Thanks man! Ended up playing about a 1000 more hands at slightly above breakeven. Pretty happy with results at PLO500 over a small sample, but for now my plan is to drop back down and shore up some holes in my game.

Nope, not on Stars. I don't do as much studying as I should, but it's mostly geared towards analyzing opponents I see a lot, checking over tough spots, and the occasional PLO video.

Yah, I suspect there are quite a few floating around in CDMX. Never bothered to check it out though. Live poker just never interested me much I guess. Maybe someday...

~~~~~~

Quick update: Everything is going well poker-wise and with life. I feel like I've been playing pretty good poker (but still room to improve) and have worked harder than I have in quit a while putting in volume. Next step is to maintain the high volume while being able to maintain a solid A game longer.

I couldn't be happier with my relationship. I guess now we're officially novios (boyfriend/girlfriend). I just kinda assumed that after we told each other "te quiero mucho", that it was a formality, but we were together this weekend and had a funny exchange.

We were eating some birria (****ing incredible, possibly my fave food now) and listening to mariachi and she was joking that I should become the only white mariachi and sing the classics with my gringo accent.

I joked that I will call myself Gregorio the Gringo and tour México "con su novia guapa".

She called me out on it and said with a smile "so I'm your novia then?"

So a bit later we walked to this cool park with a kiosco and I did a joke proposal getting down on one knee and asking her to be my girlfriend. I think next week I'll get her flowers.




There are so many cool places all over CDMX, It's a great fit for me. I'm also really happy with my relationship. Just an incredibly fun girl and brings exactly 0 drama.

Cheers all!

sounds great man and yeah that's a trippy gazebo thingy, really like the architecture

+100 on the birria. That stuff is goooood

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Not too much to report, but figured I'd update anyway. My graph in BBs looks super sick, but I'll post the more accurate $$$ graph. Quite happy with my results since I officially started tracking closely in mid-July (also when I started the thread). I have a sample slightly above 100k at all stakes and am winning 7.44 BB/100. I have 35k played at PLO 200 at -3.92 and 50k played at PLO 100 at +16.37. Would be nice if I could reverse those, but I'm still happy with the run good at 100 and am pretty sure I'm somewhere around a +4.00 player at PLO 200, but time will tell.

Here's the graph since the thread started:



My entire life, I've never been great at multi-tasking. I can devote myself 100% to one task and crush it, but then other facets fall by the wayside. Lately I've been doing well with poker and putting in the hours, but I've barely been meditating or doing yoga. I would like to find a nice balance between grinding a decent amount of hours, while taking care of myself through diet, meditation, and exercise. Tomorrow is Mexican Independence Day (no, it's not cinco de mayo), so I figure it's a good day to start a yoga/meditation streak and "liberate" myself from the demons holding me back.

On the relation front, I couldn't be happier. I know I've spoken glowingly about this girl, and I continue to be in awe. In the just under 4 months we've known each other we've seen each other once a week, in addition to a 5-day and 3-day trip. We haven't had even the most minor of arguments in all that time. She's also always down to do whatever: lucha libre wrestling, soccer match, night at the theatre. Whatever I suggest she's down, really enthusiastic, and feels right at home no matter we do. She brings so much love and passion to the relationship and zero drama or complaints. It feels like an amazing match.

Cute girlfriend moment of the week: We're planning a trip to Guadalajara and I was booking some plane tickets and when filling out her name I remembered that her last name has an accent. She saw and jokingly says "I think I'm falling more in love b/c you included the accent, people here always forget." Attention to detail my dudes.

Gotta vent just a little bit here. Played quite a few hands of PLO200 today and towards the end, probably the biggest fish I'll ever play against sits. Fella was 3 and 4-betting almost 100% pre and then stacking off any pair or better. You can see where the madness starts in the graph.

We battled for a couple hours and then the climax was a 10 buyin pot with me being an 85% fave on the turn, and of course he binks. After that, I decided to call it quits, but he proceeded to stack me twice more. As is usually the case, some reg joins the table and wins about 3 pots in a row vs. the fish and basically busts him.

Anyway, the thing I'm most happy about is the fact that my thought process turned from "this is so unfair" to laughing off the session within a couple minutes of calling it quits. It's all a part of poker, the game that we love and hate so much. If it weren't possible to run this bad/good, then the game would no longer exist as we know it. I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I'm 100% without emotion, I think it's only human nature to feel the sting a little bit, but I feel I'm much more resilient and able to bounce back quicker than ever before.

Results since tracking began in mid-July are pretty comical:

PLO 100: 50k hands, +18.92 BB/100
PLO 200: 36k hands, -6.71 BB/100

Just shows that mid 5 figures is a pretty worthless sample size.

Hello friends, I see that it's been over 4 months since I posted and just wanted to check in.

I hope 2020 has been going well and you've been able to follow thru with any changes/resolutions you've planned for the new year. For me, a new year is like a fresh slate and new opportunity and I feel like I've been able to start off 2020 on a positive note.

Life is going well and despite a couple minor challenges (which are nothing in the grand scheme of things), I can't complain. First off, I'm still in CDMX, and still loving the city. Next week will be the 2 year anniversary of the first day I ever arrived in CDMX, and Mexico for that matter. I can still remember the first afternoon when I started exploring the city on foot. I knew pretty much immediately that I would eventually make the city my home.

People often say "wait x months until the novelty wears off", but I can say that even after more than 18 months in CDMX that I still love the city.

Second, my relationship with my girlfriend is going incredibly well, we've been together over 8 months, and I'm very thankful to have her in my life. She's just an amazing person and inspires me to be the best person I can be.

We recently took a trip to Mazatlán, a large-ish beach city on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, and stayed together for 4 weeks. We'd taken a couple shorter trips together, but it was our first time staying together for this long and it went very well. Sometimes in a relationship 2 people can get along great when they're only seeing each other sparingly, but things change once it becomes more serious and you're living together. So it's nice to have a sneak peak of what it might be like living together and having it go so well.

Third, poker has gotten off to a nice start. I was much too lazy in 2019, always looking for reasons not to grind, and as a result only putting in a respectable amount of volume in 3 or 4 months. So I set a goal of 100+ hours per month at the tables. I knew this would be a challenge being on vacation with my girlfriend nearly the whole month of January, but I was still able to hit my goal. It is refreshing to find out that my girlfriend understands my profession and desire to get in hours and gives me space and support when needed. In past relationships, online poker has occasionally been a point of contention.

Fourth, I wanted to get my body back in shape to be able to grind and maintain focus and lead an active lifestyle. My girlfriend is 10 years my junior and just completed a marathon in CDMX a couple months, so she sets a high bar to live up to. So I set a goal to practice yoga every single day in 2020. On days where I have little going on, I challenge myself with a tougher practice as well as a 15 minute core strength sequence. On days when I'm exhausted or have a lot on my plate, I still make time for a 30 minute gentle practice. So far this year I've kept up with my goal.

Starting in February, I want to take my yoga to the next level and have started an online program called Level Up 108 by Travis Eliot. Basically it's 108 days of yoga (1 hour daily practice), 108 days of different meditations (10 minutes daily), and an extra practice that alternates between breath work, core work, or upper body work. It will be a challenge, but I am ready to tackle it.

I completed the very first day of LU108 program and just completed a 10 minute meditation called the Level Up meditation. Basically it was 5 minutes of visualizing where you would like to be in the future from a physical, mental, and emotional standpoint, followed by a repetition of 5 phrases. I was struck by how applicable these phrases are not just to my everyday life, but to poker as well. The phrases are as follows:

Love the challenge

This one has always been difficult for me as I tend to shrivel up in the face of brutal variance. Instead of maintaining focus on my game and powering through, I tend to whine and complain and often just avoid playing completely. In one of the yoga practices Travis says that there are certain sects of Buddhist monks that actually look and wish for challenges b/c they are opportunities for growth. I hope to gradually adopt that mindset and put myself in a position where when the next downswing comes, I am able to power through it, and grow as a result.

Focus on effort and never the outcome

This one is fairly straightforward. All we can control is how we play this hand. I would like to get to a point where I'm able to give all my focus to the current hand, rather than moaning about the 1 outer I suffered an hour ago. If I play a hand to the best of my ability with the current info I have available, then there should be no regrets if the hand results in a bad beat or bluff gone wrong.

Be at peace with imperfection

This is also a tough one for me. I tend to beat myself up a bit too much if I feel like I misplayed a hand. Instead of dwelling on the past, I would like to move on, maybe make a tiny note so I can address potential issues leading up to mistakes, and focus on the next hand.

Nothing is impossible

For me, it can be taken both ways. If we are motivated enough and fight hard enough for our dreams, then we can achieve them. OTOH, that downswing that we think is "literally impossible" in fact is, and we need to be prepared to deal with it when if/when it comes.

Enjoy the journey

For many of us, we're playing a freakin' game for a living. How cool is that? I often lose sight of all the things poker has given me. Especially in CDMX where life can be so chaotic, traffic is ridiculous, 20 million people in the city. But poker gives me a little oasis from it all where I can avoid so many complications and just focus on my work.

Lastly, all of this is building towards a strong meditation practice, which will provide me the opportunity to look within and address some of the fears that are holding me back. I've never done a meditation retreat, but I would like to do at least one 3-day retreat this calendar year. In many places in India they say that "yoga" is meditation, the postures are just to get your body in shape to meditate. I'm in the process of getting my body right and soon I want to dive into meditation.

In poker I've found a nice niche where I can make a comfortable living (especially for Mexico) at PLO 50, 100, and 200, but I've never quite been able to make that leap into the big leagues so to speak. I feel that a lot of it is laziness and leaks in my mental game which is way I'm working so hard to build strong, healthy habits and to address my lack of focus and quick temper. At the same time, it's important not to be too hard on myself, and appreciate the fact that I've supported myself on solely online poker for 15 years, lived in 5 countries, seen a lot of the world, met some extraordinary people, learned 2 new languages, and experienced things that I never would have imagined as a teenager growing up in the Midwest USA.

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful 2020!

Glad to have discovered this thread just now. I haven't read all of it yet, but I checked out your first and most recent posts and skimmed a little bit in between and it seems like you're in a great place right now. Kudos and keep doing what you're doing. Seems like you've found the perfect place to live for at a minimum this period of your life.

Also, I really appreciated your suggestions in dub's thread re: learning Spanish. I took the plunge and fired up a duolingo course tonight and am hoping to make learning Spanish a serious hobby this year. I'm hoping that having studied Spanish in high school and then French at a decently high level in college will help expedite things. I definitely plan on checking out some kind of language partners program per your suggestion once I get the basics down.

Next time you hit a downswing or any other kind of rough patch like mentioned in the OP, remember this:

^That's a hell of a great way to have spent the last 15 years.

Thanks man, and you're right, it's super important to maintain perspective and look at the big picture when going through short term rough patches in both poker and life.

I think you'll have a bit of advantage thanks to your past foreign language studies. For me personally, I had done basically zero foreign language study up until the age of 27 and then I jumped into French. It was fun and challenging, but I found it a bit difficult trying to adapt the new sounds and structures of a foreign language.

Once I got heavily into Spanish about 2.5 years ago I found it much easier thanks to the time spent learning French. I think my brain was more accustomed and also you learn how to improve the whole learning process your 2nd or 3rd time around.

GL on the Spanish studies! I was a big fan of Duolingo, I liked the video game type feel and it kept me motivated. My biggest advice would be to find things you love doing and do them in Spanish. I think it helps a lot if you're having fun and enjoying the process and you'll be more likely to stick with it.

I love sports, so any chance I get, I'll watch in French or Spanish and read articles on the teams in that language as well. So that means lots of Lyon and Montreal Impact soccer and Montreal Canadiens hockey games. I also find Spanish language music to be incredibly catchy, so I listen to it all the time. These are things that I would do anyway, but now I can do them in my target languages and learn passively without it even feeling like study.

Hey, great to see this thread active again

Does this mean you took the resolution of updating this blog regularly

Holy mother Fracking Jeezus Crist, 15 years Hummm, you probably had mentioned it to me before, but darn, I did not realize that your professional days stemmed from over a decade and a half ago!!! Impressive longevity and still an amazing positive outlook on the game

Always great to hear that things are going amazing with your lady friend On the meditation front and wanting to do a short retreat, I can't recommend vipissana enough : https://makaranda.dhamma.org/index.php/en/home/

Peace

Can't make any promises, but hopefully more often than once every 4 months!

It surprises me as well when I realize how long poker has been a part of my life, dang near half of it! I've had to evolve quite often from breaking in with MTTs to NLHE cash then SNGs and now PLO for the past 6-7 years.

Thanks for the meditation advice. It would almost certainly be a Vipassana retreat. I saw a 3-day retreat in Mazunte that looks very interesting. Not sure if you've been to Mazunte before. It's a smaller, relaxed beach in Oaxaca that looks right up your alley.

No, but Mazunte does sound really interesting indeed

A 3 day Vipassana course is alas only for old Vipassana students that have done a 10 day course ; they require a 10 day as it is the minimum to do in order to go where you are suppose to go insofar as to understand deeply the technique through personal knowledge.

Ahhhh ok, thanks for the explanation. I thought it was the other way around, but it does make sense to require the 10-day first.

2020 has been an interesting year so far. On the poker front, results have been about as expected, although I've been a bit too lazy on the hours. Hit my volume goal in January, but wasn't even close in February. Thanks to running red hot in secondary income streams, I am already well on my way to achieving my overall profit goals in 2020.

Inspired by Oladipo's great idea to plot out his schedule in advance, I decided to get my own dry erase board and plan out a couple days in advance:



I feel sometimes I'm a bit disorganized in my life, and this should help me stay on track and stick to mini-goals I set for myself each day/week. I will start out modest: meditation 10 minutes daily the first week, then 20 minutes daily the 2nd week, etc. If I can make it to an hour daily I will see how I feel w/my meditation practice and decide whether to maintain there or keep going.

Yoga I would like to practice daily. 4-5 days a week of very active/physical practices, and a couple days of lighter practices. On Meetup I found a German girl who offers yoga classes and occasional picnics in the massive park near my place, which I think will be a nice avenue to connect more w/nature and meet a few like-minded people. I plan to do this at least once a week.

I also found a group called "Spanglish" that meets a few times a week w/a mix of English, Spanish, and sometimes French natives. It will be a nice opportunity to get out of the apartment and be more social. For many months, my main outlet in CDMX for meeting people was Tinder. While it was a hell of a lotta fun, the problem with that is that once I met my girlfriend, I had to forget about all those girls as all the relationships were romantic rather than platonic, which left my social circle basically back at 0. I would consider myself an introverted person who doesn't mind being social from time to time, but tends to keep to myself an awful lot. So I am making a concerted effort to force myself to be more social and slowly build a network of friends besides just only going out w/my girlfriend.

I believe it's important to find a nice balance in life between many factors: work, sleep, exercise, hobbies, leisure, nature, being social, etc. And I am lacking in a few of these areas and would like to remedy that problem.

Another interesting aspect of the Spanglish group is that occasionally there are meetups w/French speakers. I lived in Montreal for 2 years and France for just under 2 years. By the time I left France, my level of French was about a 7/10. Unfortunately I have spoken almost no French in the past 3 years and my only exposure to French is the occasional sports event or movie I watch in French. I would like to try to regain most of my level so a couple days ago I started messing around on Duolingo a bit. I was appalled to find that I had forgotten so much basic vocabulary, but I feel like once I drill it back in my head a time or 2, I will be ok. I would say my level in Spanish is now a 7/10, w/my French level dipping to about a 4/10. I still understand French quite well, but with basically no practice for 3 years, I have trouble forming my own sentences and my brain now defaults to wanting to fill in Spanish words when I try to speak French.

February also brought another trip with the girlfriend. This time we spent 3 nights in León and 3 nights in Morelia in México. We went to León b/c I am a big soccer fan and would like to eventually visit all the stadiums in México. An American team, LAFC, happened to be playing in León so it seemed like a great excuse to visit the stadium and build a small trip around it. I also had the pleasure of briefly meeting a 2+2er acquaintance from the Sporting Events forum who turned out to be a cool dude. Incidentally, his team advanced to the next stage of the competition and will now be playing in CDMX in mid-March.

Everything has being going incredibly well with the girlfriend as well. She continues to impress me each and every day and inspire me to work harder. As an example, I pitched the idea to her to teach Spanish online on a website called italki. She was enthusiastic and began to research what it would be like, best methods for creating a profile/video, experiences of other teachers, etc. Within a day or two she had already compiled 8 notebook pages full of ideas and concepts. That level of hard-work and preparedness is unfortunately lacking in my life, so it's nice to have a partner who sets a solid example and can motivate you to be better yourself.



This picture w/the gf is most notable b/c I'm wearing a Nebraska shirt (and my gf is wearing the one I gifted her as well). Most of my life I've kind've blazed my own path. Choosing my own team to root for, choosing poker instead of a more traditional path, traveling all over instead of settling down, etc. I was always kinda ashamed of where I came from and the values that are prevalent in my home state. I wouldn't have been caught dead wearing any Nebraska gear 3 years ago. But I have softened on this and now feel like it is a part of who I am and a part of my upbringing and that by repping my home state I can start to set a better example and show people that not everyone from there is closed-minded and traditional in their values.

OK, that's enough for now. I'm eager to get going in March and start ingraining more positive habits. Spring is just around the corner and in Eastern traditions it is a time for rebirth and blooming. I also notice my mood tends to be happier as the weather heats up as well as the fact that CDMX looks even more gorgeous with jacarandas blooming everywhere.



So although February wasn't a perfect month by any means, I'll choose to focus on the huge positives that occurred w/my relationship and financial situation instead of dwelling on the minor things that didn't go as planned and look to build on that momentum for March.

By the way, if anyone is interested in improving their Spanish or even taking up the rewarding journey of starting to learn Spanish, my girlfriend is offering online lessons on italki. The first few weeks are pretty frustrating b/c it's very hard to acquire new students initially. As such she's starting with low prices and will slowly increase her fee and she becomes established. I would like to help her as much as I can so if anyone is looking for help with their Spanish just PM and I'll pass along her profile to you and I'm sure she would be grateful for the business.

Nice update and congrats on all of the amazing progress so far, both personally and spiritually.

What kind of other income streams do you have beside poker?


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Thanks man

Not too much besides poker unfortunately. I'm dabbling a bit in investing and bitcoin and do some sports betting when opportunities arise (i.e. I'm not expecting to beat popular markets).

I'm planning to start putting away a lot more money in the coming years. I'd also like to branch out into real estate. Maybe buy a beachfront condo in a Mexico to use a bit during the Winter and rent out the rest of the time.

My ultimate goal would be a beach front place in Mexico, a tiny place in Europe on the Mediterranean in Spain or France, and then my normal place in CDMX. The weather here in CDMX is nice for the most part, except Winters can be quite chilly at night (dips down to single digits Celcius a lot) and there's a rainy season that starts in about June and lasts 3-4 months.

So the ideal situation would be Mexico beach from Dec-Feb, CDMX March-June, Europe July-Sep, CDMX Oct-Nov, something like that. And then just rent out the places when not in use. I'm probably 15-20 years from being able to pull that off, but it's nice to have something to work towards.

Of course my plans can always change at the drop of a hat, but since leaving the USA for good in 2011 (Denver was the last city I lived in), I haven't spent more than 2 years in a country since then: 1 year New Zealand, 2 years Montreal, 2 years France, and now 2 years Mexico. But I'm right at 2 years in Mexico so I'll finally break through the barrier and of course I have a great reason to stick around longer plus I enjoy the country and the reduced cost of living which takes off a lot of financial pressure.

great update, it's quite offputting seeing fossilkid is actually a fossilman, obviously knew we were about the same age yet still you read a screename and it sets up a mental image that kind of takes hold

making platonic friends as an adult is a damn near impossibility for me, i really struggle with finding a balance between playing it too cool and therefore too aloof and indifferent and thus not someone they'll make the effort to invite to do stuff with vs coming on too strong

actually a big reason for sudden surge in 2p2 time is life circumstances meant moving on from old friend circle and it never got replaced

what have you been doing for your visa, u just do a border run every 6 months?

My only advice is that guys like doing stuff and bond over activities. So I’d choose a sport or activity you enjoy, go find a group/gym/etc that engages in that activity, and dive in. That’s how I managed to find friends from scratch in the past.


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this is excellent advice, thanks

feel like an idiot for not realizing that and meant to start playing sports again anyway

Yup, this. In the era of the internet, I believe way to make lasting friendships quickly, is through communal activities. For instance, I just got to Buenos Aires under 2 months ago and have already established some very solid friendships through this forum (via my blog) and doing a meditation retreat in a nearby meditation centre

Ha, yah I guess I'm not so much a kid anymore. I chose the screenname way back in 2004 when Raymer won the WSOP and have stuck with it.

Yah, I've just been leaving and coming back and each time I get a fresh 180 days, no questions asked. I'm on my 5th or 6th 180 day visa. Apparently some people have been living here on these 180 day tourist visas for decades. I suppose if they started cracking down I could get a residency visa easily enough.

My current 180 day visa ends in May, so I'm probably gonna take my girlfriend on a trip for a month or 2. I was thinking about USA, but upon doing some research found that it would be extremely unlikely for her to receive a visa, so we're not even gonna mess with it. So it looks like we'll probably be going to the main cities in Québec/Ontario. Mexicans can enter basically anywhere in the Americas and Europe without a visa, except USA. Go figure.

Started a bit of research on AirBNBs in Montréal, Toronto, and Ville de Québec and man, I think living/traveling exclusively in Latin America for a couple years has really thrown my concept of prices way out of whack.

Over the past 2 years I've lived in Mexico and traveled to a couple dozen cities here, as well as travels to Colombia for 2 months, 1 month in Perú, and a week in Guatemala.

I guess you take for granted that you can easily find a nice, well located place off AirBNB for $25-40 for a night or $500-750 for a month.

I always remembered Montréal as a pretty cheap city (and it is compared to any decent city in the USA/Canada), but compared to LatAm I'd say rentals are about 80% more expensive. I think I'll probably end up spending ~$1250 for a place to stay for the month.

Stuff like public transport adds up quickly as well. Ridiculously cheap in CDMX, like 40 cents a trip, compared to $3.50 in Montreal, that's almost 10x as much!

It's really reinforced that my decision to live in CDMX is definitely the right one. The quality of life is just so high for the prices I'm paying, and it also takes so much pressure off my poker b/c monthly costs are so low and I never have worries about bankroll or whether or not I'll be able to save money each month. If an opportunity arose to live in Europe, then I'd probably take it, but I'd say there's 0 chance I would ever move back to the USA or Canada.

Anyway, I really love Montréal, and haven't visited for 5 years, so I'll be excited to go back, but I think above all, it will be really cool to see how my girlfriend reacts to the city. She's never left Mexico, so it will be cool to experience her first impressions of a new culture through her eyes. I told her this weekend that the options were Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Canada, and she snap-picked Canada. I suppose it makes sense as culturally, it's the most different from Mexico.

It will be good motivation to work hard at poker, as I'll need to be putting in a lot of hours if I want to maintain this lifestyle. It would also help if my girlfriend started acquiring more Spanish students on italki. It seems frustratingly slow at first, as there are probably 100-150 teachers just from Mexico alone, and she's a new profile, so probably buried low on the list. She's had 2 students: 1 did a trial class, and the other took an hour lesson and then a repeat lesson a couple days later. Seems like it could be a guy who's pretty serious and might take dozens of lessons, we'll see.

When I was learning French I was taking lessons from an older lady for $8/hour. She was just starting out, but was incredibly helpful and always giving me additional audio files, grammar explanations, and lessons to do. I see that now she's charging $20/hour and her schedule is pretty full, so it seems like there's a lot of potential on italki and I'm really hoping my girlfriend can make it work.

Poker has been slow in March, but mostly b/c my focus has been on studying. I've been at $.50/1 and $1/2 PLO for quite a while and with pretty decent results, but I would like to make the leap to $2/5 and $5/10 soon and feel like I'm close, but need to sharpen my game a bit.

So I've subscribed to JNandez site for a couple months. In the past I would just kinda mindlessly watch videos and take a few notes, but I feel like that's a lazy way to study so instead I've been watching more videos on how to analyze stats and learning optimal ways to study your own game. Instead of taking bits and pieces of advice and trying to shoehorn them into my own game, which may or may not work, I'll be able to analyze my game as a whole and develop strategies that make sense within my overall style of play.

So I take it you want to be in the big city above anything else? Given that you will be going in May-June, you want access to all the festivals and whatnot? I am asking, as when I go back to Montreal and book AirBnB, I prioritize more peaceful surroundings in the Laurentides and hence book a chalet by a lake. Somewhere close to Saint-Agathe, for instance, which is 89kms from Montreal. Of course, I have access to a vehicle and only go to Montreal about once a week or every couple of weeks... Just an idea.

I fathom Quebec City might be a little cheaper as well. Either way though, I do recommend renting a car and going around Gaspesie (and stopping in Quebec Citty along the way), for instance, and also checking out Saint-Agathe, Mont-Tremblant up to Val D'Or/Rouyn Nouranda and spending a week camping/swimming there by waterfalls (for free) or some remote lakes (I will give you specific locations). Montreal is great in the summertime, but it would not be complete without getting out. I also recommend bringing a tent and sleeping bag (or buying cheap ones there or even secondhand at Village des Valeurs/Salvation Army) which would lower the expenses of your trips in les Laurentides/Gaspesie to strictly a rental car, gasoline and food

And oh, just in case you wanted to combine work with leisure, WPT Deepstacks is April 16-27 at the Playground : https://www.playground.ca/poker/wptd...ournament-2020

I know you are not much of a live MTT fellow, but might be an option... Too bad I only get back in July-August bro, it would of been amazing to hang out again/might your lady friend

I'm a huge life nit and yet I'm so conditioned to not thinking of money as meaningful and so accustomed to big numbers "dinner is 3,000 thingamajigs" or "that soda is 250 whatsits" that I found I can be a money sieve at times when back in the states.

For example, I spent nearly a year living in Egypt, if you asked me today how much things cost in Egypt the only answer I could give you is "cheap enough to the point where I have no idea how much anything costs" For the life of me I couldn't even tell you what the exchange rate is either and yet I could describe what the currency looks like intimately.

When I lived in the US full time I was the kind of guy who would read a menu and subconsciously figure what items where the best bang for the buck whereas now I don't really think of it.

Last time I was in NYC my buddy and I went to a deli and I casually ordered a $24 sandwich and only a day or two later I realized how much I'd changed as before I would have been sick to my stomach doing a cost/benefit analysis while looking at the menu

Not helping at all is that dollars are the typical units I wager in so $24 is less than a bb or a single dfs contest - I imagine it's similar for you.

I think once dollars become real money again to me that habit will stop.