Hey all,

I was looking to have my 30in monitor shipped from CA to IL. It's at a family member's house, so I personally can't pack it. I don't need the monitor anytime soon, and would like the fedex/ups/whatever place be able to package and box it for me. Does anyone have any suggestions as to which service or company to use? Ideally, I'd like it to be <100$ to ship it.

Thanks,
Matt

Looking to stake some 100nl+ players that might have a good chunk of money tied up/whatever other reasons they aren't grinding. US players are welcome, and encouraged. Likely be some sort of staking+coaching deal. Shoot me a PM with a little bit about yourself, stakes you play, volume, sites, etc. and we can discuss from there.

I wanted to post a lil something about a trade I made back in November. I went long OPEN on the morning of 22nd, at 68.00$, and unfortunately made a poor sell and sold a bit too soon on 12/15 at 68.44$.

Unfortunately, I had no reason so sell; I let the heavy volume dump scared me like a little girl. As a result, the stock held the 50dma (I sell after it breaks thru), and raced right on up past 100$ and is trading at $105 now, leaving me behind. The goal here is to illustrate how I think trading comes off as very complex and thus discourages a lot of people looking to get into the game. It is simple, and probably the "stupider" you are, the less you are going to try to fight the market. Hint, market always wins.

Here is a thread on 2p2's Business, Finance, and Investing forum, specifically dedicated to the stock, OPEN: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30...ntable-957464/
**The thread dedicated to OPEN starts mid Jan. If you check out the monthly trading thread ( I wouldn't bother with the junk there) people talked about the stock thru nov and dec as well.

The first thing you see is a lot of numbers. I have no clue what any of these probably mean. I don't care. If they work for you great. I certainly don't need them, at least the way I learned to trade. In short, I could give two shits about anyones analysis in that thread pertaining to how OPEN should behave, because all that matters is simple price and volume (aside from CANSLIM fundamentals, which I look up very easily with some software). Price and vol doesn't lie. And more than likely, the players with the big money know something you don't and have there own reasons for clearly accumulating OPEN.

6th post in- why OPEN is a short:
I don't give any weight to anything said here, and have 0 plans on learning what any of it means. You don't need to either.

Throughout the thread, theres a handful of the regs in the BFI forums that talk about how they are shorting/betting against OPEN and some stuff on how its overvalued. Hell look at post 53. That is just mind blowing. I just scrolled to the end of his post and saw that based on his stuff, he thinks its a short. 56 is super long too, basically ending with I'm prob shorting.

Finally, 59 posts in, someone gets it right:
Ding ding, your opinions/valuations don't mean shit. Yet so many people are trying to come up with reasons. I don't bother with any sort of complex analysis. I'm sure a lot of the analysis ppl are taking about with wahtever numbers theyre throwing out there are correct. However, stocks can remain over/undervalued for a longgg time. Good luck shorting OPEN at 75 and not getting squeezed. I think how I learned trading is much easier...

I go thru my scans each day after the market closes (4pm EST). You can create your own filters and requirements and whatnot, pretty easily. Like I've never done computer science easy. I run a few scans; somedays I have to screen 300 stocks. Somedays I have 0. I barely even bother scanning for shorts because it's so difficult to make money there. Getting good at the technical analysis-looking at charts- is easy to pick up in my opinion, and is easy to learn. By scanning thru what stocks have exploded in the past, you catch onto what the characteristics are, and what the charts look like. Also, all the books I've rec'd in the past have in depth reviews, explaing the charts. If I had to guess, you can figure out proper buys after a few weeks of trying. Will you have mastered it? Nooo, and you probably won't even be close to as good compared to any trader with more experience than you. But as you keep learning, you keep honing your chart reading skills. Personally, I like looking at charts and finding patterns. I think successful poker players are built that way, too. I'd love to see a lot of people give it a go.

After going thru my scans for maybe 30 minutes, I go back to the stocks that have proper TA signals and check out the fundamentals on marketsmith (additional software). MS is like 1k/yr, and just gives the fundamentals for you very clean, fast, and easy. I'm lazy like that and don't wanna ever have to look at balance sheets. The info on MS is available on investors.com as well, for much much less. If the fundamentals are good enough, I login to my broker, type in how many shares I wanna buy and the ticker symbol. I click preview, and that shows me how much is in the position. I'm too lazy to even grind the math on how many shares equals X amount $. I have an idea of what percent of my account I wanna trade, given the downside risk (easily picked up from chart) and the amount I care to put my portfolio at risk. Mental math stuffs. So I decide, hey 50 shares of XYZ, hit preview and it shows a 7k position. I wanted something closer to 10k, so i change 50 shares to 66, hit preview, and see its close enough to 10k. Good to go, hit submit.

I'd imagine the process takes 30-1hr and does not require ya to sit thru the trading day. I don't bother with CNBC. Or any other news. It's all garbage. It's just more opinions on how stocks should be acting. The only thing that matters is what's really happening, hence why I only look at price and volume. I'm doing my best to keep learning, so I can avoid being shaken out of OPEN; sitting on the sidelines as it rockets up is no fun. Especially when people are like OMG theres no way this can be happening rawrarawrr.

Doing maybe 1hr of work in trading, at any time I choose, from any country I want is what I plan to be doing after poker. Keeping it very simple. It's right up a lot of poker players' alleys. I'm sure this is gonna get a ton of LOLs bc I don't even know what P/E ratios mean. I really don't care. It's just another opinion.

I've already messaged a handful of leggo guys on skype, but figured I'd throw it up on the blog anyways.

I'm in the works of starting a trading site, and here's a summary of what'd it be like.

Goal: to provide poker players with the ability to manage one’s wealth, as well as provide education to poker players trying to learn a form of investment. Trading stocks have been highly profitable over a long term and can eventually translate to a larger source of income than poker, helping poker players become less reliant on poker and the uncertainties than come with it. How long that period is depends on the individual, and how tolerant he is to risk.

How the site works: It’d be similar to a CR or Leggo; however it’d only have one main professional trader. The trader has audited results (10yrs) and crushes the market currently, so you are learning from someone that has crushed the games over a large sample, and continues to do so. The trading is done in the stock market, although the concepts you learn are applicable to FX or commodities. Our site will solely educate on how you can become an independent trader in the stock market. The site would not be a fund, and you as the user make all the decisions: amount you want to have as a trading “roll,” how much you want to risk per position, what trades you want to take, etc. We will however, be able to walk you through in the very beginning, and even spoon feed the information. Likely, there will be a daily email with exact buy and sell points for you to take if you choose. Keep in mind, the long term goal is to provide you with the education to do the trading on your own. When you want to take off the training wheels is up to you. If you want to “bumhunt” and just take the positions, you can, and will make money. A monthly fee for membership will be implemented, with a discount for paying for an entire year. The price has yet to be determined. We’re looking at having poker site payments as options as well, which would be sick.

Education methods: many players are looking for some sort of investment vehicle for the money they’ve made from grinding, but it seems most forums are full of people that don’t know how to start. Well this site would be how to start, and will help you bypass a lot of mistakes other’s have made, time and time again. The site would mainly educate by means of short videos (5 to 10 minutes ) with commentary from the head trader, along with the ability to post questions (same as poker videos). There would be daily market wrap up videos, videos on specific positions, and videos covering the past big winners in the market.
Content/Philosophy: The trading methodology is a hybrid of the CANSLIM method, created by William J. O’Neil. This method works the best for us, and has resulted in the best returns for the past 130 years. In short, it’s like playing the JJ+ AK in the poker world, and being able to reload to 1000bbs mid hand after you flop quads. You’re making plays on pretty nutted stocks that have a lot of room to run, with very narrow downside risk (7% max). The specific trading method will be explained in much further detail. This is far from day trading, but as we will show, the returns from using our method will shatter most everything else. To become fully in tune with the market, it does take time. However, you can only read so many poker books, talk about so many hand histories, or watch so many videos before realizing putting in the hands is the best teacher. The same goes for the stock market; the more experience you have actually being in the market the better, and more helpful. Again, you can treat the site as a coach sweating your session, telling you to call, raise, or fold. You’ll make money doing that, but the goal is help you make those decisions yourself.

Other: The site would have a live chat room, forums, video archives (trading method base on history, hence the review of the past biggest winners… the same characteristics show up), videos outlining how to setup your trading account, videos on how to use software, booklist (potentially with online library), reading groups( Q&As with experts, discussion amongst peers), blogs, live weekend review sessions, to get “live coaching” from the lead trader, affiliate program. The idea is you have a login to access the site, which will have every resource you want to get better trading. You can progress at your own speed, or work with our program to help you reach your goal.

Lead trader: The results for the leading trader will be provided by an outside auditor. No bull shit on this end. We want to provide you the best service we can, which is based around how well our trader performs.

Anyways, I'd like to hear anyones input as to why or why not someone would want to join a site like this. Please comment here, PM me, or msg me on skype @ matt.plecki

My lease for the house in Newport is up on May 8th. And from there, I have no plans really, short term or long. I've been torn between keeping possessions to a minimum and traveling around, and locking in to specific area where I can grind on my 30", park my car, and in general, store my shit. Surprisingly, and fortunately, this has been the biggest of my worries lately.

I've never traveled with my family, aside from seeing my uncle in California every other summer, and the occasional trip for a cliche summer vacation. The only time I've been outside the country has been when I've seen family in California, and we've driven down to Tijuana. Not exactly a culture you're dying to experience. Additionally, I'm turning 21 in June, which will provide even more opportunities and adventures.

As of now, I plan on making doing a roadtrip back to Chicago. I'll live with my parents for a few weeks as a test run; if I'm able to grind and focus and not want to kill myself, I'll just stay until I head out to Vegas. If not, I'll leave a majority of my possessions at home and rent a place in the city for a month. I plan on doing Vegas from mid june to mid july, however, I'm not 100% set on it. Everyone comments with "you HAVE to go," so we'll see. After WSOP wraps up, I'll fly home and do a few trips with my friends. Hopefully they're not busto. Likely doing New York and some other areas in the North East. They all head back to school around mid August, pretty much leaving me with the option to go anywhere and do anything.

My priorities consist of mainly playing poker, trading, and doing a bit of REI. I'm likely to meet up with my current roommate to take care of the REI stuff, hopefully in August. He's willing to take me under his wing and walk me through the process. Trading can be done anywhere, and I do not need the luxury of multiple monitors. As for poker, it would be ideal to have a war room. I'd like to be able to have an area where I can add a bit more to my desktop, buy some speakers, stop using a chair from the kitchen table, use a real mousepad instead of a travel cover for my laptop, and not have to worry about packing things up to move every few months. I refuse to play from a laptop, and if I'm traveling around for weeks at a time, the last thing I'll want to do is grind.

If I had infinite monies, I would plunk down on an apartment in San Diego, use it as my home, live there for maybe 6 months out of the year and do a variety of traveling trips. The only problem with that is I don't like the idea of basically lighting a few thousand on fire, since 1.5k/mo rent effectively is doubled since I'm living there for about 6 months. This would allow me to setup a "home base," have a handful of material items, with the ability to start seeing the world.

Of course, I don't have infinite monies, so I'd rather not "pay" for that lifestyle. Thus, I'm left with a decision to make: where to live, and for how long? Hopefully a few of you can give me some input on what you think. There's tons of threads in the travel thread on 2p2, and there's a few people that have cozied up in an apartment close to friends and family, so there should be a variety of responses.

Matt

Haven't done a legit blog in a while... it's mainly just me spamming leggo for help. Kinda been busy teh past month or so. I moved out to Newport Beach with another leggo brah brah, and have been down here for a month now. This is my first go at living with a poker player, and so far it's been great. My biggest problem has always been a lack of volume; I don't think I've ever played 30k hands in a month before. Living with someone that grinds definitely helps you get in that mindset. I was considering posting my March graph because I basically played my A game for 40k hands, but decided against it bc the obv graphpostinginblog downswing curse. Well the poker gods leveled the shit out of me, so here it is:

sick thing is you can still clear a lot of money at midstakes if you are working hard enough at it.

All this stuff is 6m, although I have started sitting back in at empty HU tables. I'd imagine a made a few 160$ buyins at 400. Games are dead right?

In addition to living in Newport, I purchased my first car. I don't have exact pictures, but looks like this-

02 bmw 325 ci. I'v never been a car person, and don't consider my car luxury, but compared to the 99 honda accord with 250k+mi I drive back home, this is much more enjoyable to drive around. I'm probably heading home for the summer and need to figure out a way to get my car back. It's like 900 to ship it cross country, which isnt terrible.

Also, like the last 10 days of March I had friends and family come out to visit. We went boarding up in Mammoth and had 3-5ft of snow. Pretty nuts. Then just traveled around LA, bev hills, and SD. Anyways, I hope I can wrap up the month strong and continue strong throughout the summer. If anyone is in the area and wants to come crash at the beach house, lemme know. We have 5 bedrooms.

Looking for my UB for your FTP +std vig for a decent chunk. min 5k. I have dozen of references for you and you'd likely be sending first. PM if you can help

Well I'm at the point where I'm trying to move up past 1k, but the poker gods dislike me. Either that, or 2knl is rigged. In all honesty, I probably wasn't playing my A game, and there's really nothing else to blame. Being stuck 5bi is enough motivation to get the poker brain flowing. It's a struggle for me since I don't talk with anyone who plays 5knl on skype or anything like that. Eventually I''l just fork over 1k+/hr to get coaching from like sauce or something. Until then, I'll prob spam the shit out of anyone who plays 5k for some advice.


After a losing sesh at 2k, I decided to literally sit at everyones hu table at 200nl and just play the best ppl there. I ended up playing some really good reg (well PTR says hes a good reg) and we played 400nl hu where I won like 7 bi. Definitely was playing my A game and had a good string of hands early in the match which resulted in me 3b/4b/5b/6b an absurd amount for value, with most not being SD. I'll prob be giving that another go sometime soon as well, rather than trying to play braindead fish.

If any of you haven't checked out the most recent interview on pokerstatic.com, I'd definitely check it out. I never have listened to anything on that site, but Girah has such a good story and provides tremendous motivation. I've Pm'd the kid and hope to bug him a bit on skype. I feel like I'm still far behind guys like sauce/girah/nutsinho and have a ton to learn. Hopefully I can pick a few things up from him.

I've also started my own website and will post the domain sometime soon. I'm simply moving my blog over there, and will just be making posts about Poker,Trading, and Life. My long term goal is to run a fund, so hopefully by the time I'm 30 it's gg life.

I'm insanely biased, but definitely think Rodman should be in the HOF. Dude was a straight beast and brought a lot of his own flavor to the NBA. With five rings and one of the best rebounders ever, he should be a lock.

Whatcha all think?

I have an idea for an app and want to hire a coder to throw it together. Does anyone have any experience with any of the process? Apparently I'm not googling efficiently enough because I can't really find any good review as to who to go to. App is very simple- I'd imagine really anyone who knows how to write programs would be able to do it.

thanks