Welcome to my blog, first let me introduce myself, I’m majagua69 online, I have been playing poker semi professionally for 7 years now, I focus mostly on cash games but I play the occasional tournament, I have played in several international tournaments including LAPT’s, WSOP and WSOP circuit, so far my best result live has been a 3th place finish in a PLO8 WSOP circuit event but I’m hoping to improve on it as soon as possible.

Let me tell you some more about me, I’m an avid surfer, this is something I have been doing ever since I can remember, I like to say I learned how to stand up on a board before I learn how to ride a bike, I also love all kind of adrenaline activities, it could be skateboarding down a hill or running away from a bull.

As a poker player you pretty much can guess that I love prop betting (how doesn’t????), I have run on a string bikini on a street full of people to win a prop bet (sorry I don’t have a pic of that one and I doubt you want to see me on a string bikini) and several other stupid, or genius? , kind of bets, all of those I’m planning to write on this blog for your entertainment.

So why am I writing a blog? Well why not? I love sharing with people and I would love to meet some of you guys in the live circuit or online, poker players, sport bettors, etc. we are all the same basically so I like meeting people with my same interests and maybe do a prop bet?

I just came back from LSOP panama on which i cashed for a whooping $0, i will write about it on my next post, all in all it was a lot of fun

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oh so close


WSOP circuit, West palm bech


LSOP Peru 2013

I've been batting around the idea of retiring in Costa Rica. Are you from there or did you move there from somewhere else? Any important things to consider if one wanted to move there (from US). Gotta be close to the ocean.

Pics of where you live?

hey biggerboat, i was born here in costa rica but grew up in Venezuela and then finished high school in california, i moved to costa rica when i was 20.

i currently live in the city (san jose) but im moving down to the beach in a couple of weeks, i will post some pics of the beach house and the beach itself in couple of days.

If you want to be close to the ocean they are many options really, guanacaste are its beautiful, where im moving which is called esterillos is also very nice.

you might want to research about the imigrations laws but as far as i know if you leave the country every 90 days (you can go to panama or nicaragua) for couple of days you will have no issues... you can PM if you have any specific questions.

I have a place near Liberia. Not much poker up there, but plenty of other distractions. Looking forward to your Blog.

Hey Pot odds, you can find some cash games running some times in tamarindo but yeah nothing much going there in regards to poker but hey as you said plenty of other stuff to do

LSOP Panama

I traveled last week to panama to play the LSOP millions, this was a very interesting format they were guaranteeing 1 MILLION prize pool for an $850 buy in, you could play day 1 in different countries ( i think they were Chile, Costa rica, Dominican republic and couple more) and if you made the top 10% there you were qualified onto day 2 in Panama ( and you got the min cash already at the first event to cover your expenses).

Unfortunately i wasn't able to play the day 1 here in Costa rica so i travel to Panama for the main event and played day 1 there, structure was pretty fast on day one ( 30 min blinds and 10k chip stack) and same as the days 1 everywhere else top 10% of the field made day 2 and the cash, i never really got anything going and busted on the 7th level. You could make a re entry if you wanted but i opted not to because well im not a baller and they were plenty of side events and cash games.

There was an interesting hand on the main event, blinds were 100-200 and i had about 13k, i raise 7s9s (someone please teach me how to put the cards with the pretty little symbols ) under the gun to 450 and i got a caller on middle position plus a caller on the BTN plus both blinds ( yeah raises in latina american tournament at those levels don't get a lot of respect), flop comes 8c10c8s, i decided i cannot represent much here and with 4 caller a semi bluff wasn't going to work so i checked, BTN bets 600 and blinds fold, i called thinking about leading most big turn cards as a bluff vs one player possibly playing a small pair or hitting my straight, to my surprise the guy in middle position also calls,i figure he either has some kind of small pair himself or possibly a flush draw, turn card is a Kh, i follow along with my plan and lead for 1500 ( i can be floating AK here or Kx spades), middle position guy tank and looks uncomfortable and after 2 min calls and BTN folds, at this point im sure he has a flush draw most likely the nut flush draw so im betting every river that is not an A or a spade, river is red 5 and after thinking 10 secs i bet 2500, my opponent tanks forever and end up calling with Ks10s lol, i really though he wasn't as strong, if he calls turn he has to call river, his hand is pretty face up and him having a K plus the FD seems unlikely i have anything that beats him, i felt nit rolled...

After that i busted when i shoved 99 from the SB over a BTN opening and he had AK, lost the race and it was time to hit the showers, or most accurately the pool bar

During the rest of the week i played some cash and made a little money, enough to cover my expenses of the trip and played a $300 turbo where i busted on 18 place when my AK couldn't outrun Bet cris team elite chiclik godinez ( great player).

I feet i played decently but i definitely need more practice on the MTT part of my game, i mostly play cash and im conformable with deep stack situations but some tournament strategy is still a mystery for me, so i probably will look for some coaching from one of my MTT friends.

I was also very glad one of my good friends and student ( i coach a little) made a super deep run on the main event coming in 21st place, he finished day 1 as the CL, day 2 as the CL again, day 3 went down a little, day 4 CL AGAIN and busted on day 5 when he lost couple of big hands, this was his first international tournament and cashed for a little over 7k so maybe he should be teaching me.

All in all it was fun, I got to hang out with a lot of people, my girlfriend had a great time at the hotel and shopping ( still not a baller she bough her own stuff lol) and played some cards ☺



view from my first rooms



there was a little drinking involved on that pic



casco viejo



Fun han, super satellite to main event i shoved 15 BB over 4 limpets got snapped by 69 off vs my AQss, he got 2 pairs i ended up with just a FD lol



Me and my friend that made the deep run



view from my second room ( had some issues at the hotel and got upgraded)



me and my gf at the end of the trip ( a buddy of mine told her i created a blog and she wanted to be part of it )

Dang I almost went to LSOP Panama, too!

they are having another later this year, a lot of value in that tournament, maybe ill see you in the next one

Enjoying so far, thanks for sharing

Live cash games in san jose

Im currently living at the beach ( esterillos) and have been grinding low stakes sit and goes, tbh that hasn't been going to well for me this month, so i decided to take a little break and headed down to san jose to play some live cash games.

Well seemed to be a good decision so far, i have been player the $1-$2 game at Hotel del rey and a smaller $1-$1 game at the winners club and so far im up quite a bit.

Interesting to see how different online and live games are, online games seem to be harder with little limping going on pre flop, which strange enough seems to be the rule in live games, i learned early enough that trying complicated lines do not work on small stakes live games, to make my point clearer let me share couple of hands i played on the $1-$2 game

UTG+1 with about $400 raised to $12, everyone folds to me on the BTN where i have 8s9s, i have about $500 and called, SB and BB also called, before i move on quick read on the players involved, UTG its a tight player that tends to overplay big hands, SB is a loose passive player and BB is a decent player.

Flop comes 6c7s10s ( bingo) SB leads for $30, BB fold and UTG+1 raises to $90, i have the stone cold nuts plus a SFD redraw, online i might try to disguise my hand raising because i feel cold calling its extremely strong and raising might look as a decent hand that wants to "steel it" right there in a coordinated board but in a live game cold calling here usually on the other players mind means im drawing, so i just called and SB folds , a this point im hoping for a blank because im pretty sure UTG+1 has a big par QQ+ and i know he thinks im drawing so if a black comes im pretty sure we can get it AI on the turn him drawing close to dead, turn is a red 2 and he insta shoves ( yeah for close to $400) and i snap him off and win a big pot vs his AA… he later tells me how bad i played the hand because i needed to protect my hand vs the FD and shove on the flop hahaha got to love live games.

here is a quick view of my chip stack after the hand

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The other hand is one i misplayed, not because i think my line is not good but because i should know a bluff like this its not going to work in most low stakes live games

I raise Ah9s on the cutoff to $4( i have about $180 on the $1-$1 game), SB and BB both call ( both of the with about $150), flop comes 8h3h2c, checks to me and i bet $7 trying to end it right there, SB calls and BB folds, turn is the 8s and it goes check check, river is the Qh, and he leads for $20, at this point im about to just let it go and then i realised i have the Ah so i know he doesn’t have the nut flush, he might have 22 33 but seems doubtful ( as i mentioned before live players here tend to “protect their big hands vs FD’s quite big) so i realise he probably has and 8 for bare trips, this is where i make a critical mistake and decide to raise him to $55, i should know live most players in low stakes games will just make a face and call my raise because of the money “invested” ( terrible logic btw) so my bluff even when only needs to work about half of the time to make it profitable, realistically in a low stakes live games is just not going to work, obv i get called by 86 off and loose the pot.

Here i leave you with some pics as well of the beach i live at[IMG][/IMG]

Nice. Did you get out of the Del Ray with your Colones, or did you spend your money on the lovely distractions?

I'll be in Costa Rica in just a few short weeks, but will not make it down to SJ.

lol, nah i rather keep my money that spend it on the "distractions"

where are you going? liberia?

Yeah. I own a place in Playa de Coco.

oh nice, lot of grinders there.. have fun!

are there any decent live cash games going regularly 5/5 or larger?

sorry for the late reply, i have been busy moving my stuff down to the beach, there is a big 5/5 PLO game that plays pretty big on tuesdays on the escazu casino but nothing really big on Hold em to make it worth it... I'm currently living in esterillos near jaco and there is couple of games in jaco but usually just 1/2

"Do poker “pros” like easy money? Doesn’t seem likely sometimes…"

As a general rule of thumb I never criticize someone’s play at a poker table, this is a subject that has been extensively discussed and it baffles me how there are “pros” that still berate a recreational player about their play.

It seems like a lot of the new pros don’t want to understand that games are so much tougher nowadays and that being dicks to the players that actually bring the money into the poker economy is just plain stupid, why am I saying all this? The reason is that I was talking with some friends and discussing about people’s attitudes at the poker table and I remembered something that happened last year.

I was in West palm beach during the WSOP circuit series and I sat down in the $5-$10 deep NLH game (there is one with a $300 max buy in and the other one which is the deep one), at the table they were 5 rec player and 3 pros plus me, the rec players are having a great time, drinking talking etc, one of the pros was basically the host talking to the guys and showing them a good time and the other 2 were silent but nothing wrong with that, in general it was a good table where everyone was having fun and most important chips were flying, anyhow after me being at the table for an hour one of the silent pro leaves and a pretty girl sits down with 1k, soon is pretty obvious she doesn’t have a clue and the only reason she is in that game is because her boyfriend was playing a huge game on the table next to ours ( I think it was either a $25-$50 or $50-$100), anyhow she looses a quarter on her stack on the first hand, doubles up on the next one and wins another pot on the next hand, all of this vs one of the silent pros, at this point he decides he found his voice and starts mooning about how everyone is terrible and so on, rec players are literally laughing at him and the girl its kind of embarrass, in my mind im cursing this idiot, why in the hell would you want to make the “fish” to feel uncomfortable???????

She tightness up for a while and table goes back to normal, a little while after she wins a set over set cooler vs me, where she checks the river (she is sitting on my left) when there is a backdoor flush that hits and she builds a very decent size stack (around 2.5k) a this point I was up a lot so I didn’t mind that much and actually I was smiling when she show me the hand and suddenly the silent idiot decides to inform her she is terrible and ask her why she doesn’t bet the river and blah blah blah, so I turn to him and ask him as politely as I was able to please let her play her game, he looks at me and doesn’t say anything else and again I wonder, why would a pro want to educate a person sitting in 2.5k than most likely than not she will donate later during the night and most important try to make her feel dumb and maybe intimidate her enough for her to leave the game, aren’t we trying to actually make money from this type of players?

Later on she wins another big pot against the idiot where she called flop and turn with a gutshot that obviously gets there on the river and she just called his last bet with the stone cold nuts (he had a set) and he starts again to berate her, personally I would say thank you to someone how just calls me with the nuts at the river but hey that’s just me. Luckily enough for me he was so tilted that ended up loosing all his money to me but it is amazing how dense some people can be, if you are letting “fish” players get to you I think you might want to find a different profession or at the least don’t kill the game for those of us that appreciate the action from recreational player.

In personal news I haven’t been playing much, mostly because the waves have been incredible and I have been surfing a lot and also because I didn’t have a real internet connection ready yet at my new place so I was playing with the internet from my phone but today I got cable and internet installed so im planning to have a proper grinding day tomorrow.

Sounds nice. I'll be in CR in about a month. I've been buying a ton of bed linens and towels to restock my place. Gonna be a drag traveling with all that stuff.

ok cool i hope you enjoy your time here

Here is my 10 cence on the live poker berating the fish thing.

Personally I agree with you. It is basic common sense that if someone is bad and you want their money you should not be giving them tips on how to play, and it just makes you look like a tool when you start giving them maths lesson mid-game. The only thing I would say is that it can be really painful when a fish sucks out or makes a horrible play and wins and then they celebrates it as if they are a genius just because they won that pot. Often their etiquette is so bad that you feel the need to give them the truth just to damped their misplaced celebrations.

As well as this lots of us more serious players play the vast majority online so that when it comes to live play it is often unbearably slow at times, which can already put you on minor tilt so a donkey who takes 20 seconds to fold pre-flop every hand finally sucking out on you with a gut-shot on the river is the straw that breaks the camels back.

i agree, it is painful to play life sometimes and here in latin america you get the over the top celebration a lot but then again they are most of the time paying my rent, food, etc so even when it tilts me i much rather keep them happy and take their money with a smile :P

Hi Majagua,
My names Adam and I will be moving down to Costa Rica for a couple months in the beginning of May. In short, I worked the corporate job for the last 4 years after graduating college and decided it was time to find some peace in mind and also pursue poker professionally for once. I have had some good success online, primarily before Black Friday, so i'm really excited to start playing full time again.
However, I am taking a big leap by going to a completely new country. As of today, I still don't know where i'll end up in CR. Do you have any ideas where I could live cheaply? I definitely want to be on the beach. Anyways, any help would be greatly appreciated and we should definitely meet up and play a Sunday together!

hey adam

well CR is not known for being specially cheap but in the san jose area you can definitely find a cheap place to live, at the beach its a little pricier, if you want pm me your Skype details and i can give you a little more insight about CR

post those insights here i wanna know about costa rica