Brew Brain Blog

First the bad news:  Warren Buffet’s most recent Berkshire portfolio release yesterday after the market close showed he increased his ownership in IR.  Stock goes up, I get stopped out.  That was a quick $145.91 loss.  Since when do traders/investors listen to that fat bastard over me, the all powerful BrewBrain?  He’s old.

I picked up a couple contracts on a company I own in my IRA - BIDZ.  I think the long-term prospects are good for that company, and the chart looks ripe to me.  BIDZ has a jewelry auction model that looks to me like crack for stay-at-home moms.  The Diner Dash crowd should love this one. 

Anyway, I picked up some September 7.5 calls.  The stock gapped up this morning out of a short period of consolidation, I guess on news that a Spanish language version of the site has been released.  I’ll place my stop a bit below the gap.  Those gaps often represent support/resistance if enough volume pushes the stock, and we are seeing a bit of volume today.

Generally, for options trading the lower volume stocks should be handled very carefully I think, but since I’m trading so few contracts until I get stinking rich, I shouldn’t have problems here.  The spread is reasonable.

Now the worse news:  Poker sucks.  I’m in a horrifying stretch of coolers and bad beats.  I’m confident I’ll never post another winning session.  Yesterday it was QQ into KK against a very loose pf raiser, AT on a T flop all in against loosie goosie AQ with a gutter.  Gutter successfully rivered, thank you.  AK allin pf somewhat stupidly against a tightish pf raiser, but I was in EP and thought I could get him off JJ, another AK, etc.  It was AA and I was cooked there.

I finally flopped a couple sets after a very long drought, but I got paid very little for them, which was about the max I was going to get.

It just isn’t working for me right now.  I just need to power through this funk until the cards start to fall my way.  Unfortunately, I took $500 out to spread the wealth a bit since I spend a fair amount of time playing these days.  That combined with the downswing has me on the edge of having to move back down to .50/1.  Unthinkable considering how the month began.  Oh well.

The good news:  I have a new IPA bubbling away in the beer closet.  This will be Quicksilver IPA v.1.1.  If it is good it just may become the staple IPA in my lineup.  We’ll see.  I got a little fancy with the hops and used three varieties - Chinook for bittering, Centennial for bittering and flavoring and finished things off with Amarillo.  All I know so far is the airlock smells fantastic!

I’ve decided it’s pretty damn boring not being stinking filthy rich, so I’ve decided to do something about it.  I’m going to trade my starting bankroll of $317 up to a million dollars as quickly as possible.  Why $1million?  Because I want a million dollars, duh!  How long do I expect this to take?  At least several weeks, possibly longer.

I already started without you and made a bunch of money on my first trade already.  Sorry ’bout that, but I needed to get started.  Besides, I didn’t have an overall strategy in place when I did it.  I bought CALM June 40 calls at 50 cents and sold them for 80 cents yesterday.  Four contracts.  Fat profit of $94 after commissions. 

I then added $826.79 to my account by transferring cash from another trading account into my Options Xpress account.

First, a question you have.  Why did I start with only $317 in my account.  Answer:  I sucked at trading options in the semi-recent past.  No problem, I am now pretty much an options trading deity.  In other words, I have a new strategy that is 100% to work.  I hope. 

My new strategy is to buy in the money (ITM) puts and calls, depending on which way I think the stock will move.  I will buy contracts 3 - 9 months out with intrinsic value approaching 100%.  I will buy when the stock is very close to a stop loss I would set if I were trading the stock.  I will set a conditional sell order based on that stop loss.  If you don’t know what I just said, I highly recommend funding an account and just doing what I say.  You’ll soon be stinking rich with absolutely no idea why.

I will close my positions when the stop is triggered or the contract reaches 30 days until expiration, whichever comes first.

Stops will be set at a technical level as determined on a daily basis by me.  I will generally be following trends; that is, a series of higher highs and higher lows for calls, the reverse for puts.  I’ll close the position when the trend pattern breaks down.

Entries will be close to a perceived bottom within the trend (calls, top for puts) and/or at breaks from consolidation patterns. 

In general, I’ll attempt to cut losers short ASAP and let winners run.  I figure I’ll need a few big winners mixed in with a bunch of modest winners/mosest losers. 

Assuming the strategy works, I will add capital from my poker winnings as the poker gods allow.  At the moment, the poker gods are being dickheads.  When I have kings, the worst player at the table will have aces.  ‘Nuff said on that.

This morning, I bought one contract of September IR $55 puts.  The stock is trading around 44.75 and my stop is at 45.50, so nice tight stop.  I’ll get a chart up later tonight.

I can’t wait to be rich.  I’ll have such a cool brewing rig I won’t be able to stand myself.

Tonight I broke into another beer I’ve been sitting on for far too long - Bear Republic’s XP Pale Ale.

I’ve been a big fan of the Bear Republic beers I’ve tried so far, but they’ve been big flavorful beers with a ton of “stuff” in them by design.  I was really looking forward to their take on a pale ale.

PHOTO WILL GO HERE

The beer pours a very attractive crystal clear pale yellow-orange with a fluffy white, somewhat sticky head atop.  The photo doesn’t really show the head properly.  Trust me, it built up just fine.

The scents are light and pleasant - mostly fruity with a tough of grain.

The flavor is a wonderful example of a pale ale done right.  It is light, but packed full of flavor.  It starts out with a little fruit and sweet malt that gradually gives way to a touch of citrus and spice with a pleasant, refreshing mild bitter that finishes things off just right.

The mouth feel is right on - not slippery and watery, but not thick and chewy either.  The carbonation is maybe just a little higher than I like, but certainly nothing a few swirls in the glass can’t take care of.

Overall, I’m quite impressed with this beer.  This is one brewery that knows what it’s doing.  The pale ale is light and refreshing while still packed with flavor.  It’s just about a perfect example of the style in my opinion.  Enjoy this one.

Enjoy your beer,

BrewBrain

Alright, back on the horse. It has been a while since my last formal beer review, so here we go.

Tonight I popped the cap on a bottle that’s been sitting in my beer ‘fridge for far too long. Time to break out the Rogue Shakespear Stout. I’ve heard good things about this beer, so I was looking forward to trying it. Why I waited so long, I have no idea.

PHOTO WILL GO HERE

I let the bottle sit out on the counter while I attempted to stack some donkeys on the poker tables. I like my dark beers to be cool to the touch, but not too cold. I just find the flavors don’t pop very well if the beer is too cold. Same it true to an extent with the lighter beers, but warming is mandatory for the dark ones.

The pour yields a very attractive dark brown body with a nice mocha head atop. Light barely forces its way through just enough to give off a bit of a ruby hint around the edges. Looks good enough to drink!

The scents on this puppy are classic stout. Coffee, chocolate and rich roasty scents abound. It smells great.

And now the taste test. Wowzers, is this ever a tasty beer! The first sip convinced me that this is the finest stout I’ve ever tasted.

The flavors are a perfect blend of smooth earthy toasted grains and a bit of espresso with a dark chocolate finish. I cannot get over how smooth this puppy is. It’s just perfect. Absolutely perfect in every way. I can’t imagine tasting a better stout. I really can’t. I wish I had another. I want nothing more than to screw up tomorrow’s work day right now.

The mouth feel is right on the money. It is nice and medium thick on the tongue with perfect carbonation. The hops on the back end compliment the grains so well I can’t stand it. You know how you just want to smush a golden retriever puppy? That’s how I feel about this beer.

Overall, A++++++++++++++. I don’t know what else to say. Now go get you some!

Enjoy your beer,

BrewBrain

The poker was much better in April. Well, it didn’t end with a spectacular bang; it was more of a sickly whimper. But, it’s better than barely eaking out a win like I did in March. Here’s a chart:

The big disappointment is the 100NL tables. I played four different levels during April. In 1,223 hands of 25NL I won $8.15. In 2,704 hands of 30NL I won $278.80. In 13,013 hands of 50NL I won $771.45. In 14,990 hands of 100NL I lost $211.25.

I just can’t seem to get anything going at the $1NL tables. I’ve been coolered every which way, and if I have one more person tell me in the chat window “good call, got lucky” after they nail their 3- or 5-outer, I am going to have to puke on my keyboard.

That said, I’m not running so bad that I’m losing my shirt. I’m in the midst of a modest break-even streak, so I shouldn’t complain too loud.

So, clearly, I’ve got what I need to buy all the equipment I need for a kick-ass kegging system. However, I’ve decided to shoot for bigger things. I have a goal of working my way up to the 5/10 NL tables - the $1,000 max buy-in tables - by the end of the year. I need $25K before I take shots at those tables. Along the way, I have to start beating 1NL, then I have to beat, in order, 2NL, 4NL and 6NL. Each will likely be tougher than the last. It is a tall order, but I believe I’ll make it.

Rakeback is just awesome. I made an extra $500 in essentially free money. It will be a much larger number in May as I’ll be playing $1NL and higher. In April I played $.25 - $1NL. Don’t play poker on the internet without it. Click the banner in the upper right of the screen or at the bottom of this page and sign up to play through RakeTheRake if you want to play. You can read more about rakeback in this post.