Dub, we'll probably be looking for an AirBNB directly in the city, probably close to the Plateau or downtown if it isn't too expensive.

We are both very much big city people. It's funny, when we visited Guadalajara, my gf commented that it felt pretty small. It's a city of about 5 million people mind you .

That being said, I am also planning to check out Quebec City for at least a few days and probably Tremblant as well. It would be criminal to spend a month in Quebec and not check out more of what it has to offer beyond the 2 big cities.

Thanks so much for your suggestions. I was a bit lost on what to do beyond the basics and I like your idea of renting a car a lot. I will look into the other stuff and will try to set aside a week for exploring the natural beauty and quieter side of Quebec.

The MTT series is probably too early, but the PLO event does look enticing. In any case, I will try to make it out the Playground at least once during the trip. Does Casino de Montréal have any cash games? Might be a better spot as it would allow the gf to kill time playing cheap slots or something if she wants to tag along.

rick, it is a bit similar when I'm traveling around, especially in a country where the currency is way out of whack. So in Colombia, where $1 is like 3,000 pesos, if I see a price as 200k or whatever, it doesn't even really register and I tend to have no regard for spending. However, when I went back to Miami and paid $6 for a single damn can of coke, I got a bit upset haha. I also spent $15 to use their bikeshare for 2 hours whereas in Mazatlán, we used their bikeshare for the whole month for $3.50! There are a lot of things like transport options that are anywhere from 1,000-3,000% more expensive in the West.

I am pretty sure you can get to Trembant with public transportation, but spending 2-3 days camping over there (the best camping spots are free, believe me ) is well worth it. Doing the Gaspesie loop by car is a good insight into rural Quebec. We just camped randomnly in the bush back then, parking the car/pitching a tent and would have a bottle of wine/a joint every night (that was back when I was 20 )

Casino has 17 tables, but PLO never runs (5-10 pretty rare, but some decent 2-5 games). Playground now has slots, but as not much convenient to get there (Uber/taxi for the return) as opposed to the metro ride to Le Casino.

can you do a cdmx covid tr?

i saw mx liga still in action

you staying there? have you stockpiled? are others?

Nothing really to report. Stuff still going off like normal, a few extra people with masks, but that's about it.

There haven't been many confirmed cases in Mexico, but that's b/c they aren't really testing people. I have a feeling it will get really bad here in a week or 2, but hopefully not.

With the close proximity that most Mexicans live, crowded plazas, everyone taking the bus etc, I fear that it will take off very fast.

Two confirmed cases in Zapopan today.

Yes, I'm guessing there are probably already thousands of cases, but we wouldn't know b/c they've been testing so sparingly. And yes, it's a very social culture and the vast majority cannot afford not to work and be able to survive for any length of time, and if they have to work, that means they will be taking public transport. Add to that, Mexico has the lowest rate of hospital beds per citizen of the 40 OECD nations and I think it could get very bad.

I guess they took a small step and started playing soccer matches without spectators, but I don't think they'll take sufficient steps to really slow this thing down until it's way too late. I'd expect things to be very bad in 2-4 weeks, Trump will probably close the border too.

School officially stops on the 20th, but think many of us won´t take kids to school since today. Apparently yesterday we had the 1st fatal victim,a 71 year old guy that happened to be cousin of Carlos Slim, so I guess just a sign that elders with or without money have a high risk when contracting it.
Many of us are not very well informed, I mean it is somewhat clear to stop going to malls, concerts, cinema, etc but we don´t know whether we should stop now making the usual family/friends gatherings with less than 20 people.
Casinos here are still running normal it seems, and so far haven´t heard of them planning to close this week.

What an incredibly strange year it's been.

OTOH, it's been an insanely successful year financially and I find myself in a relationship w/an incredible woman. On the other hand...well, you know.

I set a pretty ambitious financial goal for 2020. One that would require me average 150 hours of poker per month (a target I probably hadn't hit once this decade) while maintaining my previous winrates. I am happy to report that I've already surpassed that target for the year.

It's mostly thanks to some insane rungood and an aggressive strategy in sports betting. Sports betting is mostly a hobby for me, and although I posted small positive winnings in both '18 and '19, I tend to make fishy parlay plays, mostly as degen plays, but I tend to choose niche markets and do believe I have a slight edge.

So I started out fairly small, a couple hundred dollar parlays here and there. I believe I had a big hit for a couple grand. So I increased my bet sizes. Had a couple more nice hits. Soon I was betting up to a couple grand in single games where I believed I had a big edge. The run good just never stopped and I ended with a nice chunk of change. My last day placing sports bets was the 16th and then corona intervened. Probably fortuitous timing, as I don't know that it was a sustainable strategy. I set a stop loss for 15% of my winnings, and chances are I probably would have hit that stop loss in the next couple days, so maybe corona putting a sudden end to the festivities saved me some money.

The good luck continued into this last week where I put in 64 hours at the poker tables. I had 2 enormous winning days. I checked my records dating back to January 2018 and confirmed that they were my #1 and #2 single biggest winning days. Of course I also had my single biggest losing day (but still I gave back slightly less than my #2 biggest winning day). The action and swings have been off the charts in the past few weeks. Even my medium stakes 1/2 PLO 6-max games have been playing quite large with 4 figure pot sizes being common. I've also been shot taking up at 5/10 and in only 600 hands am up over 3 buyins. Meaningless sample, but still nice to take down some monster pots. Although I'm still pretty frightened of the big jump in stakes at 2/5 and 5/10. For now I'm content to ride it out at 1/2, where I know I'm a big winner, and with the increase in traffic can find plenty of games at most hours of the day.

Relationship-wise, things are getting even more serious. I've passed 10 months with my girlfriend and things continue to get better with each passing day. In the past few days, we broached 2 subjects for the first time: living together and marriage. Luckily we're on exactly the same page. In terms of marriage, we both agree that ultimately it's a meaningless thing. It doesn't signify that we love each other more, it's mostly just a contract. But being that I'm an American hoping one day to take Mexican citizenship, and she's a Mexican, who would have trouble visiting the USA without being the fiancée/spouse of an American national, marriage would have its obvious benefits.

As far as living together. For now, my plan is to wait out corona virus until my apartment lease ends in late August. Hopefully by then it will be a bit safer to travel and my plan is to go back to the USA and apply for a residence visa in Mexico. Something a bit more official as I've been living in Mexico on a series of tourist visas up until now. It would also set me on a path towards citizenship. I'm planning to ask her to move in with me when I return, probably in September. By then we'll have been together roughly 1.5 years. I'm not sure if maybe that's a bit fast, but it feels right.

Well, that's all for now. Hope everyone is staying safe and coping well with social distancing, the new normal. Hopefully things will improve although I suspect we'll be under these conditions at least another month or 2.

Congratulations

Indeed. Running well everywhere friend

Thanks fellas!

Running well everywhere except the yoga/meditation game.

Last week I played poker 64 hours and my girlfriend came over for 3 nights.

So I feel like I am able to excel in 1 or 2 areas at any 1 time, but then everything else falls by the wayside.

Hopefully with more time on my hands in quarantine I can start to build positive habits that will soon feel like second nature.

In 3-6 months I would love to be able to say that I'm A) putting in 40+ hours a week on the virtual felt B) maintaining a solid relationship with the girlfriend and C) meditating 30+ minutes daily, daily yoga practice, and healthy eating habits.

If I can do that, then I will have really made it!

Getting Mexican citizenship feels like doesn´t bring a ton of benefits. My wife is French, and has never had an interest in getting it and only con so far has been not being able to vote or to postulate for government job. On the other hand, I was able to get the French citizenship, and having a European passport is quite advantageous.

So if you getting married also allows her to get American citizenship, then I think marriage is worth, tho probably she has to wait around 5 years after it to be able to apply.

About your sports betting, have you consider paying for tips?, I once toyed with the idea of getting a sub on betting emporium, wanted mostly to get in on the O/U 2.5 goals football market but never got around it. What u're betting on?

Sorry if you posted before but I might have missed it. What is your monthly cost of living in Mexico in USD. How does it roughly breakdown in terms of rent vs other expenses. I used to live in san diego and almost considered moving to Rosarito for the pokerstars grind is why I ask.

vherreral, you're right, it doesn't have a ton of benefits. It would mostly be a symbolic gesture for me as an anti-American protest b/c I'm not a fan of my country. But I'm also thinking about buying property in Mexico one day and never having to worry about visas again would be nice since I'm planning to stay here for a very long time.

There are also a couple benefits like being able to visit Bolivia visa free (I believe it costs like $150 for Americans) and I believe Brazil is easier. There's also the Alianza del Pacífico which includes México, Colombia, Perú, and Chile. I haven't exactly looked into how it works, but if it keeps growing, then it might include easier movement between the member nations and those other 3 countries are places I could conceivably live one day.

And of course, an American passport would be yuge for her to have.

Agreed that getting an EU passport would be amazing as I'd love to be able to live and maybe someday buy there. Hopefully I can figure out a way regardless. My ultimate plan would be to own small places in France, CDMX, and a beach city here in Mexico like Mazatlán then spend 3 months in Summer in France, 4 months in Winter in Mazatlán, and rest of the time here in CDMX. Summer basically falls in Spring here in CDMX, as you know, so it would basically be like having perfect weather year round and being able to enjoy a couple different ambiances.

If you're still in CDMX and would like to meet someday, maybe even with our partners, let me know. I'm currently in the process of working to get my French back (I lost so much) and would like to visit France (and Quebec), possibly next Summer, with my girlfriend.

I've never really thought of putting too much time/effort into sports betting. I consider mostly a hobby and every now and then will set aside $1-2 k that I can easily afford to squander to see if I can spin it up, but mostly just for entertainment. I ended up taking $2k earlier this year and spinning it up way up, but I consider it more luck than anything (although a bit of skill too haha). I wouldn't want to waste that fortune but degen'ing it back, so now 90% of that is back off-site and into investment accounts. I might give myself a $5k bankroll when sports come back, but I can't see the sports betting developing beyond that.

I've been betting on a lot of Mexican football, but more niche markets. For example, most teams don't care about Copa MX, but I feel the lines are mostly based on the teams being at full strength. So often times I will notice one team is using more or less a full strength squad while the other has rotated in most of their bench, but I feel the price rarely reflects this. I was also mashing overs when I felt a Liga MX team was playing super wide open, as was the case with Toluca. Liga MX totals rarely deviate from 2.5, so it was an easy over play, and they were hitting 5/6 goals with regularity.

I was also doing quite well with NHL, but rarely touch the big leagues like NBA/NFL/CFB.

Zefa, well, now with quarantine, my expenses are extremely low, I think I'm barely going over 1k/month and still living what would be considered a very comfortable life by any standards (although not baller by any means).

Rough breakdown for the moment:

$850 rent includes a fully furnished, modern, large 1BR in Reforma (one of the most attractive parts of the city in the financial district 1 block from the famed Paseo de la Reforma and 2 blocks from El Ángel). Includes all bills as well, internet, etc.

$10 phone plan for 3 GBs, that plan even works quite well in Canada/USA. We are getting badly ripped off everywhere else.

~$60-70 a week for groceries.

~20-30/week for 3-4 meals delivered from UberEats. I can have a large Domino's pizza delivered plus tip for like $7. Some restaurants are roughly equivalent to USA prices though and I prefer to cook my own meals.

That's about all I'm paying for the moment, but some other costs in a normal month.

Cinema tickets cost like $3 and popcorn/soda would be another $4.50. Super cheap compared to the West.

Public transport is essentially free as a ride costs like $.30 (you could buy roughly 10 tickets for the price of 1 in my last home of Lyon).

Uber rides are between $2-6 almost anywhere, even the airport ranges from $4-6 and thats a fairly long ride.

If you're curious about anything else, you can ask.

Some cities tend to be very close to American prices, like Cancún or Puerto Vallarta, but I'm assuming Rosarito would not be near that category and you could live quite cheaply there, especially compared to San Diego. I'd venture to say you could live there for probably 1/3 of what you'd pay in SD.

I was considering a couple cities in the USA like Austin or Denver, but that changed once I found CDMX. Not only am I paying probably 40% of what I would in those cities. I flat out like CDMX much more even if they were all comparable costs.

Yeah, my expenses are BY FAR the lowest in 4 years, like 3-10x lower Darn, I am very envious of just the word cinema and having the option to still go see a movie... Or using an Uber ride and going to see my gf or her coming over here Martial Law sucks balls Enjoy your freedom friend and once again, congrats on the great year thus far

The main thing for me is that I usually take at least 1 mini-trip each month and 2-3 larger trips a year, but those are obviously on hold. Those travel expenses can add up quickly.

Well, I don't have those freedoms either. Cinemas are shut down here, although I can take walks on Reforma every now and then, which is nice. I was just giving an example of some of my other expenses during normal times.

TY my friend and GL to you as well. I hope to read soon that you are upswonging.

This will be a short post, but maybe an important one.

I've realized that my level of focus has gone to complete ****. In these odd corona times I've become obsessed with checking in on my familiar news sources for the latest updates and it's almost become an obsessive pattern. If I sit down for a poker session or to watch a Netflix show, my mind quickly starts wandering: "I need to check in on that thread", "I wonder how x is doing?", etc. etc.

With the poker difficulty level getting a lot easier during quarantine, I find myself drifting into auto-pilot much sooner. Sure, I might still win b/c the games are easier than I'm used to, but I'm finding that I'm never playing my A-game, and I'm also much more emotionally volatile. It's been a while since tilt has been such a big factor, but I'm now finding myself getting upset even after losing a couple flips or a single 80/20.

I've been spending a couple days trying to address this problem and so I've been re-reading a book called "The Untethered Soul". I've already read it a time or two and most of the stuff in it is stuff I've probably read a thousand times in one form or another, but it's always nice to have a refresher. As always, the answers are within. A big point in the early chapters is how easy it is to get lost in outside objects: thoughts, emotions, visual stimuli, etc. But that these things are not us, we are simply the one who views these objects, the observer.

As such, I've been trying to simply let things be, without injecting too much of my own personal bias into what I'm observing. In the poker realm, that means not immediately judging a play I don't understand with "that guy's a moron" and instead taking the play for what it is, trying to understand the player's motivations and play style, and adjusting accordingly, without emotion.

One helpful practice for me when I find myself wandering into old patterns is to just repeat "hello, hello, hello" to myself over and over and noticing that I'm aware of that thought. It can be a useful re-centering technique.

This morning when I was brushing my teeth, I tried to be fully aware of everything happening. The physical sensations, sights, and sound of the bathroom fan. It was quite intense and I found my mind quickly wanting to butt in with inane thoughts about other things I needed to be doing and get back to my comfort zone aka lost in thought almost anywhere else but here and now.

So it will not be an easy process taking back control of my mind, but at least I'm becoming more aware of the issue.

And a quick Mexico coronavirus update b/c Dub will be mad if I don't

People seem to be taking quarantining quite seriously in my area. Pretty much everything is closed, restaurants only doing takeout, and the grocery store I go to 1x every 10 days instituted tighter restrictions. There was a line to get in (spaced properly) and only 50 people allowed to be inside at any one time.

The problem is that public transport is still open and people are still cramming into certain metro stations in massive #s, still huge lines waiting for the metro, etc. I think it is nearly impossible for a lot of Mexicans who are living day to day to simply wait this thing out indoors for several months like many of us in the West have the luxury of doing.

Mexico just had the largest single day # of confirmed deaths yesterday at 113, and # of confirmed cases are picking up, so hopefully not a sign of things to come.

A final quick not on Mexico itself. I've been here almost 2 years and experienced overt racism only 1 time. Over a year ago when I was walking around late at night with my ex girlfriend, a drunk game came up to us and was giving her crap for dating a foreigner saying "don't you have any pride?". He left us alone after about 10 seconds. Other than that, that's it. In a time when many people are blaming foreigners for the current issues, I haven't experienced even one comment or sideways glance in Mexico. In addition, safety-wise, I've never once even felt like an area was too dangerous or sketchy.

It makes me feel like I've found a nice home outside of the USA. The people have been welcoming in general. I've met my girlfriend's family a couple times, which is an intense experience in normal situations, and magnified with a language divide. But they've been nothing short of amazing. Her dad is one of the nicest people I've met, and the first time we met, insisted on paying, which I felt bad about having to accept, but was a grand gesture. So all in all, I've been very happy in Mexico City and am very grateful I took the plunge and decided to visit for the first time back in February 2018.

All amazing news friend, especially that we will now be forced into staying much longer (that I at least planned) in our respective Latino countries And great that you are not being treated differently during the pandemic, which is also my case, but have read xenophobic on my FB expat group (are you in the CDMX one?).

Spent 3 weeks in Mexico, easiest sex in my life, like what the f. It was like being a superhotwoman on tinder but the other way around. Really loved the city as well, but I kind of disagree you don't have to be careful, specially being a foreigner. Obviously if you don't go to hot areas nothing's gonna happen but anyway

I kind of understand being lazy in such situation, just try to make the most out of corona and focus on playing now that you can't do much

I'm in a couple FB expat groups, but have been trying to avoid FB for the most part (too much political nonsense), but yah, I suppose there are probably quite a few stories of xenophobia there.


Yah, it's absurdly easy, especially in CDMX. I was also pleasantly surprised that I was meeting tons of high quality women on Tinder. I don't think the rep of foreigners has been ruined here the way it has in Colombia. Which cities did you visit?

My experience will definitely vary from many others. I don't drink that much or do drugs, so tend to spend less time in seedier areas and almost none walking around semi-drunk late at night. I have visited several areas in CDMX during the day with a bit of a negative rep that almost no gringos visit and didn't feel too threatened. I tend to dress to blend in, don't use my phone much in public unless I'm comfortable in the area, and don't wear jewelry, all of which probably helps my cause.

In general, I felt more uncomfortable in parts of Medellín and Bogotá in el centro in MDE and la candelaria in Bogotá. And I felt super unsafe walking around downtown Guatemala City, to the point where I was basically just speedwalking to get out of there. Probably the first time I've been that uncomfortable during the day. Hopefully I'll never have to experience that feeling in Mexico, but it's probably coming someday as I like to explore as much as I can. So far I've been to 13 of the 32 states, and probably would've gotten to 20 this year if not for corona virus.

As for the last part. Yah, I'm trying to maximize this situation as much as possible. I've been an online poker player since 2004 and I'd say by 2006 I'd already built up a nice stash from the online poker, but from that point I started to get complacent thinking that it would always be super easy to make money online. By the mid-2010s I had squandered most of what I'd earned and suddenly found that games were way tougher and I needed to buckle down and put more work into my tactics, mental, and emotional game. Now I'd say the games are the easiest I've seen since maybe like 2008ish, so having learned my lesson from the past, I'm hoping to take full advantage of this opportunity.

GL man, in a similar spot but in Korea (working full time though).

Looks like this thread will be some entertaining reading to catch up on in my downtime!

great updates

i find it interesting in most of asia i almost never worry about anything but then when traveling in US or Europe there will be times when suddenly my spidey senses will come alive out of nowhere and i'll definitely not feel at ease

also very good posts on the mindfulness, i'm basically on autopilot all the time and it's something i'll try to implement

Yah, for me it's so easy to click on 1 YouTube video and then before I know it I've been watching random crap for 2 hours.

Or I have 4 websites that I check all the time and sometimes I just click through them all without even thinking about it and if I try to do something else I start to get an anxious feeling like I need to check my sites again.

There's nothing wrong with taking a break every now and then and consuming entertainment, but I just want to be in control when I'm doing it and not just a slave.

That explains a lot, Im always in for a party so end up in weird places, walking to the hotel drunk, things like that.

My experience in the country was fantastic and the majority of people, well, let's say I have never felt so welcomed in any other part of the world and I have been to 50 countries at least. I think it helps being Spanish, as I know the language and a lot of Mexicans still like Spain

but also some weird, even scary stuff happened, for example

I went to a festival in Guadalajara and my date took out her phone for a second, put it back in the backpack, checked 2 seconds later and it was gone: Mexico magico!!

Also in gdl, around 3pm after a meeting like in plain sight, we were driving and two cars were trying to make us hit them, one in front of us breaking all of a sudden, and one to our right trying to prevent us from evading the collision. My colleague said they normally do that and then ask to "settle" with money immediately, it happened to him a couple of times (quite wealthy businessman), such a target

Also in Monterrey had some meetings in probably not the best area of town, it was a bit scary, especially having some people from security escorting me back to the uber like something was going to happen

I think it was also in MTY I was in the nightlife part of town, then a guy on a motorbike stole a couple of purses from some girls like in front of everyone

All in all I think it is high risk high reward country to visit, definitely interesting, looking forward to going back asap. I was also probably super unlucky but you know, 3 weeks there and witnessing all this, leaves you thinking its not the safest place. I'm obviously used to europe where you can go almost anywhere anytime without having to worry much