JeffreyLipsey.com

My goal for October is going to be rather simple and hopefully something I will accomplish:


25,000 hands at 200 NL.


I know its a little low in terms of hand goals but its something that I want to make sure I achieve. This allows me time to poke around in the stock market as well as feel good about achieving a goal.


Keep in mind I’ll also be risking $10,000 in tournaments on Saturdays and Sundays to go with those 25,000 hands, so I still have the potential to make a decent amount of profit. How much would I like to make at 200 NL? I’d be happy with 1 buy in every 2000 hands.


On top of that, I’d like to reach Supernova by end of the year, which basically comes down to the ability to get enough volume in. This might be actually a little harder if I plan to travel into Illinois over the holidays but I think it should be doable.

Not a bad cash for the last tournament of the month. As long as I made it past 120th though I would be positive on the month in my stake (by my calculations) so I get to start at zero next month, and I made a small profit. I can’t complain given I never went deep I just had a lot of cashes.


On the staking front, we’ll be practically doubling the risk next month at nearly $10k. I wont be playing any extra days just more big Sunday tournaments.


And, FWIW, I get motivated risking money to win big money in large, soft tournaments. Especially when there is no risk for myself.

I watch a lot of television during the day, and most of it is CNBC. The last week or so they’ve covered the Congress hearings pretty exclusively and I’ve had the chance to hear what some of the talking-heads feel.


So the first thing you have to ask is: Is this program fair? Hell no. Why should the taxpayers on ‘Main Street’ bail out Wall Street? One reason: Because everyone is fucked if we don’t.


I won’t be screwed, I’m pretty diversified and I doubt my stocks can go that much lower (lol??) and I’ve got a decent amount of cash. Its not like myself or Marlyn will get ‘laid-off’ if we go into a severe depression. If anything it will give me a chance to buy stocks at a severe discount. So for me it wouldn’t be that bad. It’s you that I’m worried about.


Well, maybe not you exactly. But those that have a significant portion invested in their retirement account that cant handle another 20% decrease in the market. Those that live paycheck to paycheck or are on a fixed income that cant stand to see inflation rise to extreme amounts.


Banks will write off more foreclosures and will inevitably fail. Consumer confidence will fall so much that people will start to horde their cash in their mattresses than in the bank. We will likely go into a depression.


We will eventually come out of it, maybe in 2-3 years when home prices stabilize and a new administration comes into office. But we don’t need to wait.


People don’t realize that the $700 billion ‘Bailout’ isn’t an expense, its a liability. The government is going to purchase a $700 billion mortgage, basically, that is going to be at 30% off. Obviously you can never ‘guarantee’ a profit, but if all the government does is sit on these mortgages for a few years then they’ll get the money back. Money will not be wasted, as the houses will act as collateral for the loans.


After listening to the congressmen ask questions, I realized they must not know the difference between a liability and an expense, assets and risk.


I hope in the end they do pass the bailout, which was incorrectly named. Jim Cramer said it best: It shouldn’t have been named a ‘Bailout’ but instead an Invest in America plan.

My first level cashes make for an easy way to pad the ITM % but don’t do much else. Otherwise though I haven’t played much, although I did play the WCOOP freeroll yesterday.


After doing some series research on Continuation Betting and 3betting/4betting I’m feeling a lot of confidence coming off my extended break from playing. After a coaching session with Renton and several DeucesCracked Math Videos, I’m back with what feels like a new life.


I still haven’t played a lot and I doubt I’ll be able to keep my Platinum Status on Stars; I need a ton of hands Monday and Tuesday and I just don’t think it’ll happen. It would be possible for me to do it if I were 12 tabling again, but right now I’m 6 tabling the 200 games and hoping to build a solid game that can consistently beat that game.


I put in like 1200 hands between yesterday and today and I’m up over a buy in, so its starting off good. Hopefully I can continue my momentum and put in some solid hours.

Since the Sunday Million and FTP 750k weren’t running this week I had a shortened day: Sunday Warmup and the 75k Guaranteed on Absolute.


Both tournaments I went out in fairly standard fashion and nearly moneyed both. I busted 56th with 54 paying in the Absolute tournament where I ran AK into AA for a complete cooler. I feel good though and it didn’t matter how many chips I had there that was going to happen.


I’m going to try and at least play some and get back on track. We’ll see how that goes though.

….Again.


I had to employ my ‘fold-to-cash’ strategies last night to get ITM and really couldn’t get much working for me. I got the 1st level cash though but not much else.

My apartment is now baller! The couch, as expected, is pretty huge but it looks pretty awesome too. It came yesterday around 2ish and we no longer have to sit on desk chairs to watch television.


That brings another problem though: what to do with our spare desk chair? It’s too expensive to throw away and we have no way to store it. It might turn into a spare dining chair now that it is no longer needed to watch TV.


I’ll see about taking pictures and getting them uploaded to show how the living room of our apartment looks. I can’t show the bedroom or kitchen because usually that’s a mess.

Another semi-deep run in this tournament and I feel like I played OK. Since my Million deep run I’m pretty confident in these higher buy-in tournaments and its only a matter of time and effort until I get another large cash.

Something happened earlier this week and I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t feel like playing. It might be my birthday, combined with the fire, combined with Lego Star Wars but whatever it is, playing Full Ring Cash right now is the last thing I want to do.


Kavin and I have called off the prop bet this month because he is completely unmotivated too. I need something to get out of my funk and I don’t know how to change it.


Last night I was thinking about things that make me motivated to play poker. The short list that I developed:


1. Developing my game. I feel like I don’t do this while grinding a billion hands at 100 NL.


2. Winning. I like to win and winning money makes you both motivated to play more but then unmotivated to continue playing.


3. Investing. I want to make money so I can do fun investing things with it. Like flip houses, buy rental properties, buy a shit ton of stock at the discounted prices and contribute to my IRA.


The problem is 1 + 2 are quite contradictory; to develop my game I need to go through some growing pains which almost always result in losing money. And 3 is too long term to think about helping me deal with short-term motivation problems.


So really I just need to get over the negative and work on the positive, and THAT is what I need to work on.