Escapism
07-24-2020
, 02:29 AM
This is going to be a bit of an outlet for me, I hope someone can get something from this thread eventually.
I am a 34yr old American mixed martial artist. Im originally from Arizona but I spent my late teen years growing up in Las Vegas. I had known of NLHM from around the Moneymaker era. I remember using my mothers visa to make a small deposit for me on an online site when I was in my mid teens. That was gone with the wind and poker was never brought back to my life until around 2016.
I injured my myself in an MMA fight April 2016. I knew I was going to need surgery in July. I had already been dealing with some financial troubles and was desperately in search of a new way to make income that I was passionate about. I had started casually playing some poker home games with some local friends and got more interested in the game when I was consistently leaving these home games with more money then I came with. I started listing to some podcasts and watching videos on NLHM.
There was a quote that I can no longer remember who I first heard it from but it was to the extent of "The harder you work at poker, The more money you will make. You can work hard to be the best teacher, dosnt mean you will get paid more. You can work hard to be the best chef, dosnt mean you will get paid more. If you work hard to be the best poker player, you will get paid more." That sold me!
I knew I would be sitting around the house for quite awhile after my ACL surgery. In 2013 when this happened to me the first time it took 9 months to start training martial arts again. It tool one year to not ache all the time. It took two years until it just felt "normal". I decided to devote a lot of my free time to studying the game of NLHM.
December of 2016 I was living in Arizona and making a great recovery from my July surgery. I had been in need of a new place to live and was strongly considering going back to Las Vegas. I was listining to the 2p2 podcast at the time and I heard T. Chan mention he was an MMA fighter and he was currently in Thailand training. I decided to hit him up on social media and ask him some questions about traveling to train in Thailand. He was generous enough to reply to me with with a lot of solid answers. Two weeks later I was off to Thailand.
January 2017 I was six months off a ACL surgery and kicking pads in the tropics. I decided that even though my passion for poker had grown to be as strong as my passion for martial arts, Poker was not as dependent on a healthy body as much as MMA. So while I was still fit, I would dedicate my life to martial arts first. In December of 2018 I was living and training full time in Chiang Mai. I had an MMA fight in Bangkok in early December and was in need of a visa run the week after the fight.
I decided to book a trip to somewhere in S.E.A. that had live poker. I just wanted to Rec it up on a holiday. I hopped on 2p2 and was in the forums seeing where the action was. The Cambodia thread is always popping so it looked like a good spot but outside of this site I just couldnt find much about the legality. I noticed in here some people talking up the Vietnam scene. I ended up getting a good price on a week long trip to Saigon.
On facebook I was able to locate a club in Saigon with some tournaments. I decided to go play a few days into my trip. The club "Imperial" was one of the most aesthetically pleasing poker rooms I have ever seen. I met an expat at the club that put me on to a few different rooms in the city. One room had a big multi-day MTT that would be ending the day after I was scheduled to leave the country.
Riding the high from the win in my fight, I decided to enter day 1A with the thought that if I made it to day 2 I would happly bite the bullet on the cost of a new room and flight, win or lose. I had maby 2 dozen 50-100 player $40 MTTS under my belt but this 3,300,000VND game was high rolling for my broke ass. I had a long day 1 where I made it to the end 2nd in chips (4th overall). I got myself a hotel with a bath tub and decided I was going to enjoy myself no matter the outcome.
Having just got familiar with western players, these local grinders in Vietnam were miles away from what I was used to seeing. I had been studying alot of theory and I was aware of what they were doing even though I had not seen it first hand. I had a rock solid mentality and my health was at its peak (minus the black eye
). The final day was an 11 hour session with a tough final 4 including a very tough Singaporean grinder and European as well as a Local. I was able to keep on my B game late in to the night when the villains were falling into C level.
The prize for 1st was a cool 210mil (VND). Much much more then fighters would be making in that area. I was into J. Little and had just started using A. Fitz. methods as well. I was well familiar with basic positional ranges and just stuck to them. I made it to the end with the grand prize and maby the only photo you'll ever see me smiling in lol.
I have sense been back to Vietnam many times to play in the games in Saigon and Da Nang. Im currently seeing a Vietnamese girl I will be living there as well as Chaing Mai Thailand. IF anyone has been to the north of Thailand or even S.E.A. at all during the months of February to April you will already know how bad the air pollution is during that time. December 2019 I had another fight in BKK and had planned a trip to Vietnam right after.
The trip was flawless other then the -$ from the poker but that was properly bankrolled. I went back to Thailand in January on a Visa exemption (USA BABY!) (
) I had a teammate fighting in Singapore in February that I would be cornering. The plan was to GTF out of Chiang Mai by March to avoid the smokey season peak. I would be going to Singapore for one week, coming back to Chiang Mai for two days, then going to Vietnam for a week, all before coming back to the US for the majority of March.
Plan was to be back home in Chiang Mai by Songkran. If you follow the news at all, you may have herd Songkran was canceled! So was my flight home!!! I came to Vegas March 2nd. Spent a week in Vegas then came to see family in Arizona. If I was a religious man I would swear god was cock teasing me with a bit of run good all just to **** my ass. I have been borrowing a car (ok, thank god) from my mother and staying at different family members houses in three different cities in Arizona living out of my suit case.
This Whu-Flu has really been hitting me hard. I became epileptic when I was 19yr old and was steadily making progress on my health by living in Thailand. I had been there for three years and I have been seizure free that whole time. Ive come to notice that just being in America is tilting as **** to me. Ive been waiting for a seizure like a dog a dinner time. That cant go on!
I decided to go to Mexico until Thailand or Vietnam will open back up for me. I'll be headed to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a while. I have never been but I believe I can get by for close to what I would spend in Thailand. I hope to run into some live games but im prepared for the online grind. I also have seen they have a few martial arts gyms as well. I will try to update this with any info on games in Puerto Vallarto. I also try to still post in the Thailand and Vietnam threads too.
Thanks for your time,
McGanja
🙏🙏
I am a 34yr old American mixed martial artist. Im originally from Arizona but I spent my late teen years growing up in Las Vegas. I had known of NLHM from around the Moneymaker era. I remember using my mothers visa to make a small deposit for me on an online site when I was in my mid teens. That was gone with the wind and poker was never brought back to my life until around 2016.
I injured my myself in an MMA fight April 2016. I knew I was going to need surgery in July. I had already been dealing with some financial troubles and was desperately in search of a new way to make income that I was passionate about. I had started casually playing some poker home games with some local friends and got more interested in the game when I was consistently leaving these home games with more money then I came with. I started listing to some podcasts and watching videos on NLHM.
There was a quote that I can no longer remember who I first heard it from but it was to the extent of "The harder you work at poker, The more money you will make. You can work hard to be the best teacher, dosnt mean you will get paid more. You can work hard to be the best chef, dosnt mean you will get paid more. If you work hard to be the best poker player, you will get paid more." That sold me!
I knew I would be sitting around the house for quite awhile after my ACL surgery. In 2013 when this happened to me the first time it took 9 months to start training martial arts again. It tool one year to not ache all the time. It took two years until it just felt "normal". I decided to devote a lot of my free time to studying the game of NLHM.
December of 2016 I was living in Arizona and making a great recovery from my July surgery. I had been in need of a new place to live and was strongly considering going back to Las Vegas. I was listining to the 2p2 podcast at the time and I heard T. Chan mention he was an MMA fighter and he was currently in Thailand training. I decided to hit him up on social media and ask him some questions about traveling to train in Thailand. He was generous enough to reply to me with with a lot of solid answers. Two weeks later I was off to Thailand.
January 2017 I was six months off a ACL surgery and kicking pads in the tropics. I decided that even though my passion for poker had grown to be as strong as my passion for martial arts, Poker was not as dependent on a healthy body as much as MMA. So while I was still fit, I would dedicate my life to martial arts first. In December of 2018 I was living and training full time in Chiang Mai. I had an MMA fight in Bangkok in early December and was in need of a visa run the week after the fight.
I decided to book a trip to somewhere in S.E.A. that had live poker. I just wanted to Rec it up on a holiday. I hopped on 2p2 and was in the forums seeing where the action was. The Cambodia thread is always popping so it looked like a good spot but outside of this site I just couldnt find much about the legality. I noticed in here some people talking up the Vietnam scene. I ended up getting a good price on a week long trip to Saigon.
On facebook I was able to locate a club in Saigon with some tournaments. I decided to go play a few days into my trip. The club "Imperial" was one of the most aesthetically pleasing poker rooms I have ever seen. I met an expat at the club that put me on to a few different rooms in the city. One room had a big multi-day MTT that would be ending the day after I was scheduled to leave the country.
Riding the high from the win in my fight, I decided to enter day 1A with the thought that if I made it to day 2 I would happly bite the bullet on the cost of a new room and flight, win or lose. I had maby 2 dozen 50-100 player $40 MTTS under my belt but this 3,300,000VND game was high rolling for my broke ass. I had a long day 1 where I made it to the end 2nd in chips (4th overall). I got myself a hotel with a bath tub and decided I was going to enjoy myself no matter the outcome.
Having just got familiar with western players, these local grinders in Vietnam were miles away from what I was used to seeing. I had been studying alot of theory and I was aware of what they were doing even though I had not seen it first hand. I had a rock solid mentality and my health was at its peak (minus the black eye
). The final day was an 11 hour session with a tough final 4 including a very tough Singaporean grinder and European as well as a Local. I was able to keep on my B game late in to the night when the villains were falling into C level. The prize for 1st was a cool 210mil (VND). Much much more then fighters would be making in that area. I was into J. Little and had just started using A. Fitz. methods as well. I was well familiar with basic positional ranges and just stuck to them. I made it to the end with the grand prize and maby the only photo you'll ever see me smiling in lol.
I have sense been back to Vietnam many times to play in the games in Saigon and Da Nang. Im currently seeing a Vietnamese girl I will be living there as well as Chaing Mai Thailand. IF anyone has been to the north of Thailand or even S.E.A. at all during the months of February to April you will already know how bad the air pollution is during that time. December 2019 I had another fight in BKK and had planned a trip to Vietnam right after.
The trip was flawless other then the -$ from the poker but that was properly bankrolled. I went back to Thailand in January on a Visa exemption (USA BABY!) (
) I had a teammate fighting in Singapore in February that I would be cornering. The plan was to GTF out of Chiang Mai by March to avoid the smokey season peak. I would be going to Singapore for one week, coming back to Chiang Mai for two days, then going to Vietnam for a week, all before coming back to the US for the majority of March.Plan was to be back home in Chiang Mai by Songkran. If you follow the news at all, you may have herd Songkran was canceled! So was my flight home!!! I came to Vegas March 2nd. Spent a week in Vegas then came to see family in Arizona. If I was a religious man I would swear god was cock teasing me with a bit of run good all just to **** my ass. I have been borrowing a car (ok, thank god) from my mother and staying at different family members houses in three different cities in Arizona living out of my suit case.
This Whu-Flu has really been hitting me hard. I became epileptic when I was 19yr old and was steadily making progress on my health by living in Thailand. I had been there for three years and I have been seizure free that whole time. Ive come to notice that just being in America is tilting as **** to me. Ive been waiting for a seizure like a dog a dinner time. That cant go on!
I decided to go to Mexico until Thailand or Vietnam will open back up for me. I'll be headed to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for a while. I have never been but I believe I can get by for close to what I would spend in Thailand. I hope to run into some live games but im prepared for the online grind. I also have seen they have a few martial arts gyms as well. I will try to update this with any info on games in Puerto Vallarto. I also try to still post in the Thailand and Vietnam threads too.
Thanks for your time,
McGanja
🙏🙏
