Just Talking To Myself

All over the place in this one so I’m just going to use bullets points today so I don’t have to fake transitions:

– Shane Schleger, one of my few poker friends, once told me to start a blog where I just comment on everyone else’s blog.  I almost did.  I think he just wanted me to stop bugging him on AIM with my blog comment of the week. In his honor, I’d like to talk about two blogs this week.  First, Daniel Negreanu’s video blog entitled “REAL TALK.”  I’m not a big fan of Daniel Negreanu.  And I’m also not a big fan of anyone who considers themselves “REAL.”  Everyone knows someone who says, “I keep it real,” or “I’m not fake” or some variation of that.   And almost without fail it’s a euphemism for “I have no social tact.”  For this world to move peacefully most normal people have developed a filtration system, where you don’t say whatever comes to mind.  If you don’t think the overweight lady should be buying a bag of Doritos, it’s really not your place to say.  If you don’t like someone’s new haircut, keep it to yourself.  These “REAL” people are offesnsive – often without knowing it on a daily basis and cause confrontation they don’t plan on.  This creates unwanted enemies.  But instead of looking in the mirror,  they start calling themselves “REAL.” In my limited Daniel Negreanu experience he fits into this category.

His REAL TALK  blog attacks the FTP main players, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, and Ray Bitar.  His overall premise is spot on and he seems to have paid attention to the facts, but his point is childishly obscured when he suggests they should be given a baseball bat to the balls. It’s almost if he’d rather argue whether they deserve a baseball bat to the balls than if the big three committed any wrongdoing.

The second blog is Doyle Brunson’s.  http://www.doylebrunson.com/blog/

Same topic.  His presentation is cleaner, but he only wants to blame Ray Bitar – saying he believes his friends when they say they didn’t know FTP was illiquid.  Yikes, that’s really putting your head in the sand.  I’m very surprised by his blog.

– Jeremy Lin –  Who doesn’t love that story?  Talk about a positive black swan event! Lin went from sleeping on someone’s couch in relative obscurity to being more highly sought after than Jay-Z and Beyonce in NYC.  And it only took one week!

His play has been analyzed ad nauseum, but I think he will eventually fall into the middle tier as a starting point guard.  Offensively he’s very, very good – more than just a product D’ Antoni’s system.  But against the top 5 – Paul, Rose, D Williams, Rondo, and Westbrook – he’s just can’t compare athletically.  Obviously that’s tough company but besides Rondo’s shooting those five are better than Lin at every aspect of the game.  Also, Lin is a defensive liability and I don’t see that changing.  He has to be Nash-like on offense if he’s going to make up for his defensive problems and get into the top-tier.

– Sklansky’s Fundamental Theorem of Investing – Paraphrasing Sklansky, for a trade or bet to be good, you have to have information asymmetry on your side.  Specifically, know why the other side is taking the trade and why they are incorrect in doing so. Even if a trade at the outset looks extremely appealing you better be careful unless you know why the other side is presenting it.

As Sky Masterson famously quoted, “One of these days in your travels, a guy is going to show you a brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken. Then this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of this brand-new deck of cards and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not accept this bet, because as sure as you stand there, you’re going to wind up with an ear full of cider.”

Theoretically Sklansky Theory of Investing is great – makes perfect sense.  Definitely a good idea if you are going to trade high-stakes futures.   In real life however, I’ve found that you are better off walking through the door and asking questions later.  I once bet a friend that the song lyrics were “Kumbaya, my Love.”  A sucker is born every minute.  That particular minute it was me.

Don’t fall into the trap of giving the masses credit.  Whenever I’ve asked myself questions like, “If it were so easy, how comes everyone not doing it?” or “That looks to good to be true.”  I’ve found that it usually is that easy and it’s probably that good.  If a house is selling for 20% below market value, buy it.  If you have a good business idea that seems obvious, go for it.  Don’t get paralyzed.

On the real estate front, I’ve been slacking a little, I went back to Chicago for my birthday so I haven’t had time to look for new properties.  I mentioned the house  29810 Greater Mack -I thought the short sale deal was as good as closed, but  I got a call from the other agent and he said, “We are close now – hopefully we will close in a few weeks.”  Hmmmm.  I don’t even know what they are working on – I think trying a to release a second mortgage or something.   Like always, nothing with the banks moves fast.  Of course, when they want you to do something, they give you about 48 hours.

I said in my last blog that I was going to write about edge in real estate but I think I’m just going to focus on my experiences with the banks, since that’s most of the edge anyway.  I will probably write that later this week.  Thanks for reading.