Beast mode on

Think I was one of your very first backers here in the MP back in the days - good to see you're doing well. Very enjoyable read too, can't wait for the next write-up!

Hey, glad you like reading my stuff. I indeed remember you. Pretty sure, you bought some of the first Package i ever offered to "strangers" ever. Hope you profited back then .


April Summary

Goals:


- 750 Games
missed this for good. i saw my quality of play decrease due to high table count and therefore try to limit myself with this
- studying 7 Hours poker/week
close one. while i didnt miss a single group coaching and studied on the side i didnt really count the hours
- bumping the evbb back to 10+ . March was 7.4 at 37$ ABI.
No. Actually it went down to 5. With a different approach i should be able to get it closer to 10 again. Not sure how bad this is in reality with ABI >40 though.
Non-Poker:
- Speak as much Spanish as possible in the House. One of the Guys wants to learn english, so hes forcing english Conversations me. I´ll try to re-exploit the s**t out of him and molest him persisently with my Spanish.
Not really happy with this. My teacher is consistently praising me for my Progress. But i still have serious problems understanding casual conversations.
- Not smoking a single Cigarette ffs. While I havent smoked at all in Bangkok, one of my Roomies here, has a pack laying around here sometimes and I couldnt hesitate of grabbing a Cig from there once in a while. Feels like a huge loss, because it is one of the worst and maybe the most useless Habit i can imagine.
Failed. Smoked like a Pack this Month.

- Doing 1 hour of light work-out each Day. I dont like Gyms , neither am i looking to build a picturesque Physique. Simply wanna feel fitter and some swimming/stretching/push-ups will do the Job for me.
Nothing besides some stretching in Poker Breaks. Loosely planning to do some hiking pre-scoop
- Eat healthier. Might be the toughest one. Latin-American Diet consists of Meat and Carbs mainly. There is a big diversity of Fruits and Fish available. Gotta claim more of that for sure.
Filled to refridgerator with lots of fruits and veggies, so i consider this a Success. The fact that Latinos not give the tiniest **** about eating healthy makes me feel responsible for this more in the future.
- Still find Time for Fun-stuff/Recreation. At least 2 full beach-days I want to do in April.
Went to some amazing Beach once. Also we´ve been eating out at night at least once a week. So not a complete miss.


Life:

Theres always a bit of Idealization involved when I get to know a new place and people that I start to like. I appreciate every new Situation for a while. If you put me in a Prison for a Week, I will write you a Report how amazing,refreshing and enlightening it was afterwards.
So, I am already indicating that reality has sort of catched up with me: First of all, living with People who might have slightly different Ideas and Schedules and also dealing with a slightly different cultural consensus regarding social intercourse is a challenge i happily take.
I simply accept the things that are either fun or necessary and dont bother about giving too much of a f**k about stuff that i feel i don´t need.
One of the things i noticed is, that the youngest of us keeps calling us "Señor" and serves us Stuff occasionally. While i initially thought he´d be sarcastic , i found out that its kind of a social rule, even when dealing with only slightly older People. I try to apply this as well, as much as i can, but unfortunately i won´t be able to be completely serious about this ever .

There is a different thing that is really starting to annoy me right now:
Lack of Independence - I still don´t "own" a local Bank-Account here that enables me to do local transactions. I have this local debit card that i could funnel with local money in exchange for skrill/neteller/btc/whatever - i have no online statement though or something where i could keep track of that, so the situation is basically that one of the roomies pays for all of our expenses and we send him some skrill/neteller/whatever once in a while.
This is cool - for a week or two!
I am here for 6 Weeks right now and in the end my decision whether to stay here for longer or not will completely depend on if I will be able to deal with all of that stuff on my own soon or not.
Still, I'm very aware, that the complicated money situation is one of the main reasons, why this country is so ridiculously cheap for us. But in the long run giving up my monetarily independence is not a price that I am willing to pay .

Couple days ago went to "Casa de la Langosta" with Roomies. Appearently the place to go, if looking to eat lobsters/langostas here. Before we ordered, the Chef proudly presented us this enormous creature:



All of us look bit tired after a long day of Grinding.

Have no pictures of the food, but the "Langosta al Termidor" was very tasty. It came with some type of white wine/parmigiano sauce. This is very likely one of the priciest Restaurants here right now , and the total bill including drinks, sides and dessert was ~30USD for the three of us. Thats what i call good Value.

We have been to some very beautiful, white-sanded Beach called "Playa Parguitos" like 2 Weeks ago. Had a great time there, drinking strawberry daiquiries in the sun.



Poker:

I am not too happy about this Month poker-wise. I was lucky enough to get into the blacks by having my biggest bink ever so far a couple days ago . Apart from that i would rate my overall quality of play for this month at 4.5/10. My evbb decreased to 5. I approached the game in a very amendable way: Table count way too high with increasing ABI. Around the 20th i decided to restrict myself not playing more than 10 Tables. Of course, it is tough on Sundays, where it can happen that i have up to 15 tables open at peak-time. But i know that the only way to stay on my path to success will be focusing on Quality rather than Volume.
Also, one of the consequences is, that i dont wanna add many Games during SCOOPS.
Sure, there still might be one or two extra mtts that i might try to bum out of my backers pocket. But at this point, i feel its way more important to get familiar with the tendencies of the population i deal with now, than just looking for every opportunity to bink big. I am very grateful that variance kind of saved me from being down heaps this month and I dont take it for granted. And it certainly feels better to have some heat after the downer than vice-versa . April-Graph:



I am heavily considering using the week before SCOOP for a healthy mix of relaxation/activity/studying. Might do a hike on my own to get some distance of the office/grindhouse vibe and coming back strong and motivated next weekend for SCOOPs.
In the Meantime GL and for everyone who cares or not.

i really like your updates especially venezuela stuff from first hand

gg on the big score and gl @scoop.

subbed! awesome thread! Looking forward to seeing all your future travels. Keep it up and gl.

Nice thread, I recognized your name from the tables, we played together a couple times.

Good luck on SCOOP, subbed!

That is a big ass lobster, subbed!

thanks man gl to u also. lets crush them scoops!

yooo thanks man glad you like it. probably gonna be on the road for a while, so theres gonna be more of that

Thank you and GL to you too!! Your name looks really familiar to me. Skype Travel Chat maybe?


Yea, was gigantic. Probably have to get another portion asap . Thanks for the sub also




Month started pretty relaxed. Have been to Isla Coche on Monday with a group of 10-12 people. Friends plus Friends of Friends mostly.
This cute little slow-paced Island def deserves the Title "Carribean Paradise". We spent a whole day chilling at white sanded beaches, eating seafood, drinking beers, driving jetskis and getting sunburnt.
Unfortunately, i am way better at enjoying the moment than taking Pictures, so most of this stays undocumented.
The trip there was quite a thing, the wooden boat that moved us there was for sure the sketchiest vehicle i have ever been on and as the open sea was pretty rough that day, everyone was dripping wet when we arrived. Was fun though. Price for all of that including all Transportation, Food, Drinks and Activities was 35ish USD pp.

Missed spanish-lessons that day, but got to know the spanish word for "wiener cousin". Family-Reunions always enjoyable Events .


Yesterday, I played a full session lacking success, had some Paella-type Rice+Seafood Plate afterwards at our favorite Restaurant.

Caught very little sleep tonight somehow, so had to skip spanish-classes for the second time this week, decided to sleep bit longer this morning and fired a very small session of maybe 15MTTs in total after waking up. Only notable run was 6th place at B44. Not gonna complain. I was mostly happy with my Play, entered the FT as the ultimate Shortstack and managed to ladder a tiny bit.
Just ordered Pizza now and gonna review a bit while eating.

After 2 Months without posting i feel like writing a very quick update. During May i was very busy grinding SCOOP, unfortunately without much success. If i remember right, i had one Day 2 and finished the month in the Reds, which obv was within my imagination as ABI /Fieldsize/Variance goes up. Can only imagine how "fun" these Series have to be for Backers, when a bunch of Lowstakes-plebs who ran good for 3 Months at 11$ ABI suddenly asks for shots at 10-20x their usual Buyins, in huge fields, with a decent chance of ending up at tough tables with some HS-Beasts.

Life: As my tourist visa finished in early June, i had to leave Venezuela. I found a very cheap flight from Cali to Madrid , so i decided to spend some Weeks of Vacation in Colombia. Most of the time i have been to Medellin, which has to be in my global Top-5 city list, mostly due to girls and climate. As i have been there before multiple times and made some progress with my spanish, i decided to not spend my time in the expaty parts laureles or poblado and went for la floresta, which is a proper middle class district with mostly locals, a more typical street life and a lower frequency of starbucks-type places. In Medellin i happened to somewhat fall in love with what has to be the most beautiful girl i have ever dated but will probably have to get rid of the idea of maintaining a longer relationship with her.

So, since 6 Days i am in good old europe again. Spent 3 Days in Madrid, and another 3 Days in Hamburg. Enjoyed the 3 Days in Madrid. First time i have been there. Have been to Barcelona quite often , and at first glimpse i have to say Madrid > Barcelona. And Barcelona is great.

Last 3 Days in Hamburg were mixed. Met my Uncle and my cousin, from the armenian side of my family and it felt good to see them again, even if my Uncle is in bad shape health-wise. I learned about his situation when i was in Venezuela. A huge part of the reasoning for my decision to leave europe and germany was something along the lines of "nobody needs me here anyway". So when he called me and told me how bad it is i felt super-guilty and egoistic for leaving germany because most armenian families live scattered allover the planet and i forgot that there is actually close family members who would have to rely on me when worst came to worst.

Have been to a fancy restaurant, that appearently is on the mission to accomplish its first michelin star. Friend of mine works there as a chef, I went there with his gf and another longtime friend of mine and the food was incredible and arranged in the most asthetic way i have ever seen. Will upload some photos in next post.

Next 5-6 Weeks I´ll be in Germany. Unfortunately , i had to pass on the invitiation of a stable mate to join him for a month in Belgrade. I really really love that city, it has a very unique vibe, serbian/balcan folks in general are the stone cold nuts when it comes to ppl in europe and the food, man, who doesnt love BBQ right ?
Instead of going there i will spend all time in Germany. My mother celebrates her 60th Birthday and i am going to meet a bunch of very familiar people that i havent seen in ages. I can be quite a talker and def look forward to tell them about my venezuela adventures and of course also listen to whatever happened to them lately. Oldish Germans have the tendency to get completely wasted in these kinds of celebrations. So i am positively curious and concerned at the same time.

My Return to Venezuela is tentatively scheduled for mid-august. I have been asking around for people to join in Poker Travel Chat and my personal circle of friends. People are mostly concerned about the situation there and i completely get that. So, if theres any reckless guys out there , who just as me, value a high standard of living higher than the highest possibility of surviving don´t hesitate to approach me and i can maybe convince you to get your a*s into what i call the crisis paradise.

Poker: Yesterday, played my first Session since early June. Made F2T in B 16.50 at Stars, a FT in some 50€ at Winamax where i came 7th. So i lost a bit but really felt good to be back at the tables. Goal for the Month is playing 600 Games and study at least 6hrs every week.

Thats it for now. Will try to add some pictures with the next post soon.

Ok, first i owe some pictures to this thread.

Hamburg Foodporn:

fjord trout/cauliflower/nut butter


Fish came in different forms ( smoked tartar/caviar) and the saline taste fitted perfectly with the mild, slightly nutty cauliflower ( non-stick slices and cream ). Some butter-roasted breadcrumbs gave it a little crunch. Excellent composition.

pork belly/beans/pear


Biggest pork belly fan over here. This was just an absolute feel-good plate for me. The combination of heartiness and a hint of sweetness works always.I dont have to mention that the belly was cooked perfectly. Very familar tastes but spectacularly performed.

Beef leg/artichoke/leek/coal

Meat cooked perfectly. Very harmonic dish overall.

The Dessert was that good, i even forgot to take a photo.
consisted of Strawberrys/white chocolate/goutweed

We also got like several amuse bouches and a cheese platter and ofc i washed all of that down with serious amounts of different wines, so at that point i was in a decent mood.

me with one of the chefs, who happens to be one of my best friends:



Have been busy travelling from Southamerica to Europe and always when coming home theres this distraction in the form of friends. First half of the month i only managed to play a single session so i pulled the emergency break, left my hometown and went to the village where my mother lives in order to visit her and also to be able to grind without much distraction. I really enjoy being around her. We used to have a very complicated relationship the first 20 years of my life and in the last years it turned completely and i feel we have never been closer, despite me not being in europe so frequently anymore.

Poker:
So far played like 240 Games this month, have to play like 350-400 more in order to complete my volume goal but i am very motivated and positive about it.

biggest cashes this month so far:


future:
Just booked my flight to Venezuela for the end of August. Before of that i am going to be in Medellin. Girl i dated there has her birthday and i am invited. Have a slight crush on her tbh. Too bad i can´t grind there and thus stay in Colombia. Still not going to complain as in September i´ll be back to the beautiful Isla de Margarita. Still bunch of colombian grinders over there. Great place for them appearently and actually for everyone with limited budgets and okayish spanish. Also i kind of feel emotionally attached to Venezuela already, and living there def gave me a more relaxed perspective on first world problems.

Those are some A+ food pics

Cashes list is C-