More Housing (Poker at end)

Calculated Risk (one of my favorite financial blogs) has a post today commenting on Bay Area house pricing. Apparently Housing data for December was just released and the median price is down 50% from peak and that foreclosure sales accounted for half the housing resales.

When I look inside the data it is the two least desirable counties that have higher sales volumes and bigger median price drops which leads me to believe that it is the "starter homes" where people stretched finances and accepted commutes that was hardest hit.

Sales volume was 6889, which puts ~3500 of these homes as foreclosure sales and new median price is $330k. If half of drop in median is due to mix in sales and half is drop in value then State of California now gets $1300 less in property taxes then it did a year ago on 3500 homes for a quick $5M drop in tax revenues for the last month in one county. On positive side those 3500 foreclosed homes would have previously been defaulting on the property taxes.

Throw in SoCal's Inland empire economy destruction of lost construction jobs and foreclosures and 60 or so employees at my company who will stop paying income tax in near future and I am beginning to see how a state can be $14B short in revenue off a $40B budget.

Astin jackAced me successfully (defeating JJ) a few hands later HeffMike reraised JackAce against my QQ and failed to deliver a jackAce beat. I make comment in chat (still pissed about being short due to Astin beat) along lines of "It's a blogger tourney, you can't possibly fold jackAce" sorry Heff. I avenge my earlier beat when Astin calls my raise with the jackAces little brother the jacKing off and my pocket Astins hold up against his flopped top pair. Mookie eliminates me when through some miracle his JJ wins a flip against my AK when he dodges a river King kick to the junk.

I am still running like a god at PLO (40.88 BB/100) yesterday cracking AA with high connectors and KK with low connectors, (I love the hold'em visitors that can't fold AA KJ69 board). In KK's defense he thought he had outs after flopping top set but I had already turned my straight flush when I raised his pot bet on turn.

Mook Day

The Mookie is tonight, after pwning Pvan in Monday's NYRPS I feel it is again time to issue a "Rue the Day Schaubs" warning.

I saw a classic theonion piece via reddit.com. So sad when over the top satire looks prescient.

We are 24 hours into this Obama Presidency, I am not seeing change yet! I met up with a former co-worker for beer (and to compare jobs in Valley notes) and met another EE who is long time Valley resident. He was trying to convince us that NOW is the best time to buy a home. Most laughable part of his argument was that he could not afford to sell his current house to move into a bigger home due to Property Taxes nor did it make sense to sell his home and downsize now that kids have moved out because he would only be pulling couple $100k of equity profit but his propert taxes would climb. I looked at movoto this morning out of curiosity, I love that $800k is asking price for a "single family home" with ~12 feet of open space to next door neighbors wall and a pipestem driveway AND parking is so hard to find that the picture advertising house has a SUV parked two wheels over curb to allow passage.

It has long been the american dream to own home to protect against rising prices but I don't see how current financial mess ends until housing prices do drop to levels ~4x local household income.

Locally I can rent a house for ~2x the property taxes would be to buy same house. At those levels I am not sure if 0% interest on 30 year loan motivates me to purchase.

Football Wrap Up

The Football Play of the weekend was the blocked Field Goal in this clip.

Officials had a pretty horrific weekend:

1) Blew the 1st half Kickoff call in Phil. v Az. due to ball never hit the Eagles nor did it ever go out of bounds. How is that not reviewable???

2) Hoy mentioned the pass interference on Philadelphia's final 4th down. I know there is some leeway when defender falls down and makes "incidental contact" but really.

3) Pittsburgh's punter still has not been touched, and how can that have been the personal foul variety??? How was Ryan Clark's spear of McGahee (arms crossed tight to body, lead with helmet, hunching head close to body, that is textbook spear) not a personal foul?

Pampas

I have spent last 2 days running like a god playing PLO cash.

3 Flopped quads, including once against flopped Aces over boat and another against AA that turned flush. But the main thing is those pesky set vs. wrap coinflips on flop have gone my way from either side. I believe I am still playing rationaly as I have just laughed when I folded overpairs to board on flop and turned sets.

Over last 600 hands I am +50 BB/100. Know it can't last but will enjoy while it does.

Decided to cash out a little and take the family out. Dinner tonight will be Brazilian. It is a rare treat for me as it is lots of BEEF on sticks. w00t.

Light over shower went out and when I went to change I noticed fixture was painted closed. I mentioned to wife I would need to find a utility knife, she mentioned to apartment manager while waited in community room for kid to get off bus and voila we discovered we don't even have to replace light bulbs in fixed fixtures. Just when I thought living in apartment couldn't get any softer then homeownership. I am sure there is a light bulb premium in rent but I sort of like not having to deal with the light bulb in trash or disposing of CFLs properly due to mercury.

Take one stab at a job

Photo is from Queensland Tourism Board.

Apparently the Queensland tourism board has created a 12 hour a month job to be an island caretaker. Job-seekers can apply at Islandreefjob.com. Pay seems okay since the duties involve vacationing and exploring the Barrier Reef. I may still apply but snorkeling seems required. Luckily I saw another story that gives me a way to raise cash for snorkeling lessons.

Full story of job can be found here.

Founder of current company came up with product idea while snorkeling, maybe I can too.

Edit: Mentioned the selling 14 yo daughter story to boss. He pointed out that demon child would be returned so I could make money on both ends of transaction.

Edit (part deux): I let slip boss's comment with daughter and that she is referenced as demon child on occasion. I must now add disclaimer that I was kidding since daughter can be humourless.

Nice Season Eagles and Ravens

Sorry Raven's fans and all the Eagle's fans.

My sports betting has been atrocious so you are doomed.

I also have Raven's at 14:1 to win SuperBowl so they may survive only to crush me later.

Have to do a pot odds calculation for work. What size pot am I potentially looking at if company gets acquired vs. what are odds of acquisition vs. how long a period of unemployment can I expect if company goes under. VP that recruited me to move down here made that calculation and left company last week. But he also cut his commute from 60 miles to 15 miles and no longer will have to drive through San Francisco. Luckily my start-up bankroll managment is better than poker's version.

I do have advice for other parent's: It seems like a good idea to have allowed child to learn self defense skills. But as they get bigger it hurts if they reflexively strike you in chest. She came in from shopping and said she was cold and I offered to give her hug to warm but got too close.

AfterMath

Last year in losing $11 prop bet to Recess I also lost ~$1000 off bankroll.


This year I won $26 from Recess, lost $35 playing SuperTurbos but now have weekly rakeback payments and a sick $250+ rakeback payment.


If not for stupid prop bet I would have quit playing during Tuesday Night downslide which certainly had some gross beats as contributers but probably has some bad plays. The K7s > KK (I called) and T9o >TT (he called) to bubble were certainly the most painful as they were on bubble against equivalent stack.


Superturbo play this week led me to a few conclusions:

1) Color Code who calls jams with any Ace or any 2 face.
2) Color code those who raise ATC from CO, button, SB.
3) Never fold AQ+ or TT+
4) I have been stunned by how often after I jam AK UTG I find an AT caller calling even from UTG+1.
5) I have also been stunned by sone of the folds I have seen near the bubble. I think most egregious was a fold for 65 chips behind as the shorty in the BB with 60/120 blinds, when other 3 stacks were in 700-900 range.

1st Prop Bet Win of year

The Points Tard and I had a prop bet to see who could clear 11,000 points 1st. Somehow King of Points had failed to even reach Gold one month so level was set at clearing his bonus threshold.

434 Turbo SNG, plus a few PLO and O8 hands later I claim victory. Ship the $4k buyin!

To answer StB's comment, no I probably am too burned out to actually clear bonus by 10th.

No More Slowplay

To paraphrase Dread Pirate Roberts "Good night Recess. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the afternoon."

1st Mookie of year was last night, I had AA against Jec's QQ. Then in the span of one orbit I was dealt KK, KK, AA and QQ, sadly lightning had AA on an all baby board after turn.

Break Even Poker

We have all read Waffles's claims of "break-even" poker, but I've got documentation biatches.

Stupid, stupid, stupid and FINAL points clearing prop bet with Recess has led to a ridiculous amount of SuperTurbo play. 61 tourneys a day (I am no Chad), $14k in prizes (woot), all for a simply PHENOMENAL $46 in profit.

Thankfully bet will end by this weekend, I will get huge rakeback transfer this week and bonus will also clear.

More Mis-Information (or is it?)

Two hands above are from Superturbos so action is aipf, AK hand I jammed UTG, AA I called from SB. Both plays I think are automatic in SuperTurbo.

Been playing a crazy amount of Superturbos as it is fastest way to accumulate points since it is rare that I want to multitable 5/10 + O8 nor are there usually more than 1 full ring game on FullTilt.

Mookie is tomorrow and IT and Schaub's have another prop bet. I guess I can understand Schaub's picking LJ over me for anything other than to back him up in a bar fight (she's meaner but a little clumsy when drinking).

But on principle.

Rue the Day Schaubs!

Tard Race 2009

Most of my points have come in super-turbos, since January 1 have gotten 215 in at a slight profit. ChicagoAPA has gotten in 1405 which I can only assume to mean he is a bot or he has a sick prop bet on line. Don't quite know where Recess stands in race but he has gotten in half as many super-turbos I have.

On positive side after 100th chippie you become completely numb to the bad beats. 4 tabling chippies mean you lose a 70/30 to A rag (who called) about once every 15 minutes.

I now understand why Chad issued the rule "If you tell me a bad beat story I will punch you in mouth". I have decided this is a good rule so be warned.

Late Pimp

I am the face of Bad Bankroll Managment so I would be remiss if I did not point out Julius Goat's fine tournament.

Consuming 1/4 of my screen for a superstack tourney may prove too costly in my battle with the point's tard.

In a particular bad beat my live Morgan Hill tournament consumed a lot of time for me to finish 2nd which ate into my playing time.

2009 is here

I thought my being on the leaderboard was cool until I noticed sprstoner was 7th in NLHE and 4th overall in the medium buyins.

Hoy fell victim to the "Waffle's gambit" in final 2008 Mookie. The delusional one feel's he hits gutters at 50% and two live cards is a flip so inevitable result is busto.

I put waffles cooler powers to test and placed a $10 bet that wife and I would have threesome with female blogger waffles knew. I of course lost showing there is a limit to the "waffle's fade". But won $25 when he of course failed in his delusional quest to reach top spot in any of 4 tourney leader boards. Now I just have to wait for ad money to hit Mr. Breakeven's account so he can get paid. Hopefully I won't have to wait as long as Tragedy continues to wait for Waffle's to write post praising the IT blog empire.

Whether Hoy is correct about "no one making a wager with waffles" for "chip dumping" will become moot if waffle continues to Welsh on bet with IT.

I cracked and entered into another bonus clearing bet with the points dork. I am sure his uber-dorkness will twitter a running points count but I'll never see it there.