So I’m back home after a long 10 weeks in Philadelphia. The course had positives and negatives but was overall just really long. There were 11 in the group; 5 from the main Bala office (just outside Philadelphia), 4 from Chicago and 2 from Dublin. There was a poker tournament throughout the 10 weeks with a mix of stud, razz, stud 8, limit hold’em, no limit hold’em and Omaha 8. I think I ran somewhat badly for most of it but in the last week I was joint 1st, had a nice up day and managed to hold on for the win. I usually don’t like playing poker that much (thinking about it is far more interesting) but actually enjoyed playing the tournament.

They put us in the Homewood Suites by Hilton which was pretty depressing, the dinners were inedible and the internet was like something from the 80s. It would have been better if there was no internet, when it’s there you want to use it but it took an eternity for pages to load which was just super frustrating.

The instructors took us out to dinner one night and they gave us the company credit card afterwards. We went to R2L and had Dom Perignon and some other $300/$400 bottles of champagne. Pretty funny to have a group of 23 – 26 year olds come in and blow a couple grand in a few hours. We got the credit card another two times, went to R2L again and then went to Dave and Busters to play unlimited games and bet on it.

The first 4 weeks of class we mainly had lectures, mostly on option theory. We had talks from people in the various departments and desks in the firm which was easily the most useful part of the whole course.

I went to Atlantic City the first weekend, reconfirmed that live 1-2 is the most soul crushing experience ever and finished up about $500. I went to New York as well; spent most of the time in Macy’s getting Christmas presents but went to Time Square as well. We had planned to go back to do some more sightseeing but never got around to it.

Some of the heads of the various departments were going over to the Dublin office for the weekend to go to the Christmas party. Dinner, free bar and putting everybody up in a hotel, recession isn’t all bad I guess! Anyway, two of the people who were supposed to be going dropped out so me and the other guy from Dublin were offered the seats. We assumed that since some of the directors and partners were going that we’d probably be flying first class, instead they took a fucking private jet!!





It was ridiculous. No queues, no security checks, we showed our passports to the pilot and went straight on. There was a bed in the back and a buffet with cheese, fruit, sushi, etc. Everybody else went to sleep but I was like a 12 year old and way too excited to sleep. I spent a lot of the time in the cockpit chatting with the pilots. I saw Venus rising, asked them to dim the control panel so I could see the Milky Way and watched the Sun rise. I was feeling hungry around 3am so the air hostess fixed me up with some brie and crackers, tastes better on a private jet obv .

Pretty sweet to see how the rich live, it could definitely spoil you if you let it but at the same time it’s incredibly motivating. The Christmas party was a lot of fun as well.

We had a week off over Christmas so I was flew back for that, no private jet this time though . A couple days after I got back a pipe burst next door due to the frost and our entire ground floor was flooded. We had to live upstairs for a few days, then the power was cut as well so we rented an apartment for a week while the landlord got everything fixed up.

For the last 6 weeks we had mock trading which is a trading game (I’ve outlined it in previous blogs). The first week and a half was “out loud” which is supposed to simulate the old style trading pits. However, we had to continually update all the options which was a little annoying since it’s mainly just delta adjusting when the stock moves and is something that traders never had to do in the real pits; if somebody wanted a market they’d just re-quote it rather than constantly updating an entire options surface.

After that we had electronic mock which was far more useful since the computer would take care of all the pricing and it was up to the trader to adjust all the parameters based on market flow. However, pretty much any explanation that we gave for doing a trade would be immediately shot down and criticized by the instructors.

The instructors frequently contradicted themselves and each other but never actually disagreed with each other which was absolutely ridiculous. If you had a group of traders discussing something as complex as an options trade or strategy you’d probably get as many different opinions as there are traders in the discussion. Despite claims that they wanted us to disagree with them we figured out after a week or two that there was only downside to it and generally kept quiet unless asked.

They took us to a couple of basketball games; we had a suite for the Sixers – Bulls game and the Sixers – Grizzlies game. Went to a shooting range and had a great time. Fired a 9mm, Colt .45, revolver and an assault rifle (it was either an M16 or M33, not sure), Also went to Pats and Genos to try the cheesesteaks, I thought Pats was better. While we’re on the subject of food, this will probably be a little controversial, but food in America is pretty awful. The only way I could eat healthily was to cook in the hotel and any type of quality food was pretty expensive. I’d imagine it would be almost impossible to eat well if you didn’t have a decent income. Some of the places that would be considered take-away in Ireland, like Subway, are considered “good” restaurants. It’s crazy how many people eat out regularly, I wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple generations a pretty large proportion of American grandmothers won’t know how to cook, something that would basically be unimaginable in Europe or Asia.

Anyway, the education program is given a lot of importance in the company and, while it’s definitely useful, it could be way more efficient. 10 weeks of not doing anything productive or feeling like I was really achieving anything is pretty tough. The only thing that prevented it from being completely unbearable was hanging out with the other people in the group. Most of the Bala people kept to themselves which was pretty annoying; they wouldn’t play the poker tournament after work, didn’t really go anywhere with the group, etc.

On the second last day we had reviews and one of the group was fired. It was a pretty big surprise but in a strange way it actually reaffirmed my faith in the company, in spite of the stuff they put us through. The guy didn’t improve at all and put in almost no effort. Even though you still have to put up with some nonsense and office politics, I have to believe that it’s a million times better than at most companies.

My review went very well, all positive comments. I’m going to be on the commodities/power desk but I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing yet. I’m taking a week off to spend with the family but I’m...

Ship it!

I'm going back to Philadelphia at the end of November for 10 weeks (with a week off for Christmas/New Years) and when I'm finished that I'll be a full trader which means I get my own strategy, a nice boost in pay and less hours .

I'm expecting it to be pretty intense so unfortunately I'm going to have to lock the stats thread. I don't have the time to keep up with it anymore and I always feel guilty when I haven't responded to it in a while. I'm working on a stats video but I don't know when that will be ready.

Jennifer started a make-up artistry course last week and has been enjoying it and getting positive feedback. Lauren started primary school this year and has also been doing really well.

I haven't played much poker recently although I try to get in a session or two at the weekend. I wrote a couple of articles for the private strategy forum recently and have another one written but want to make some changes to it before posting. Also, I highly recommend checking out Curtain's chess videos, I used to enjoy playing chess but never really took it seriously, it's fun to hear the thought process of a top player.

Haven't posted a blog in a while but things have been going pretty well. Got my maths video series finished which I'm really happy about although, at the moment, I don't feel motivated to do much at the weekends besides browse forums and play a session or two. I'm playing 200nl at the moment but not getting in much volume at all. I have some ideas for stuff I want to do but it's all still at the planning stage and I'm procrastinating on it. I put a new sticky in the micro stakes forum for some poker book discussion and Matt is working on getting a micro stakes coaching forum set up. I'm really pleased with how good that forum is at the moment, there's not a huge amount of micro stakes content at leggo but at least the forum is super solid.

Work has been going really well. I moved over to the commodities desk around the beginning of February to trade commodity ETFs, I was on the equity ETF desk before that. I'm getting to do a lot more trading and really enjoying it. Mock (a trading game we play) has been going really well and I've been crushing it the last few weeks. One of the other assistant traders got to go to Philadelphia for class (what we call the 10 week training program to become a trader) around March. It's kinda good and bad news, it's a little disappointing that I didn't get to go but good that there's one less person to compete with for the next class. On balance it's definitely a good thing. I'm not sure when the next one will be, hearing rumours of July or September, fingers crossed and just have to keep pushing myself.

I got the first season of the wire and I'm almost finished it, snap buying the rest of the seasons obv. Aaron's been talking about a multi-part HU addition to the memoirs so I'm really excited about that, I almost wish he hadn't said anything because the waiting is a killer. Kinda cool that I still get excited about learning new stuff about poker though, you'd think you'd grow out of it.

I had a great time in Philadelphia. The training course was o.k.; we had to be in for 8 but we wouldn't get started until 10. The morning consisted of having breakfast and then playing limit hold'em for play money and discussing every hand afterwards, thankfully I managed to avoid as much of it as possible, lol limit.

After that we'd correct the homework we were given the night before and then either have a class or play more poker. The homework was hit or miss, some nights it could be done in 15 minutes, other nights it would take several hours to get through. Then we'd have lunch and usually another class in the afternoon. Some days we'd also get a talk from one of the various departments and after that we'd play more poker until we could go home at 4. Bill Chen gave a poker talk for a couple hours which was really cool.

The company put on various things for us over the two weeks; there was a dinner in Chifa on Society Hill, it was a nice place but I wasn't a huge fan of the food. We went bowling as well, I suck at bowling but when I learned how to spin the ball it became a lot of fun, took some nice shots where the ball rolled right along the edge of the gutter and swung in just at the end. We also went to the Phillies vs. Atlanta Braves baseball game, had great seats but the game got rained out in the 8th inning.

The rain was really heavy, I could actually see the rain falling before it had gotten to us, I was out of my seat and into the aisle by the time it finally hit. In Ireland there's a lot of rain but it's mostly drizzle or light showers, in Philadelphia it was massive downpours or nothing at all. I also got a cheese steak from Tony Lukes which was excellent.

I went to see the Liberty Bell and the Rocky steps and I went out to the King of Prussia mall, it was pretty big although I'd kind of expected it to be bigger. Still managed to blow through a grand in 4 hours.

I lost about 5 pounds while I was over there, I've put on a lot of weight since I started this job, the long hours don't leave much time for exercising but I had a decent amount of free time to go to the hotel gym after class. On the plane back one of the other assistant traders showed me how to solve the rubiks cube, he can do it in under a minute, my best record so far is 2:03 which I'm pretty pleased about.

I also had my graduation on Wednesday, the ceremony dragged on a bit but it was nice seeing my friends again. I had gotten the parchment framed but it smashed in the suitcase on the way home.

Work has been going fine, a load of new assistant traders and interns have just started, there's 5 new assistant traders and 3 new interns so it's great having people around the same experience level to talk to. We started the mock training which is pretty tough, basically we're given a stock price and fair prices in a couple of options and have to make call and put markets in all the strikes around the stock price, then the guys teaching the class will act as brokers and put in bids and offers and it's up to us to trade with them and try to make money by arbitrage, hedging our position or just taking positions based on order flow.

The game is relatively simple, once you understand the relationships between the various options the game breaks down to simple algebra and arithmetic. The problem is that you're competing with 5+ other people who are trying to do exactly the same thing and it comes down to who can add and subtract the fastest, something that nobody's really done since they were like 8 years old. Then there's the problem of making sure you're doing the trades in the right direction and not costing yourself money, as well as getting all the terminology right. It should be a lot of fun once everybody's reasonably advanced, at the moment we're mostly still getting used to the relationships and all the mechanics.

Besides that I've mostly been doing coding, which I'm getting pretty good at now. Knowing lots of different things I can do makes it more enjoyable.

I'm going to the head office in Philadelphia with the other Assistant Traders for two weeks tomorrow for a training course. I've been hearing loads of great stuff about it so it should be a lot of fun. We don't start until 8.30 so I'll get to have a bit of a lie in as well . I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have while I'm there so don't feel insulted if it takes me a while to reply to comments/PMs/posts in the stats thread.

My graduation is on the Wednesday after I get back so I'm looking forward to that and seeing my college friends again.

I passed, ship it.

I got a second class honours, I'm not sure what system they use in America but it was an average of 65% so I'm very pleased about that. There was a close scare with measure theory and martingales, I got 30% which meant I passed by compensation. Over 40% is a pass but if your overall results are high enough then they'll compensate a result between 30% and 40% to bring it up to a pass. Below 30% is a fail.

I got 43% on my first exam, computational finance, which was the one I was most worried about. All the other exams went fine though.

Poker has been going o.k., I started off very well but seem to have plateaued recently which is frustrating. Meaningless sample size obviously. Other commitments have been piling up so it's possible I'm feeling stressed about those or maybe I'm just more tired in general which is causing the problem. It could be that I need to tone down my aggression, I'm playing very loose and it might be ego related that I think I can isolate calling stations with hands like 96o and expect to show profit.

I'll keep an eye on it, I might just be making something out of nothing. I haven't gotten a huge amount of hands in so far this month, Birthdays and Christenings have popped up to wipe days out and I've been taking days off to work on videos and articles.

On top of that my iPoker client wouldn't open for a while and then my Party client started lagging and disconnecting me all the time so I lost a few days because of that. It was weird, there was nothing wrong with my internet connection as I usually have youtube open while I'm playing, my computer system is a beast so I doubt there's any problems there. And the lagging would only occur on some tables at a time, I'd be playing away on one table and another one would be disconnected.

Most of my play is done on Party because the iPoker software is just ridiculously bad. However, Party only allow 4 disconnect protects per week before you have to contact support and ask for a reset. The first time I ran out was on a Sunday and I emailed support who said they wouldn't reset it for me but it would reset automatically on Monday anyway. It kept lagging and ran out again mid week so I've moved money over to Stars and I'm playing there instead for now. GFY Party customer service.

I've been getting to the gym three times a week this month which I'm delighted about, only missed one day so far. I've also started taking whey protein, it says to take it three times a day but I end up missing some of them, usually in the evening. It's not really a huge concern though, it's not like I'm in training for anything.

with my girlfriend Jennifer, our daughter Lauren and her cousin Louise.

And we saw monkeys



And a gorilla



And sealions



And a tiger



And rhinos



And we went on a bus around the park



And we sat on a bench



And we were walking



And we saw one of these things



And we saw penguins



And some birdies



And it was the best day ever.



The end.

I just finished my 7th exam which was on business and corporate finance. It was the only 3 hour exam I had this year, the rest were 1.5 hours. The exam went pretty well, there were two sections, each three questions, do two, and I managed to get the 4 questions I needed done. There were a couple of small parts which I'm not positive if I got right and I may have missed a point or two in the theory sections. Overall I was pretty happy with it though.

The exam before that was on survival analysis which went very well, it was 4 questions do all of them and I got them all out very well so I'm confident with that. The study was kind of weird though, studying survival analysis kept on making me think about death and what would happen if I died or a loved one died. Not exactly pleasant things to be thinking about. However, there's more than enough emo crap on aejones and lwrunner's blogs to cover all the Leggo blogs (possibly the whole internet), so I won't elaborate on that.

Anyway, the main reason for the blog post is that I had a strategy segment on the 2+2 pokercast, it's at 1:18.

My last exam, on time series, is on Friday. I'm really looking forward to getting that finished and having time to play poker again and finish off the second part of my 200nl video.

That's 5 out of 8 exams done for you non-maths people .

The last 3 have all gone well. The first one was on statistical methods in insurance, this was more a test of how fast you could get the answers down then anything else. I messed up on one part, tried to fix it, but quickly gave up and moved on. I got everything else out so I was pretty happy with that.

The second one was on continuous time financial models. Another test I had to learn the entire course from scratch for. I only ended up covering enough material to do the first 3 questions (the paper is 4 questions, do 3) but I got most of them out, just a couple things at the end of the questions I couldn't finish. The first question was on the Feynman-Kac formula, it's been a while since I've really enjoyed doing a maths problem but I spent several hours straight trying to solve the past exam papers for this question. I frequently get very bored and distracted studying maths these days, Isura recently posted a blog about being "in the zone" and that's how it felt with these questions, I didn't even notice the hours. I actually got up in the middle of the night to try and solve a problem that was keeping me awake.

I've just finished the third exam which was on measure theory and martingales. It's a pure maths subject which means lots of definitions, theorems, questions that you have to learn the answers off for rather then being able to solve them, and lots of stupid little notation. I hate having to learn things off, it's so tedious. I was up all last night trying to learn definitions, the first time I've had to pull an all-nighter for ages, and in the end I only got about two and a half hours work done because I was so bored. I probably would have been better off going to sleep and trying to wake up early. Oh well.

The exam itself went fine, I ran pretty good with the paper. I'd learned off enough stuff to answer all of 1 question and almost all of another. It was another 4 questions, do 3 style exam. I managed to make mediocre attempts at a couple of parts for a third question just in case the lecturer is feeling generous.

The last 3 exams should go much better, all the financial maths and pure maths papers are out of the way. I have 2 stats papers and 1 finance paper left, it'll be nice being able to understand what I'm learning for a change.

I've finished two of my exams so far. The first one, computational finance, went pretty badly. One of the questions involved inverting matrices which, as a 4th year student, I should probably know how to do, but couldn't remember. It wasn't actually on the course so he probably could have put the formula down for it, maybe he just expected us to know.

The second one, stochastic modeling 2, went much better. It was a huge cram session for it since I haven't gone to any lectures all year, except for project ones where it was required, and I had a day and a half to learn the course.

So I'll be lucky to pass the first one and should do fine on the second. My exams are spaced out reasonably nicely, it's usually two exams in three days and then 3 - 5 days off in between. So after the second exam I can have a short break, try to catch up with emails and other commitments, and hit the grind again.

I've been trying really hard to eat better and avoid energy drinks, it's hard when I'm in college all day though. I'm definitely eating a little better, I've cut out the hot breaded chicken rolls and have started getting proper meals or at least cold chicken rolls. I had a Red Bull yesterday to get the most out of the last few hours before the exam, but other than that I've managed to avoid them. I am drinking a fair amount of coffee though, usually have a cup with each meal, I'm not sure how big an issue that is though.