While packing all the stuff I want to take to my new condo, I found well covered in dust in a bottom drawer, these three classics.

All the value they hold nowadays is almost as a meme, or a nice conceptual decoration to place along the other books that I’m taking with me to the new crib (a pocket edition of "The Jungle Book", a couple books in spanish I rescued from my cousin’s apartment when I helped him do the same thing I’m doing now, “The Alchemist” by Neruda in thai language that I gave to my ex back in the day and she left behind when moving out, and a few others). Nah, to be fair, Sklansky’s one is still relevant today.

I remember vividly the moment they were handed to me, by my buddy Matt, when I sat at the Mad bar table where he was already waiting, smoking ciggies and chugging on a big Chang from the bottle, completely ignoring the glass the Chang girl had put next to him.

He slid the bag containing the books across the table the same way someone would slide a briefcase full of stacks or smack. They remained there until we moved them down to a chair to make room for the several Chang corpses that were piling up. Tipsy, I went back home a couple hours later to wake up early the next day and grind, and he took a cab to Zoe to meet up with some thai girl from Tinder. That was the last time I saw Matt.

Found out about his death while in Phuket, right at the start of covid. Actually, that night they made the ruling that restaurants couldn’t serve people in situ and could do takeaway only. Me and my girlfriend were sitting at this italian in Kata waiting for our order and all the other tables were full of other people waiting for theirs, but with no food on them. Weren’t those crazy times? It feels like ages ago.

“Have you heard from Matt?” she asked me, and I remembered I sent him a message for new year and never heard back from him. That had been three months ago. “I’ll message him when we get to the hotel”.

A few minutes later, eating a cold Margherita Pizza and a lasagna, I saw that my message was still unread so I sent him another one and started watching a movie. But something didn't’ feel right, so I started digging on IG and found out about it. I remember screaming out loud, in a way I never had before. It was not fear but closer to that than to sadness. Because people don’t scream when they’re sad, right?. It was like a “Noo” but not like in the movies, shorter. I think it could be the kind of scream you do when you get a bad beat. My girlfriend that was in the shower at the time asked me what happened so it must’ve been loud enough. I told her about it while chatting with one of his friends and getting all the details. A few minutes later we turned off the lights and I broke down in her arms, crying like a baby for about ten minutes. Then I fell asleep.

Next day we had a fight with my girlfriend and around midday she was the one crying in some temple between Phuket Town and Chalong, where we stopped on the way to the resort we were going to stay at in Rawai, for some reason I can’t recall. The rest of the trip was as nice as it could be with that start. It was my first time staying at a resort and I enjoyed that a lot. Also while all my friends back in Chiang Mai were complaining about gyms being closed, I was working out daily at the resort’s gym, knowing very well that it could be the last time in a few months that I could workout properly with all the craziness happening around the world with this novel coronavirus thing.

When we landed in Chiang Mai on a sunday night, we were received by a whole military deployment with all the hazmat suits and paraphernalia you can imagine. It really felt like a real life version of 28 Weeks Later or something. After that, lockdowns began and the next couple years went in a whirl, almost as if they never happened.

In my case, were the two years that solidified my career as an MTT reg after a shaky start. But to be fair, I always managed to stay afloat just by playing cards online over the 5 years or so before that that I lived in Mueang Thai, living pretty much like I always do, doing the things that I enjoy. Thing is that until then, everything felt more unstable, like it could potentially flake and sent me to a 9 to 5 if things went sideways, but thanks to the money and knowledge I amassed during those couple years, now it was an unbreakable reality.

So yes, like I was saying, I spent the whole covid thing in this house. Sitting just as I am sitting right now typing this, in my upper floor office, that now has an AC thanks to The AC challenge, a way I came up with to justify spending 12k THB on it, as that was a huge chunk of money for me back then. And still is kinda. Nah, once again, as I sometimes do, I’m victimizing myself a little bit.

I thought about Matt often during that time and asked myself what he would’ve thought about all the covid thing. How he missed all that for a few months. Crazy ****, isn’t it? Also thought about him while playing football on the soi right next to my house. As you can see below, my house -almost ex house- is in this soi that ends on a concrete wall.


My house is the last one on the right, right at the end of the soi

So during lockdowns when they also closed football fields, I used to go out in the afternoon to play with the ball against that wall to avoid losing my first touch, passing, heading, etc. I think that’s where I began developing the patellar tendonitis on my left knee that I still suffer from. I remember how I used to jump on that hard cement soil and land while heading it against the wall and my knees begin to hurt. Crazy how in only three years I went from being able to do that like nothing, to feeling a constant nuisance that grows into discomfort and sometimes even intense pain, especially after playing footy. Amazing how people age. I now understand why professional footballers retire at 34-35 on average, before I used to believe they were just bored of playing at that level.

****, I keep going sideways, we were talking about Matt!, and the house, yea. Matt used to like watching football and playing football, something weird for a Canadian, ey?

One memory I have of him and football is during Euro 2016. His laptop had broken and he was getting a new one somehow, but not yet, so he was not playing poker at the moment. He was living in Huay Kaew residence, an old condo building right next to where Kad San Kaew Mall (R.I.P.) used to be. You could get a room for as cheap as 3.500 THB back then, and location is ideal, right in the heart of the city.

So I went to drop something at his place with my ex, don’t remember what, probably weed or something, and he opened the door with a small Leo on his hand and looking like ****, super white, more skinny than ever and walking slowly and with difficulty. We went in and that studio was a mess, like a trap house. Beer bottles everywhere, rests of food on the floor and the trash cans overflowed. To make matters worse, the bed had broken and he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, with the pieces of the bed piled up irregularly next to the wall (I swear this is not an exaggeration). There was one of those old square TVs turned on in a thai channel. “What you been up to?”. “Nothing, drinking and watching football”, he said pointing at the TV and lighting a ciggy. “Wanna stay? There’s a game later on.” “Nah, I gotta wake up early tomorrow to grind. What’s up with your laptop?” “I’m working in a way to get some loan, let’s see”. Back then I was slightly less broke than him, but holding on better.

Another time, a few months later, was the first time he showed up to the footy we used to play back then. He messaged me right before we started to see what I was up to and when I told him I was about to play he took a grab and came to watch the game. He arrived close to the end of it and in a very bad state. Me and a friend from Argentina that also knew him and it was part of our main social group that included a couple more guys and our girlfriends, stayed after everyone left and we played a few passes with him. He could barely even move and almost fell a couple times while chasing the ball with a beer bottle in his hand.

There was a football game starting at 2am that night that I wanted to watch and when I told him about it he asked if he could join. So we went back to my condo right next to Jed Yod Plaza, bought a pack of Leo and some food and went up to kill time until the game started. When we walked into my tiny 7.5k/mo studio he saw a bunch of pills they gave me at the pharmacy due to a throat infection I had earlier (thai pharmacies will give you three or four different things for the most inane stuff) and started looking for a familiar name, trying to find something that would hit.

Disappointed when he found nothing, he turned to me with a shade of hope in his eyes. “Don’t you have modafinil?”. “Nah, they ran out, haven’t ordered yet”. “Oh ****, let me know when you buy and I get some. Or buy some for me and I’ll pay you when I get back to the grind” “Yeah sure”. We drank a few more Leo’s and he went home on a grab after the first half had ended.

Last memory of Matt and football, because I have to keep on packing all the stuff I’ll take to the new condo (it’s amazing the amount of **** I collected over the last few years!).

Back in 2018 there was only one farang group playing open footy and they played tuesdays and thursdays. Me and some other latinos wanted to play on fridays so we organized a one off game on that same pitch. Short on numbers and with the FB post we had made not helping us get all the people that we needed, in a desperate attempt I posted a message on the Chiang Mai poker chat and to my surprise we got the last guys we needed to play. One of them was Matt.

Worried that he might show up in a similar state to the last time he went to that pitch but also with no other choice than to take him in as numbers were super tight, we headed to CM United and played a nice game of footy for a couple hours. Matt was sober and made a decent appearance as a defender, fast to get to the ball, not terrible when passing it and responding very well on high balls, thanks to his almost 200 cm of height. He was rocking a half ponytail and with my argie friend we agreed he was looking better. He was super ****ing handsome and was a magnet for all kinds of girls, so going out with him was always great. After the game a few of us stayed for beers including him. We went to a bar that was right outside the football field, one of those where the nice thai girls pour for you, but you can’t bar fine them or take them home, or at least that’s what my friends that tried told me.

After a couple hours the other poker player that had joined asked if anyone was down to hit some bars, and to my surprise Matt declined as he had to wake up early the next day to grind. He was now living in some cheap condo near Payap university that his gf was renting under her name, as he was in OS for almost two years now and didnt wanna sign any paper with his name to avoid getting caught. He got a ride home from some guy from Papua New Guinea that just played footy that one time and I never saw again. He was the only person from PNG I ever met in my life.

That night at Mad bar when Matt gave me the books that I opened this post with, was a couple months later. We stayed in touch during all the time prior to December 2019, when he died. The night of the 30th actually, that’s how his friends in Canada found out: he made plans to go out for NYE with them but never showed up so they called the police that broke into his apartment and found him dead on his bed.

He was doing fine apparently, based on what we talked about last. He was living in an apartment his sister was paying for - as I understood - until he could get back on his feet and finally get this poker thing going. He told me he wanted to come back to Thailand super bad but now he was blacklisted for five years due to his OS. He was trying to get a romanian passport thanks to his paternal family but wasn’t sure if that would work. I told him that we would meet somewhere, maybe for a WSOP or in Phils, a place he always wanted to go to due to one of his first GFs being from there. And his last GF in CNX was from there as well.

I’m not entirely sure what the point about this post is. I guess an eulogy of sorts. For Matt. And for the house I’m leaving, where I moved in with my ex girlfriend back in 2018.

It was completely empty and covered in dust, almost as it is now again, and as it will probably remain in the near future, same as the other 4 exact same houses next to it that have now been unoccupied for a few months and belong to the same owner, some rich thai lady that lives in Bangkok. I think she’s probably annoyed that she has to rent these ugly houses up here, with no flush in the toilets (yeah, I used the bucket system after using the loo these last years, a la thai) for 6k a month. 6k by the way, we used to pay 3 and 3 when we first moved in with my girl, as I could not afford the full 6 on my own.

Before we bought everything it has in it with my ex, I invited Matt over to catch up. It was in late 2018 when I had just returned from a trip back home and hadn't seen him in a few months. We had a beer in a bar nearby and bought a pack of three Leo's and came to drink them on the balcony outside. It was the only time he visited but it was the first time anyone besides me and my ex visited this place after we signed the lease.

Like I said, we bought everything it has inside now with my ex. I paid for it upfront and she would pay her half back to me (something like 20k THB) monthly with money from her job selling watches at the student market. But apparently I was a dick, or was stressed about money or something and said something that made her upset so she asked for some money upfront from her boss and paid it back to me. I feel like **** thinking about that now but I think I made up for it over the next few years, at least in the monetary aspect. But as a boyfriend too, I hope.

So now I’m just packing everything I wanna take with me. The moving truck comes tomorrow at 9.30am. It’s mainly to take my standing desk. I tried selling iit because I don’t use it as much and my new condo has a sick setup as it belonged to my friend, but did not try too hard because keeping it is ok too. Sitting is the new smoking kids, don’t forget that, so I have to stand more and sit less. Yeah, I’m glad I kept it.

Ah, now I remember why I came to write this. It was because I found the books and thought I had to share that with someone, with my fellow poker players. And also because finding those books brought that night to my memory where they were handed to me by Matt at Mad bar, right where we started this post.

But to be 100% honest I now remember exactly why I came to write this to my office, now with no stuff hanging on the walls like the MDF chart I used to glance at sometimes when facing a river decision while playing (mainly during late 2020 and early 2021), or the map of Uruguay, or the Angola flag that my ex my father in law gave me for my birthday after I spotted it at his house covering an old TV and begged my gf to get it somehow.

I came to write this because while looking at those books I broke down and started crying like I haven’t cried in a while. Maybe since I found out about Matt’s death. And I couldn't stop it, so I came here and started writing this to see if that helped. I wrote all this, starting with that moment at Mad bar and didn’t cry at all, but now that we are getting to the end I broke down again so I’m not sure it helped.

Nah, I think it did. At least now someone out there might know more about this kid named Matt that I met thanks to Twoplustwo and it was my first friend here in CNX. We met the day I got to the city back in Dec 2015, at the entrance of Spicy. It was closed as it was early, like 8pm, but he told me to meet there as it was easy to find and near the hostel I was staying at. He took me to the Zoe area where we ate and chatted and then, after a couple beers, went inside to the dancefloor part. I met Buoy that night, my first thai “gf” and Matt left with K, the girl he was dating back then that ended up being his first thai GF and my first น้อง, helping me to get settled in Thailand and showing me around.


K, Matt and yours truly, driving on my rented scooter down Chiang Mai superhighway the day after I arrived in Thailand back in 2015.

Those were the days! Freshly arrived in the land of smiles, driving a scooter with no helmet on the superhighway and smiling. Look at that ****ing smile I have. I look really ****ing happy don't I?. Don't get me wrong, these days are not bad!. But you know how it is, every past time was better, or so it feels. But once again, I don’t complain: I have more money now, and I’m moving into a better place,with a nice office, and a big couch, and a proper flush so I don't have to get water from a bucket and throw it on top of my poo to make it go away. And I’m in great shape now, playing football better than ever and looking great. And in the poker department I’m doing alright too. Well more than alright if you look at it objectively but I always want more.

Harder, better, faster, stronger. Always grinding, always pushing until the machine breaks down and falls into pieces and then I can rest in peace, or in pieces. That’s the only way for me. Play football until my knees break apart, workout until my muscles tear, study poker every day until bots take over every single virtual table and androids take over every cardroom in the world, or until I feel like I had enough. And then doing whatever I do next until I die, or break down, or tear into small pieces or whatever.

Kinda like Matt did, but in a different form. He burned out, giving it all, but in different pursuits, more immediate, more hedonistic. I always think that he kinda lived two or three lifes in only 24 years, and did what many -including myself- wish they could do: **** a lot of girls with no condom, drink until passing out just for the sake of it, and do every drug you come across without thinking about consequences.

I respect that a lot. Is the ultimate **** you to everything, and as a self declared cyberpunk I love that. Also, maybe glorifying his death and thinking of him more like a misfit, like a rockstar of sorts, rather than a sick kid that failed at the game of life, helps me deal with all this better.

But this has been going on for too long and I still have a lot of things to pack, so maybe we’ll catch up later. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!

Rama


Matt and I, being those obnoxious farangs with the water guns back in our first songkran. April 2016, somewhere near Tha Pae Gate's

gg matt, gg the house, gg the gf. onwards and upwards brother, you've got nothing but stoke to look forward to, and that includes breaking yourself into pieces and humpty dumpty-ing yourself back together again, and again, and again - stronger and more grateful everytime. As without those times where you're most vulnerable and broken, nobody would ever appreciate the majestic freedom of when things are goin pretty damn smoothly. Who wants to be invincible when you can be human?

thanks for the message boli, love you bro <3