How Politics and the Stock Market Interact

Simple primer: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017299.php

 

Just so we're clear, here's a helpful guide to the rules of market watching, as they relate to partisan politics:

When the market went down on Bush's watch before the 2008 elections, this was Bill Clinton's fault.

When the market went down on Bush's watch between November 2008 and January 2009, this was Barack Obama's fault.

When the market went down during Obama's first seven weeks in office, this was definitely Barack Obama's fault.

And when the market rallies on Obama's watch during the second week in March, George W. Bush deserves at least some of the credit.

And when the Dow is back at 14,000 in a few years, Obama will have generated none of that. 

 

 

Sometimes I wish I were conservative-minded so I could just check all logic at the door and carry on inside a fantasy land.

Will the real Peter Eastgate...

Lookie here, the World Champion seated three to my right. ;)

AIPS PLO

Man what a complete waste of time.  And I cashed. 

One hand of note in the first hour - with KQJT, the flop came QTT, I led out for like 2/3 pot and got two callers.  Wonderful.  Turn is a K giving me a slightly better boat.  This was only limped preflop so I'm not the least bit afraid of a bigger boat than mine.  I pot it, a guy thinks and then flips over...the flush draw...on a paired board.  ye Gods.  This got me going. 

Had it over 7k chips and up to, I think, 5th overall.   Then I slowly died off.  I had no intentions of limping past the bubble - I really wanted to build a stack and get deep in this event - but I could not find a playable situation to save my life.  Either someone raised in front of me or I was dealt shit.  Usually both.  A couple of idiots were SOOO obviously raising light and I was just waiting, dying to trap them.  Never happened. 

Went out when I potted it UTG w/ QQ45 double-suited.  I was about to get crippled by the blinds anyway.  I ran into KKxx and a flopped set of 9s.  Good night. 

Part of it is the game itself.  PLO is freaking nuts.  Part of it is the field.  It's a hard enough game to play against people who know what they're doing, but when you're playing against people who chase with allsortsashit, watch out.  Waaayyy too much variance for my liking. 

I go to bed now.

Home Game: Brunson FTW!!

Eight entrants in Friday's homegame. I'm in it for the POY race - I can make more $ in an hour or two at a weak PLO table (glad I rediscovered that thought) - so I'm here to try and get the W.

I draw a pretty good seat. To my right is a loose/passive player who literally is in pajama pants and said that he was going to turn in for the night but at the last minute decided to come. I know exactly what he's going to do and I'm going to stay out of his way. To my left is a loose/passive calling-station. Nos 2, 3, and 4 to my left are probably the three best players here (present company excluded?) and I like being in front of them and getting to dictate the action with some strong raises.

One problem - I didn't get all that much to play. In the first rotation, I pick up AA in the big blind. Five limpers and it comes to me.

Now, I had three thoughts headed into this night.
a) Wait for a safe turn. Too many times last month I flopped a strong hand, bet out, and scared everyone away. I'd like to try to lure others in with the second best hand against a monster. Also, too many times I build a pot on the flop with a good hand and get called or raised by a better hand. Tonight - I want to feel things out a little longer.
b) Play a big hand "loudly". This is to capitalize on my image. I want to pick up a monster - a set, for example - and talk about it like a monster. I'm quiet in this game, and that's known, and I think I'll set up future opportunities to steal some things.
c) Play a big hand "tricky". I want to slow-play a big hand in an awkward situation, trying to elicit some oohs and aahs when it gets showed down.

Back to the hand, the AA is my opportunity to play it tricky. A big raise with 5 limpers screams AA, KK or AK and I'll probably take down just the blinds. So I check my option. Flop is K-high, rainbow and probably as good as I can hope for. I lead out to see where things stand, and the one caller is a player who would call w/ a K in his hand or a decent draw...raise with anything better than a pair...and fold with squat. I know how he plays, so when he calls and all others fold, I know exactly where I stand. He calls on the turn as well and when the spade draw gets there, it goes check-check and I take down a pot.

And that's about it for the first three hours. Seriously, I might have gotten over 10k chips (we have 7k per player) and never got far below 7k if at all. I tried running one bluff and got it picked off - probably got away as cheaply as I could. Luckboxed one hand where I held 85(BB) on an 8-high flop, then turned and rivered 5s to get a boat which was well ahead of Q8 (or something like it).

Basically, I treaded water as we got down to four remaining.

It was time to kick it up a notch, but as it got to four-handed, the opportunity never arose. When the LAG who had 1/2 the chips in play crashed and burned in 4th, it was now time. The guy four to my left was still around, with a stack like mine, and another good player who started two to my right - now one to my right - was the chip leader with probably 2/3 of the chips in play.

No calling stations left here, so I go on a shoving spree, albeit with a pretty good series of starting hands, and get back into it. Soon, with JQo in my hand, I check my option and see a J34 flop. I bet out, the other short-stack shoves and I call. He has nothing but a paired 3 and now it's heads up. With the steals and with this elimination, I probably have 1/3 to 2/5 of the chips in play. Still need some help.

Heads up, there's more stealing from me, little if any back at me, and after a dozen or so hands, we're about even. Then the deciding hand. I see a freebie with the Brunson (T2) and the flop is T82 with two diamonds. I bet it and my opponent shoves. I instacall and he's got the flush draw. Just need to fade a diamond...'til a 10 shows up on the turn. This gives me about 52k of the 56k chips in play, and I win w/ 10-high on the next hand.

I was patient, I was aggressive when I had to be, and I was lucky to not get unlucky in all that shoving or in the fewer times where I was up against a drawing hand.

Never really got to test the "wait for a safe turn" premise - perhaps next time.
Never really got to test the "play a big hand loudly" premise. I'm still intrigued by that one in this particular environment.

Running Good...Playing Good

OK, grammar junkies, I'm playing well.

Tis been a decent online week. I tripled up my buy-in at a low level 6 handed PLHE table the other night. My oh my I'd forgotten how good these games can get.
* Button-raised w/ A6o, flopped the A, turned the 6 and took a sizeable pot off the guy who couldn't release A4.
* Cutoff raised w/ KK. Button and both blinds called. Hmmm. Made 1/2 pot bet on Qc 2s 8s flop and just the button stuck around. I put him all-in on the 9h turn and he flips over JJ. wp, sir.
* My AA outlasted the same guy's KK soon thereafter.
* The next nice pot came from the SB w/ 77. Button limped, as did I. Flop 3s 3h Kh. I bet out 2/3 pot just to see if anyone has the K, with every intention to insta-fold if it's played back at me. I get a fold and a call. Turn is a 7 and I have the boat. Suh-weet. I check it and he checks behind. Seemingly harmless 8s on the river. I lead out and get raised. oohhh. I re-raise and he goes in the tank, finally calling with Kd Td.
* Won a couple smallish pots to get over 3x the original buy-in. The best part about the session was that I lost no sizeable pots. I released in situations where there was the scent of trouble, and just waited for the right situations to chip up through others and pick off foolish c-bets and the like.

I took 3rd in a SNG that night, doing nothing of note for the first 45 minutes, then doubling up through a guy who got sporty with 76s when I had KJo in the BB and <10BBs to go. Finally when it's four-handed and I have 6BBs, I open shove with the motherlode...6c 9h. I get called by Qd Kc and I donkishly flop a 9 to double up. From there I fold into the money and fade away in 3rd.

Put up a noble fight in a SNG last night, falling victim when it was 5-handed and I had 9BBs left. I called a min-raise from a character who had been playing all sortsashit all night. Me - I had 6c 7d and I'm hoping to pick this guy off. Flop is a dangerous Qh Qs Jc and it goes check-check. Turn is 6s and I'm a shovin, only to find AQ behind Door #2. Boof.

Picked off a $10 SNG thereafter, with a mook on each side of me. Kept waiting to trap them, then when they both vanished and it was heads-up, I pulled some shit out of my ass against a good player. He didn't deserve it...the mooks did.

Tonight, I got in an interesting chatwar with some mook. I called his preflop minraise and then check-shoved on the flop when he led out very weakly (something like 35% of the pot). This was screaming of a missed Ax or a middling pocket pair. The board was 3d Kc 5d and all I had was bottom pair/top kicker, but it was enough. After he mucked, I just said that "i had AJ beat." Well...I DID. But it set him off. He then did something no fool has ever done before...he tried to turn into an analyst. Even rewarded a guy for making a call of a shortstack's all-in when the caller had 22. Told him it was a "good call" because it was a "coin flip". Now that's the kind of insight you just don't get anywhere.

Anyway, made it to heads up after the mouth got bounced by a runner-runner flush. The villain here has been pretty LAGgy so I'm just waiting for the right spot. Second heads-up hand I have AdQd in the BB and he open shoves. Fuckyes. Instacall and he tables Qs 7s. Well doesn't the bastard flop the spade draw, turn a gutter...and then hit the 7 on the river to take me out.

Whatever. I'm playing well, making better decisions on when to be aggressive and when to wait. Plus I'm getting some more opportunities with good-but-not-stellar hands to do some stealing when it gets short. I'm waiting for hands where I can fall back on something and not just recklessly shoving.

I'll change gears for the second home game in a week tomorrow night and just pray I draw a better seat than last time.

Ammunition for the Crash

So all the bankers and hedge fund managers are sitting around trying to figure out how to measure risk.  Then this guy comes along and IDs the Credit Default Swap market as a proxy for real correlation of risk.  BOOM, the CDS market takes off because now everything can be aggregated into these pools of risk, and everyone is making money off of it, so everyone else has to do it to keep up, despite the fact that there's really no underlying behind CDSs.  And everything is great...everyone is making money. 

 

One problem.  Everyone ignored that it's all inherent upon housing values going up. 

 

I have two rules in life:

1) Things will always get done if you set a firm deadline.  They may not get done perfectly, but they will get done.

2) Greedy fuckers will always look for routes, loopholes, and methods around the SOPs insomuch as that they are driven by and rewarded by making money. 

 

This happened with Enron, WorldCom, Savings & Loans back in the 80s, and it's happening now with Lehman Bros., AIG, Citi, B of A and the like.  Thus, not only is regulation of financial markets advisable, it's necessary, and I'm not sure there can be too much of it.  Because as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, greedy fuckers will sacrifice long-term stability for shorter-term windfalls. 

 

This came up with neighbors the other night and I'm bringing it up again here.  Can you imagine going having a medical condition and, instead of seeking out the advice of a doctor, you sought out the advice of a lawyer?  Hey, there are smart lawyers, but if I'm fucked up, I want someone with knowledge of the human body to fix me. 

 

Well imagine a place that, when confronted with major challenges such as global climate change or a collapsing banking and financial industry, didn't seek the advice of scientists or economists, but rather sought the advice of politicians -- and repeated it like parrots.  Well that place is the United States. 

 

People keep spouting off the "irresponsibility" of the stimulus package, failing to realize that building $300billion in equipment, driving it to a dock and then pushing it in the ocean is far more beneficial to the economy than just another round of plain old tax cuts, or the laissez faire approach of just letting banks and businesses die off.  Yes, there will be deficit spending, yes the bill on the future will go up.  Here's the problem - it's going up NO MATTER WHAT!!  The sooner we get the economy back on track, the better off we all are - our generation and the future generations. 

 

Why we continue to let ideology trump science in these debates escapes me.  It astounds me and it frightens the piss out of me too. 

 

 

Home Game

For anyone patiently waiting for the ups and downs from my PLO8 tourney run last week, well there's really not much to look at.  It's basically a story of me getting real short, real quick (down to 150 chips after 3 hands), then doubling/tripling up a bunch of times thereafter with some blind leakage mixed in.  Most of the play was jam or fold, as I was most often (as usual) one of the shorties.  If there was any strategy, it was simply in trying to see cheap flops with drawing potential hands.  In other words, standard. 

 

There were a couple of massive suckouts late, including a two-outer which was nice to be on the winning side thereof.  For a change. 

 

I read through the hand history and was compiling a massive history of the event, but it was so damned boring, my head hurt.  So it'll sit in the Blogger "draft post" file for eternity.  So be it. 

 

Had the home game down the street Saturday night.  Expecting 11 so we set up two tables...the n00b no-showed so we had 10.  Instead of collapsing to one table, we somehow settled on playing two.  Well that's OK, save for the table draw, which placed three of the four quality players in the bunch at *my* table, along with one of the loose ones...who seemed to tighten up considerably Saturday night.  So while the chips are flying around the other table, there's a lot of fold-fold-raise-fold-fold going on here. 

 

Not that I couldn't take advantage of that.  I did - and I even ran a couple of *sick* bluffs on the player to my right, winning a couple sizeable pots that I had no business being in.  That's just exploiting tendencies and position...nothing more. 

 

No, the problem that this multi-table format generated was this: I hit four sets in the first 2.5-3 hours of play.  Four.  But all of them were at this table before we merged (with 8 left) and all of them came on draw-heavy boards.  In all of them, I bet something like 2/3 or 3/4 pot to try and define things, and in all of them, I got no action.  All-in-all, this table played very very tight at a time where I could've amassed lots-o-chips at the typically looser table. 

 

I got it up to 10-11k chips right around the table merge.  Here's a question for those with more MTT/Home Game experiences.  When we merged, I had just been the button.  The play came over to *our* table.  What we did was have all 8 players redraw for seats, the Ace got the button and the blinds fell from there.  My argument was that the order of players on *our* table shouldn't shift - but rather we should shuffle in the people from the second table so that nobody got double-whacked with the blinds, etc.  What's the right approach here?

 

Well I got effed on the draw.  First off, I drew the big blind when things were starting to get tight - it was 300/600 and I had about 9-10k in chips left.  Not AIOF yet, but we're getting there.  Second and more importantly, I got the worst possible seat.  The big stack - loose and crazy - was to my immediate left.  The TAG who was short-ish stacked but not crippled was to my immediate right.  The fish were across the table.  Cripes. 

 

Same story as always from here.  I fold A6 from MP, watch the big stack play A2s aggressively and take a big pot.  I fold a couple hands that would've rivered the nuts.  Correct decisions...poor outcomes.  Standard.  And I basically go card dead. 

 

Here's one interesting hand - seven handed, I believe.  I'm UTG with 44.  Limp in and see a flop of Q53 rainbow.  It checks around.  The turn is a deuce and I bet out after one limper.  Fish at the other end of the table goes all-in for about 3x my bet.  It gets called by the TAG to my right.   There's no way I can be good here, though I may have the best and only draw, but I throw it away.  Fish flips over QT for top pair, TAG tables 52 for the BB special.  The river would've spiked the straight for me, but alas I watch the chips go to my right and now I'm surrounded by big stacks.  Story of my life. 

 

Soon thereafter I'm in the cutoff w/ A3.  Blinds are 400/800 at this point and I have appx 7k chips left.  I insta-shove - hoping to scare people away with nothing more than the speed of my action, and preparing to rely on my Ace to get me out of trouble.  Well it's called by big stack LAG to my left and then called by player to his left too.  This is just SOOOOO typical - I pick a spot and get steamrolled.  LAG has A9o and other guy has TT so I've managed to shove with the third best hand.  WP.  Flop an A but the turn is a 9 and IGH in 5th for a completely mediocre finish. 

 

After that I watched the LAG chip dump to the TAG when the TAG rivered a flush, shoved, and got called by the LAG with, um well, I'm still waiting for him to show up with a hand.  It just blows my mind. 

 

Really, though...whatever.  It's $11 for these events.  I can burn through that in 1.5 hours online, with a higher success rate.  These are fun, laugh-filled events foremost.  I need to keep this in perspective. 

 

At least we got the Turning Stone wheels in motion ... finally. 

 

Finally the weekend was capped off with a $10 SNG last night.  Chipped up a bit early, bled a little off to a guy who was playing very curiously at best - trying to reraise me every chance he had.  I had something like 99 on a 10-high board, but he check-raised me all-in and I had to release it.  The very next hand, I have 1200 chips w/ 80/160 blinds (5 or 6 handed), so I'm open shoving w/ AQo 100% of the time here.  He calls with AJo.  The river is a fishhook.  Nice to know I can still get sucked out on with the best of them after a fairly decent online week last week.