I visited a few years ago and totally love the place.

One of the most scenic countries on the planet and the people are THE most hospitable on the planet. The food is awesome also and vodka is brought by the bottle in pubs for maybe £2 per litre .

Anyway I sort of a slumming "poker pro", I can make enough that don't have to sign on, but not enough that it is not a struggle to outspend my income.

Is there any poker community in Batumi (the Caucasian Vegas), if not, why not. Shall we set one up?

I really want to take advantage of the freedom of my profession this year. I consider Malta/Budapest/Bucharest as options, but anyone else interested in Georgia?

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When I visited it was for a couple of months travel with a girl who could speak Russian. Most people there speak Georgian (it is entirely indecipherable). We could get by with pigeon Russian and nods and shakes and pointing, but it would be daunting by myself.

I guess there must be a poker community in Batumi, but really I should be looking on Russian forums, but I only speak English, maybe a tiny bit of Swahili and Kelenjan.

Hey Kamawoop,

I'm originally from England but I've lived in Tbilisi, Georgia for about 1.5 years (and before that lived in Malta for 3 years) so hopefully I can help you here

Poker in Batumi is ok but I've never really enjoyed the live poker scene in Georgia tbh. The games have a lot of cheats and team players in them who tend to target the none Georgian speakers. People are allowed to smoke at the table which I personally hate. $500 is about the average monthly salary here so you don't really get too much money splashing around in the games. And it's fairly rare that you'll get a drunk tourist donking off in the games so you'll probably end up playing with a group of nitty locals (at least in my experience over a fairly small sample size playing in Batumi). Batumi in the winter is also pretty much a ghost town as well from what I have heard so if you were going to go there I would recommend the summer time when there would be more tourists. The Leogrand Casino is the only place I know in Batumi which runs regular $1/$3 & $2/$5 poker games in the summer. I went once during a Cashgame festivals there and there was a $5/$10 and two PLO tables as well.

Overall though I enjoy living in Georgia and was surprised how scenic and friendly it is as you said in your post. I only speak English and day to day the language barrier hasn't been a issue for me, most Georgians speak broken / ok English and most Georgians in their 20s speak good English. If I'm ever in a tough situation Google Translate normally does the trick anyway

As you mentioned Malta, it has a fairly good poker scene imo. It has three Casinos fairly close to each other and on most weekends during the summer will have games running in all three. During the winter you'll still get a nightly cash game in at least one of the Casinos and at least when I lived there there was a nightly tourney as well. People speak good English and currency is Euro rather than the GEL. Level of play is good though, a lot of online grinders move to Malta to grind and a lot of the locals are actually very good. I found the games tougher than the UK anyway. Renting and cost of living in Malta is sky high as well, especially if you want to be living within walking distance of the Casinos.

Let me know if you need anything else

I've heard it's decent as a vacation destination, but long-term, you'd do much better a little north across the border in Russia.

Lol georgia,yeah good for ****ed up autistic losers at life like you

what about playing online from Georgia ?

can i play pokerstars from georgia?

Originally read as 'Georgia (near Russia) as a lap dance destination', came for pics, left disappointed

In the end I worked for an insurance company doing spreadsheets for a while instead.

Pah! F that, right back to Georgia....

Hey boys, can someone please share info about the cost of living in the city center of Batumi? studio/1 bedroom /WiFI / Food /etc. I know there are websites that give approximations but they are not updated regularly and precisely for "random cities" - I'd appreciate any extra information. (also about your likes and dislikes in general, if any of you ended up living there for multiple months+

Thanks!

Anyone know more about the capital Tbilisi? It's gaining steam in the digital nomad community due to extremely affordable cost of living while still offering a decent amount of amenities and a little slice of Euro life. Americans (and citizens from 84 other countries) can stay a full year visa free. I'm thinking about making it my base and then just traveling Europe for a little while.

Here's a very short vid showing the city, looks pretty nice to me:

I think the term is digital nomad, not laptop entrepreneur.

I read it this way too.

I hear sarajevo is nice