Good Weekend

I had a great weekend at poker. On friday I took 2nd in a $10 30k guarantee tournament on Pokerstars for 3.6k. The tourney started at 7:00 PM EST and was over at 3:30 AM EST.



Then on saturday afternoon I took 2nd in another tourney on Fulltilt for about 1.2k.



Good start to October.

Car loan paid off

I managed to pay-off the 20k car loan in just under 4 months. So that is one 2009 goal that can be chalked up as done. Unfortunately my savings account is pretty much decimated, but the rebuilding process can now start with vigor.

Emulate

Seabeast : made his bones in cash games before switching to tournament poker, that what I need to do, stick to cash till I have a roll that can make some damage.

TheAshman103 without the tilt and degen behavior and better bankroll management, but please give me his balls and skills. He is a true rags to riches story (740 usd to 970k usd in 1 year 3 months, and then donating back almost half of his net worth trying to compete with deep pocketed best of the best players). Heres his story in his own words of his rise based on pure skill and balls. A related highly negative cover story on this guy here.



Ben Grundy: another mid stakes grinder who successfully made his mark in the big games, of course he runs better than God. Please give me his god-like-running ability.

Last but not the least, my favorite Foucault: Needed his skills in cash game and life.

Foucault's 35th place finish in last years WSOP main event brought hm the check above. His bread and butter though is cash.

Savings allocation

Heres my savings allocation as % of total savings (excluding 401k), Ive been using this for the past couple of months with some degree of flexibility of course :

• Cash savings : 47% (i will probably reduce this substantially by end of the year, probably re-evaluate this one around Aug-Sep)
• House : 23% (saving up for house buying)
  
• Retirement: 30%
• Undecided: poker earnings (right now its kind of an even split between cash savings and retirement)

I got a nice boost this month as the Indian stock market sky rocketed and the Rupee appreciated versus the dollar as well.

Some reshuffling

Ok so I have about 1800 in my trading account and 1900 odd in my poker account, I have been able to generate a +ve cashflow of atleast $400pm from poker, and trying to increase that to atleast 700-800 by the end of the year. So obviously it seems poker>measly trading account.

I thus decided to close down my trading account for now and move the money into my poker accounts. I'll do that in 2 batches of $900 each.

Just finished a hand against an absolute donkey:

Full Tilt Poker Game #12113272302: Table Lord (heads up) - $0.25/$0.50 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:15:10 ET - 2009/05/09
Seat 1: ME ($91.50)
Seat 2: Cryandcatchme ($24.25)
ME posts the small blind of $0.25
Cryandcatchme posts the big blind of $0.50
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ME [Qs Ah]
ME calls $0.25
Cryandcatchme raises to $24.25, and is all in --> open shoved thrice in a row and i would hv snap clled with any A
ME calls $23.75
Cryandcatchme shows [Kd 7d]
ME shows [Qs Ah]
*** FLOP *** [8c 9s 4c]
*** TURN *** [8c 9s 4c] [4h]
*** RIVER *** [8c 9s 4c 4h] [2h]
Cryandcatchme shows a pair of Fours
ME shows a pair of Fours
ME wins the pot ($48) with a pair of Fours
Cryandcatchme stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $48.50 | Rake $0.50
Board: [8c 9s 4c 4h 2h]
Seat 1: ME (small blind) showed [Qs Ah] and won ($48) with a pair of Fours
Seat 2: Cryandcatchme (big blind) showed [Kd 7d] and lost with a pair of Fours

He immediately quit after this hand, poker will be profitable as long as such donkeys are around !!

Portfolio update

I let go half off DGP (double long gold ETF) at a paltry profit, with the market rallying like it is gold is facing a tough time (almost an exact inverse correlation with the market right now).

On the brighter side Fidelity national finance FNF is up 5.5% today after they reported last night. Though their quarter was rough (0.06c EPS on an expectation range of -0.03 to 12c), they did say that business has picked up strongly towards the latter half of the quarter.

I also started a position in Allegiant Travel ALGT, with Priceline reporting today they might get a nice booster dose tomorrow.

I also dipped into my emergency fund and transferred $2000 to India to take advantage of the high interest fixed deposit scheme I talked about earlier, I'll probabaly do a 50-50 split (1/2 in the 12% FD with Tata Motors and 1/2 in a 9.75% FD with HDFC bank).

11% annual interest !!

Tata Motors, one of India's biggest and most respected corporation is offering a fixed deposit scheme offering upto 11% interest (compounded), thats a huge huge huge deal and right now I am scrambling to put together as big a war chest as possible for this. Unfortunately it doesnt seem I can come up with more than 1.5k, without dipping into my cash savings. So what do you think should I be dipping into my cash savings to try and put as much into this as possible?

Tata Motors FD Interest Rates reduced from April 16th,2009

Effective Yield on 3 years Deposit reduced from 13.5% to 11.83%

Tata Motors has announced reduction in Interest rates on its ongoing and hugely popular Fixed Deposit Scheme with effect from April 16th,2009.

Under the Quarterly Income Plan the Interest Rates on 1 year deposit has been reduced by 0.75%, on 2 Year deposit by 1% and 3 year deposit has been reduced by 1%.

Additional Interest to Senior Citizens, Tata Motors Shareholders and Employees of Tata Motors has also been reduced from 0.5% to 0.25%

Other terms and condition of the Fixed deposit scheme remains same. You can read further details about the scheme in my earlier post here.

If you are a senior Citizen or Tata Motors and its subsidiaries employee or a shareholder of Tata Motors, the Effective Yield on 1 Year Deposit will be 9.84%.

Effective Yield in case of 2 Year deposit will be 10.62%

Effective Yield on 3 year deposit will be 11.83%

The effective yield on 3 year deposit will get reduced by 1.67%. Hence, if you have made up your mind to invest in Tata Motors FD scheme, it would be better if you invest before 16th April,2009.

Following are the Main Brokers / Distributors for the FD’s

•Tata Securities •ICICI Direct

•Kotak Securities •Stock Holding Corporation of India

•JM Financial •HDFC Securities