Turning this into the Mexican banking thread , is that 1.5-2% on a wire you receive in pesos, or will they do it in USD as well? Was going to try and open a dual pesos/USD account at Santander.

Think I'm going to skip on using the currency booths in TJ, beyond the obv. issues of where that money is coming from, I have a fear that they'll size up the gringo and put a few counterfeits in the stack. That and getting in the habit of carrying $$ around TJ isn't really the best thing ever (probably no issue, but still).

Skrill/MB said that I can re-apply in the future, so if I do go ahead and get my permanent residency visa, I'll probably write them back in ~a year or so. Not that I'm overly optimistic, but I am thankful that my VIP liason answered my questions and gave me some info/closure on the whole thing.

You read that new leatherass blog? How many more years (months?) do you think you have before your stroke?

Id dabbled with those nl08 tourneys before. Seemed pretty juicy and even not knowing equities that well knowing the basics of sngs and 6m bubbles will put you ahead of ppl that know nl08 better. Ill have to check that 2dimes site out. Ive played a decent bit of nl08 mtts but have never run a single hand in a calc before.

It definitely gets you out of whack, that's for sure. If I've been grinding for 3 or 4 days (and only ~6+ hours/day), it takes a while for me to regain my full language ability and to solve non-poker problems at anything approaching my normal speed. A day or two of rest and I'm much improved. Good thing we just play push fold instead of having to concentrate on 3 streets for 2,000 hours+ per year I would imagine "degrees of stimulation/focus" or whatever is very relevant.

Of course, most jobs take some toll on you. Some physical, some mental, some both, some over-stimulation, some lack of stimulation. That's a good read, and I'll still take this profession over many others. Like everything in life, balance is super-important. And mixing in physical activity between sessions sounds like a very good idea to me.

Would actually be interesting to see that test on ~100 SNEs for sample size reasons, etc.

Ya lets not forget the medication which may have a factor too. Hopefully I don't get screwed -- as out of anyone I probably have the most to lose (playing more than MO this year; mrgreenie may get more vpp but I will play more hours and way more sngs)

I assume that when youre in grind mode youre a lot more isolated and when youre in rest mode youre more likely to be hanging out with friends and interacting socially, so idk if you can blame just the grinding for that that. Non poker problem solving skills might be able to be linked to the loop or w/e that guy says grinding puts you in. But that doctor seems to be on the level of scientoligists so i wouldnt take his opinions or this one case study too ser without taking into account other aspects of LA's personality and lifestyle choices.

Gramps you suck! Learn to poker better.

I'm not a doctor but I don't see how poker could cause a stroke. Perhaps get a 2nd opinion instead of trusting a genius/nutcase.

I was going to read that article but, after seeing what you quoted, I'm not particularly sure it's worth my time.

I *think* it was on a Pesos account but I could easily be wrong. I've never done a withdrawal straight from PS to my mxn bank acct (have both pesos and usd accts at bancomer + pesos acct at santander) because of Skrill, so I don't personally know.

Would assume if you got a dual currency account you'd be fine, but who knows

why dont you just wait and sell PS to someone who is buying? you can usually find it at 2% vig (and i can usually find it vig free, just gotta be patient.


if you dont need that money to pay bills right away, i am pretty sure you could get it off at 0% pretty much always.


just in case, i am always willing to buy stars at the right price

Yeah, there's gotta be a ton of factors at play. Crazy thing is what you're doing, which is times 2+ of most SNEs, is pretty "standard" for many real world/well-paid/highly competitive positions and industries. Maybe the brain stimulation factor is higher for us, but the hours and stress levels may be even higher for them. So if we're crazy for doing what we do, there's a lot of crazy people out there in white collar positions with high ambition and crazy work ethic.

At least we only have to worry about PF for many of our decisions vs. a 100 BB+ cash player

Agree on the doctor and I definitely don't take that article/sample-size-of-one at face value. And when I'm talking to people while grinding, the effects are less (though I play less/worse ). The part of the article (to whatever degree) that I do agree with is that grinding over time affects your brain in ways that are noticeable (not necessarily irreversible or anything).

Like anything, having a good sense of yourself/mind/body/etc. and having the conscious ability to pull yourself out of the stimulation loop (or whatever it is/you wanna call it) and go do stuff outside seems to be the skill to have at your disposal. For me being around trees/grass/trails has a noticeably huge positive effect when I'm super-poker-grind-frazzled. Balanceaments.

I'm tryin' [bmess]. I'm tryin' real hard.

I was planning on playing a lot of golf this summer, but maybe it's the poker/golf combo that is the real issue. Better just sit on a couch inside instead.

Tyty, I'm going to walk in with my docs and "Spanish script" next week and try to get this done.

I could, and I may at some point. I just feel like I'm losing the "vig game" and want to grind out getting a good setup again, even if I waste 10-20+ hours chasing it. I don't know why that bothers me b/c I'm lazy about a lot of things, but I get satisfaction out of having my own money setup.

At least it sounds like I can get back on Neteller with an FM3/permanent residency card which has gotten easier to get. Now I just need to hear back from them to get that confirmed.

Golf is the only escape in this miserable existence! Don't be a fool!

Subbed, wish I had a chance to meet the legend when I stayed with jdawg and l@p in Rosarito during SCOOP last year. GL on your grind this year.

I'm sure you've been asked already but curious how old you are, I think Josh said you were the oldest grinder in Rosarito other than me when I was there.

only a 14:52 5k?! i'm a novice and that seems really, really fast too me. what was your training regimen like when you pulled that off?

why is making 350k important to you? what are you going to do with all that money? you should just ****ing retire already ;-)

Ty, I recently turned the Big 4-0. I feel like I'm going on about 32.

My training regimen was ~50 miles/week, pushing myself harder than I should have intensity-wise. The first time I put on a heart rate monitor during a "medium" workout there was some lolololol going on in my head. I was a newb to running, and probably should have been sub-14:30 for the effort I put in, but wasn't very efficient/educated on training.

I'm not really after any specific number, I just want to take advantage of the opportunity that is here right now. I've always been pretty good about appreciating poker, Black Friday was a couple of steps back, and now I appreciate it 3+ times more. I'm trying to set an ambitious goal that will push me, yet leave room for having a life in the process. Always paid taxes and continue to do so, that's a pretty big hit if you're technically a Cali resident

Finished the month with 411k VPPs, got a little sidetracked dealing with the the Stars withdrawal logistical issues post-Skrill, so my volume fell off the past 10 days. Did finally get a response from Neteller a few hours ago. (after two weeks and three+ times of trying ) The content of the reply was basically, "open a new account [newb!] and go from there." Guess that's a start.

February:



Year:



I'd love to get on pace for 3 million by the end of March, but realize that's going to be challenging. 300k would still be pretty damn solid for the month. If there aren't a lot of distractions or massive downswings, I may still get to 750k, we'll see.

I want to keep putting in the extra study hours and stay above water in these 5-6 reg games that keep happening at high stakes, but once I reach a certain point of study/play my old-man brain starts to warp a bit and it can all come apart. So I don't want to get out of my groove and push too far, but definitely want to take advantage and put the work in while things are rolling. After 9 years of doing this full-time & post-BF, you definitely appreciate and want to take advantage of every window of opportunity that comes along.

Redline is hanging in pretty good as well, kind of lol how whether card distribution bumps your $500s up or down 5-10 buyins for the day has such a huge effect on whether it was a "great" or "terrible" day. So long as I'm doing BE+, the hourly is going to be pretty sick-good from the RB. Two pretty good redline months so far, but it doesn't seem like that should be the case going forward with how ugly the games are much of the time. We'll see.

Maybe volume at $300+ will drop off too much/games get super-sick bad to where 3 million isn't smart/doable anymore, but in the mean time I'm gonna just keep pushing it (within reason of having a life/working out/time off on weekends, social life etc.).

gimme a break

awesome job so far, you are the ultimate sng pro.

i see that the march is not too shabby for you gl sicko

Running good >>> running bad. Trying to get some more $EV back before giving it away again at some point.

Think I'm at 472k VPPs after a 4 1/2 hour session today. First time in two months I've played on a Saturday, games were popping pretty crazy-like. Much better for volume than off-peak on a Wednesday when it's hard to get >6 tables going much of the time.

March so far:

And have sorta gotten my Neteller account open, just sent them a copy of my Passport to get the account enabled. Assume I'll have to send in some additional verification before I can start moving $$ through there. Hoping I can Fedex-or-equivalent USD checks to my TJ pad, but we'll of course see how that all goes.

nice!!!!

A thing of pure beauty!

"You know, this table all full of l'egs, all we'lly good playe'ls. You know this one? L'ivel P'laye'l - he we'lly, we'lly good. We'lly good. You know he on 2+2 l'ight? I think G'lamps or something. And on FT, he luckboxfromhell. He good".

That from a very, very good asian player.

Subbed.

Looks like that nlo8 work you put in might be coming handy...

Does yl mean "offsuit" in Mandarin?

Guess I'm going to have to advance past the button-clicking stage in NLO8. Definitely noticed a few more grinder-types in the past week or two, think the format may keep growing to where those games pop as often as 9-mans. Be interesting to see.