Thank you and I appreciate the kind words. There are things that I did not write about in the blog post that would make a reunion rather unlikely, but one never knows. It's rather funny as we're having quite the argument on the Cambodian thread about some of the issues I touched on in the blog post. According to one poster, apparently any "bum" can do what my father was able to do and what I am attempting to do now. Wouldn't the world be a better place if only that were true.

Such a tough situation. I feel for you.

On one hand, it’s really great that you are stopping racism from being passed down to yet another generation, you should be proud of stepping out from under that shadow.

But at the same time our family is our family and it’s still sad. Idk what to say really. What does your dad say when you tell him you provide for your family just as he did his?

Poker is just difficult for people to grasp, only after years of continued success did my dad come around. I wrote a long form email to him explaining the game and where my edge comes from, and where it will always come from - and that helped a lot.

Great read, had to be so hard for your parents to go through all that and they have to be proud of prevailing. It’s just too bad they let their antiquated and uninformed opinions take precedence over having a relationship with their kids/grandkids. What a shame, in the end they are the ones who lose out.

He doesn't know as we haven't spoken in over 5 years. My mother and I will text or email about once every couple of months and I've told her that we're doing well. But she usually gives no response and has not asked a single question about my family. I actually did not speak to her for many years also but she reached out to a friend of mine in Los Angeles a couple of years ago who then contacted me and told me that she wanted me to call her. I was so elated that I immediately sent her an email that I ended with, "By the way there is someone you should meet." I attached some photos of my daughter in the email figuring she would want to see her pictures. But when I called her, several times, she refused each and every call. I was a bit stumped until I spoke to my friend in LA, who is also Korean. He reminded me that I should have never included pictures of my daughter because to my mother she's just a half breed mongrel that she wouldn't want anything to do with. I actually already knew this but in the joy of the moment I just fired off the email without thinking. Since then she sends me the occasional text asking about the Corona situation here but those never last more than a few sentences.

Great article on your dad/family, kudos for sharing, that was quite the heartfelt story I can relate a little, as my dad and I did not speak for over a decade as well (our relationship is quite good nowadays though).

It is impressive how polite and respectful you remained in your answer to the said poster. I could not of done the same. Perhaps you should link your dad's story to this poster... On the other hand, I believe he might be devoid of empathy...

This is harsh man, I feel you. All the best moving forward friend, much luv

Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you and your dad were able to reunite. As for the troll, they seem to feed on negative reactions so I try to not to reply at all. When I feel like I absolutely have to I try not to start any flame wars because what's the point.

Tuesday is easily the busiest day of the week for me as it is rakeback day for the 130+ players in my agency. So I spend most of the day and night calculating, processing and paying every player. I finished everything for that day a bit after midnight and I still have a few more clubs with reports that come out later in the week.

I still managed to get in a session that did not start out all that well and was up and down most of the day. Two players even caught straight flushes against me, one of them vs my ace high flush. But a big hand towards the end enabled me to come back and finish the day up a bit south of +$200:

$1-$2 Blinds (PLO6) - 6 players

SB: $132
BB (villain 2): $61
UTG: $231
MP (villain 1): $270
CO: $257
BTN (hero): $576

SB posts $1
BB (villain 2) posts $2

Preflop:
• UTG folds
• MP (villain 1) calls $2
• CO folds
• BTN (hero) raises $9
• SB calls $9
• BB (villain 2) re-raises $36
• MP calls $36
• BTN (hero) calls $29
• SB calls $29

Flop ($152 pot) 2h Jh 6s
• SB checks
• BB (villain 2) all-in $25
• MP (villain 1) calls $25
• BTN (hero) calls $25
• SB folds

Turn ($227 pot) 2h Jh 6s Tc
• BB (villain 2) already all-in
• MP (villain 1) all-in $209
• BTN (hero) calls $209

River ($645 pot; $227 + $418) 2h Jh 6s Tc 2c
• villain 1 shows Kc Jd Td 9c 4s 3h (two pair)
• villain 2 shows As Jc 9s 8c 3s 3c (two pair)
• hero shows Ks Kh Qc Ts Th 6c (full house)

hero wins $645

This is why I both love and hate poker. Passive fish playing 63/13 heads up and he's talking sh*t. He couldn't even buy back in after I stacked him.

I just caught up with this thread and I echo Humble's sentiment. I hope you can show the love to both your kids and your parents that your parents are afraid to show to you. GL with everything.

Thank you. I appreciate the kind words.

We've received some long awaited good news here in Cambodia as the government has officially announced that the lockdown will end on the 5th of May, and the city will reopen on the 6th. There is supposedly still a curfew in place from 8:00 PM to 3:00 AM according to my Khmer sources and a couple of areas will remain in the red which means they will still be restricted. The timing of this is somewhat awkward for me as I decided to take a hotel for a month in a neighborhood that was designated yellow, or a safe zone. I anticipated that the lockdown would last longer but the announcement was made just two days after I paid for the room for a month. The bars will most likely remain closed but the girls are more than aware of this development as my phone has been lighting up like a Christmas tree since the announcement. I'm seeing the #3 in two days, #2 the day after that, former #2 a few days after that and someone new is vying for spot #4 but quickly rising up the charts by sending me topless pics the last couple of days.

one word for you "PLaya".

WTF is that tattoo in lower tit pic? XD

Wife gave birth last night at 2:00 AM. We had some complications in the last couple of weeks but everything turned out fine. Will have a full report shortly.

congrats man, that's awesome

Congrats on the birth poker_triad!

Congrats! BoL to you and your newborn!

Congrats!

rwad it all, amazing stuff and congrats. IN, don't stop posting now.

cool blog and congrats on the birth

Thanks for the well wishes guys. So Aiden Kim was born around 2:00 AM on Wednesday May 12th. We had a lot of issues going into the labor though. Up until a couple of weeks ago everything seemed fine and we went ahead and schedule a c-section for my wife for the middle of May. But on the next doctor's visit they discovered that she had become anemic and that there was a greater risk that she would bleed out during the birthing process. So they gave her a bunch of medication to enrich her blood, delay the birth a bit and hoped for the best. I was also told that she should have some bags of blood on hand in case she needed a transfusion during or immediately after the birth. This is where things get really fu*ked up. The way that it works in Cambodia is that the hospital does not have any blood on hand and I have to go to the national blood bank. But I have to give blood to get it and I had to find four friends who would each donate blood so that I can get four bags of A+ blood for my wife. In the case that they do not match, I have to pay $35 per bag which of course I was willing to pay. So I dragged three of my closest friends along with myself to donate the four bags of blood. But one had high blood pressure so they wouldn't take his. The hospital said that three bags should be plenty but then the blood bank refused to take any blood that was not A+, even though I was willing to pay and after they had told me previously that they would accept other types. So one friend ended up having blood type O which is some sort of universal type so they gave us only one bag of A+ blood. I went back to the hospital to vigorously complain and they expressed the same frustration and said that is just how it works here and as a private hospital there is nothing they can do about it. So I took the next couple of days to round up some friends who had A+ blood as I now knew they would not take anything else. We were scheduled for a second visit to the blood bank in the morning when I got a call from my wife during the night around 11:00 PM.

I was at the condo getting some work done when she told me she was experiencing violent contractions and had to go to the hospital right away. I immediately called a Grab taxi but it was already past curfew as we are still in partial lockdown. Of course they are allowed to operate under these circumstances but the driver called me and refused to come unless I paid him $25 for what is normally a $5 ride. I explained to him that my wife was going into labor and that it was an emergency and agreed to pay him whatever he wanted. But of course he had to repeat three times that he wanted $25 just to be sure so we wasted some time getting him to come. So we went to pick up my wife and rushed to the hospital at which point it seemed like forever for the doctor to arrive. She finally arrived a little before 1:00 AM and she explained to me that it would take about 30 minutes for the anesthetic to kick in and about another 40 minutes for the birth by c-section. Now mind you that this came as a surprise to all of us and never were able to get the extra bags of blood so we had to hope for the best with just the one bag. I texted all of my closest friends and told them of the situation, asking them to keep a good thought. To my surprise my friend who had the type O blood just showed up out of nowhere, saying that he thought he might be useful since he had the one blood type they could take. I turned out that it was too soon for them to take his blood again and he would have to do it the blood bank and not at the hospital. At then end of the day it was unnecessary and the one bag was sufficient, but I will always be eternally grateful that he showed up like that without my asking. I was fairly certain that we were the only ones on that floor and so when I heard a baby crying around 2:00 AM I knew my son had arrived. The doctor came out and told me that everything was a success and that my wife was stable and that she should not need any more blood. They brought my wife up to the private room that we had rented where she still is as she needs six total days to recuperate before going home. What happened next was a surprise as the nurses literally wheeled out my baby, slid him towards me and asked who was going to take care of him. As I was paying $2K for this whole thing I assumed they would, a suggestion to which they only laughed. I protested to the doctor that this sort of thing is taken care of by the hospital in the West, but she said I would have to upgrade to the "Diamond Package" and pay more to get 24/7 care. I told her I would pay whatever it was but then my wife, knowing all this already, told me it was unnecessary as her sister was already en route and would stay in the room with her to take care of Aiden.

So this night began and ended with extortion attempts from the taxi driver and the hospital. Three days in and everyone is fine and still resting at the hospital. I visit every day and spend a few hours with them at the hospital. Everyone comes home on Tuesday but in what has to be the worst timing ever my apartment building notified me a few days prior that the building will cease renting out to tenants and everyone has to move out by the end of the month. So we'll only be there for a couple of more weeks, but I already have a beat on a couple of new places and have already hired a nanny to live with us full time. I use the word "us" loosely as I am still keeping the condo to play poker and do my work.

I mentioned in a previous post that I have been getting texts from many girls as the bars are all still closed and they haven't been earning any significant money for months now. My #2 is as steady as they come so I continue to see her on a regular basis, but the #3 went and got herself a boyfriend so she's quickly dropping out of the lineup. She's still perfectly willing to meet up and I had her over to the hotel last week. But when we were in the pool she spent the entire time worried that someone who knew her boyfriend would see her so that wasn't too much fun. I doubt that would be the case though as the reason she's willing to still see me is that he's busto (not a poker player) and she needs the money. I feel for many of these girls, especially those of the darker skin variety. Although many Asian men prefer girls with farer skin, having been raised in America I could care less about that and spend much of my time with darker skin Cambodian girls. But as the Chinese rise in prominence here in the social scene, these girls get completely ignored and they often rely on obtaining white foreign boyfriends. This was never an issue in the past and the whole girlie bar scene and the riverside was predominantly a "farang" affair. But with the developments of this past year with the pandemic and the resulting restrictions this group has been economically squeezed and the money in this community is nowhere near what it once was. Another girl who was in the running to crack my lineup just told me that she's pregnant by her French boyfriend. She's only in her third week so we still fu*ked but I doubt that will continue going forward. She's another one of these girls who can't snag herself a Chinese boyfriend and instead ended up with a broke farang. This is going to be a running theme and is basically the reason why my inbox is completely lit up at the moment, even more than usual.

I reconnected with a girl recently who I was seeing about a year ago. I have written about her in this blog before as she had the boyfriend who tried to punch me when he saw us drinking together. Well he went back to his home country to get work and so she started texting me a couple of weeks ago. This girl is a lot of fun and I like her as she's very honest about her situation and never tries to turn things emotional. She's got several guys lined up who give her money, but she's completely upfront about it. She even tells her "boyfriend" that she fu*ks other guys and never tells him that she loves him. That is except on his last day in the country as she told him that she did indeed love him in an effort to get more money from him. And it totally worked as he gave her an extra $500 before he boarded his plane. I almost have to admire this sort of strategy and thinking on her part. The opposite of this behavior is basically why I told my former #2 to fu*k off and move out of the condo. I knew she was seeing other guys and I told her that I did not care as long as she was honest about it. But she snuck around all the time, was completely emotionally manipulative and tried to turn things way too emotional and serious. Given my own situation, I hang out with these girls to have fun and as a relief from the stress of my default life. The second they start inserting any drama into the relationship I tend to look for the exit. Anyway this girl that I reconnected with doesn't love me, never wants to get married nor have kids and doesn't want anything more than to have fun and the payday that a day/night spent with me guarantees. And most importantly, she never asks me for money unless she's coming to see me.

So with a newborn at home instead of spending time with your kids and wife you just go on a holiday to with some random h00ker to avoid drama and just have fun, very ****** nice.

But hey, we should praise you and pat you on the back for being a stand up man and marrying the bar girl you got pregnant back in the day, that makes you a magnificent human being because any other would have just left her with the kid, right?. So yeah, my bad, you're a legend bro, a true gentleman for that, congratulations on being such a great person!

Thanks!

LOL

As if the last couple of weeks weren't hectic enough, I got notice from my apartment complex that we would have to move out by the end of the month. I guess the complex lost some tenants during the pandemic and I was told they could no longer keep up with the cost of maintaining an apartment building. Obviously my wife could not aid in this process so I had to trek out alone during an unbearable heat wave and find a new home. I had originally wanted to rent a 2 bedroom condo that was huge with a pool and gym, but there were some issues. I thought a rent of $1,000 per month wasn't low enough during a time when buildings are nowhere near capacity and more people are leaving the country than coming in. Secondly there was the issue of the electric bill. Those who have lived in Cambodia are well familiar with the foreigner tax on electricity. Rarely does a foreign tenant pay the bill directly to the electric company. Instead we pay the landlord who charges a much higher rate. The local rate if I remember correctly is about $0.16/kwh, but foreigners are usually charged $0.25/kwh. But this condo decided to be a bit more greedy by charging $0.30/kwh, which left a bad taste in my mouth. So I kept on looking and discovered by chance, as so often happens in situations like these, a spacious and modern 3 bedroom apartment for only $800 per month. And as for the electricity issue, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we would pay the company directly and be charged the local rate. I took a video of the space for my wife, which I have linked below, and my wife loved it so the decision to sign the contract was not a difficult one.