I own a place there and can give a Gringo perspective if you'd like.

Do you love Bryan Oviedo? I do

Well basically CR being a central american country is cheaper than let say europe but still pretty expensive on the latin america scale, that said i feel like the general vibe in Costa rica is pretty nice and its a pretty safe country, internet is pretty reliable ( always good to have a back up anyways) and they are tons of stuff to do besides playing poker, water rafting, surfing, gorgeous national parks, hot springs, volcanos and almost anything you can imagine nature wise besides snow.. warm weather all year round and warm water as well..

In general im quite happy living here

feel free to do so, i would love to hear the "gringo" perspective

i love every single player on the CR national soccer team, GO TICOS!!!!

CR is awesome. Cost of living is actually quite reasonable, even in resort areas.

Gringos are treated very well. If you are polite and not the "Loud American" the locals will be quite friendly. On one recent trip, I wound up drinking with the staff at one of the Gringo bars. We closed the place down and they took me bar hopping with them to a couple of local bars. Had a blast. I've never felt like anyone was trying to take advantage of me. Although I am aware of "Gringo Pricing" for many goods and services, I've never been gouged.

Safety is of little concern. Like anywhere in the World, you should always be aware of your surroundings. But I've never felt like I was about to get rolled. There is a lot of property crime, so don't leave stuff in a car or otherwise unattended.

Driving can be a problem. Be very aware of speed traps and wear your seatbelt. Cops will stand on the side of the road and point what they claim is a radar gun, but it looks like a prop. They'll write you a $20 ticket. I don't want to speculate on whether it is a scam or not in this thread. It can take much longer than you would think to drive from city to city. Even on the highway. And people do drive pretty recklessly. As the rainy season progresses many roads are affected by mud and rock slides.

Some basic services that we take for granted in the USA can be much more of a hassle. For example, getting a bank account and transferring funds is a complete and utter nightmare.

That's actually something I'm wondering about. When I get to CR, how do you recommend I deposit onto pokerstars? In turn, how should I withdraw? Should I open a bank account in CR?

i can help you get money into pokerstars but to create a bank account that is a problem without residence, i know there is a service called poker refugees that does that for you but i think is quite expensive... you can use skrill or neteller also but if you need help funding or WD money from stars i can help with the deposit with no fee and i know people who do WD's for you but with a 5% fee..

Playing good and running blah

This week has been a little frustrating to say the least, me and my roommate found this live cash game in Jaco that its pretty amazing, nice atmosphere and the players, well lest just say they might be a little on the not so excellent side.

First day we played was on Thursday and we both had a pretty terrible day, my buddy got it in on the turn with top 2 pairs vs 3th pair for a $700 pot and river game the other player trips, not going into details of every hand that night but you can pretty much figure out that was how the hole night played out so we both lost a decent chunk, we were a little bummed but at the same time we are pretty excited that the game seems to run at least 4 times a week.

Yesterday we went back and got our revenge, my friend killed the game and I did very good myself, so you have an idea of the type of game I’m going to tell you about a pretty funny hand I played.

I opened UTG + 2 for $7 with 66 with a $350 aprox stack and I get 4 callers, flop is 3s6sQh, I C bet $14 and get 1 caller, turn is an awful looking 4s, I continue for $22 trying to control the pot there (might be a mistake but a lot of value in keep building a pot), villlian has me cover BTW, he raises to $125, generally I wouldn’t call this bet because my immediate odds are not quite there to draw to my full house BUT I know I’m getting paid off for close to $200 AI river bet if I fill up so I called, river it’s a beautiful 3 and I shoved and get snap called and opponent proudly turns his hand over, I was sitting in seat number 7 and he is in seat 2 I look at 45 and for a moment I though it was 45 of spades for a straight flush and almost mucked! but then my roommate notice the 4 was a club and told me right away so showed my hand and won a nice pot.

Later that night I was able to get paid off with a boat on a A 10 8 55 board where I had 10 10 vs A7 for a $300 pot so it was a nice night

Then today I got absolutely crushed by the deck, I actually played pretty well and lost most of my money on big hands I folded, lost a 3bet pot with KK when the turn brought a flush and thankfully the biggest “recreational” player at the table just snap shoved on me, so it was an easy laydown, I showed my KK and he showed me his 74 suited… another hand I hit top set of QQ on the turn vs the same player and guess what? he had a flush again but this time he check raise me AI on the turn for only $100 more, so props to him to adjust and play the hand different this time, also folded a middle set on a 578hh board where rec player leads $40 I called and a player behind made it $120 (my roommate BTW), rec player shoved I folded and my roomate called with 64 vs rec player 88 and won a big pot, also lost a hand where I flopped top 2 bet every street to find im beat by a bigger 2 pairs that got there on the river ( lucky for me and no idea why I didn’t get raised on the river), so on and all terrible day but pretty happy to “minimize” my losses even though minimize might not be the best term when I lost over 2.5 BI’s in the game but then again im sure I should be beating that game for a fair penny when variance shows her pretty side :P

On different note I have been playing HU cash online and doing fairly good so I hope I can keep that up even though the regs at the limits im playing (smallest on stars for HU) wont sit with me anymore but I’m sure I can find plenty of games still only thing that I find confusing is that if you are a reg a .25 .50 how do you ever expect to move up if you never play decent players because im not even really good yet, I do have some good results but they should know im not yet a top HU player so I see no reason why not to play me, I do hope I get to move up soon but I don’t mind playing anyone at the lowest stakes, I want to learn and to learn and improve I have to play players that are better than me until I can beat them… anyways off to bed, tomorrow is the first day of SCOOPS and I have some MTT grind schedule for tomorrow so let s hope all the run bad was taken care off today and run good tomorrow ☺

Dear God. Just flip over your hand.

i usually do pretty fast he didn't give me enough time lol, i moved in, he snap called turned his hand over within 2 secs thats why i really though he had the SF...

The way the dude snapped off, immediately, on a flushed and paired board, while proudly displaying his hand, was pretty insane. It's like he knew he won. While Majagua69 was turning over his cards (though not on the table and still in his hands), he seriously thought his opponent had the nuts- straight flush. It didn't hurt that he did have one of those cards, and one of them was the club rather than spade. And that he was on the other end of the table where he showed.

In any case he did table the overfull, which was good.

I mean...some of these players...it's pretty comical what's going on. Opens to 12.5x the BB is not uncommon, calls with 52o for big rasies, then calling a c-bet with no pair and no draw. Things like that. It's a veritable gold mine for poker. I honestly don't want to reveal where this magical game is. But it's like...whoa.

Last night I straddled the button, had everybody call. I value raise to 25$ with ATs, and it gets to a MP player who shoves his stack for 500. I'm thinking AK, 88-JJ are heavily in players range based on previous experience. I think for a little bit before mucking, which I think is a good fold.

He flips over A5o. I guess he was bluffing? Or maybe he didn't know that that's not a great value and to overshove. I'm not sure.

I do know I'm going to keep grinding out that game till I can't grind no more.

Pura Vida.

This is Fluffy. A majestic creature that guards OP's girlfriend's home. We are visiting briefly while we visit San Jose for some PLO.

We are also picking up another accomplished player to bring to the beach to grind out the rest of SCOOPs. So that's good.

Let's see, what else is new. Oh, yeah, I blinked a live one in Jaco, outlasting some 177 players to take first prize. Majagua69 landed 5% when we sapped early. Then I ran hot as the sun, he did not. I did make a few monstrous reads, like calling a 3 barrel bluff with 67 on a 57TKJ board. I also jammed a river for my tournament life on day 3 when I had only a pair of 3s but my read was that my opponent was weak.

Besides a few good strong reads it was mostly just playing solid tourney poker, raising position, 3-betting light when players are opening too frequently, etc. Also running hot. I'm certain i knocked out more players than anybody in the tournament. 6 of the final 9 were knocked out by me.

Gotta run and pickup laundry

Do you still live in Esterillos? I live here now.

i do!, not sure why i stopped this blog i had fun doing it.. you can PM me if you want.. I'm still in esterillos still playing online and live

I just returned home after a week at my place in Playa de Coco.

congratz on mountain series

hey ty!!!!

Just found/read ur blog. Plz do continue, I found it entertaining. An update on ur situation/stakes now?

Been kidnapped for that gringo ransom yet? :-)