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peterbirksI seem to have spent most of this past week just being tired. Undoubtedly this is partly due to three sessions in succession where I bashed away a bit hard at the weights. Sunday was hamstrings down at Metroflex in Lower Sydenham -- a gym for the tough guys, so to speak. Monday was chest in Broadgate Circus and Tuesday was quadriceps, sans trainer, in Holborn Circus. I succumbed today and just did some cardio. Probably back and shoulders tomorrow.
The weight seems to be incorrigibly stubborn at the 11st 13lb mark. I know that, so long as the weight stays the same, then I am losing fat, because I'm putting on muscle. But putting on muscle is a (very) slow process. It's not the same as increasing your strength. Indeed you can increase your strength quite significantly before the body stops arguing and says "oh, okay, maybe I do need to build a bit of muscle here".
In the markets, the two most entertaining events of the week have been the collapse in the price of gold and the appearance on BBC News of Alessio Rastani. In fact Rastani didn't say anything surprising at all. But the BBC interviewer presumably expected some PR waffle, and was utterly stunned to hear some blunt facts. Honey, if you expect a trader to start talking about the need for social conscience and the role of the Big Society, you aren't that good a journalist.
The Daily Mail got itself into an even greater lather of self-righteousness, referring the following day to his "supreme arrogance", before digging deep and finding that he wasn't a trader in the sense that he was employed by anyone. His Facebook picture shows just a couple of screens and a laptop -- fairly pathetic compared with the set-up in my own office, TBH. It turns out that the guy might make some trades at home, but that his main job is as an inspirational speaker -- and he doesn't look to be a great success at that.
All of which is fairly irrelevant. His point was that expecting traders to act with a social conscience is stupid, and expecting them to say in public that what they really cared about was saving jobs in north-east England was also stupid. Traders look to make money on market moves. They make no judgements on those market moves. If they did, then they would not last as traders. In other words, people do not become traders because they are amoral. Traders are amoral because those with morals in the world of trading do not survive as traders. They go broke.
We saw a fine example of this in the gold and silver markets this week. It's always struck me as rather odd that one precious metal (gold) can be advertised as a haven while another (silver) can be called a speculative play. A few weeks ago there was no shortage of analysts explaining why gold had gone to $1900 an ounce and why it would inevitably reach $2500 or thereabouts before the end of the year.
That was before it had its buiggest ever one-day drop and, for a short while, fell back to $1530, before bouncing to the mid $1600s.
The point is, any commodity that doubles in price in less than 18 months is not a safe haven; it's a speculative play. Or, in another paradox, something is only a safe haven when there aren't huge numbers of people buying it because it is a safe haven. As I wrote before, gold has been a gambling play for over a year, and it is still one now. There should be some kind of volatility measure that, if exceeded, stops anyone from calling the relevant stock/bond/commodity in advertising material to be "the ultimate safe haven". Or, another clue, if anyone is spending a lot of money advertising funds to invest in "a safe haven", then by definition it isn't a safe haven any more.
That fall back to the mid-$1500s rather irritated me because I had completely missed it. I wrote a few months ago that I sold my long gold position in the mid $1600s, with a view to getting back in at $1550. I watched helplessly as the market soared to my March price target of $1800 (seen by nearly the whole market at the time as witlessly optimistic) and then I missed the buy point at $1550. Sigh. Still, that rapid fall-off will have turned sentiment against gold for a few weeks or even months.
I remain short euro-dollar. I'm not going to bottle it this time, despite a move from $1.34 to $1.3650 in the past couple of days. Indeed it's beginning to look like a top-up opportunity. I've done some dipping in and out in intra-day stuff (only possible on Friday because I can't access the relevant sites at work!), while keeping my fundamental position, maturing in December. I still cannot see any fundamental support for the euro, all the way down to $1.25.
Our friendly trader on the BBC was a bit of an armageddonist, calling a disaster for equities and a kind of global collapse of everything. That should have set off some alarm bells in my head that he probably wasn't the real deal. Although we saw the interesting move early in the week of the gold price falling as economic nerves were fraying (the absolute opposite of what it is 'meant' to do), this was merely an example of precious metals becoming speculative plays without any but the experienced players spotting the fact. (As Lex observed this morning, the appeal of precious metals is (a) that they are no-one else's liability/'promise to pay' and (b) that they move independently of other assets. Since gold has become a speculative "where are people stashing their cash" play, it stops moving independently of other asset classes.)
But that does not indicate armageddon for stocks. It does not mean that the only place to put your cash is German bunds. Indeed, German bunds might start to resemble gold in terms of speculation, and we could see the classic case of "it costs you money to save in them" reappearing. We already have a few asset classes that are paying negative interest rates. Personally, I am never that risk-averse. If I can see yields of 7% on companies that look fairly safe to me, I'd prefer that to playing safe with an overpriced German 10-year bund that won't even get me my money back in absolute terms, let alone in inflation-adjusted terms.
+++++++
The July to September poker experience has been a small up-and-down ride. I won in July at $50 buy in and I won in August, mainly at $200 buy-in three-or-four-tabling. So I moved to $100 buy in. Yes, you guessed it; it's been horrible. I'm likely to end the quarter about $1,000 up, leaving me virtually level for the year to date.
I'm in that ghastly situation that I always feared; I'm not winning, but I'm not losing. It's not a case of saying "it's no good, I can't beat the game", but it is a case of "I can't beat the game easily, and I probably can't beat the game for a lot". Once a week (Friday night) some fish appear and either get lucky against me or do their bollocks to someone else (or, more usually for me this month, both). The rest of the week I am trying to break even as I build up the FPPs and VPPs. On Party I sit there saying "bot, bot, bot, probably colluding, bot". On Stars I just see a sea of other players like me -- with a few geniuses who seem to be able to beat the games, and a few more supernovas who must, eventually, realize that they are not good enough. Every month I am at the level where I just can't quite overcome the rake. The exception is $50 buy-in, which I just find intolerably boring, even when nine-tabling.
Well, Q4 to go and I'll have another think about things at the end of the year. I could go back to grinding out a couple of grand a year profit through low-stake MTTs. I could cut back to three-tabling and take a shot at $3-$6 or $5-$10. I could carry on as I am, hoping that I will be able to maintain my self-discipline against an Army of ABC players who really aren't that good (they all seem to play a groupthink 'style' at $100 buy in that I think I could outmaneovre with a bit of concentration) -- but they just aren't easy to beat.
Or, finally, I could go live. But the thought of all those unwashed poker chips, unshowered opponents, five-minute dwell-ups, and atrocious tournament directors makes me wonder whether the EV in cash terms is really worth it.
______________
The weight seems to be incorrigibly stubborn at the 11st 13lb mark. I know that, so long as the weight stays the same, then I am losing fat, because I'm putting on muscle. But putting on muscle is a (very) slow process. It's not the same as increasing your strength. Indeed you can increase your strength quite significantly before the body stops arguing and says "oh, okay, maybe I do need to build a bit of muscle here".
In the markets, the two most entertaining events of the week have been the collapse in the price of gold and the appearance on BBC News of Alessio Rastani. In fact Rastani didn't say anything surprising at all. But the BBC interviewer presumably expected some PR waffle, and was utterly stunned to hear some blunt facts. Honey, if you expect a trader to start talking about the need for social conscience and the role of the Big Society, you aren't that good a journalist.
The Daily Mail got itself into an even greater lather of self-righteousness, referring the following day to his "supreme arrogance", before digging deep and finding that he wasn't a trader in the sense that he was employed by anyone. His Facebook picture shows just a couple of screens and a laptop -- fairly pathetic compared with the set-up in my own office, TBH. It turns out that the guy might make some trades at home, but that his main job is as an inspirational speaker -- and he doesn't look to be a great success at that.
All of which is fairly irrelevant. His point was that expecting traders to act with a social conscience is stupid, and expecting them to say in public that what they really cared about was saving jobs in north-east England was also stupid. Traders look to make money on market moves. They make no judgements on those market moves. If they did, then they would not last as traders. In other words, people do not become traders because they are amoral. Traders are amoral because those with morals in the world of trading do not survive as traders. They go broke.
We saw a fine example of this in the gold and silver markets this week. It's always struck me as rather odd that one precious metal (gold) can be advertised as a haven while another (silver) can be called a speculative play. A few weeks ago there was no shortage of analysts explaining why gold had gone to $1900 an ounce and why it would inevitably reach $2500 or thereabouts before the end of the year.
That was before it had its buiggest ever one-day drop and, for a short while, fell back to $1530, before bouncing to the mid $1600s.
The point is, any commodity that doubles in price in less than 18 months is not a safe haven; it's a speculative play. Or, in another paradox, something is only a safe haven when there aren't huge numbers of people buying it because it is a safe haven. As I wrote before, gold has been a gambling play for over a year, and it is still one now. There should be some kind of volatility measure that, if exceeded, stops anyone from calling the relevant stock/bond/commodity in advertising material to be "the ultimate safe haven". Or, another clue, if anyone is spending a lot of money advertising funds to invest in "a safe haven", then by definition it isn't a safe haven any more.
That fall back to the mid-$1500s rather irritated me because I had completely missed it. I wrote a few months ago that I sold my long gold position in the mid $1600s, with a view to getting back in at $1550. I watched helplessly as the market soared to my March price target of $1800 (seen by nearly the whole market at the time as witlessly optimistic) and then I missed the buy point at $1550. Sigh. Still, that rapid fall-off will have turned sentiment against gold for a few weeks or even months.
I remain short euro-dollar. I'm not going to bottle it this time, despite a move from $1.34 to $1.3650 in the past couple of days. Indeed it's beginning to look like a top-up opportunity. I've done some dipping in and out in intra-day stuff (only possible on Friday because I can't access the relevant sites at work!), while keeping my fundamental position, maturing in December. I still cannot see any fundamental support for the euro, all the way down to $1.25.
Our friendly trader on the BBC was a bit of an armageddonist, calling a disaster for equities and a kind of global collapse of everything. That should have set off some alarm bells in my head that he probably wasn't the real deal. Although we saw the interesting move early in the week of the gold price falling as economic nerves were fraying (the absolute opposite of what it is 'meant' to do), this was merely an example of precious metals becoming speculative plays without any but the experienced players spotting the fact. (As Lex observed this morning, the appeal of precious metals is (a) that they are no-one else's liability/'promise to pay' and (b) that they move independently of other assets. Since gold has become a speculative "where are people stashing their cash" play, it stops moving independently of other asset classes.)
But that does not indicate armageddon for stocks. It does not mean that the only place to put your cash is German bunds. Indeed, German bunds might start to resemble gold in terms of speculation, and we could see the classic case of "it costs you money to save in them" reappearing. We already have a few asset classes that are paying negative interest rates. Personally, I am never that risk-averse. If I can see yields of 7% on companies that look fairly safe to me, I'd prefer that to playing safe with an overpriced German 10-year bund that won't even get me my money back in absolute terms, let alone in inflation-adjusted terms.
+++++++
The July to September poker experience has been a small up-and-down ride. I won in July at $50 buy in and I won in August, mainly at $200 buy-in three-or-four-tabling. So I moved to $100 buy in. Yes, you guessed it; it's been horrible. I'm likely to end the quarter about $1,000 up, leaving me virtually level for the year to date.
I'm in that ghastly situation that I always feared; I'm not winning, but I'm not losing. It's not a case of saying "it's no good, I can't beat the game", but it is a case of "I can't beat the game easily, and I probably can't beat the game for a lot". Once a week (Friday night) some fish appear and either get lucky against me or do their bollocks to someone else (or, more usually for me this month, both). The rest of the week I am trying to break even as I build up the FPPs and VPPs. On Party I sit there saying "bot, bot, bot, probably colluding, bot". On Stars I just see a sea of other players like me -- with a few geniuses who seem to be able to beat the games, and a few more supernovas who must, eventually, realize that they are not good enough. Every month I am at the level where I just can't quite overcome the rake. The exception is $50 buy-in, which I just find intolerably boring, even when nine-tabling.
Well, Q4 to go and I'll have another think about things at the end of the year. I could go back to grinding out a couple of grand a year profit through low-stake MTTs. I could cut back to three-tabling and take a shot at $3-$6 or $5-$10. I could carry on as I am, hoping that I will be able to maintain my self-discipline against an Army of ABC players who really aren't that good (they all seem to play a groupthink 'style' at $100 buy in that I think I could outmaneovre with a bit of concentration) -- but they just aren't easy to beat.
Or, finally, I could go live. But the thought of all those unwashed poker chips, unshowered opponents, five-minute dwell-ups, and atrocious tournament directors makes me wonder whether the EV in cash terms is really worth it.
______________
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Lost in translation
Date: 2011-09-28 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-28 10:27 pm (UTC)The only option you haven't mentioned is sng's. Personally I find these very congenial. I'm playing the 18 man $15 games on Stars successfully, so I'm sure you could multi-table something higher with a decent steady return.
Any chance of you putting in an appearance at MidCon, which is in Derby this year? It is hosting the European DipCon this time. I'm going myself, as much to meet up with old mates like Toby Harris and John Colledge as anything else.
Brian
SnGs
Date: 2011-09-29 12:15 pm (UTC)(a) I think that they are the easiest form of poker for which to write a programme. This makes the bot-collusion threat greater
(b) I like tournaments where I can get into the money well before it gets short-handed. I can cope with variable stack sizes, but not so well with changing numbers of players at the tables in conjunction with changing stack sizes. It just doesn't suit me, and so much of poker is instinctive timing. This was brought home to me when I watched a bit of a cardrunners video, where the player (who, to be honest, I felt had carved the hand, which was why he had a difficult decision) was umming and ahhing and eventually said "I can't really verbalize my reasoning here". If you do well at Sns, I suspect it is because you have an instinctive feel for the situations that arise, probably without even realizing it. I'd rather play single-table shoot-outs (winner takes all).
(c) I find them tedious. I mean, really really tedious. I can cope with MTTs for some reason (perhaps it's the large potential first prize), but the SnG compromise for me is the worst of both worlds. Individual hands aren't for real cash, and the prize money is modest relative to the stake (and the FPP/VPP reward is a pile of cack!). Tournament players seem to absolutely bottle it when they are playing for real cash in a hand rather than tournament chips -- so that indicates to me that there's a fundamentally different mental approach to the two genres. Mike Woodhouse has mentioned this in the past, with the SnG appealing to him because its structure is similar to that of a good board game, with an entry fee at the beginning and a real-money prize at the end. I don't really like board games any more, so something that pushes poker towards board games is not going to appeal to me.
No likelihood for MidCon, I fear, although I learnt that Mr Nye is attending, so that made it a fraction more tempting.
PJ
Re: Lost in translation
Date: 2011-09-29 12:19 pm (UTC)Not sure what you mean by "go liv". Are you referring to Liv Boeree? To which the obvious answer is, well, who wouldn't?
;PJ
Re: SnGs
Date: 2011-09-29 10:33 pm (UTC)I've just started playing at Party, and I'm surprised you think there is so much bot play there. I would have thought, for volumes sake, they would be more common on Stars. What makes you think bots are that common?
GL
bdd
Re: SnGs
Date: 2011-09-29 10:46 pm (UTC)If you look at the full-ring $50 buy in and $100 buy in (but more at the $50 buy in, I think), there's a raft of east European short-stacks who have remarkably similar statistics and wo, it seems to me, play identically. Of course, perhaps they are real people who just discuss strategies on frums (this is usually their defence when caught).
The reason I think that they are prevalent on Prty rather than Stars is that on stars they are more likely to get caught. I don't think Party gives a shit and, even if it did, I don't think it has the mechanisms to detect them.
Yes, you called it a "smooth" style, not the word I would choose, but I know that you mean -- very little adaptation for individual table situations, but a rule-based style that doesn't go far wrong in most situations. And, Yes, the tempting response is to move up in stakes and to play just three or four tables, which would allow you to exploit those individual tabkle situations. When I was three-tabling I noticed myself doing just that -- usually when stealing a pot OOP against a couple of players whom I knew would fold if I led out.
PJ