hahaha. i actually do. if overally shape is somewhat in order, face might be most important part for me.

thx
for sure not a socialist country btw. non-industrial economy is mostly private. not really sure if thats the issue here either. probably yes though, to some degrees



OK, Guys. I know you want Pics. Will have to do it next time. Before that you will have to go through another very personal tl´dr-ish paragraph:

The Crisis:

I need to admit that i have been overly romantic with the situation here. Reason for that is pretty simple: I have never been affected directly. Received support, supported others and somehow thought solidarity would make up for a good amount of the structural crisis. This is not true and i had to learn it the hard way.

It is not an Exaggeration if i say that the last 7-10 Days have been among the toughest i went through IRL-wise:
So, In an earlier post i mentioned that the Girl i am with had some intestinal/ovary issues and it looked like it was resolved. Unfortunately about 10 Days ago, she started to have pain/colics of the worst kind again. That night she vomited like 15 Times and i realized i was confrontated with an emergency case. Went to her doctor again, couldnt find anything. Then to private clinic, they did the whole program: Blood Tests, CT etc. Doctor tells us they found some Tumor thing that most likely causes all the suffering and it needs to get cut out. I am like: okay when, where, how much? He wanted to do it immediately as he indicated that the according part of her body is already full with some liquid caused by an inflammation around the tumor and it would already be a dangerous situation therefore. The amount was more than i could pay in that moment as it was more than my CC Limit was and it was already night in venezuela. Also due to the weird economy making big amounts of money liquid isnt as easy as you need to trade crypto for that usually. Couldnt reach my family due to time and doctor told us that they cant keep her in that clinic if we cant front the money. During that, her family arrives, shes barely able to speak because of the painkillers they gave her. In that scenery i have to introduce myself to her parents ( who are like 10 years older than me) and the situation is really uncomfortable for all of us.
Anyway, we cant pay, so they send us to the Public Hospital. Guys, i have never been to a place as sad as this: Dozens of People suffering all kinds of illnesses in a big room, many on the floor, like no medical treatment at all, not enough beds, no machines, no medicine. Terrifying hygienical situation, stray dogs(!) in the house, will never forget that smell. Felt like i aged 10 years during our couple hours there.
Anyway, i tell her father to ffs get me somewhere where i have internet , so i can call people, somehow manage to get the money available and we get her in to the private clinic where she gets operated. It was indeed a tumor in the ovary part. So they removed one of her ovarys. According to the Doctor she hasnt lost her fertility as the other ovary is still there and in great shape. Likelihood that the tumor is malicious is rather small due to her age. We´ll have to wait for results of the biopsy to know more obv. Left the clinic sunday and the only pain she has right now is the surfacial pain at the wound of the operation.
Sad fact: 99.99% of People here dont have that option to get this kind of medical treatment .

Apart from that, the whole country has been in a very tragic situation the last week. 80% of Venezuela had no electricity. Caracas heavily affected. Dialysis patients falling like flies. Watter supply usually works with electronic pumps. Therefore people getting water from dirty rivers now. This can very fast turn into a cholera epidemy or sth like that. I am obv also more sensitized for this now than i was before due to the happenings around me.



After getting back sunday, we still had occasional power cuts here and there and yesterday both stable internet and electricity returned, so i fired my first session for like 10 days and it could have gone worse.

Fk man that sounds absolutely terrible glad your friend at least is going to likely be fine despite this. Wishing you well

Karma upswing!

Sick thread man, +1 for pics. How bad is crime where you live (gangs? kidnappings?)?

ya i really just hope thats it now. her father just told me sth like "next time pls let her be pregnant" XD
anyway, muchas gracias for the wellwishes



regarding crime: Not sure. If you compare with europe/northamerica/asia probably very bad.
I´ve never had problems although i might be on the street-smarter end of the pokerfolks population plus am usually dressed quite bad.
Not sure if i told the story in my former thread, but i once went for a walk through my hood at night and came across some poor people digging in garbage and they shouted at me that i should gtfo as that pile of trash was already occupied by them *shrug*

Margarita def feels safer than many parts of latinamerica i have been to before. In terms of sketchiness i thought Guatemala City and San Pedro Sula/Honduras were pretty rough. Still had a good time in both.

lololol ur wardrobe choices are absolute GTO

Sick thread. Hope you get more upswing for being a good person!!! Cheering for you

Subbed. I really like the way you describe the local situation, from what seems to be a very neutral standpoint. WP, Sir.

#dresstoimpress

Happy you like the Thread. I want to point out though, that i am not here in order to help and me being here is not a conscious charity mission or sth. I just ended up being in a position where i was the only one who could help and therefore did what i felt i had to do in that moment. Anyway, Thank you!

Thx for the sub
Try to be as neutral about it as i can. It is the healthiest approach anyway imo as its very tough to ultimately judge about the reasons for the bad situation. I generally try to avoid being ideologic when forming opinions and just deal with the circumstances. That being said, i think too much ideology on both sides is part of what has gotten the country into this crisis.


Stuff:
Ok, i promised some Photos. I am really lazy when it comes to shooting pics and also have miserable photography skills. I will try to shot some more next weeks, have to grind a ton though and therefore not going to leave the house often.




Taxidriver i am friendly with invited me to christening ceremony of his daughter couple months ago.
Had some dinner at the beach with their family and some colombian grinders.




Me hiking, in urgent need of a haircut.



Nightfair with food and music in front of some old church.



Community Pool in front of the House. Houses all look the same in this settlement.

Poker:

Yesterday played okayish session. Would rate Focus/Quality at 7/10. Certainly a losing day but not a complete desaster. Need/Want to play at least 400 more Games this Month which is def doable even if not masstabling and maybe even having a day-off. Volume so far obv very low due to hospital time. Really pumped for the weekend grind already. Obv gonna grind all 3 Days. Cheers!

ev graphs month (probably not a good habit to look at these numbers too often but certainly makes me feel better if they are in order after a losing day):

You played 12k hands in one day? Jeez

Great pix please keep posting more if u can

Haha, nah thats the month so far . It doesnt include 180s/on Demands though. Actually pretty pointless to post a monthly graph, as i could only play like 4 or 5 Days so far b/c of the hosital situation. But whatever, felt like looking at it today therefore just added it to the post. I can assure you, i will never ever get you to the point of giving me genuine, legit volume props man :P

If u can maintain that ev win rate nobody would care about props from some guy on the internet

I'm from Venezuela too! greetings broh

@ blakkman

Actually think it should be possible to maintain it at an 40ish ABI. I cut out most turbos (apart from occasional 3r180s/7-15on-demands to fill empty screen space )lately and can play most sites , so i am not really limited regarding gameselection.

@ morepizzaplz

hola chamo que tal? todo fino?



quick resume of the day:
Clicked 30ish things today. Unfortunately couldnt get anything going. Had some hope in the BB109 as i was like 6/30 but unfortunately busted that one 20th. AK<AQ and JT<55
I played last 2 days and gonna click tomorrow and sunday obv so i felt like not wanting to go to my limit volume-wise.
Still: While i think that my gameselection is pretty strong, i am sometimes a bit sloppy when it comes to sticking to my schedule. Especially when i bust the biggish motivational upper-end buyin tourney i often end up changing my plans and stop regging. I am not sure if thats actually smart or just plain unprofessional or maybe even an indicator of a faulty mindset.

I will fail heavily with my daily swimming plans btw. Could blame it on the girl but truth is since we left the clinic 5 Days ago i only went once(!). I actually wanted to go for a swim right now, but now the girls parents came by for a visit and i guess it would be perceived borderline rude if i am like "hf guys i go to the pool". Whatever tomorrow gonna get up earlyish. Wanna swim! Gonna Swim! Then at 9am my time i gotta find a stream that shows the epic german 3rd league football match vfl osnabrueck-carlzeiss jena. Afterwards gonna grind. GL to everyone battling with me tomorrow and

This x1000

OP might be the best overall human being I've met through poker. He's definitely top ten.





Bonus gif because he asked for it:

The non-poker stuff in this thread is quite a fascinating read. Keep it coming, OP.

well, judging by the tiny amount of pokerplayers i actually know IRL top 10 isnt necessarily good though

Ah btw: found a frozen lamb shank in some shop this morning. was about 10USD. gonna prepare it in oriental style as soon as chica can eat everything.
plan is: basically cook it rly slowly in the oven in its own juice w/ some herbs/spices/garlic added and then serve it w/ grilled eggplant/pepper/tomatoes accompanied by arabian bread (for some reason always available in venezuela) w/ hummus and some fresh yoghurt w mint.
Its not exactly food porn , i still have to share this beauty ( as i cried ìn your thread about not having found it yet).



thx man, happy you like it.



Last Days have been unspectacular generally which is bad and good at the same time. Couldnt get much going on the tables, went for the super high variance route though gameselection-wise so that was kind of an option anyway.
Girl is slowly getting better. Def already back in typical latina-mood shouting out foul words over nothing just to be super cuddly in the next moment. I love it.
Today we´ll check the wound. And later at night we´ll go for a Pizza dinner w/ her parents. Really looking forward to that already.

Ahorita will participate in stable HH-Review and hopefully see interesting stuff.

Haha, fair point.

Cook that thing up ASAP and post the pics. Had a very underwhelming lamb burger last night from an otherwise tasty burger place, so at least I can eat vicariously through you.

Have to wait at least 1 or 2 more Weeks unfortunately.


IRL:
I have this weird psychological thing: Whenever i have to solve a very stressful IRL problem, something that basically keeps me from worrying about myself, afterwards i tend to fall into some hole. It might or might not be some type of depression. Possibly its some type of narcissistic issue, that i feel the need of someone taking care for me actually after having invested much dedication in someone else. Really cant tell exactly. Its just an irrational form of sadness. And now the health situation of the girl is in good shape again, which in itself makes me actually really happy when i think about. But still, i started to have this depressive, useless feeling again. Dont know if i explained that well .

Another cultural differences paragraph following:
Other Girl at the house has her birthday today. People here are super crazy about their birthdays. They actually start to celebrate it the day before and just call it pre-cumple ( pre birthday). Anyway, girl basically cried for a month already telling us how she would spend her actual birthday together with her "best friends" (she meant us )at the beach so i bought a badass cake and took the day off from the grind (which actually makes it alot tougher for me to reach my monthly volume goal).
Now, she just disappeared the day before, having us sitting at the house with the fkn cake waiting for her, so we can go to the beach and in the afternoon she suddenly messages us how she would come later and we wouldnt go to the beach. Reason is probably she found some d*** thats inviting her to something more awesome than cake and beach. That would be completely fine obv if she didnt make us prepare something and therefore occupied us for her. If there is anything in this culture that i really dislike its the disgustingly high level of opportunism in how people approach their friendships. Its really a theme down here. While i actually got used to it and usually can deal with it, i am disappointed as i fell for it and let it affect my daily routine. I said it before: never give too much of a fk about appointments when in latinamerica. Starting to eat the cake on my own now .





Poker:
Weekend sucked. Yesterday had a 5th at ES in some 50 Thing for like 1.6k$ and that most likely saved me from being a huge loser for that Day. Month still in the Reds. Gonna grind every day thats left except for today this month though and can hopefully turn it around.

update: the part of the island i live at just went through another 5 hours "sin luz" ( without electricity) , so i am actually quite happy now not having fired a session today. the birthday girl just came and wasnt even pissed that gf + me cut the cake without her and got me to empty half a bottle of rum with her in the darkness
probably gotta call my most useful past tinder match ever tomorrow ( some chick that works in the island parliament and usually has a way better understanding of whats going on than me ) to ask what this power cut was about. to calm everyones mind i wanna mention that i am def not gonna meet her as i am actually pretty serious in love w my girl here

This haha.

Btw, not all latin americans are that, the majority are though. And they don't do it with malicious thoughts, more like going on their impulse.

Tough to play with blackouts, it must be tilting to fire some mtts and losing that money. How often do they happen?

Gl, man!

nice! Pics of you and the gf

Who was it exactly that wasn't calm? I was under the impression you were double dipping already. Either way good luck with everything (political unrest, electricity, pokerz, life, love).

That would drive me nuts.

Wait for that Anniversary Million for the payback karma!

Welcome I´ll post some soon if shes fine

Haha, started double dipping but went back to the path of monogamy lately.
Thanks man! Theres def use for some politics/electricity/poker rungood over here

Thank you! You are right, they dont mean it bad usually. And its only annoying me if i get affected. Also i dont wanna make it seem as this was an ethnical stereotype cause thats BS/racism. The reason why people behave that way are obv just a lack of confidence in the structures/systems over here: If nothing works correctly, why bother working correctly as well. Makes sense .

Blackouts really suck and i am not sure what the future brings honestly. I love Venezuela and its people deeply and therefore wanna stay and just hope they fix their **** soon.

Before i read this i always thought theres exactly nothing on this earth that could drive you nuts welcome though

The robot has a weakness!