1 million hands is an increase from 600k this year. its very attainable considering i was only 4 tabling at the start af the year and now i have a professional set up. its a commitment to 35 hours a week. plo is my escape route, by the end of the year i want to be a competant player, and hu is an area i want to improve also, so a commitment there also. 1 stone in weight by the summer also.