Ohh for sure, we will be enjoying the waterfalls L, her son and myself In fact, most-if-not-all of my series moving forward, will revolve around traveling. I will be doing all of the Argentina stops (with Iguazu and Bariloche being on top of that list) and we are aiming for a trip to Spain-Portugal-Italy next year with a series stop in Barcelona. . Hope all is well bro

Thx friend! It is insane what amount of time and energy I have put in my tennis game!!! In fact, much like yourself, I have never beat my Czech buddy (back in Canada), the one with which I got a 1.1k bet which I fathom we are a coin flip at this point.

The SHR starts Monday. We got this.

Nice one, getting more into the live circuit is something I intend to do in the future. I went to Bariloche as well recently and loved it although the cold was a little bit too much for my and my thai gf, bot of whom never saw snow before and now were in this -5 C temperature, promised to myself never to live winter again and just go chasing summer all the time lol. Argentina is beautiful, good choice to move there, especially earning USD, so many places to visit very different to each other. Glgl and enjoy the trips.

Da Walk of Shame

Villain was an agreeable Asian fellow, fluent in multiple languages and while he mainly stayed silent and taciturnly tucked behind the tunes produced by his air pods, his table presence was nevertheless positive and he willingly engaged in conversation when addressed to. He was also the only competent player at the table - outside of yours truly, of course - in this 1k two day event. But somehow happened to be a rec! A recreational that was still better than the majority of the pros in the field, mind you But it was not at the table that we next engaged during day 2, but outside in the sunshine. Me puffing on a little cigar while villain was by all appearances on the walk of shame (his pace was a bit too fast too reflect anything else). When I caught a glimpse of his facial expression, I knew without a doubt that the latter was indeed the case, as his usual serenity had escaped him.

- "Are you still in or out?", I spouted, fully knowing the answer...

- "Out". Our friend did not slow down his march, seemingly on a mission to gtfo of the casino's grasp and back into the real world ; from being on the walk of shame countless times, I knew that socializing was the last thing on his mind. I also knew how kind words can go very far in emotional critically situations. Besides, we had silently became kindred spirits during Day 1 across the table from each other. Through our (mutual) silence. Or how neither of us had participated in (most) of the table banter of "ohhh I had this score" or "grinded ALL these tournaments in Vegas" or "I have this and that poker trip planned out" and the rest of the verbal spew by the insecured (semi) pros and enthusiast recs. Nope. It was all business and humility for us two.

- "In what position did you finish?" I pursued, slowing down his exit route in the process...

- "16. My AK got cracked by AJ. You have to run good when the blinds increases and the payouts matter more" he continues in a trivial/matter-of-factish sort of tone of voice, much less answering my question, then trying to somehow rationalize his strong feelings of disappointment and thus reduce them to a more rational and intelligible spectrum...

- "You played excellent yesterday" I retorted, deliberately altering the direction of our exchange to get to the point of sharing kind words

- "Ohhh really!?!", he candidly replied, seemingly taking off guard... "Thank you" he answered back, frankly ending our exchange, walking away into the dust sunny afternoon and thus essentially putting an end to his walk of shame. As for me, I came back to my inner world, also more at peace and actually putting an end to my short term tilt as well as calming the mid one of having been on a 7 months downswing.


Yup, Argentina was definitely elite, but am actually no longer there nor will I be heading back. In fact, a new country/adventure is at the horizon and am really excited about heading there very shortly





Run good all

The Power of Mesmerizing

Has anyone been hypnotized before? Or assisted a hypnotism show?

There is something to be said about Predeterminism and how, in fact, that no true personal freedom is intrinsic to human life and are, in fact, just a byproduct of our environment. Or, in more quantifiable terms, an amalgam of simple codes, an algorithm of sorts. And well, in this vein of thought, hypnotism just becomes an overflow of information which prevents the conscious mind from grasping all the data and hence lets certain input unknowingly sneak by... But what if corrupted trojan horses infiltrate the system...

If our famous hypnotist once used hypnotism as a tool to combat the addiction of his yesteryear patients, he now prefers the glamouring LIGHTS of the showbiz, to bring vulnerable souls on stage, to mock and humiliate them. If laughing at one's expense was the end game, ok, we could just all lol away, learn to live with humility and carry on with our lives. But nope. Our grand Master wanted to inflict pain on the volunteers. Deep, momentarily but severe suffering. Expose their weaknesses. Their phobias. Have them scream out of pain, fear while having the audience scream for more!!!

A couple decades of serious meditation has shown me that pain is an illusion. That by observing it, it becomes feeble... waning... and ultimately obsolete. So why increase the intensity of the discomfort on others, might I ask... Is getting some lols from the crowd that worth it... Or thickening that wallet of yours...

I will be doing an Ayahuasca ceremony this Monday.





Peace

Desperate Times Calls for Des... Frack dat!!!

I just finished my 2nd course of MMA. Yup. Indeed. Aha. It does not feel in the least bit surprising, even if I never thought I would ever write these words But here's the thing : traveling simply changes you. As are our present insecure times. Or that Canada does not feel as safe as before in these post-pandemic times... That and the fact that I will soon reach 46 years old, that there is no "reset" button on our health and that it will serve me if ever... you know : shyt completely hits the fan . Combined with the feeling of peace in my body after such a FRACKING INTENSIVE AS FRACKING F**K TRAINING

If not, not much to report. All is good.





Peace

Lost track of your journey for a bit (having been absent from 2+2 for a while). You've been back in Canada? And it's not safe? Not that you seem like one who needs safety, but I wonder if you mean this more in the metaphoric sense? Sometimes, of course, the closer we are to home, the less safe we feel.

Nah, I do not fear for Canada's safety and whatnot, but simply let the narrative run free in my above post when I found myself intuitively pouncing on the keyboard That said, to answer your question in a more rationale way : I have always needed challenges in my life - or at least ambitions/projects - and while my dedication to my intellectual and spiritual paths has been my main aim over the past decade(s), I always felt that I was lacking in terms of physical goals, especially while traveling... And sure, tennis did become an increased passion of mine over the past 3 years (to the extent of playing 4 times a week a few months back), once I finally faced my buddy/rival (and lost), I felt antsy to move on to a different form of physical training and a more demanding one, might I add, that could also serve concretely in my daily life (at least in terms of self-defense if need be) : enter MMA!!! I had originally intended on choosing a more Asian/meditative orientated MA, like Karate or Taekwondo, but, truth be told, MMA simply has a more INTENSE training and simply offers more effective (street) combat skills

But anyhow... yeah... your question... While I would never call Canada an unsafe place (especially when we compare ourselves to USA#1 down south), it is nevertheless quite surprising how the narrative over the stance on security has changed!!! As an example : during the latest election in the city of Montreal, violence (and countering it) was at the core issue debated I mean, the number of shootings/murders have doubled since pre-pandemic times, but nonetheless remain minuscule af in comparison to actual dangerous cities, yet it has become not only entered the political field, but become a subject of conversation in between Montrealers That said, nah, Canada is still a very safe country.

Hey, mind if I ask why you moved out of Argentina? From your posts it seemed like you liked it there. Was it because of economic factors like hyper inflation and such or personal reasons?

That Dirty Fracking Ugly Cringy Thing dat iz da Poker World

Spoiler:

Greyish are the Latina skies underneath the pouncing midsummer heat... Nah, frack dat, that's a lie : the sky is actually bright af, the sun actually proudly doing it's thing and all and yet my mind is completely clouded by this gloomy outlook that is the poker world...

When you have been pro for 11 years+ and hangout in professional circles, you have this clear impression and constant confirmation feedback, that it is easy-peasy to be a pro, right... Wrong! Fracking wrong!!!

It is easy to immerse one's perspective into the elite section of what constitues the top 0.1% percentile of the predatory field and forget about the other 99.9% that compose (the casualty part of) the ecosystem... Or get lost in the narrative that the training sites try to sell you that making it is as simple as putting in the time in the lab, right... A fake narrative that handily excludes where the GRAND Majority of the poker population stands.

- "Give me an intellectually average person and I will make him a 2-5 crusher within a year" says every charlatan coach of the world

- "A brainless monkey could beat this game" says the midstakes live pro as he points to the 1-2 table, dismissing in the process his own hardships along the way while also rendering transparent the underlying insecurity that variance/life leaks might suddenly vanish him into the ether...

As most of us who have seen sufficient flops, turns and rivers intrinsically know, the expression "easy game" is about the most ironical/tainted with deep dark humour term ever Yup, poker is anything but fracking easy. Even for yours truly, who has been in the top 0.03% of the player field for the most part of the past decade, the negative variance of the past year has just been otherworldly.. But this post is not about me : it is about a good buddy that I have been coaching over the past year through the learning grounds that are the Micros and lo and behold, things have just not gone to plan ; sometimes this game swallows up a sensitive soul, chews on his weaknesses before spitting him out completely to a ravaged and cruel world...

Such is life, right, as, as much as da pokerz has provided tremendously for me, I don't believe I would ever deliberately recommend to a young soul to take the deep professional dive into this crazy game... Nor would I ever suggest to anyone (who is not reaching out) to do a Vipassana retreat or an Ayahuasca ceremony for that matter, even if the outcome (once on the other side) is extremely beneficiary... Yup, what a world (we choose) to live in





Run good all

You all right, Dubnjoy000? Haven't heard from you in a while.

I used to like the acid and mushrooms myself, back in the day. If I scheduled them about as often as a professional teeth-cleaning, they had about the same effect on my mind as the local DDS had on my chompers. Knocked some of the plaque off. Every day application, however, tended to wear down the enamel, so to speak.

Passing Winds

Yup, all is going very good, thx for your concerns I wrote last week a long post for my thread in the travel section over here on 2 + 2, but have yet to edit it/post it, which speaks LOUDLY - or quietly... - about that lack of drive to blog that use to inhibit my soul so fracking strongly over the span of almost a decade.

The main reason underlining this lull me thinks, is that having this little family plugs this emotional need of mine that use to propel me to pounce on the keyboard like a madman while travelling the world solo over soooo many years... You see, you kind of lose your center of gravity when wandering so extensively across the globe and writing certainly helps to recenter oneself and hence objectify one's own subjectivity.

Another reason is that, alas, I seem to have lost passion for the activity of writing all together I do hope that this is only momentarily and that perhaps it has to do with the fact that although my blogs and novel are written in the language of Shakespeare, I just about never speak in English nowadays. I don't know... I do know though that it was my passion for the French language that kept me awake many sleepless nights over the decades either scribbling away short stories or devouring 1000 page books ; and that is also my love for the Spanish language that made me choose to expose myself to countless awkward moments of not understanding f**k all in a Latino country miles away from Canada. But I just never felt much passion for the English language I mean, I am happy as hell to know it - and master it adequately - and would be studying it right now if such was not the case, but I view it more as of a cold pragmatic dialect. And... well, like I just said, I am no longer speaking it and feel that my writing is also suffering the negative consequences of having it stored on the bookshelf

Anyhow, regardless, now that we are all here, let's have ourselves an update, shall we not!?!?!

Poker : Well, 2022 sucked ballz pokerwise, but I did upswing to a very needed 50k to finish off the year, so there is that I mean, I still reached my min personal acceptable hourly online , but my live MTT results were not great, inflation hit hard my banking investments and the crypto dip was just an added financial hit But whatever, that is precisely why I had worked towards an advantageous financial cushion to begin with, right

Health : Am really excelling in this area. If the past 2 years saw me hit hard the tennis courts - and I still play once a week -, MMA has become my new goal and, quite frankly, an obsession as well I actually find myself viewing some UFC fights in the evening, an activity that I frankly never thought I would do for the life of me I still do not really dig the violence displayed in brutal fights, but I do indulge in the studying of Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu and boxing techniques and thus increasing my own combat understanding/skills.

I remember when I was in my 20-30s and observing this middle aged fellow in his 40-50s either zooming by on his bike, or hiking past me on the trail of a mountain, and being slightly annoyed with him - and secretly envious - to now come to the realization that, lo and behold, I have become this 45 year old healthy fellow

Inner Growth : I just booked a shortish 3 day Vipassana retreat for February. I do not want any longer and might actually not attend it, as I plan on working with plants in the short run - and that also has been put on hold for now, but am aiming for next year in Peru where I will be assisting three Ayahuasca ceremonies in a week retreat.

Really, did you do psychedelics every day for an extensive period of time!?!





Run good all

There were certainly periods when I overdid it. I had a 0.7 GPA one semester in college. I ended up being kinder and wiser for it, but no one gives you a quantitative score for those things.

Breaking Illusions

As I previously stated, I never thought that I would ever set foot into the MMA world... Far from it! And by far, I mean eons and EONS of kms away I always associated mix martial arts with the meat heads, AKA the recs that would speak of the next important UFC bout around the poker table. And while the latter is certainly not false, there are nevertheless nuances to be applied here. First of all, while this latter testosterone leaning fellow, constitutes the core of the fanbase, such cannot necessary be said of the fighters, at least from what I have witnessed from my limited sample size... I mean, of course my perspective stems from a different culture and within a country on an economical crash course, hence my views should perhaps be limited to my isolated case and remain my own, of course, but I have nonetheless noticed quite the heteroclite mix of, A) : stereotypically angry young gangsters types stemming from the ghettos juxtaposed with B) : sensitive young men (some of them lanky and/or with a skinny frame)!!! But like Joe Rogan once stated : a fair amount of Mammas' boys do end up training for mix martial arts, as to compensate, you know, or at least toughen the f**k up

As it pertains to females, there are actually surprisingly quite a significant amount of women, even if most of them lean more on the masculine and punky side of things, as one needs to be resilient enough to take a punch to the chin and threw some weight around on the mat and ultimately put up at all times with the stingy scent of masculine sweat that forever floats around the poorly vented dojo

Anyhow, there has been a certain dichotomy in between a fellow young fighter and myself and within which a deep af gulf separates our reciprocal worlds. First of all, he is young. In his early 20's. Grew up in the ghetto - or in the Villa, like we call it here in these parts -, he just about never smiles and has this ostensible deep-rooted anger carved up into his facial expressions. Much like myself, he has only been training for 3 months, but unlike myself, shows up every God damn day and goes HARD af at it, you know, POUNCING away like a madman without ever taken any breaks Now in a country that embraces the afternoon "siesta" and is known for its laidback nonchalant attitude, this is saying A LOT!!!

As far as myself, I am about to turn 46 - by far the oldest in my gym -, am the only foreigner, was raised in an upper middle-class family, am highly educated, speak several languages and am financially set. I also only go to the gym twice a week - a bit less lately due to covid and a subsequent bacterial infection - and have no plans of ever doing any fighting competitions moving forward, preferring to focus on the health benefits of my training while developing some serious self-defense skills yo Nevertheless, I still fracking put my and soul into my MMA training, even if covid has slowed me down lately as well as a bacterial infection. But here's the thing : I have never been blessed with the notable skills in any domain - outside of math -, so nothing ever fracking was easy for me, hence forcing me to always be the most determined/hardest worker in just about every aspect of life I chose to engage And yet, here we are, this fellow and myself, ying and fracking yang... Ehhhh, no : perhaps more like the opposite poles of a magnet, repulsing each other... igniting... and ultimately fracking blowing up like a Nuke bomb, you know

Am not sure at all where I was going with this digressive arc of (non) storytelling, but I felt I needed to get it out and at least it made up for a good (or bad?) reason for updating this blog, amirite Anyhow, in other news, I just reserved a nice little SUV family car for a couple weeks in March when we will be heading down to Bariloche (in Pantagonia), before looping back through Mendoza. This should be an amazing little trip and even the dog is tagging along yo It will be more rural settings as well, so this will be fun as frack





Run good all

You still in Argentina and together with L? Seemed unclear over the past few posts.Hope all is good for you.

I've never tried MMA - got into Tae Kwon Do for a while but now I'm old enough to stick to Qui Gong

Hey friend, thx for the well wishes and much love back to you

Yup, I concur that my posts were nebulous as regards to my relationship with L, but yup, still with L and in Argentina, after visiting (for the first time in 3 years) Canada and what was an epic af trip I ended up crossing Canada - or at least 6200Kms of it - in my car in 8 1/2 days which was absolutely the trip of a lifetime yo But yes, overall my posting ITT has been sparse and obscure for reasons I do not want to share now/might share later...

Have you watched Cobra Kai at all, the delightful follow-up to Karate Kid turned into 4 and soon to be 5 seasons on Netflix? L and I actually just finished it today and man-oh-man was that ever a fun ride revisiting in a non-kitch way the 80s, a bit a la Stranger Things .

Did Taekwondo build up confidence for you in your interactions and whatnot? It certainly has for me

I don't know about confidence impact but I did get in better shape for sure and I find our current combination of chi gong and tai chi is good for both body and mind

Many of yous are not following my travel thread, so here is my latest update :

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=638

Given that I did not even bother to update this thread about my recent 2 month -42k and the ensuing 45k upswing in 2 weeks, I fathom that I might not be updating this thread frequently - barring a significant live MTT deep run - so at least there is this little update for you folks.

Run good all

You folks heard of Paisting, right, the saddest poker blog out there ; here is an accurate portrait of the blog in 10 minutes : https://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comme...icrostakes_of/

Enjoy the read, or feel about nauseated like I did

Wow my SN appears there

After doing the right thing and ignoring his thread for a very long time, my curiosity forced me to go back and I ended up posting again. Human nature I guess. Anyway, I´m ignoring again, hopefully forever, as obviously this guy situation is quite depressing (for me), so either reading and posting there will be absolute 0 help but will be negative for me, or will make his problem even worse (by giving the type attention) while still being negative for me. So, ignoring for life seems to be the GTO play.

Poker is a difficult game for our minds to grasp though, it´s not always thaaaaat intuitive how we win, where does the EV is really coming from, etc etc. I can more or less undestand why some people with mindset issues can get real crazy playing this fu**ing game if they don´t take care.

The thought just occurred to me while I was with my dog in the park today, that the amount of stuff I have learned in the past few years is just outstanding Namely a new language, learning martial arts (it's only been 6 months, but I definitely feel confident/have acquired the art of knowing self-defense/how to fight ), perfecting my poker craft (from moving up in stakes in NLHE to then switching my action to 70-80% PLO 400 and crushing it yo ), bettering my tennis play while reducing quite significantly my body weight and fat . Now imagine if I hadn't wasted so many years partying... Then again, maybe I would not feel the same existential urge to get shyt down and have this constant impression that time is running out at a rapid paste...

He had a mod block me (and a handful of others) from posting in his thread, as we had warned 888 about his TITANIC gambling addiction about a year ago. I was also pretty darn arrogant in my posting and disregarded anything he said.

Man, that guy is such a sad character and seriously convinces me that the human race simply has no possible salvation... Am being earnest here : his cognitive dissonance is such that he has absolutely zilch self-awareness/self-criticism, even after a decade and a half of being the biggest loser ever online (in terms of bbs), which makes the sickness of his mind categorically frightening af

Speaking about 888 and poker sites, really disgusting that any poker site allows someone to lose 100 bb/100 while putting regular-like volume. He's not a recreational, not at all. There should be a line between being rec-friendly, and allowing gambling addicts with no real discernment to lose their (and other people's) money.

If I told you that I considered sending an email not only to the site but to Finland's gambling authority pointing them to his thread.

I think you should.

What ended up happening, is they investigated his account for a couple of days ; meanwhile Paisting opened an account on ACR, but blamed a handful of us for him losing approximately 1-2k on 888 (he was deep(ish) - like a min-cash - in 2 tournaments when he got his account blocked and blamed us for not winning it all (with hundreds of players left) )). His account was subsequently unblocked after a couple of days.

It did not matter that he self-admitted not having enough money for buying his folks Xmas gifts or that he would eat very little certain days, as 888 is the sleaziest of the legal poker sites, sigh and a thousand times sigh .

Hey friends, I got a favor to ask : one of my best Argentino friends is a solid af musician and put up his album on Bandcamp for sell ; I of course understand that in this digital day and age, peeps just don't purchase music anymore, but purchasing a song (1$) )or the whole album (7$)), goes a Lonnnnnggg way in this part of the world, believe me!!! Such a shame that he does not have access to the culturally inclined scene of a first world city a la Montreal, for example, as the dude is talented and could, if not live off his music/art, would at least have a few decent paying gigs

So, yeah, if you have enjoyed this blog and especially if you have been following it for years, I would ask of you the kind gesture of purchasing a 1$ tune of his : https://marcolimas.bandcamp.com/album/prisa

The following song is psychedelic a la Pink Floyd and the video clip is quite excellent, tbh :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0K9R_P19Is

Albeit a lot of his tunes are on the Beatles/folk side of things :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoXLyGAEXsU

Poker update : having to adapt to the ever changing gambling scene of the virtual world, I have switched most of my action to the 4 card game, AKA the great game of PLO, and to great results yo I followed my biggest downswing by my biggest upswing So yeah, I have been spending time in the PLO lab where at first I was there : "holy mama-fracking Crist, that is quite the move" to "yeah, completely standard"

Life update : we will be moving within the next 2 weeks. The past 3 months have been a fracking f**king challenge for our household, after getting robbed three times, L's son getting threatened to be shot in the face and L getting into a motorbike accident, to name a few . So yeah, we are moving to a safer neighborhood, a more modern house, at least for the next 3 years, as afterwards, we will be looking at the richer, safer and more progressive Uruguay for our future.

That's it for now,

Run good all