Not a chance unfortunately.

i quit smoking about 3 years ago

would stay up at night both sweating and scratching my incredibly itchy body like 4 nights in a row as i went through withdrawal

a few times cheated and tried smoking again when out with friends - the cigs tasted horrible and disgusting - heard that from others who'd quit too, it's like once you finally stop, like for good not quit for a month or so, you're body really goes out of it's way to discourage you from restarting

feel liberated now, a lot of the smokes i was having before weren't because i enjoyed it but because i needed to prevent anxiety/etc

I know exactly what you mean and that's why I won't stop any time soon. Not so much anxiety but rather stress from what I do. I'm at that stage where I'm not quite big enough to hire on staff but not so small that I can do all the work easily myself. Things will probably quiet down after this coronavirus has run its course. In the meantime just trying to get through it all.

The prime minister came out the other day and stated that there is a 0.01% chance that a state of emergency will be declared as he thinks the pandemic is well under control here in Cambodia. But they have banned starting tonight travelling from one province to another and Khmer New Years has been cancelled in Phnom Penh. The bars are closed for the most part as I would say only about 20%-30% of them still operate. Naga is still closed but the other games that have decided to continue operating are thriving. Riverking has 3-4 tables daily/nightly and the Triple777 Club has what appears to be a healthy omaha game. Another interesting affect of this virus is that other games have sprouted up around town. A Korean junket from Naga reached out to me this week and asked if I can send them some players since their people have nothing else to do while the casino is closed but play hold'em. I obliged and sent them a few players the first couple of days but my involvement will probably stop there. I told them that I have no interest in working in a live room and that I really did not want any conflict with the other games running. That did not stop them from calling me six times today but I just ignored the last two calls. I actually don't enjoy working with other Koreans all that much as since i was raised in America and don't speak the language as well, they somewhat treat me like a second class citizen.

As for myself, things are plenty busy with the online agency since in most parts of the world casinos are closed anyway. I still have plenty of local business but have picked up players not only in other countries of this region, but also in the Americas and Europe. The family is doing well, although my wife is going a bit crazy staying inside all the time. As I have not been able to restrict my movements as much as I want due to work, I'm tempted to send my wife and the kids off to her mother's while I stay here. But then I hear reports that this whole virus might be more rampant in the provinces so I remain unsure. However serious it is here it looks as if the powers that be might be planning on reopening everything soon. The aforementioned junket commented the other day that they were sure that the casino would reopen by the beginning of April and if that's true, other businesses should follow suit. I would not mind a return to normalcy but then again who can be sure that is the right thing to do. Whenever this thing is over I'm definitely going on a holiday somewhere, most likely Thailand as I was supposed to be there this week before all this happened. There are more important things than a holiday for me of course so here's to hoping that this thing flattens out soon and that everyone remains safe.

From what has been happening pretty much everywhere in the world, I seriously doubt this will happen, even if there intentions remain to do so... Other leaders from fragile economies also resisted as long as possible (see Mexico, Brasil etc.), but eventually had to shut most of the businesses down. I do not see Cambodia escaping the same scenario. Just a headsup and I hope I am wrong for your case, but the sample size is significant enough across the world

How easy/realistic is it to find cheap accommodation for 1/2 month(s) in Cambodia (compared to TH) ? Is AirBNB the best bet or is it also possible to rent'em the "normal" way? Thanks

I'm not arguing for or against any decision to open things back up. I'm just repeating what I've heard many say will be the case. I do think such a decision could potentially be catastrophic. We'll just have to wait and see.

For that amount of time either AirBNB or a serviced apartment is your best bet, although the latter wouldn't be cheap. There are also several guesthouses that will have monthly rates. Some aren't that expensive and everything right now is depressed in terms of price anyway.

Not a lot of governments are doing much to support their citizens while also telling them to shut down and stop earning money. This will end up forcing most people's hand to just carry on and take their chance imo.

Quit smoking. Not really going to be a way to avoid this forever on the current course and don't think there has ever been a successful vaccine for the Coronavirus family.

The decision to finally close Naga as late as the government did is not in line with the rest of the world.

Handling chips and cash in an air conditioned environment amongst travellers would have to be one of the riskier undertakings you could imagine.

A lot of SEA were slow to invoke restrictions but even Thailand has set up checkpoints restricting access into and out of it's Provinces and have proclaimed all schools closed until 01 July.

That is a long way away.

So even if the government sees fit to re-open quickly, researching worldwide medical best practice especially in countries not influenced by China is the way to go as the flow on effects to friends and family can be so severe.

Stay safe guys.

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update regarding the situation here in Cambodia. The casino remains closed and it appears it will continue to be that way for at least another month. School teachers have been told that they will not reopen until June at the earliest, which is a good indication for a timeline for everything else. KTVs, clubs and cinemas remain closed although the mall is still fully accessible. As far as the bars are concerned they are officially closed but more and more are "unofficially" opening every day. I would say at this point about 30%-40% are open. Everything else seems business as usual as restaurants, shops and markets all remain open.

As for myself, I stay at home most days working on the online poker agency as that has kept me busy for obvious reasons. I try to play as much as I can, although most of my action is online. I've gone to the private games a handful of times like the Riverking and Triple777 as they both remain open and the Red Fox continues to run their weekly tournaments. But things are obviously thinned out a bit and with Naga being closed the game selection is worse than it already was prior to the pandemic. Some of my live friends are struggling a bit as a result but online games have become even better than before as most stay at home and have to play online for a lack of choices if nothing else. I feel fortunate to be living here to be honest. I don't want to comment or speculate as to why, but the virus just has not hit here as hard as everywhere else. I realize things can change very quickly but for the moment Cambodia seems to be one of the better places to be stuck in this world.

i never understand how you borrow money to ppl you dont know.

Let this be a lesson for everyone..

If some one comes up to you, you dont know more than 10 years and asking to borrow its a simple no ty.

He knows he is called KAM

#sKAM

Anyone got any insight on the games in Kampot? I see posters for 7deuce and Aquarium. Any good action?

Those are all old posters and no longer run. The only game I know of is at the Playground and I think it's a $0.10-$0.20 that runs a few times a week.

Just an update on the situation here in Cambodia. Currently the government is reporting 0 new cases with a 100% recovery rate. Nagaworld remains closed but three games are still running in town at the Riverking, Triple777 and the tourneys at the Red Fox. Nightclubs, KTVs and cinemas remain closed as well and teachers have also been told that they will not be returning to work at least for another month. I'm not sure how summer break works here so this just may mean that they are done for this school year. Restaurants and most other type of businesses remain open, although bars have been hassled by the police as of late to close down in certain areas. The hostess bars are about 65% open I would say and those that haven't come back are probably just not able to financially I'm guessing. The riverside is no longer a ghost town and basically looks "normal". The outside lights are off on the bars but all the girls are basically sitting outside at this point hollering at every customer to come in. Secrets is the only establishment that is fully operational with all their lights on as technically they serve food and can be categorized as a restaurant. Street 104 is basically open completely so we'll either go there to Babylon Bar or hang out at the aforementioned Secrets on 136.

Life is returning to normal here although it never strayed too far from it in the first place. I went grocery shopping at Aeon Mall the other day and it was basically packed as I had trouble maneuvering through the aisles with our shopping cart. There are no travel restrictions so I'm headed down to Kampot this weekend with the wife for a much needed break. It's my birthday and the wife has a best friend living down there so I figured this is a good opportunity to get away. With the whole pandemic online poker has obviously been slammed and that's kept me busy on most days so I just need a break.

My trip to Kampot did not start well as the hotel I booked was closed, which made me wonder why they're still on booking.com. But I managed to get that cancelled without any fees and found a place down the river called Pippali that turned out to be better anyway. More importantly my wife loved the room and seemed like she really appreciated the time to ourselves as she was going a little stir crazy taking care of our kids every day. Most of the trip was just relaxing in our room and around the pool, although we did see some friends and hit up my favorite restaurant spots.

Kampot seems even less affected by the pandemic as all businesses are open and all normal festivities such as weddings and parties at the backpacker spots have resumed. We did manage to get out to a sunflower field today about an hour out of town that my wife wanted to visit. It was a long drive, completely over priced and a complete tourist trap. But my wife and her friend really wanted to go so happy wife, happy life. We're on our last night here and will return to Phnom Penh tomorrow. I couldn't completely relax during the trip as players will always need deposits, withdraws and such. I also took a long conference call with an old friend from my Vegas days who started a small club on an app that I agent for as well. He wanted my advice on how to run a club and the whole process really as he's never worked in this area before. I told him what I've concluded about this whole thing weeks ago, basically that it's the most difficult and stressful thing I've ever done in my life. I advised him to keep his club small and involve as few people as possible while trying to grow the player base. This business brings out all types and my friend is one of the good ones.

Once I return to Phnom Penh tomorrow I plan on starting a new Twitch stream to run nightly. One of my friends in Thailand recently started one and it looked like something worthwhile. I'll be playing 6-card Omaha during the broadcast but it'll mostly be an opportunity for me to talk about the game and where I think it's headed. My equipment is not great so I'll have to stream in a lower quality but I've been planning this for so long that I just want to get it started at this point. Hopefully it'll be a worthwhile endeavor for me as well.

Nice updates. Drop your twitch link, poker_triad when you get a chance. Good luck with everything.

I don't think I'm allowed to do that here. I will say though that the channel name is in the post you made so not hard to look me up. To be honest though I've had trouble with the channel as my internet is not the greatest and I've been having dropped frames and such. I'm still working out the kinks and so far I've had two streams; won $320 in the first and lost $270 on the second. I'm only up about $300 this week but with rakeback the week should be decent enough.

I just got home from the riverside drinking with Big Bananas and there is something that I think needs to be said. I drink at a bar on street 130 called Honeypot and I usually keep the company of this one particular girl. I hadn't seen her during this whole pandemic and she told me tonight that she actually was in a moto accident during that time. Her face was heavily damaged and she required surgery and obviously could not afford it. She told me that her boss took her to the hospital and paid for the medical expenses; I'm not sure if he paid for everything but at the very least he helped her out to a great extent. Had she not told me I would never had even noticed as the doctor's did a great job in fixing her up. While things have been relatively normal here during this pandemic, times have still been rough for some and these desperate times have brought out some of the worst people I have encountered, both within the poker community and beyond. Having said that, those that have stepped up and helped those in need should be recognized and acknowledged. The boss of this bar that I am speaking of actually owns four bars on street 130; Honeypot, Angry Birds, Splash Bar and Ponytails. Both he and his manager do a great job and if there were ever people that deserved people's business it is these two. So if any of you reading this are still here and frequent these bars, be sure to drop by any one of these four bars and have a drink. They'll never pad your bill, the girls will treat you right and you'll have a good time. I'm not getting a thing from making this post and I am not shilling. These are just some good people that deserve to be recognized and I just thought it should be mentioned.

I'd love to contribute to these bars economy but still stuck in HK here, can't go anywhere without quarantine on both sides, hopefully some opening up during the summer

I can't find the articles, but there have been a couple of things written about restrictions lifted for six countries. Those entering have been quarantined for 2 days and sent home to "self quarantine" for 14 days.

in Beijing people are beginning to not take it so seriously anymore and outside beijing it's life as normal and no masks

I dropped the Twitch stream for the moment as my internet has been very spotty and inconsistent. According to Big Bananas the line coming from Vietnam has had issues and will be this way for a while. To be honest I've been too busy to stream daily anyway so I'll try to revisit the channel on a future date. The online agency is humming along and I've been playing live a bit more lately. A friend of mine opened up a new $1-$2 game in town and I've been trying to support it as much as I can. I was originally going to run the game myself but passed due to my schedule and let my friend do it. As he speaks no English I told him I would do his advertising for him and play whenever possible. I mentioned in a previous post that Secrets is the only bar operating in the open with all the lights on so we'll head there quite a bit. I went there the other night with Big Bananas and valuecutting for the latter's birthday. We discovered that they serve Absinthe so we got a bunch of young girls at the table who are typically shy and fed them shots all night long. It didn't take too long for them to loosen up as shown in the YouTube video below.

We went to a bar on 104 the other night where I have a regular but she had the night off. So I drank with a girl that I've known for 4 years, who by the way is the most fun you'll have in a bar. She's the kind of girl who will pull the curtains in the VIP lounge without having to ask her to do it. We were out with some of the Korean $2-$5 omaha players from the new game and they were quite shocked at how she was "entertaining" me. I don't think they knew that girls in the bars can get this way. She kept asking me for shots to do certain "things" for me, or to me might be a better word, to which I happily obliged. It got a little awkward when my regular girl came in later but the first girl is an old pro so she was fine as long as I bought her a few more drinks. There are girls that will cause a huge scene over something like this as how dare you buy drinks or bar fine someone else. Yeah, you want to let go of those quite quickly.

Played in the new Triple Seven $1-$2 game last night, just long enough to see my friend who opened the table lose for the 6th straight day in a row. He swears he's running bad but I can't be sure having watched him play this week. I won some pocket change but my friend who won a lot took me and the floor manager out to dinner at Rokku, one of the nicest sushi places in town. They have a great view from the sky deck which is where we ate and they even have a live band. Not knowing my friend was paying I ordered a bunch of items and an 18 year old Chivas Regal.

We moved it onto Secrets Bar after dinner then to Honeypot Bar to close out the night. Sorry but no pictures from the bars this night. Just a standard night of drinking and fondling; nothing too exciting. Will be back at Honeypot tonight as it's their manager's birthday and I promised I would come by for a toast. Might sneak into play a few live hands before then if my friend texts me.

Rokku
Phnom, #507 Preah Sisowath Quay, Preah Suramarit Blvd (268), Penh 12207
070 999 100
https://maps.app.goo.gl/7Zj73CYEuLgpziV18