REAL ESTATE BUSINESS:
For the past year, I’ve been learning from scratch how to repair and manage some low-income investment property. From the beginning, I never really intended for them to be such a hands-on experience. However, when your property manager is stealing from you, the few tenants aren’t paying, the repair men are conning, and the business is hemorrhaging money, a more personal approach becomes necessary.
In February of ‘09, we were at 21% occupancy, with ~16% needing complete rennovation, and the remaining 63% needing serious work. I fired the crooked manager, started overseeing the repairs myself, and started doing all of the legal/financial/management footwork that was needed.
1 year later, we’re at 69% occupancy, with all of those units in vastly improved condition. 10% still need repairs, 10% need rennovation, and 10% are rentable.
Despite the vast improvement, low income properties are still a giant pain in the ass. This is a job that clashes heavily with poker, because there is almost always something that needs your time, effort, and patience. The job wears on your patience especially, because you are constantly negotiating with people who either don’t want to work, or want to scam you.
I passed off the management torch this month, in order to give myself more time to focus on poker, family, etc. Despite having a manager to deal with the majority of the issues, it still requires daily effort.
Fortunately, after this past year, the business has become close to self-sustaining. I still need to put in the time, of course, but they aren’t nearly as much of a liability as they were last year. I have learned a ton about life in general by taking on the management of these buildings. It has been a very growing experience, and while it came at the cost of other aspects of my life, these lessons will be very beneficial in the long run.
As I get more time in the future, I may write some more detailed articles about my experience. From a crazed schizophrenic tenant I inherited, to a crooked manager, to a conman contractor, I’ve got quite a few interesting stories built up.
The best advice I can give to anybody who is considering real estate investment is: Either do the management yourself, do most of the repairs and manual labor yourself, or don’t get into the business. If you aren’t hands-on, you are going to get robbed and things are not going to run the way they should.
Back to poker!
2010 has been running just fine for me. I put too many of my resources into the RE business in ‘09, so by the time I got serious about poker again in January, my bankroll was left a bit shorter than I would prefer. I’ve been crushing the 100NL level as always, and building back up to a comfortable bankroll. Just this month, I started mixing 200NL in there as well (and killing it, of course). By the end of February, I should easily be where I’d like in terms of bankroll.
SHORTSTACK EXODUS:
Full Tilt Poker made a huge update in January that increased the minimum buyin from 20BB to 35BB on standard tables, and created “shallow” tables for the shortstacks to play against each other. To an average player, this may not seem like much – but it is a huge deal.
“Shortstacking” is a strategy that involves buying in for the minimum, playing a watered down strategy, and enjoying a strategic advantage against other full-stacked players at the table. A couple shortstacks here and there are not too terrible to worry about, but this strategy has spread heavily in the past couple years, and has caused games to be less enjoyable and less profitable.
FTP finally did something about it, and as a result, their games have been more profitable than ever. Many people are encouraging Stars to make the same change, and we are still awaiting an official response.
The issue is so strong that I have already moved the majority of my play over to FTP in order to enjoy this great update. If Stars does not make a similar change in the coming months, after I’ve cleared my bonuses there, I wont have much reason to continue playing anywhere other than FTP. I’m not the only high-volume regular who has made this transition, so it is a pretty big deal. As good as Stars has been to me for the past couple years, they need to embrace this change or they will have a hard time getting my business back.
Unfortunately, shortstacking has become so popular on Stars, that I think they may be reluctant to make a similar change in fear of scaring away a large part of their player base. I look forward to hearing their official response.
I plan on writing a longer article about what I consider the benefits and drawbacks of shortstacking on a personal level, and how I believe it effects the game of poker in general.
“Rush poker” has also been recently introduced by FTP. It is a unique way to play Texas Hold’em where you are matched up against a random set of opponents every single hand – sort of like changing tables in a tournament. It eliminates a lot of the player reads you can make, and vastly changes the dynamic of the game due to not having any table history to work with. I’ve put in quite a few hours of Rush poker over the past month, and will also be writing an article about my experiences there.
Look forward to more updates in February!
