Life Fluctuations

I am not one to usually have high praise for the American society, but one area where they do deserve credit, is in their geographical mapping of cities. The streets are subjected to north-south and west-east axes , every single address acts as a form of coordinate conveniently pinpointing your location and even the highway exit numbers indicate the distance separating yourself from the metropolitan city. Everything is thought of. Logical. To the extend where one can easily picture himself as part of a geometric equation. Or sure as hell wouldn't need a GPS to find his way in any given American/Canadian city I do believe it originates from the English anal tendency of being organized, strategic, controlling... as opposed to the French (who definitely left a strong imprint over here) where zigzagging, random alleyways, dead end streets and roundabouts have more of a romantic appeal, I suppose... Such have been my thoughts, after exploring new hidden areas of da nang over the past couple of days.

We have relocated at the other extremity of the city, just by the last bridge.





In fact, we reversed the process of time, backtracking to our first hotel in this city, 4 months ago. The owners are quite frankly the most welcoming I have encountered in my 4 years in SEA, we have access to pedal and motorbikes, we can happily indulge in a free breakfast consisting of various fruits, milk shakes, omelettes, soups and all this for the great value of 19$/night

Crazy how relocating a mere 5 km away has significantly increased my level of appreciation for da nang It does help dearly that this hotel is tucked into a quiet street conveniently located close to the river, which keeps us sheltered from the urban racket and the rumble of the cars, both of which felt oftentimes intrusive in our previous location.

Anyhow, we have been biking around over the past couple of days, exploring what this side of town has to offer




A ton of fisherman going at it all day long




Pic taken from 6th floor




The seaside beach is not as populated, wavy nor appealing, but still pleasant. Reminds me of the numerous dirty Filipino beaches that were not properly cared for




Cannot enough lols out of the tall lanky buildings




Never thought I would encounter poohing instructions in this lifetime




I am impressed how structured and cared upon are the public hangouts in this country. Much more appealing then the careless attitude of the surrounding countries... Also provides added gardening employment for folks that might of been jobless if not...




A bleak future for our waters




The river beach offers a more quiet/serene atmosphere then the beach of our previous apartment




Rat burger, yum-yummy Much like my Party avatar, that consists of a mouse burger


Da Pokerz


It has now been decided : I will be returning mid May to Canada, visiting Montreal for 2 weeks, before grinding in Dawson for 4 months. The 2016 further increases in rake coupled with an unprecedented - at least as far as I am concerned - utterly disgusting run bad, live will therefore become my main source of income (Vancouver, Tampa and N-O, watch out, here I come )


Range, yo


I open AQ in CO ; weak reg (19/8/2) calls from the SB, LAGGY BB 3bets to 13.48$ ; I sigh, moan FML before making the call. SB folds.

Flop (29.83$)
678

It goes check-check.

Turn (29.83$)
678 9

When villain checks turn again, I go ahead and bet 20.37$, trying to represent any of 55-10, which I can easily do. Villain makes the call.

River (70.57$)
678 9 8

Gin The perfect card to fold out JJ-AA ; I shove 66.15$

Run good all

So I lurk your thread every once in a while, and definitely want to say that it is by far one of the best blog/threads about poker/traveling anywhere on the internet... keep it up! (Don't give up totally on online just yet )

Thx man, comments like these bring sense to the effort I dedicate to this blog Not giving up on online, but it will nowadays supplement my live grind, not my main focus like it has been for the past 4 years. Kind of disheartening though, as focusing on live pokerz takes away from that freedom of living in rural areas (or anywhere in the world, for that matter...).

Speaking of appreciation, can I ask you folks to rate this thread (click on rate thread just above the thread title/under the page number) so I can get a concrete and decently sampled feedback... and Mods, any chance you can mention to the powers that be about a potentially eventual increase of the 30 minute editing time frame ... Perfectionist like I am, it is quite cringe-worthy to spot some typos after the capacity of editing has been revoked from me

Fading

Her body, the eruptive aspirations of the summits. Her blood, the enchanting flow of the seas. Through her orifices, we drink the golden nectar, forever injecting ourselves with divine life.





The luscious liquid fills our mouths, runs down our collective veins like a tranquil heatwave... Happiness comes in the form of a sweet, juicy, acidic berry.





Pleasure would never be ecstatic without pain. A strong, dense wave flooding sobriety.





Day 1 of bender. In the beginning, the process is a joyful jittery one : drinks are had on a patio, under the evening sun with good comrades and a ton of laughs. The liquor brings a perfect level of equilibrium to the picture, blending in the different tones amiably : all is good in the world. Perfect. It all makes sense. All pain is evaporated. Only to be replaced by urges, desires and a steady release of frantic, almost manic energy... But we are not content just yet... We never are : the night ahead is long, blurry, almost dreamlike... Many bars are visited, as much laughs are shared ; but in the end, at 6 am, it is with a smile on our faces that we climb into bed, as what remains is the sparse recollection of a goodnight.

Day 2 of bender. We manage to jump out of bed midway through the afternoon, despite our ponderous hangover state. We force ourselves to engage in the outside world, to put some food in our tummy, to socialize, to hang out with friends, pretending to be on a somewhat normal's person schedule. But we then, of course, run into the sumptuous temptation of drinks, breaking our morning's promise of never indulging again, as the flow feels oh so natural... And it comes as a blessing : straying away from sobriety feels like heaven's gift.

The night does somehow hold itself together, despite a hindsight vision lacking on critical references : flashbacks are sparse and intermittent, as reality is inexorably losing its footing...

Day 3 of bender. Loonytown, I tell you. Everything is absurd, a fabricated fantasy, str8 out of Sesame Street... No sense in pretending anymore : it is time to drink like no tomorrow... or no yesterday... or no temporal narrative for that matter, because, really, in this fictional realm, all sense of grounding ourself becomes futile... Nothing makes sense, but it never did really... Hilarity becomes the new order... Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space.





It was during my 20th cycle around the sun that I was overtaken by a strong urge to see the world. To experience life through the prism of different cultures. To replace a somewhat mundane upbringing with random backpacking adventures. I would leave family and friends behind, uproot myself completely to the extent where the notion of "home" would naturally shift to one of my new destinations, Dawson City.

How does one stay grounded, with all this movement, some might ask... How do you find inner-stability when faces, smiles, relationships are oftentimes relinquished to pure anonymity... Or perhaps more importantly, how does one maintain a continuous narrative without fading like a wasted echo...

I once had someone close to me confide, while she was facing the possible eventuality of a fatal illness, that it was not death that she feared, but vanishing without a purpose... She has since dodge that fatal bullet and has produced a couple of children, thus guaranteeing herself with a certain imprint in this lifetime.

You see, we desperately try to instill ourselves in this reality. To leave a trace. As moment by moment, our narrative is engulfed into emptiness. This spectrum might not be apparent to us from Monday to Friday when exposed to the daily grind of a routine (a simulated reality forcefully engraved into our psych), yet becomes quite evident when leaving behind us sparse memories from country to country...

There is an obvious reason why my back is covered with tattoos, thus reflecting a clear attempt at some sort of vague narration...





Or that I dedicate myself to this blog in an attempt to retrace vanishing footprints... Thx for reading and the 5 star votes folks Keep the comments and votes coming, it is truly appreciated


Da Pokerz


Came across this excellent article written by Sam Grafton, elite coach on ROI, back 5 months ago, when Pokerstars suddenly decided to take drastic actions and thus change the course of online poker :

http://www.runitonce.com/chatter/the...post-boom-era/

A bleak future for us all isn't it, and one the threatens to remain greyish unless a mini poker boom strikes again (see markets like China, India and, of course, the U S of A).

Peace

Hey guys, I just opened a twitter account a few days ago :

https://twitter.com/?exit_bouncer=1

Still new to Twitter, so give me time to figure it out before putting it to good usage... I will use it in the same vein as this blog though, meaning that it will contain some poker updates and pics, so don't hesitate to tag along

About article postboom era:What happened is that in public awareness is now that you cannot compete with pros.When online poker was young influx of new players was enough to made living for like 10% of players. But even worst player after some time will stop depositing. There are people willing to gamble, but now most of them know that playing against pros is not fun. I am sometimes playing with taximen and small owners of shops or restaurants: it was like one year they adjusted, partially refusing play and lost, raising variance, colluding as "revenge". They will not learn game,but dumbest of them are not going to lose constantly. Anyway great blog, will hit five stars on pc, now I am on tablet, I cannot hit button 😁

ive said before but yours is still one of my favorite blogs. are you not returning to SEA after your summertime in canada?

also the kangaroo icm spot is a cbet and giving the situation you described you should be stealing 100% of hands or near to it

Yeah, I often worried in the past on how this steady influx would eventually come to an end, especially given that not enough regs were quitting the games... I do believe there is a significant difference in between the origin of online and live traffic though, where the process that a net depositor has to go through in the former clearly shines some light on his fishy nature while in the latter, not only is the sums of monies lost not as evident to oneself, but the recreational player surrounds himself with a community, camaderie, a social scene that is lacking in the virtual world.

When I look at the close system that constitutes the playing field in the Yukon, all recreational losing players keep coming back (barring one fellow) while very few of them - if any - indulge in the online pokerz. Thx for following and 5 star vote man

Since my MTT play is a little rusty and that I presently simultanely multi-table 100z and midstakes tournaments, I am making a few mistakes. The most notable ones are in areas like favoring a lower and thus more balanced cbetting frequency in MTTs (standard in cash games hovers around 60%, while optimal might be 80% in tournaments...), playing GTO on all streets instead of in a vacuum, going for thin edges in ICM heavy spots and general mindsets that are simply different in MTTs like :

- trying to fold out villain's top pair with multi-barrels (yay or deep cash games, nay in MTTs, even when deep...).

- Turn checking frequency : pot control on the turn is more of a thing in MTTs where GTO barreling in cash dictates differently.

- sizing tells in MTTs, especially when balancing a range (again, more optimal inclined in tournaments).

Coming from a recent background of playing 550 hands/hour with stacks always hovering around 100-130bbs, I find myself clicking buttons too often lately when opening hands in tournaments. For instance, with a stack of 25bbs, I open-raised A5s from EP yesterday, as it is part of my standard bluff opening range UTG in cash games, failing to instinctively realize that I do not need a bluffing range in this spot (especially with 25bbs left ). Of course, it is only a matter of 1 week or 2 before readapting to MTTs once again. Thx for mentioning it though, I definitely could use some more feedback in certain spots, for sure

For the next 9 months, I plan on going to Montreal-Dawson-Vancouver-Tampa-New-Orleans-Vancouver for the live ground and 2 months of meditation retreat. I do not plan on coming back to SEA unless it is to go to Myanmmar, as it remains the country in this part of the world I dearly want to visit. Chances are I might jump on a plane to South America come March 2017, but we will see... My gf and I will be parting ways, at least for the foreseeable future, but more on this in my next blog entry coming shortly...

At World's End

The end of the world is not some nebulous medieval physical frontier beyond which all hells fall loose... It is an accumulation of fears and demons that, until confronted, remains at a safe distance, tucked away at the horizon... A threshold that few dare to cross...

It was in 2002 on a deserted beach just off San Juan, Nicaragua, that I opened a breach into uncharted territories... Eyes closed, breath by breath, I dug deeper into myself... The journey was abrupt, frightening, with a ton of unexpected hurdles along the way... Without guidance, I felt stranded : the demons got the best of me. It would take a decade long journey within myself and thousands of hours of meditation before becoming one, at the horizon, a culminating dot where all instances meet...





After 4 years in SEA, it seems that I have reached the end of the road... Outside of my burning desire of visiting/doing meditation retreats in Myanmmar, I feel that this path has nothing new to offer... Sure, I could settle down here in Vietnam, learn the language, invest myself in the country, but could as easily travel in latin America next winter, improve my Spanish (already have a solid base) and pursue this everlasting adventure in a different hemisphere... Leaving behind a 2 year relationship is obviously disheartening (she found an excellent job teaching English in da nang and loves it here), nonetheless, a tremendous amount of liberation can be found in uprooting oneself...

Still have a few weeks left here and plan on fully enjoying them A few pics :




Da nang has roughly 10 kms of public riverside hangouts



















We jumped in the Han river, on the south part of town




Hiphop not dead, yo


Da Pokerz


Perhaps if I was still printing monies online in a low variance sorta way and not on the cusp of my acceptable win rate, perhaps I would not be at crossroads right now... Perhaps if I did not fear for further infuriating and win rate damaging changes by the poker sites, I would still envision another year playing online... Perhaps, but these questions remain purposeless to dwell upon, especially given that my hourly will forever remain higher in live games and that my 39 years old brain prefers to invest his capacities in a 25 hands/hour venture, not a 550/h one Anyhow, on to the hand of the week.


When not to bluff River


Recreational players have a nut low selection as when to bluff, and, like this hand history will illustrate, our villain is no different, as he willingly lights monies on fire on the river

Aggro fish opens to 3$ in MP ; I defend in BB with JT.

Flop (6.50$)
AKK

I check-call villain's cbet of 3.09$.

Turn (12.68$)
AKK 6

It goes check-check.

River (12.68$)
AKK 6 A

A river card that essentially gives me the nuts, but I decide to check to let villain to tie a know, raise the cord, stick his neck in and hang himself like no tomorrow . Villain bets 12$, I snap-call

Run good all

edit : it should read as "I decide to check to let villain tie a knot, raise the cord, stick his neck in and hang himself like no tomorrow"

Darn, just did it again : just bet 300$ on the Toronto Raptors Lopez and Thaddeus Young are out, how can they ever lose, right...

Brag

Beat

Brag #2

Well, that was interesting : the Raptors decided to rest all starters, the line drops from 9 points favorite to 5, just 2 hours before tipoff...

Brag :

Beat :

Brag #2 :

So they lost your action. Where did it go?

I have a really light schedule at the moment that consists mainly of hanging out/enjoying my last month here, writing, meditating while only grinding 25h a week ; darn, it would be really nice to keep this sweet routine and make some monies off of writing...

This said, splitting my action in between MTTs on Stars, Party and the previously mentioned Typhoon on 888, with 100z on Party and Unibet ; a very light schedule indeed Once I get to Canada, I will focus on live, obviously, and add the Bovada speed 100z games. But live will constitute most of my action.

Did you make that trip to Vegas Carnivore and how was it?

Hey Dubn, glad to hear you're having a good month! Don't forget, in addition, that the NBA playoffs are almost upon us

Yeah, indeed, I got my Saturday reserved for the first Raptor game... trouble is, we do not have NBA tv over here like in the Philippines and the streaming on NBA.com is too darn slow... So am hoping Fox Sports 1 or 2 (the only sports channels I got at the moment) will play some NBA, if not, downloading it will have to be... No Canadian teams is making the playoffs in the NHL this year (hockey is so rigged ), so don't really have any interest there.

This morning, when I told my gf I won my mere 1.42x Raptors bet , she said to me :

- "are you sure you are not becoming addicted", to which I angrily replied

- "come on now, I am a professional gambler and treat this as a business", meanwhile this thought in the back of my head was already visualizing betting all my 888 roll on the Toronto home opening game I kind of feel like I am freerolling my 888 account, as I already cashed out a substantial and satisfying amount, thus giving me the impression that I can spew the rest, if so desired... the problem is, not only did I 1.42x the 300$ that I had left on there, but I cashed the Typhoon today, hence increasing my roll Bah, it would still be nice to just put it all on Raptors game 1

Who is your team bob? If I remember correctly, it is anyone but the Spurs, right? Darn, that was a crazy last game by Kobe, nailing 60 points

edit : Hummm, perhaps I should put all the roll on the Warrior's first home game...

used to be but I've reformed my ways. I like Leonard and Pop, probably my favorite player and coach in the league, so I'll be rooting for them in the playoffs (never thought I'd say that a few years ago lol).

Yeah, Kobe is such a clown. Much respect tho.

Yup, I will be rooting for western conference as well : just placed a 250$ bet on the west to take it down (888 gives absolute ludicrous odds, but whatever, I will settle for the 1.33x, I guess... ).

Hard not to like what is transpiring in Golden State and San Antonio... Pop is legendary, the Spurs are a model, yet I will nonetheless be rooting for the Raps to beat the Pacers in 6, to outlast the Heat in 7 before getting stomped by the Cavs in 6

Because I have the time and am possessed with a strong urge to write lately, I brought back to life the Adventures of the Old Lady and assess if there is another interest (comments and views). It will be a nice vehicle to accompany me during my live pokerz sessions, but if the interest is lacking, I will work on other writing project instead... To be continued...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...inues-1604291/

Hope

Nelson, British Colombia, December 2004. Perhaps there is a reason why a bunch of 20 years old nomads, with dreadlocks dropping halfway down their back, end up in this town... Perhaps their is some truth behind the "city of lost souls" label tagged to this place...

In between cleaning rooms at a hostel for a free dorm bed, grooving away at some reggae live jams, doing a bunch of magic mushrooms, lining up for free lunches at the community hall, collecting welfare and banging up this 19 year old chick in the dorm room while my roommates are half ass snoozing, I try my best to navigate through this glooming depression of mine. It is not easy to find the light. Spurts of hope pop open here and there, but only to be brutally shut down by dark despair... This strenuous heavy sensation is wearing me down...

Something was lost along the way... We had dreams of a revolution, of a new tomorrow, meanwhile never being naive nor delusional enough to think we would ever achieve this end game... Perhaps it is just our anger and depression that got us here... Another disillusioned generation, doomed for failure.


3 weeks left in this here far away land... 3 weeks to rest my eyes, one last time, upon 1 of my favorite places in the world. I know that I will back in these parts some day, as I still have some items on my bucket list to check off :

- Spend a few months in Myanmmar for a long term meditation retreat, visit the outskirts of the country and get to meet some of the nicest people to walk this earth
- Take the train through Chinese-Himalayan-Tibet.
- Make the London to China 2 week Trans-Europe/Siberian train journey.

But before getting ahead of ourselves, lets look back at a few pics depicting the local life in Vietnam :




private residences. This street has a ton of similar apartments




Every night, the bridges are illuminated for a couple of hours in da nang, making it the perfect local-romantic-river-hangout-spot. The quality of life is good in this country, especially considering the gross national product of Vietnam




Crowded market




A Sunday afternoon school activity day at the temple





Da Pokerz


My journey is now chronicled in my new PG & C, but here is a Q & A I came upon with Daniel Cates AKA "Jungleman" who speaks of a 20 mil pot lost by Tom Dwan in Manila :

https://www.pokervip.com/forum/gener...-thread?page=1


Run good all

Tranquility

One of the things that tilted me about the Philippines, was witnessing the affluence of foreigners coming in, opening numerous businesses and raking in the monies. Easy game. And an exploitative one for that matter, while the rest of the country hosts an incommensurable amount of poverty. But as you leave these impoverished pockets and step into the comfort of a touristic realm, you are hard press to find a Filipino owned venture (Filipina wives not withstanding) Thankfully this remains a rare occurrence in Vietnam, where the socialist government has its say in all things pertaining to business

We have stayed at Night Sky Hotel for 6 weeks and went from befriending the amazing Vietnamese family owning the joint, to slowly partaking in their daily lives. This said, knowing that our 19$ daily rent will help put the kids through school, brings a certain sense of warmth. And I do not mean this in a condescending/self righteous sorta way, but as a small act of responsible tourism : a dollar well spent, yo In this age and time, it is hard to see even 20% of a 1$ subsequently be put to good usage...











We rented a motorbike today to escape Da nang and follow the coast southbound







Playing the metagame : a foreigner (me) taking a pic of locals halted in the middle of a bridge taking selfies







Vietnamese holiday today with a ton of out-of-towners invading Da nang This is at the outskirts of the city, so barely representative of the influx of locals chilling at the beach




Vietnamese women avoid the sunshine like the pest, even more "skin complexion" conscious then the Filipinas with their whitening products In fact, not only do they cover their skin with their winter clothes on motorbikes, but avoid the beach during sunlight hours




Vampire style yo Kinda sad that white skin is put on such a vertiginous pedestal, but meh, it would be different aesthetic standards if not... humans will be, you know... humans





My gf found herself a studio apartment where I will spend a few days before leaving Da nang. More on this in the next post.

Run good all

Quantum Realms





They are certain moments that despite being heavily charged with significance, have little chances of happening, thus making their outcome all that more relevant. You know, that 1 outer with 1 card to come... What if Sam Farha had called Moneymaker's bluff... What if Guy Laliberte didn't have a penchant for teh online pokerz and hadn't donated 13 million to the likes of Dwan, Galfond and the Dang brothers... What if the Americanz had let the free market be and had not dropped an unexpected virtual bomb on the likes of Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker, Full Tilt and Poker Stars on a certain Black Friday... The quantum world holds as many possible avenues as our imagination can contain, but for the purpose of the narrative of this post, lets focus on just 2 possible paths, traced a couple of months back, when my gf was divided in between going to Cambodia for a visa renewal or returning to the Philippines...





She is nowadays netting a very lucrative 14 USD/h (roughly 26-28 CAD/h before taxes or, to put it in a more local context : she scoops in 10h what an average Vietnamese worker labors in a 1 month's salary) which consists of a first world salary and an above average one at that. Nonetheless, when you originate from humble beginnings, the comfort provided by a financial cushion takes a while to settle in... if ever. So perhaps it was out of habit that she was looking for a local type of room, somewhere in the vicinity of 35-50USD/month, which looks a little like this :




No furniture is included though, so she would have to purchase a fan, mattress, blankets etc.





After visiting a few places, and looking more in depth into her income, she finally decided to look into some western apartments instead, finding this place for 160 USD/month :









It is a nice, spacious room with great value (laundry, wifi, outside kitchen, good security) and located on a quiet street a couple of blocks away from the beach Not too shabby, not too shabby at all I am pretty happy knowing that she will benefit from not only comfort, but 500$/month in savings.

Hey man, we spent the afternoon today on this 400m (or so) strip of a beach off the last bridge in Da nang (on the north side) which is simply a gem :





There was only a few handful of locals (no foreigners outside of us), as the lone access to the beach is through a small opening in a fence tucked underneath the bridge. If you want to take your lady on a wine sorta picnic or even drink a few beers around a bonfire (there was a few locals gathered around a decent size one), this place is pretty magical :





Anyhow, pm if you want to know the exact location


Da Pokerz


I am on a nice little upswing online (+2500$ in the past 17h over 5 days ) which figures well before the live grind kicks in June. I still plan on doing the Vancouver-Tampa-New Orleans-Vancouver loop for 6 months following the Dawson season, even if the stars are aligning online once again. Also looking forward to that live grind You know, all that chip shuffling. Good conversations. Staredowns. Reverberating of the all-too-nearby-slot machines Battles of ego Copious amounts of coffee consumed.

Run good all

I did the Trans-Siberian in autumn of 2014 starting in London. Kept going all the way down to Hong Kong (with stops in Moscow, Irkutsk, Ulan Bataar, and Beijing), then took a cargo ship from Hong Kong over to Los Angeles via Taiwan. Then took a train across the USA from coast to coast.

Happy to answer any questions. Just posted in the Vietnam travel thread a few questions of my own if you feel like sharing some wisdom.


Glad to see your gf decided to go with a toilet that includes a lid!

Will definitely get back to you about the Trans-Siberian info, thx

Just stumbled upon your sailing thread/driving from the southern peak of USA to northern USA (and many other journeys, I assume...) :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...-sail-1344542/

I have just read the first page, but man o man, this is a GOAT/elite thread Looking forward to my next few days of reading entertainment

tyvm, still trying to catch it up to real time.

The place I fly to from Saigon is Hong Kong for a week, then on to the Solomon Islands. Will get on a sailboat there and spend the next four months sailing to Singapore via Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia. Should be good times.

Be sure to stop at Lake Baikal when you do the Trans-Siberian, it's incredibly beautiful. And they have freshwater seals!

Kudos to you, my fellow traveler! Love to hear and read about other people out there living the dream.