Day 2, PT3 says it was roughly 7 hours and 4k hands.
First "running real bad" day of my short poker career w00t! I almost feel like I'm part of the gang now hahaha .
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A lot of people have suggested that I should really open up my preflop hand selection more, and after looking at yesterday and today's sessions, I can't agree more. As expected I have almost 'too' much respect at the table, and the lack of action is most likely inducing betting patters postflop that are either just bad decisions outright, or are chasing the profit too hard and making the villians fold rather than stay in. Towards the end of the session though for the last ~500 hands or so, I opened up a lot more from CO and BU, just going for blind steals really aggressively. It's a direction I'll follow tomorrow as well, since even though the overall results don't show it, I felt like the overall gameflow was much more positive. Anyways, I'll take you through today's events if you so care.
Session 1
Just a lil up and down, got hit by a few suck outs, got some good hands, etc. Ubernitty 7-8 table play at this point. I quit the session about $1.2 down to go have dinner. Nothing mucchhhh to say tbh (plus, I tend to not remember what happened by now haha!).
Session 2
During the second session, most things were teh same as session 1. A slow grind upwards, usually winning the small'ish pots but losing the big ones, story of my poker life yay! (I bet it relates directly to my nittiness). At the very end I caught two huge suckouts to put me about +$8, which prompted me to msg someone on aim saying "it's a sign I should quit now!!". And boy was I right! A short while later I had lost a bi or so and was basically breakeven for the day. Which is perfectly fine with me. Went downstairs for a few hours to take care of some paperwork I had to do.
Session 3
EPIC DOWNSWING TIME BABY!! I really feel like I played most of the hands well, with a handful of exceptions where I was clearly being too aggro betting each street hard to no avail. It's really a huge flaw of mine to win a bunch of small pots c-betting, then give up like 10x those pots in one epic fail attempt. However, the majority of the losses came through suckouts or just being beat, like having KK vs AA, and actually having TPTK/TPGK with AK/AQ on the flop, shoving, and the opponent having AA. Happened twice in an hour span which finally convinced me this is a sign to quit hahaha. The ratio of suck outs suffered to just being beat was roughly 1:1 iirc.
Wheeeeee!
I believe I am down 8bi's for the day yay~. But honestly I'm really not that disappointed, or frustrated. OK I lied there, of course it's frustrating to one degree or another. But I've seen from today that I need to loosen up more from LP, need to really be prudent about my postflop play and really talk myself over why I doing what I am, what I'm representing with the hand, etc. It's something that I can't do 7-8 tabling, and the last few hours of the day I was strictly 4-5 tabling and my brain's level of information crunching was much much better. So basically in the end I've learned the hard way (i suppose?) what you guys told me right off the bat: "reduce the table #s, and loosen up from late position". Righty-o!
It's encouraging for me, despite these losses, that I haven't gone on full tilt. I'll usually facepalm myself and let out a "argh", and that's that. I can live with being beat. I can live with being suckered. But I can't stand making shitty decisions. And today, I felt like I mostly made good decisions. I really can't help it when I push the flop with a set of 5's on a 235rainbow board and the villian shows A4o can I, or in the aforementioned case of having AK/AQ against AA on the flop. He very well may have had KK, who knows. Well maybe if I were a better player i could have known, but hey you get the jist. I guess these are what pple refer to as 'coolers' right? (sorry I'm pretty weak on the pokerz linguo here) I'm pretty okay with them, and I'm really being truthful here, not lying to myself or anything like that. It's part of the game, Overall I'm making good decisions, and I just have to work at becoming better. Well, not really sure where to work on or how to go about 'getting better' (such a vague phrase), but it's a process for sure.
An AF of 7.5 points to postflop spewing in situations where c-betting/doublebarreleing just isn't the right move. Shoving on marginal but strong hands is probably terrible too. And I need to be able to discern situations where I'm semibluffing the river or valuebetting the river. Overall, lotsa stuff to work on, and I think the two main things will be preflop loosening up from CO/BU, and tightening up postflop, as well as really focusing on the dynamics of the table/boardtexture by reducing my table count to a maximum of 5 at once. I also need to figure out the process of getting the most out of the nuts, since I probably kick the villian out of the hand too often. Hm.
I really should look through the huge loss hands and figure out whether they were just bad beats, or whether I fucked up. But right now it's 5:30am and it would be really quite depressing to do so, so hopefully I can make myself tomorrow when I wake up!
So immidiately after posting my previous blog, I set out to take on NL5. It was definitely a little nerve racking to see the numbers next to the chips so much higher than what I had been used to - probably look 10 minutes or so until I didn't have to double check that the ratios were correct.
Within the first 1000 hands, I had been suckered 2-3 times, plus one instance where I inexplicably went 3bet All-in on the flop with TPTK and lost out fair and square. So in the first ~90 minutes, I was down 3bi's and received the typical buttspanking that greets all players that move up in stakes. (red circles correspond to these hits)
But I felt that I had played properly sans that one shove, so I was acutally quite encouraged. The players were definitely less spewy than at NL2, and their stats usually reflected that. They usually folded rather wisely to bets that I'd perhaps want them to call, etc. Things evened out, I caught a good stretch of cards and managed to play them well, got lucky a few times too sucking out 1 or 2 hands on the river, and I had brought myself back to the positives.
But things turned sour rather quickly, as a combination in a slight decrease in focus/analysis on my part and being perhaps overly aggressive in situations I should not have been, coupled with some bad beats rushed me back to the equator. (see blue circle) Decided to take a break around here, and get something to eat. This corresponds to 3k hands, and I tend to play roughly 500 hands/hour, so I must have been 6 hours into my session for the day.
The proceeding UP, then DOWN, was a combination of luck, and more importantly for me, I could sense that i was being spewy with my betting. I felt that I was being overly aggressive on flops where my cbets and double barrels would get me nowhere. I really had to buckle down and focus on what i was doing and WHY I was doing it. As I reached another valley (green), I really sat down and geared down, increased my level of discipline and tightened up even more.
Genjix commented in my previous blog entry, that he was finding NL5 to need a higher level of tightness. As I played the last leg of my session, his words were brought back to my consciousness.
As I really focused in on this last leg, I was determined to make it back into the green, and hopefully up one BI. I really wanted to make SMART decisions, be it shoving, cbetting looking for a fold, or anything. I was able to focus on what they probably had, and how I needed to proceed to get what I wanted out of them. I still made some poor calls knowing I was beat, but I was able to minimize the damage and successfully (i think) mucked a handful of strong hands because I truly believed I was beat. The second to last hand, I caught a bad beat on the river to lose a few bucks, then felt my focus immediately wane, and quit asap.
The results were truly immediate, and I ended the day at +4BI's, according to PS's cashier (PT3 says otherwise but it's dumb so w/e). Above all, it gives me confidence going into tomorrow knowing what kind of play I need to get out of myself to be successful. I must be smart, aggressive, patient and disciplined. I have to examine the board and opponents' lines to make the correct decision for each situation.
I know now that I can beat NL5, and it's just a matter of time. I do sense however, that by the time I reach NL10, I will have to start adjusting my game to loosen up, and as people suggested in my previous blog, to reduce the number of tables and really concentrate on what is happening on each of them. I will definitely heed this advice when the time comes!
Thanks for your support guys, I apprecite it
Cheers~
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some interesting notes:
I actually accidentally minraised one hand when I misclicked (meant to fold), and entered the flop with Q3o from CO. But everyone checked the flop, the turn came Q, and the river came Q, and I won about $1.50. That was rather comical , considering I literally said "OH GAWD" as I misclicked.
I looked at PT3's rake stats, and my gosh, I now know why everyone says "rake will kill you".
Before I set off on conquering NL5, I thought it would be best to lay out the set of rules, guidelines, and limits I would be following. This would make things concrete for me, and I would be able to reject all temptations of moving on to NL10 prematurely, or making other adverse actions.
The stipulations I set for myself are the following:
- Play the same hands the same way I did as NL2
- Choose tables with at least 4 players fully stacked at 100bbs
- Play on NL5 until I am rolled with 30bi's for NL10 ($300)
- Play on 6-8 tables, not 4.
- Drop back to NL2 if I go below 15bi's ($75)
- Insta-leave a table if it drops to 4 handed or below.
- Insta-leave a table if there is a habitual shortstacker
- Insta-leave a table if there are two or more very short stacks for any reason (because this is the same as being 4-handed)
The first one is pretty obvious. I was a winning player at NL2 with the way I played. I should continue exactly the same way until I have a large enough sample set that proves to me that I need to change things. I quote Pokey from the 2p2 forums:
"I think I've discovered the biggest mistake a player can make when moving up:
You play differently.
I'm talking about playing a different game from your usual game. Usually, people decide they have to "play more tightly," or they have to "play more aggressively," or they have to "bluff more often," or they have to "call down looser against all the floaters," ...
Here's a MUCH better strategy: when you move up, play your standard game. Change NOTHING. ...
You're a winning player -- that's why you want to move up. So when you move up, don't throw away your winning game! "
The second is pretty straightforward as well, but with a slight caveat. The reason I chose 30bi's instead of 20 or 25, is that I didn't want to fluke through NL5 and reach NL10 prematurely. My curret BR is $186, because Tenbagger shipped me more than he actually owed me in the beginning for reasons unknown to me (probably being generous / encouraging me to stick at it etc) and because I did a stars/paypal trade with Zulu. At the NL2 stage I didn't want to take advantage of my inflated BR, and instead acted as if I actually had $50 to start with. But as I move up in stakes, it's silly to not use money I already have! Thus, by setting a goal of $300, I need to make $114, amounting to roughly 23bi's at NL5. Considering I had to make 25bi's at NL2 in order to move up, it sets an equal bar for me to overcome in order to move onto the next stakes.
The rationale for playing 6-8 tables instead of 4 for me is a purely mental one. The reason I can play a ridiculously nitty game and not get tilted at the bad beats, suck outs and cheap profits with big big hands, is because I am able to play so many hands that I KNOW I'll get great hands really soon again. It allows me to play an optimal game and stick to the rules, and that's as important as anything here.
The drop down rule is there for pretty obvious reasons as well, but with a $100+ buffer, hopefully I won't have to worry about it ever!
The insta-leaving clauses are there for mental reasons as well. I'm not comfortable playing below 5-handed right now, and don't want to have to feel like I need to loosen up because of the number of players and the increased blind frequencies. I want to stick to my game, and there are plenty of other tables to do it on. The shortstacker thing again is to keep myself within my guidelines. It's annoying when you can't stack the guy properly when you flop a set or whatnot, and again I don't want to feel compelled to change my game because of such avoidable external factors.
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I'm sure there will be a period of nervousness as I move up, coming from the increase in numerical value I see on the screen, as well as the unfamiliar faces at NL5. But once I get past the jitters, it's still the same game and from what I understand, NL5 isn't a whole lot different from NL2 anyways. If anything, it's a great opportunity for me to make more $ faster, and to learn about what holes I have to patch up in my own game.
It's exciting to be moving up for the first time, and hopefully the excitement won't get the best of me
Cheers~ sorry for the lack of pics, I haven't played a single hand yet!
It's about time I went with the norm around here and made a proper blog for a change.
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Introduction:
I migrated over to LP from TL.net in the beginning of November, mainly because TL.net has become pretty boring as of late and I needed more reading material. I found the blogs here to be pretty entertaining to read with all the ups and downs, laughs and cries so I actually found myself on LP more than TL for a few days.
I sent a few random pms to Tenbagger saying 'hey', and we chatted for a bit and he was saying how I should start playing poker, and I was retorting with it'd be a waste of my time, yada yada. Then came the punchline.
Tenbagger: "At least you make money while wasting time unlike Starcraft or Travian"
He had won the argument. By a large margin. And considering I was procrastinating for hours a day reading random forums online or playing dota or whatnot, I eventually decided to give this a shot and started reading Daut's beginner guide and the uNL threads on 2p2.
While I had no means to deposit on PS for a day or two, Tenbagger again came to the rescue since he had owned me money from last year for fantasy baseball when I had finished 2nd place but didnt have a stars acct for transfer, and we were both lazy and I didn't really care about the $60 or however much it was that I won as net profit. So he ships me my starting BR, and off I go~. 2 tabling nl2 baby whoooo.
This was on November 3rd. haha I remember fiddling around on the play money tables for a bit to get a feel for the interface and stuff like that.
The first 3 weeks
The first few weeks were an up and down ride. First going up like $15 in the first few days, going back down to square one, getting up to a $30 gain, going down to the negatives, like -$10, fluctuating all over.
But during that time I got my hands in, got comfortable playing up to 8 tables at once depending on how nitty I'm playing, and went back and forth between nitty and standard TAG'ish stats. Learned how to properly raise pf, c-bet basics, and eventually started to be able to pick up on what the opponent probably has, from the way he reacted to my bets and how he betted, basic stuff but stuff that was all new to me.
I've got to give a big thanks to the TL/LP people who have helped me out and gave me advice. Wouldn't have been possible without you guys, and certainly wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable grinding away at it <3.
So I have my share of highs and lows, catching river suck outs, getting bad beats left and right, frustrated to hell by the limpers that see the flop cheap, etcetc. Hence the fluctuation in the hands I played and how I played them. I think at one point I was so ticked at the limp/callers that I was open raising 6xBB to try to get them off my back. But that's in the past.
Anyways, here's a graph from Nov 3rd to Nov 24th. Graph actually starts at +$15 or so, b/c I didnt have PT3 in the very beginning for like 4k hands.
Graph of first 3 weeks: 15k ish hands.
So I end up around $-15, which is abouuttttt -$5 or something like that from where I started on day one. Swingy, going nowhere fast!
Stats.
At some points I was like 25/20, while at others i was like 9/6. The numbers don't really do justice .
Oh, and I started buying in at the max $5 at nl2 on stars, eventually changed to $2, changed back to $5, then lost like $10 on Nov 24th.
Evolution?
So in dismay I decided to make a chart of hands to play from every position. I made one, then emailed it to a TL/LP friend who's been heping me out pretty actively while chatting about other things as well. It's funny that I've 'known' the guy for 2.5 years from TL, yet didn't really know him till I sent him the random "teach me pokerz sensei!" pm on TL.net. Making things even more ironic is that our taste in music is like identical, and we seem to get along really well. A real nice caveat from this whole poker nonsese I tell you! Moving on...
So I sent the guy a list of hands. He immediately shot it down, saying it was too loose. So I cut it down more! Still too loose! So he just tells me what hands to play from what position after the table does what, limp/raise/or folds to me. And I spend about an hour sorting everything out and making a chart with 6 sections:
1. vs unopened (raise)
2. vs unopened (call)
3. vs open raise (3bet)
4. vs open raise (call)
5. vs limpers (raise)
6. vs limpers (call)
And I vow never to veer off this chart ever. If I have ATo and the chart says I cant play unless I have AJo or higher, I simply fold. No matter what. So I play off 6 tables at first, looking down at the printed sheet of paper constantly, eventually going to 7, then to 8. B/c I'm playing so damn nitty, I'm able to barely handle the number of tables despite playing on a 19' monitor that we bought in like 1999. The saturation is so poor on this monitor that it hurts my eyes lol.
I really instantly saw results by beign really disciplined with the hands laid out in front of me. I had confidence in my friend's advice, and as a result I had confidence in myself and the decisions I was making. B/c i was playing so many hands, I no longer cared if I got suckered. I no longer cared if I got Aces in BB and it folded to me and I made 0.01$. I only cared if I either made a terrible decision to call or raise, or if I got outplayed / should have seen that the guy would have a better hand than me.
Surprisingly though, before this change the frequency with which I would KNOW i made a bad decision was somewhat high. But for the two days I have been using this revised approach, I have literally had ... I really think I've made either zero or one bad call over 4K hands. It's been a great feeling, it's been tremendous fun, and I feel like I'm actually going somewhere with this.
Pretty big change yea?
LOL so super nitty.
I'm sure I'll eventually have to loosen up, but right now I'll just be listening to my various poker senseis and heading their advice.
As a result of the last two days, I've reached the goal I set for myself before moving onto nl5, "taking $50 and turning it into $100 to be rolled with 20bi's for nl5".
So my nl2 story has come to an end (hopefully forever!), and a new chapter starts.
Wish me luck!
Postscript
I had the pleasure of playing with Raidern on one of my tables today, had a nice chat with him and it was really a lot of fun to talk with a fellow LP/TL'er while playing. I also sat with another LP'er with a french flag icon, somethingSKY, maybe AnotherSKY or something like that was his Stars ID.
Raidern seemed a little annoyed that I wouldn't tell him my TL.net ID though hahaha
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Hopefully you enjoyed (or at least successfullly wasted more time!) reading this entry. It was actually a lot of fun writing it just now, although now it's 5:30 am and I'm royally fucked hahaha.
*note: this is mainly me talking to myself so that I can come back to this when I have more concrete thoughts. It's mainly going to be rambling.
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For the past couple of days I've been wondering the proper balance between maintaining a bank roll, and diverting portions of it into investments. In theory, BR money above your personal minimum should be invested because money inside your poker account is essentially 'dead money' that is losing value every second. So for a NL100 player who likes to be rolled at 25bi, it would mean sending anything over $2500 into your portfolio. But obviously things aren't ideal...
What things affect this "ideal" scenario?
- The need for insurance against hard downswings
- Relative illiquidity of many investment options
- Deposit limits
Sudden downswings mean that oftentimes you will need to bring back your money from your portfolio back into your account to be properly rolled. But turning your stocks/bonds/etc into cash on short notice is not an optimal plan for your investment goals. In addition, depending on the size of your br and the limits you play, I believe you won't necessarily be able to stick enough cash back in asap.
Then on top of this, is the fact that many players are looking to "build" their br so they can move up in stakes, rather than continuously grind at their current state.
I sense that if I went through the math of common transaction fees, rates of interest, deposit fees, etc there would be a way to compose some form of structure that is better than simply having a massive pile of cash sitting in one's poker account. The effects of this kind of 'optimization' should grow exponentially as one's br becomes larger.
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It's completely irrelevant for me atm as I am a lowly nl2 player who recently migrated from TL.net, but it just got me thinking.
I caught some grief from Highcard during my last blog when I talked about how GM going down would cause a recession, and honestly I really can't disagree with him. These companies are simply terribly ran, GM in particular. It all stems from terrible terrible deals struck with the union back in the 1960's (iirc).
The union of automotive workers (UAW) have ridiculous contracts with GM. Iirc GM was in deep shit during the 60's and were ran by inept monkeys, somehow thinking that signing these stipulations would be alright. I don't recall all the specifics, but here are a few.
- Continued wage increases with age, to the point where 45 year manufacturing plant workers who moved up the ladder somewhat over the last 25 years are paid 6 figures, oftentimes over 200,000 USD. That's more than PHD's make in corporate research labs!!!
- Huge difficulty firing unnecessary labor force.
- Benefits (health insurance etc) continues after retirement until death. (HUGE!!!!)
That's huge amounts of unnecessary money being spent -- basically for naught. I always hear about taking money from the giant corporations and giving it to the ordinary man, but seriously, there are limits to what you can do until the company itself goes busto. Think back to the airlines pre-9-11, and how overpaid the workers were in general, and how eventually everyone had to take 25-40% wage cuts for the company to even survive.
Because of GM's inefficiencies with its workforce, each car produced I believe costs $1500 more than a comparable vehicle made by Toyota. In this day and age, there is no way a company is going to be able to survive with such gross flaws in their operations.
GM sucks. There's no question about that really. But if it goes down, the estimate is roughly 10% unemployment. GM has no assets it can sell. It recently sold suzuki for a whopping 500M, which hardly helps their cause.
Ford, who will probably feel the effects of GM falling, will probably survive regardless, since they have 20B+ in cash, plus they can sell off volvo and a few other companies they own.
Now, I believe Obama pledged to rescue GM, since he needed the millions of automotive workers' votes. If GM falls before he is sworn into office, then he happily won't have to recue them - he can just say Bush didn't rescue them, and no one can really complain. (I'm completely fine with that too tbh) GM will go to bankruptcy court, and the judge will hopefully (ffs) order a negotiation with the UAW. And as a result, these improved terms should help out Ford as well.
If GM doesnt fall before Obama become president... they may very well be sent a resume package.
I'm not really even sure where I personally stand on this. I hate the fact that GM is a piece of shit company that makes piece of shit machines and has retarded compensation plans for its employees, but on the other hand them going down is going to make the market go kaboom and cause serious levels of unemployment. Sigh...
Bush has announced that he will not support any government aid to the fumbling motor company. GM needs "only" 25billion dollars, as compared to the 750billion+ that's going into the financial sector.
What does this mean? Well, GM has made it public that it only has cash to sustain itself through december, making the doomsday scenario of a GM collapse more likely than ever before. That means 3-3.5 million jobs affected: not just GM itself, but all the smaller companies that make the parts used by GM plants. As GM goes down, so do those suppliers, as GM is obviously a major major customer. As those smaller companies are affected, the other motor giants like Ford will also start to keel over. Consumer confidence digs a deeper hole than what we have now, and the market will respond appropriately.
Possible Market collapse of epic proportions here we come!!
So apparently the survey of economists returned an overall sentiment that we will see a sharp decline in the 4th quarter of 2008 (to be expected), another decline in the first quarter 2009, a leveling off in the 2nd quarter, and the start of slow growth in the 3rd quarter.
Over the last 3-4 decades, the recovery of the stock market has consistently preceded the economy's exit from "recession" by 6 months. Keeping this trend in mind, if these experts' views hold true and no other drastic events or government measures affect the course of things, long-term investors will probably start to react to an invigorated stock market around mid-2009.
It is of course going to be incredibly difficult for individuals to notice right away, but I feel like it doesn't hurt to keep this in mind if we've turned most of our stocks into cash assets already.
I just hope the upturn begins in 2009, not 2010 as some predictions go (most pple expect the upturn to start within 12-24 months)
PokerStars Game #21963370369: Hold'em No Limit ($0.01/$0.02) - 2008/11/11 21:36:59 ET
Table 'Sabauda II' 6-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Uptown133 ($6.69 in chips)
Seat 2: andethegreat ($5.90 in chips)
Seat 3: ocktain ($0.94 in chips)
Seat 5: wurm9696 ($1.19 in chips)
ocktain: posts small blind $0.01
wurm9696: posts big blind $0.02
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Uptown133 [Qh Qc]
Uptown133: raises $0.08 to $0.10
andethegreat: raises $0.25 to $0.35
zzilzzil has returned
ocktain: folds
wurm9696: folds
Uptown133: raises $1.65 to $2
andethegreat: raises $3.90 to $5.90 and is all-in
Uptown133: calls $3.90
*** FLOP *** [Td 6d 5h]
*** TURN *** [Td 6d 5h]
*** RIVER *** [Td 6d 5h 4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Uptown133: shows [Qh Qc] (a pair of Queens)
andethegreat: shows [5s 7d] (a straight, Four to Eight)
andethegreat collected $11.28 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $11.83 | Rake $0.55
Board [Td 6d 5h 4c 8h]
Seat 1: Uptown133 showed [Qh Qc] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 2: andethegreat (button) showed [5s 7d] and won ($11.28) with a straight, Four to Eight
Seat 3: ocktain (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: wurm9696 (big blind) folded before Flop
I'm sure you've heard it over and over "diversify your investments!" Remember, even Wu Tang Financial preaches it!
Well it's with good reason. To put it in layman's terms, you can hedge away the individual risks carried by stocks/bonds and only have market risk (which cannot be hedged away, even if you invest in multiple markets - usa, asia, uk, etc - because the global economy is so intertwined these days).
Even the AAA rated corporate bonds have something like a 0.2% chance they go busto within 5 years!! And now some financial firms have given municipal bonds (state govt bonds) a finite chance of defaulting. I've only played poker for roughly one week so I may be terrible at poker analogies, but let me pose this question to you: "would you put in your entire BR and your life savings with AA against 72o preflop?" I don't even know what the odds are in this situation but I think you can see the risk of putting EVERYTHING on the line. In a sense, I feel like smart poker players who play to win in the long run are essentially doing something analogous to diversification in terms of investment and financial management.
They say that the stocks:bond ratio is roughly 100-age into stocks and the rest into bonds. But when you do this, don't make the mistake thinking that this ratio only will make you "diversified". Not at all! You've got to get your money spread out into a variety of bonds, and a variety of stocks and other options if you choose. This is why so many people use funds and similar set ups where you can purchase a basket of items for a relatively small sum of money - or just buy S&P funds, etc.
If you really feel like apple's going to skyrocket (let's say you REALLY believed in the ipod before its launch) or got into the vmware IPO, PLEASE, PLEASE make sure that the sum of money you put into individual stocks is a very small proportion of your entire portfolio. I'm not an expert so I dont knwo the exact numbers, but think something on the order of 1-2% of your portfolio that you can "play" with.
I'll end with a frightening anecdote, and I'm sure there are many others like this. I apologize about the lack of details; the story came from someone about a month ago and the specifics escape me.
There was a man worth 2 billion dollars, head of a firm in Wisconsin or thereabouts. Obviously an intelligent, successful man who knew what he was doing... in terms of his business. The problem was that a massive proportion of his assets, about 90% or so iirc, was in stocks of his firm!! When the market that his firm was in crashed, his assets went from 2 billion down to 20 million. Now, as the head of a company it is difficult to get rid of your holdings in the company for various reasons, but still, this should serve as an example for why you MUST be diversified in your investments, even if that means you don't get the highest EV possible.
Another example, is how the Enron employees' 401k's were set up. I'm sure you can guess by now, but they were essentially pure Enron stocks - you can imagine the pain felt there. I hope those former employees are doing okay...
Maybe a lot of you aren't in a position to REALLY have to worry about this for now. But as you age, and have a family to support, YOU're the one that has to make sure that everything is under control and that your assets can withstand crashes like the one we're experiencing right now. For all we know there might be another crash coming in 30 years and you have to be prepared! I just feel terrible for the people who were set to retire in the next few years, who did not rebalance their portfolios properly to hedge for such risks. (I'll try to talk about "goals" in your portfolio management next time around)
Just keep it in the back of your minds, and hopefully when the time comes, you'll have people to ask for good advice. I'm willing to bet you that if you made a thread at LP.net, there will be good people still around willing to help you out (so Meat, it's up to you to keep the site running healthy for our sakes! <3)
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