Dancing with the Old Lady, the Journey continues...

I guess we got it wrong all along : it was never about picking a fight with the old lady, crushing her like no tomorrow

by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58377330#post58377330)

gg bro, best of luck in the upcoming live stops

Thx bro! Next stop will be... Rio de Janeiro in 2 weeks The KSOP is offering an interesting mix of mid-highstakes tournaments, BIs ranging from a few hundred dollars (will not touch those) to 25k (will not play the latter neither)!!! I will mainly focusing on 1-5k BIs, many of which have 60 minute blind levels - God WSOP Bahamas had lol turbo levels 🙄 I should fire about 20k of BIs, forever gunning for that elusive 6 digit score - and I am determined af to bink it, as I was priorly a few years back for reaching that mid 5 digit score https://ksop.com.br/en/ by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58377395#post58377395)

Having to deal with gang wars while attempting to play main event poker in the Bahamas sounds strangely ideal! Of course, the reality was probably a little more jarring. GL with the next MTT adventure and trusting you don't measure ROI only in terms of $s.

Nah, as much as I am obsessed with a 6 digit score, the travel EV element highly factors in as well. I will be going with L for a 3 day holiday in Rio before grinding 2 weeks of MTTs yo by Everest17 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58387117#post58387117)

Ended my thread long ago but still occasionally lurk some PG&C threads!

Gotcha. Are you disappointed with post-pandemic atmosphere at the Playground - like terrible and slow service, lack of major tournament events??? On the other hand, now that the new poker room is completed and the hotel should follow suit shortly, WPT should be back in no time

Run good all

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58176693#post58176693)

After (virtually) railing some friends at the WSOP and feeling that itch to dive back into the HS live MTT scene yo - very soon, as I should receive my residency in Argentina within a few weeks and therefore be free to leave/enter the country -, I went to check my results since late 2019 (when I first started playing live MTTs more often 😊) and, surprise, I'm an aby... See full post

How difficult/easy was it to obtain Argentinian residency?

KSOP, Rio de Janeiro After enjoying a 10/10 vacation with the family in Mendoza, we rushed back in the lapse of a day, covered the 1000kms separating San Rafael from Buenos Aires, and barely had time to unpack our goods that L and I were already hopping on a plane to Rio a few days later gangsta style yo :p The plan was to enjoy 2 1/2 days with L before grinding the KSOP, but plans changed as the syndicate in Argentina went on a strike on Tuesday, thus cancelling all flights in the process ; moreover, after landing in Rio, I suddenly got hit with a tummy ache - unfortunately a common occurrence over the past month -, to then get an unexpected intense fever shake me up just after crossing immigration, jeez 😮 :shocked: 😊 So yeah, combined that with the greyish skies and the absence of sun, and our romantic trip was hit with a case of hiccups - or, perhaps more descriptive, a case of diarrhea, you know :p Nonetheless, my spidey senses - AKA blind luck 😉 - was on point this time, as I had elected the perfect beachside condo yo

Given that we were covered by greyish skies and hit by a lightish rain, we were also blessed by an intense wind that carried with it the soothing sound of the crashing waves L has returned to B.A. and as for myself, I have checked-in into my new (more basic) AirBnB, will head to the casino shortly after breakfast and will jump in the Day 1A of the ME if I manage to digest/hold-in my food intake accordingly 😉 The unique and interesting thing about this series, is that even if they are 6-8 waves of day1 for the ME, they are sparse, offered every other day and thus spread across a week+, making firing multiple bullets in the main while playing the side HRs events in a more flexible fashion, a thing yo Will be firing 14-20k in BIs. by LOL_BREXIT m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58411248#post58411248)

How hard/easy was it to get Argentinian residency?

Generally, it has the reputation of being quite easy. In my situation and as a poker player in general that cannot show a steady source of income monthly (an income on the same date), it is another question all together. I settled for getting an immigration lawyer (2.4k), and I feel that it would of been unfathomable without her, tbh. Also keep in mind that the new Milei government is cracking down hard on illegal immigrants, so things have changed. edit : Ended up playing day 1A of the ME yesterday, got 5 starting stacks within 90 minutes - yup, ran hot af -, only to finish the day with 5.5 starting stacks 🙄 Which is completely fine, obviously, as well above average and chips worth WAY more when down to 35% of the field left to 99% of the field left, you know. Anyhow, played pretty good considering I had been sick for 2-3 days, ran obviously well and am taking today off to rest, meditate, train, grind online and study. We got this Peace

GL in the donkaments Dubn!

Will in all likelihood have a ft live stream tomorrow : the 6k (CAD) PLO SHR. 10 left, we are just under average, one very short and final 8 make it to the ft (pays top 5-6 though, about 80-100k up top). We got this Spoiler Show

Jungleman will probably ft it as well, so that always makes for entertainment

by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58439160#post58439160)

GL in the donkaments Dubn!

Thx friend! Oh yeah, search KSOP PLO SHR if I do not come back to link it ; it should air at about 13:00 EST.

Link to live PLO SHR ft (with Felipe Ramos and Jungleman) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6XfxHoW... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6XfxHoWoVY)

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58443485#post58443485)

Link to live PLO SHR ft (with Felipe Ramos and Jungleman) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6XfxHoW... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6XfxHoWoVY)

Caught a bit of this on the stream last night (the commentary was beyond my language skills). One day you’re up against Negreanu, the next it’s Mr. Cates... In any case, hope you finished well (I believe there were six left when I turned in and you had about 20bb).

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58445066#post58445066)

Watched a little of this on the stream last night (commentary was beyond my linguistic capabilities). One day you're playing against Negreanu, then Mr. Cates ... Anyway, hoping you're ended up doing well (I think there were six left when I hit the sack and you had around 20bb).

Yeah, the language barrier thingy over here has been interesting for me, as Portuguese is pretty darn close to Spanish, which makes playing poker, eating at restaurants, basic conversations etc. quite easy for yours truly So, as opposed to when I am playing live events in Argentina where I am literally always the non-Latino foreigner (and obviously standout in the process), over here, having the likes of a couple of dozens+ foreigners, I actually pass for... an Argentino, go figure 🙄 I finished in 6th (12k CAD), when I committed a slight ICM error when the 4th in chips (that slightly had me covered), opened for full pot and I mistakingly thought I had fold equity with my AKs (the 6th in chips had 7bbs, I had 12bbs). I did not win the flip (I need to learn had to flip better, as I loss 2 crucial flips worth 10ks in equity ffs), but such is life. Going back to the day2 of ME on Saturday (with 2x average) and then got the 3k HR to finish off the series. Hope all is well friend, peace.

Good luck with the upcoming event. There's nothing wrong with refining ICM spots through some retro analysis — it's astonishing how narrow certain folds must be. Also enjoyed the vicarious thrill of watching you final table a PLO event. Would love to see more of your non-"non-Latino foreigner" escapades within the poker legend crowd.

I don't think you have to beat yourself up about going broke with AK and 12bb flipping at that stage. But what do I know - I haven't kept up with current tourney strategy in recent years. Still a decent cash and a shot at mo money in the main event - GL

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58446211#post58446211)

GL with the next event. Nothing wrong with fine tuning ICM spots via a little retro analysis! (mind boggling how tight some folds need be). Anyway, did experience some vicarious joy seeing you FT a PLO event. Hope to see some more non-"non-Latino foreigner" adventures amongst the poker legend demographic.

Thx bro! And yeah, I usually do a little studying before coming to a series, especially considering that the gist of my lab work for the past couple of years has been (almost) strictly aimed at PLO cash. So this being said, I did navigate the early stages of the tournament and was one of the better players playing deep. Moreover, considering my online success over the past decade and what I have accomplished there with both NLHE and PLO @ 400 stakes, I try not to kick myself for making hiccups when it comes to ICM, but still, it stings, you know 😊 Speaking of named pros, I stopped being star struck by and have since engaged in quite a few banters/interesting conversations. What was interesting about this series though, is that given that it is in Portuguese and all, and that we, as non-Latino foreigners, walk somewhat on common ground, so I got to hangout with them more as peers this time than I would of in a normal series. I can say this about a few of them :

• Felipe Ramos is one of the better humans I have met (that is internationally famous). So humble and a genuinely nice guy Spoiler Show

we were talking about having dreadlocks in our 20s at the ft 😆 🙄.

• Jungle is a fracking alien, no doubt about it 😃 I mean he was a zombie throughout the tournament, looked completely uninterested and had to be reminded constantly when it was his turn to act :p His way of handling himself at the table or even the simple act of walking around, is pure eccentricity at its finest (and probably flirts with being on the autism spectrum). Nice guy though, we joked around quite a bit and he answered some of my theory questions when we were alone off the table
• Benny Glaser : now I did not hold him highly in my esteem levels after we had squared off years back in Dublin and his arrogance rubbed me the wrong way. That said, he just seems to be extremely competitive, takes the game to heart and turned out to be an alright lad after all
• I will not name this last fellow (out of respect), but when we engaged thoroughly in conversation (being the only English speaking lads at the initial table) and he came off as being pretentious af and whatnot (with an actual tingle in his eyes that he is something special), I did not get turned off by his arrogance like I usually do in this precise situation... It was so transparent that the dude must of had it rough in high school and that he is using his poker fame to compensate/hide behind, so none of the "playing Triton 100ks", "having a 100% of himself", "making millions of dollars", bothered me this time around, as arrogance is the best shadow to hide one's insecurities, right... by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58446275#post58446275)

I don't think you have to beat yourself up about going broke with AK and 12bb flipping at that stage. But what do I know - I haven't kept up with current tourney strategy in recent years. Still a decent cash and a shot at mo money in the main event - GL

Thx friend! Yeah, I still remain bummed out with the last hand before the final table that I elected to take a flip (as opposed to folding) and how I no longer had the 2nd-3rd most chips at the final table, but found myself 6th 😊 In the end though, I probably just cost myself 3-5k in equity (which is oftentimes an hour's swing online) and just need to learn how to flip better, you know Spoiler Show

and revise those ICM spots in the future to squeeze out maximum EV yo

Meh, min-cashed the ME for 3k, which is quite disappointing, when factoring my initial EV of having 5.5 starting stacks, but quite satisfying when considering that I ran bad, just barely squeezed into the cash and lost ATo < A8s for 35bbs literally the hand after the bubble burst. So much more happy with this (little) score than the PLO one, as the former is due to run bad, as opposed to an ICM hiccup like the latter. 3k HR tomorrow, we got this Spoiler Show

Am tired of min-cashing though 😊

Spoiler Show

Quite ironic that I cannot get a decent score for the life of me over the past few years even if my game has improved drastically as opposed to, you know, when I was (semi) binking everything but playing so-so 🙄

Hey friends, by all appearances - granting desire moving forward... - I will be blogging on a new site : https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/t... (https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/topic/34655-the-journey-continues-dubnjoys-wsop-ept-and-inner-healing-process-yo-😎/#comment-346367) Of course, all of yous know my story and this will be a follow up to it ; see you there!!!

It seems like you’ve gone through some significant life changes lately — I hope you can adapt as smoothly as possible. The vipassana retreat sounds like a solid idea. Wishing you good luck with the MTT grind in the coming months. Will you post occasional updates here, or is everything shifting to the new blog?

by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58522627#post58522627)

Sounds like some major life changes happened recently - hope you can adjust as smoothly as possible - the vipassana sounds like a good plan. Best of luck on the mtt grind over the next months. Will you occasionally update here or is every thing moving to the new blog site?

The separation with L has been much HARDER than I could of fathom - and inhuman, might I sadly add... :( - and never would of envisioned this despicable/devilish side in her. But alas, such is the fate of someone that has DEEP af trauma and has not dealt with it, unfortunately. I will still be updating over here occasionally, much in the same pace as I have done recently.

I'm confident 10 days of vipassana will keep you in the appropriate mental space. I look forward to hearing how you drift through all those tangled thoughts and feelings. Easy game!

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58522785#post58522785)

I'm confident 10 days of vipassana will make sure you stay in the right kind of space. I can't wait to hear how you drift through all the tangled thoughts and feelings. Easy game!

Ohhhhh, for sure man!!! I am TREMENDOUSLY excited about ridding myself of A TON of emotional shyt!!! I also understand it will be painful af (but necessary). So, by all appearances I will be blogging quite often on my new Unibet Community thread (linked above), as I have a good deal of newly found free time and a desire to (narratively) let loose yo So expect frequent updates folks

Good luck with the next chapter, Dubn! I'll drop by your new blog to keep up with your progress.

by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58530230#post58530230)

Best of luck with the next chapter, Dubn! I’ll drop by your new blog to keep up with your progress.

Hey Ben, thanks for following, friend. Question: will you be at the WSOP this year? Coffee or beer’s on me if you are 😉

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58551429#post58551429)

Hey Ben, thanks for following, friend. Question: will you be at the WSOP this year??? Coffee or beer on me if you are 😉

Sadly, I probably won't. I’ll be in Vermont for the majority of the summer. Where else are you heading? You should think about NOLA!

by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58556665#post58556665)

Alas, I probably won't be — I'll be in Vermont for most of the summer.

Sigh, that's too bad, bro. Still, I'm sure our paths will cross one of these years... by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58556665#post58556665)

Where else are you headed? You should think about NOLA!

I honestly have no clue where my travels might lead me, but at my current age, I expect that between Canada–Argentina and regular international live MTT stops, I doubt any youthful spur-of-the-moment choices will win out, as unlike back in my hippie days... That said, NOLA is #1 on my list of US destinations, so I’m sure someday soon, friend

For those of you interested in my most recent (last week) Ayahuasca ceremony, it can be found as the last post on my Unibet Community blog : https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/t... (https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/topic/34655-the-journey-continues-dubnjoys-wsop-ept-and-inner-healing-process-yo-😎/page/5/#comment-350065) Peace

Really upsetting to watch the Unibet Community fall apart :(

by Nestabear m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58784638#post58784638)

So sad to see the Unibet Community crumble to dust :(

Yes indeed, very sad, as is Boabet (the new Unibet site for most countries) limiting players to playing in the browser and thus only a max of 4 tables :(. So sad to see a site that I believed so much in its player friendly philosophy, suddenly become seemingly as greedy as the others... Anyhow, for those that have not been following, I had been blogging almost daily in the following site for the past year : https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/t... (https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/topic/34655-the-journey-continues-dubnjoys-wsop-ept-and-inner-healing-process-yo-😎/) Cliffs :

Spoiler Show

• Extremely tough breakup with L
• A single's man trip to Lima for a couple weeks
• Whiffing 40k of tournaments in Vegas, despite busting out relatively close to the bubble
• A calming 2 weeks trip to Dawson City
• 6 wonderful weeks spent in Montreal, apart from the extremely tilting WSOPC
• 5 unexpected weeks spent in Lima after meeting C, AKA my new gf yo ♥♥♥
• Returning to Argentina to donate my stuff, grind WSOPC Rosario to breakevenish results

Anyhow, I have not decided if I will be back here blogging daily for BSOP Millions Sao Paolo AKA the biggest ever tournament series ever held in LATAM (a 5k ME, 10k HR, 25k SHR and 50k along with daily 1-3k ), or just update if I have a final table, feature table or visibility of some sort... Probably more the latter, tbh, unless there is significant traction again itt... Peace y'all ♥

I enjoyed reading about your Ayahuasca experience on the Unibet thread. GL in Sao Paolo!

Too bad that Unibet has gone bad - I've been periodically reading your blog on their forum site. Hope you do continue to report on your adventures here.

BSOP Sao Paolo Day 0 : (Financial) Preparations Alright, I will be starting off the series with the 3k five card PLO tomorrow ; I had been wanting to play the 5k NLHE Millions (which seems like better value), but am struggling with liquidity right now (atm's suck in Brazil and the BSOP only accepts USDT as opposed to BTC, which is giving me a headache...). I have contacted some Argentino players I know that could help me swap 10k+, but in the meantime, I am rolled to play the 800PLO and 800 ME (all figures USD$) for the next three days, until I get my liquidity organized yo ; we got this yo . by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58794868#post58794868)

Too bad that Unibet has gone bad - I've been periodically reading your blog on their forum site. Hope you do continue to report on your adventures here.

Yeah, Unibet has been my bread and butter since 2017 and I had taken a liking into blogging on the community site, but alas, such is the ever flowing change of life 😊:p🙄 Thx for following friend ♥ by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58794497#post58794497)

I enjoyed reading about your Ayahuasca experience on the Unibet thread. GL in Sao Paolo!

Thx bro 😀. The good thing about moving to Lima in January, is that I plan on doing Ayahuasca at least 2-4 times a year yo .

BSOP Day 1 : 3k 5 card PLO A little bit of running around to manage to get some liquidity going : a limit of 2k when crossing the Brazilian border (I brought 5k in cash), very low limits for atm withdrawals (500USD$ daily) and only having USDT as crypto options, were deterrents to playing the 5k today, unfortunately 😊:( -, so I found myself hopping in the 3k, thus leaving 2 bullets for the 800$ PLO tomorrow :p. Anyhow, I started off the tournament with the jitters, given that my only 5 card PLO experience was back in 2019 when I was grinding a 5-10 cash game in Lima, Peru. So I proceeded with extreme caution, not 3betting any hand, even AAds, but given that I was OOP, vs 2 players and 250bbs, I did not want to be so transparent about my hand being in the BB and all. And then, lo and behold : I just gained a shytload of confidence heading into level 3 yo But, it was not to be : I would ultimately go down losing a flip and just running terribly bad in previous hands. Nonetheless, I still feel extremely confident about this series and upcoming EPT Prague : we got this yo

The rest area during break with a pool and a bar

BSOP Day 2 : 1k PLO A much better day at the office today, as literally all my major bluffs got through 😮😃 - and there was more then a handful 😉, hence I am advancing to day 2 with 1.5x average, 27 players left (17 get paid) with 40k (CAD$) up top yo The final table will be on Day 3, but I am not sure if it will be televised, as it will be in competition with another ft (the mini Main Event 400$ BI), so we will see, but I will be sure to link it here if it is yo We got this 😉

Spoiler Show

GO DUBN GO!

BSOP Millions Day 3 : PLO 1k day 2 And... we... by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58800716#post58800716)

Spoiler Show

GO DUBN GO!

Spoiler Show

Binked it 😃😀

So many hands to talk about and 3 that immediately come to mind, but it is almost 4am, I still have to meditate/calm down and am going to play the 1k ME tomorrow. But I will be back after the series to speak more details of certain spots/certain hands played, but in the meantime, I will keep up with the daily updates. We got this yo

()

Congrats! Looking forward to the sober-minded recap.

BSOP Sao Paolo Day 5 : The 1k Main Event Well, I could not get any traction going for the life of me :p. Off 3 bullets, that is 🙄 Which made me dearly miss the good ole 4 card game, as my edge in the latter is >>>>> what it is in the 2 card game, where even the recs have come a long way and are not as clueless as they use to be - enough to contribute to variance being even nastier, you know 😉 -, where in the 4 card PLO game, the 10k PLO Championship is soft as frack (for me) and I would prefer to grind the latter to any NLHE 2-5k, no jokes!!! Anyhow, tomorrow I will be playing the 1.5k Mystery Bounty, it does start at 18:00 which will give me plentiful of time to meditate, train and then head out to the historical centre of town to walk around and soak in some sun beforehand yo Life just happens, takes you places and whatnot and I do strongly innerly feel that C is the one Spoiler Show

my present gf as described in my Unibet blog

, but God damn is Brazil so fracking great on multiple levels ♥ People are awesome. Kind. Compassionate. Colorful. Macho, sure, but at a level that I identify with, as opposed to toxic. The culture is fracking amazing. Very open-minded. Borderline hippie at a general level. The language beautiful. And I would perhaps give this country a shot if it wasn't that I would have to spend a few years learning a new language, and... more importantly... C. Of course. by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58801662#post58801662)

Congrats! Looking forward to the sober-minded recap.

Thx bro! Will do so most likely after the series when I will be chilling by the beach, an hour away, for 4 days prior to heading to Prague. As far as the recount goes, it will probably be a single long post, as I no longer have the stomach (nor time) for the multi-posts of yesteryears to describe the HHS and an overall narrative focussing on the mood and inner emotional swings :p

()

BSOP Sao Paolo Day 6 : 1.5k Mystery Bounty Day 1 Took a hit at the end, but am nonetheless going back to 16.5bbs, 72 players left/pays 47 in the Mystery Bounty. We (perhaps...) got this yo

()

BSOP Day 7 : Eliminations Meh : busted the Mystery Bounty by 3bet shoving KJo < AK and then busted the 700$ 6 max at the end of the third level 😊. I was about to jump in the 1.5k LAPT NLHE event and proceed on playing 3 live tournaments for the first day in my life, but felt completely exhausted, a little depressed, and picturing myself within the comfort of the 4 walls of my AirBnB felt >>>>> than grinding another event for 10h str8 :p Tomorrow is a 3.5k NLHE event, 50 minutes blind levels. We got this

Thats tournament poker for you 😀 Congrats on the bink.

BSOP Day 8 : 3.5k NLHE Challenge After busting out on a bluff in a HUMoNGOUS pot, I get coolered fh over fh against the overly agro reg lol, am left with 6bbs, I start looking up at the EPT Prague schedule - which is pretty decent/has 3 PLO events yo - while awaiting to bust... Only to run like the fracking gods yo . And spin it up to 83bbs for day 2, thus having 2.6 stacks/1.5 average 😃. We got this yo 😉. by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58805651#post58805651)

Thats tournament poker for you 😀 Congrats on the bink.

Thx friend ♥

BSOP Day 9 : 3.5k NLHE Challenge day 2 Well, I ran pretty darn good, played my A+ game and POUNCED on the whole table during the bubble to greatly INCREASE my stack yo The problem is, I started running cold in the last 2 levels, got a table change, got stuck in between two LARGE fellows - like 90% fat/10% muscle 😊 - that were fracking annoying the living shyt out of me, given that I was forced to squeeze my way in, fight for an adequate amount of space!!! Which, after spending 5 years in Argentina, comes quite inherently, believe me 😉. All that being said, in the last round of the evening, when CO opened to 2bbs, I decided to 3bet to 2.6x with K♦3♦, which is fine, but then villain got into a staring game, was within my bubble, literally shoulders to shoulders and all which, normally I do not engge all that much with, but for some reason, I elected to do so this time, got nervous given that I was at the bottom of my range, fatigued, had no space and was in a position where I would of prefered >>>>> an MMA sparring match as opposed to a 3 bet pot 😊🙄 When the flop came J45♦ and my 25% cbet was X-R, I folded, disappointed, but alas, it has been my unique moment of weakness over the past couple of days, and moved on with life, bagged 36bbs, which just above average, with 36 players, 6.5k guaranteed thus far and 230k is the first prize money yo We got this yo

BSOP Day 10 : the 3.5k nlhe Challenge And I got 14th for 13k 🙂 I have mixed emotions about this deep run/score, as sure, I added to the profits of my series and came back from 6bbs on day1, lest not forget 😮😃, nonetheless, it is another failed deep run at midstakes 😊. All my binks have come in the small stakes arena they are of course nothing to frown upon, a top 3-5 finish in the no holdem variant would of given me confidence... Oh well, off to the beach for 4 days (where I will recap the series) before heading to EPT Prague yo ; we got this

CONGRATS on the binkage! Well deserved, I'm sure, after all the time you've spent working on your PLO and donkament game. Looking forward to the full recap

Been sick with a mild flu since the end of the BSOP, so never got to conclude the series with a final post - will try to get to it this week… -, but am playing day 1b of the 1k Eureka ME now ; a bit tired, but alive and kicking yo we got this 😉

BSOP Sao Paolo : Final Thoughts (Notepad style yo) Well, my trip by the sea to rest has taken a sickening twist, as it has seen me nailed to my bed for 4 days str8, stricken with a flu 😮:shocked:😊. Even if it has been a mild virus, I have nonetheless alas only got up from my bed to purchase some food. And tomorrow I will be hopping on a 12h Sao Paolo-Paris flight, transfer airports in the City of lights and 5h later fly to Prague. It will only give me an evening of rest/to shake off the jetlag before jumping in the 1k Eureka ME, but nonetheless, we fracking got this yo . But first, before engaging in a new series, let’s speak of the last one, shall we not 😉 :

• Brazil is the nuts in terms of the people and their culture : these peeps are so lively, so colorful, nice, respectful. I have never seen people get eliminated so light heartedly and with a GREAT BIG smile painted on their faces ♥♥♥. On top of being so friendly and welcoming at the tables as well. It is so weird to go from a nut low country for live MTTs (Argentina) to its neighbor (and competitor) being the nut high!!!
• The PLO binkage was a blast!!! A wonderful 2 days. Albeit exhausting. 14h of grinding during each day, that is (we had about 8 minutes left scheduled to play on Day 2 before bagging it up if need be…😉 Being that it was a 1k event and all, the field was obviously weak as frack, with the exception of 2 noticeably solid players (one of whom, I learned a thing or two from ).
• I have my live MTT preparations locked down yo Upon waking up, I instantly sit up in bed and meditate for an hour. Which also means 0 minutes of screen time beforehand. I then brew up some coffee (or mates), sip it up, catch up on online news, eat a banana, drink some yogurt before heading down to the gym. Because my apartment in Sao Paolo was conveniently located on the 22nd floor which was not only the nuts in terms of catching eyecandy visuals, but by pumping that ♥ going down the myriads of stairways yo. I would then proceed to train for 45 minutes, before bolting back - ehhh more like crawling… 😊 - up the 22 floors. The ensuing 12-15h of stamina that followed me throughout the day (and the series in general) was frankly astonishing yo
• It was strange to what extent I doubted of my NLHE game…. I mean, my focus has been on the 4 card game over the past few years, no doubt, but I nevertheless felt extremely sheepish…. Perhaps it was because I got to momentarily see the game through the lenses of my buddy that has become a top 5 MTT player in Montreal and thus come to realize that my game does need some fine tuning, especially in terms of ICM…. Or perhaps it is this never ending run bad that is getting to me… Regardeless, it did feel weird to be this innerly shaken, especially that I have put in a decent amount of ICM work recently, namely through grinding a 3-4 digit amount of 50-100$ Spins…. Oh well!
• I will be looking to attack more selectively MTTs where my EV is higher moving forward, meaning all possible 4 card PLO events and limiting myself to the bigger fields NHLE events.
• I absolutely love Brazil, have had decent success in this country thus far and am looking forward to coming back, especially in Rio de Janeiro. Peace

EPT Prague Day 1 : 1k Eureka Main Event It took me over 26h to cross the Pond, which also included an airport change in good ole Paris, very little sleep and being inflicted by this stingy flu 🙄, so it is with exhaustion at peak levels and jet lag that arrive in Prague in the evening. I would nonetheless jump in the Eureka ME the very next day after a decent night of sleep yo The good news is that all the top dogs have gone to Bahamas, thus weakening SIGNIFICANTLY the player field and I would increase my chips to 5 starting stacks fairly quickly yo By the time I arrive at the bubble, I have a middling stack, purposely tackle around, thus trying to cross the threshold to become a big stack, but alas, lose all of the hands I get involved with and hence find myself being a short stack and bleeding chips away... :(. It is with a mere 6.5bbs that I made it to tomorrow's day 2, but we are alive, itm, and we have succeeded in cashing our first event of the series yo In other news, I think I might favor playing the 5k EPT Main as opposed to the 5k PLO event, given that the former has 60 minute levels and by all appearances very weak fields, and the latter 30 minute blind levels...

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EPT Prague Day 2 : 1k Eureka ME (and resting) Hummm, if I came out guns blazing upon arrival over here, being jet lagged/exhausted and all and yet still grinding a full 15h upon our first day, I have since spent a full 20 minutes (min cash for 2.5k) 😮:shocked:🙄 grinding in the past couple of days. Most of the blame goes on the boring af schedule that offers little outside of the lol 550$ Eureka, and secondly, well... I have lost all interest on grinding online since the Unibet fiasco - at least until 2025 where I will be initiating a new online routine... So yeah, today will be dedicated to meditating, studying, watching movies and resting. Tomorrow is the 2.2k Eureka HR. We got this yo by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58811631#post58811631)

CONGRATS on the binkage! Well deserved, I'm sure, after all the time you've spent working on your PLO and donkament game. Looking forward to the full recap

Thx Ben! The recap was somewhat of a brief one, given that I have been sick/lacking time (and desire) for blogging recently... I still somewhat take the time to do daily briefings, but nothing like the Dubnjoy of yesteryears would do 🙄

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EPT Prague Day 3 : 2.2k Eureka HR Ehhh, not a great day at all at the office : I woke up groggy, still shaken by the flu, jet lagged, and neither of the meditation nor the MMA training was sufficient to spark some level of life into me 😊 I was furthermore placed at a pro-infested table - might of been the worst in the room... -, and really couldn't get anything going (0/3 with my big bluffs), before ultimately bowing out 99 < AQo vs the most annoying pro at the table 😡:(😊. And now, it is 3:19am, I have slept for 3h before waking up, taking some medicine, and hoping that will put me back sound asleep... Tomorrow is either the 5k ME or 5k PLO, depending... The latter has 30 minutes levels, but a slow structure, while the former probably has A LOT more recs/value in it... We will see... There is also a possibility of simply taking the day off, if I feel like shyt again 🙄 We still got this yo 😉

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by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58816650#post58816650)

BSOP Sao Paolo : Final Thoughts (Notepad style yo)- I have my live MTT preparations locked down yo Upon waking up, I instantly sit up in bed and meditate for an hour. Which also means 0 minutes of screen time beforehand. I then brew up some coffee (or mates), sip it up, catch up on online news, eat a banana, drink some yogurt before heading down to the gym. Because my apar... See full post

I'm assuming the apartment building had a lift but you chose not to use it. That's some genuine exercise. I also assume that Prague is still a beautiful city!

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58819474#post58819474)

I'm assuming the apartment building had a lift but you chose not to use it. That's some genuine exercise. I also assume that Prague is still a beautiful city!

Correct on both cases : I would start off my exercise regime by walking down - the easy part, and just to get the pump going, you know 😉 - and finish off the training by crawling my way back up, while always recording an audio for (usually) C[, as to keep my mind distracted from the utter pain of the process 😃😉:p. And yes, Prague is still beautiful. Albeit a bit cold at this time of the year. Today's plan is to successfully move on to day [B]2 in the ME (with a sizable stack) as to enjoy exploring the city tomorrow yo : we got this Speaking of elevators : I am located on the 6th floor this time around, and outside of when I checked in with my luggage, last night was the only time I used it, given that I felt sick and exhausted : 6 floor does not seem like a lot, but I am always a bit out of breathe by the time I reach it yo 😉

EPT Prague Day 4 : 5k Main Event Ehhhh, am tilted 😡😡😡 I had a soft table, was the (small) chip leader for the first few hours, was chipping/grooving along, until I got coolered, lost 85% of my stack in the process, proceeded to build it back to a starting stack until... I got coolered again :p😊:(. I will be firing again in tomorrow's day 1B and final flight ; I have a good feeling about this yo, so (hopefully...) we got this

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EPT Prague Day 5 : 5k Main Event 1B Mehhhh, quite a tilting few levels to the day : I had built up momentum, was sitting on just under 3 stacks, the table was soft af outside of 1 spot and... everything I tried just fracking exploded in my face 😮:shocked::p😡 I am nonetheless going back to day 2 with a starting stack/20bbs and a dream... about 30-35% of the field left, so we (still...) got this yo

EPT Prague Day 6 : Day 2 Main Event and Feature Tables Things felt like they were on the up and uppp when I showed up at the Hitlon Hotel today, headed towards my designated table and saw a sign that told us to report to the Feature Table. Alright. Not too shabby, right, as given that life gave me a CLEAR premonition of success just before I binked the tournament in BSOP Sao Paolo, I figured that the turn of events would not be cruel enough to have me defend my BB on the third hand on the feature table vs the suposedly WIDE as frack range of the chip leader/Poker Stars ambassador - I have no idea who the fellow is… -, flop the nut flush draw with A♥x on the Kxx♥♥♥, XR it 5x, somehow not get a snap-fold, get villain to shove on me with : Spoiler Show

AA😮:shocked:🙄:(

And... I... whiffed... :( No worries though, as there is no better way to untilt/recover some EV then jumping into the 1.1k PLO 08 right, as there will be a TON of older spewtards and younger overly aggro clueless pros except…. Except I even managed to trap the clueless arrogant young victim of FPS, leave him with a mere 10% of scooping the high (no low draw) until…. He fracking gets there 😡 He would also be the one to eliminate me a couple of hours later (when his weaker A3xx holding got there) and I was therefore left busto, on the walk of shame and steaming like a 19th fracking century full vapor train 😡😡😡:p It took me 30 minutes of pacing around the cold greyish streets of Prague before coming back to life with a smile… 😀 After all, I have the most amazing gf in the world - albeit emotional high maintenance 😉 ; Spoiler Show

: for those of you who have not followed this year, after going a nut low breakup with L, I met C in Lima, AKA the prettiest-most successful-classiest-ambitious-kindest-woman-of-the-Wordly-World yo

, get to travel the world, I speak multiple languages, am healthy as **** for a 47/soon to be 48 years old, am capable of taking down plentiful of fracking 20 something young lads with yearsss of MMA experience during sparring sessions yo, I have a BR on the verge of cracking the 7 digit threshold, am about to purchase a house in Les Laurentides in Quebec, got my shyt together, am a confident lad, happy and yet…. And yet I needed to repeat myself the above multiple times just to get myself off the ground and I oftentimes lack gratitude…. Ehhhh… :( And this lack of contentment, as I am forever striving for more…. Which comes as a blessing, of course, and a God damn curse, obviously!!! Why the malcontent, one would ask…. Perhaps one most go back into the childhood years, back towards the education that I received from my parents, that being the best in school, was simply not enough…. Am not sure, tbh, but it is definitely something to investigate more, especially for an analytical mind like mine that fully realizes how this life passes by so quickly, how we are so fracking vulnerable in the face of Variance and whatnot, and yet, this humility is not sufficient to spark Gratitude, what gives, ffs!?!?!? Anyhow, on to the 1k NLHE tomorrow ; we got this yo

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Dubnjoy, so so sorry to hear about the nut low breakup with L but ver happy to hear about C!!! You absolutely got this yo, thanks for posting sir [emoji41][emoji41]

I don't think that forever striving for more is something bad, is just what keeps us moving forward. The day you say 'I made it! I have everything I ever wanted!' is not far away from the day you die sitting in front of the TV. The fact that you are aware of all the good stuff in your life and all that you achieved so far is what makes that crave for more a healthy pursuit and a driver for growth, and not a painful and hurting mental program that won't lead you to dying of old age in front of a massive TV but will make your heart explode one random tuesday afternoon after working and stressing yourself to the grave. Best of luck in the rest of the series and thanks for bringing your write ups back to 2+2.

EPT Prague day 7 : 1k NLHE 2 bullets and I could not get anything fracking going, ehhhhh... :( I guess it didn't help that I had my nose stuck in my phone - albeit we did have a fun conversation going with a Brazalian and French lad yo -, that I was lacking that drive to fracking win, that none of my major bluffs got through, sigh and a thousand times sigh 😊. Oh well, tomorrow is the 2.5k Mystery Bounty, our last chance to make something out of this live MTT trip - am presently dead even ffs 😮:shocked:🙄 - and WE FRACKING GOT THIS YO by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58822000#post58822000)

Dubnjoy, so so sorry to hear about the nut low breakup with L but ver happy to hear about C!!! You absolutely got this yo, thanks for posting sir [emoji41][emoji41]

Hey friend, amazing to see you back active on the forum And C >>>>>>>>>>>> L, and it is not even close yo ♥ Spoiler Show

and I felt for the first time in my left with C that "she is the one", no joke ♥

Spoiler Show

L was the toughest breakup in my life in the sense that I could not recognize the Witch/Evil person that she had become and that she tested my trust in human kind, no joke 😮:shocked::(. If you haven't yet, I recommend reading the first few posts of my Unibet Community thread which clearly demonstrates my inner pain : https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/t... (https://www.unibetcommunity.com/forums/topic/34655-the-journey-continues-dubnjoys-wsop-ept-and-inner-healing-process-yo-��/#comments)

by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58822550#post58822550)

I don't think that forever striving for more is something bad, is just what keeps us moving forward. The day you say 'I made it! I have everything I ever wanted!' is not far away from the day you die sitting in front of the TV. The fact that you are aware of all the good stuff in your life and all that you achieved so far is what makes that crave for more a healthy pursuit and ... See full post

I definitely believe that striving for more is for the most part positive, but like many qualities/defaults in life, I definitely do not believe it should be treated in a binary matter and that there are several levels of nuances to this variable, me thinks... As an example, the ideal man for me - and I am happy to say that after 47/almost 48 years walking in this Bottom World, I am becoming/am nearing the 100% level of the person that I always wanted to be/become... -, is someone that has a STRONG amount of determination, ambitions and projects (and realizes most of them) etc., but that can also combine this desire for achieving more in harmony with being in the present moment ; I always come back to this image, but for me being able to sitting fracking down on a balcony during a random sunny afternoon sun accompanied by a loved one while sipping on coffee/mates/beer and being FRACKING HAPPY AND ONE WITH THE MOMENT AT HAND is a pure sign of your present happiness levels. That being said, while I am a pretty happy lad in general and strive in the latter mundane balcony moment, I fracking lack gratitude for the life of me!!! With everything that I have achieved thus far. With where I am in life in general. I don't know... I think part of it is the education/pressure I received, while another factor is being exposed to so many successful people in the poker world (both regs and recs). Then again, I have done extremely well as a midstakes reg. But not so much in comparison to highstakes regs/rich recs from the real world. And why should it matter... Especially when I spend most of my time in LATAM surrounded by struggling peeps... I don't know, but I am noticing that real life peeps have more gratitude than I do... End of digression.

EPT Prague Day 8 : 1.6k Mystery Bounty What a strange day... from committing 85% of my chips on the second hand of the tournament with T high after reraising river 5.7x (and getting a fold), to losing a flip, a 75% and another flip close to the bubble which saw me stand up, thinking I was busto (but unexpectedly had 2bbs left), to sunrunning and winning a flip (6.5bbs), getting a jam through (9bbs), to winning another flip (20bbs) to cracking AA with 89s after losing a flip 🙄 To getting AQo to 4bet jam on my AA and seeing a Q89 J T runout 😮:shocked:🙄, to 4bet jamming JJ vs TT, seing the T86 flop, 9 turn and J river, to finally moving on to day itm with 15bbs (average 25bbs). I am hoping for a favorable table draw, having a few stacks covered and binking a few bounties yo. We got this

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by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58824147#post58824147)

EPT Prague Day 8 : 1.6k Mystery BountyWhat a strange day... from committing 85% of my chips on the second hand of the tournament with T high after reraising river 5.7x (and getting a fold), to losing a flip, a 75% and another flip close to the bubble which saw me stand up, thinking I was busto (but unexpectedly had 2bbs left), to sunrunning and winning a flip (6.5bbs), gettin... See full post

Sounds like a standard day at the office!

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58824162#post58824162)

Sounds like a standard day at the office!

Yup, except us poker pros work in a nuthouse 😃:p🙄 Now to determine if it is a nutlowhouse or a nuthighhouse is the question... 😉

EPT Prague Day 9 : 1.6k Mystery Bounty day 2 And... that's all she wrote :(. Things were looking positive - almost predestined, I wanted to believe... - when I showed up at my table and noticed that I was the 4th chip leader thus having an unlikely4 smaller stacks than me at an 8 handed table, with a CLEAR chip leader and the 2nd and 3rd right within striking distance yo Except... the chip leader, thirsty for blood that would make your 19th century Bounty Hunter salivate like no tomorrow, was opening 70% of his hands/calling any all-ins and getting there with his trash, ehhhh :(. So within the first 4 hands played, we had already alas lost the 2 shortest stacks and I found myself barely covering the two other inferior stacks, ehhhh, so when the chip leader opened to 2bbs UTG and I looked down at ATo OTB, I decided that an estimated 67% range advantage, was sufficient enough chip EV wise, given that my bounty EV had been seriously damaged and that ICM is negligent at this stage. Of course, villain snap-called with KJo and ehhhh... fml :( I am off to Montreal at 3am this evening for a couple of weeks. My dad just got diagnosed with prostate cancer, will be turning 79 soon and given that we now have a great relationship, something that was seriously lacking all those decades prior, I will be enjoying our father and son time (my mom will join us in 5 days). Family time is priceless yo ♥ And so is our lifespan/ticking clock in this bottom world, right, so it will be good to finally step away from this 2 card/4 card game of ours, and get back to existential emotions like love, life, death, father-son dynamics and what it all fracking means in the end and all... 😉 I should remain semi-active on this blog moving forward ; nothing compared to yesteryears, of course, but given that C and I will be staying in separate flats (she owns her place and cares for her mom), I will thus be a bachelor from Monday-Wedenesday before she shows up for the Weekend, meaning that I will have much more time than back when I was 24/7 a family man with L, and should hence be blogging perhaps weekly... 😉 I will also be back to write more in details about my goals for 2025, but, spoiler (without being one really 😃😉🙄) : a big part of it will be training in preparation for an eventual MMA fight yo The odds of it ever happening are probably south of 25-50%, but I will nonetheless motivate my training by giving it my ALL as if an imminent brawl until death depended on it yo Disclaimer : I probably could fight within a year if I chose to square off solely in a Muay Thai dual, but given that I want to be a complete fighter and all and that my BJJ skills are severely lacking, I will need to get myself on that ground, roll around Jiu Jitsu style with dirty stinky Peruvian men (and women!) this winter, ehhhhh :( If not, projects will be your standard spirituality in 2025 (a Vipassana retreat and 2-3 Ayahuasca Ceremonies), getting back my online poker grind on track, traveling within Peru and, most importantly, spending quality time with the absolutely-mostest-topest-bestest-firstest woman in the Worldly World in C, of course ♥ In fact, before meeting her, I had never ever felt like "she is the one♥", until that magical spark happened with her 😀. So yeah, establishing progressively a union with her will be #1 goal and... eventually getting a fracking dog yo 😃:p😉

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sorry about your Dad. I hope you can enjoy Montreal.

by kevan m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58847011#post58847011)

sorry about your Dad. I hope you can enjoy Montreal.

Thx bro And I did enjoy Montreal immensely, mainly the time alone with my dad where we got to connect strongly, something that was not always present during my teens/hippie years, but both of us have made effort to meet somewhere in the middle, and lo and behold, I - of course 🙄 - finally realized to what extent we are so fracking similar in so many areas ♥ Am presently in Lima. Update incoming this week...

Life Goals 2025 Style Yo A new year = setting new objectives, right 😉. The good thing is I usually set them as realistic albeit a little ambitious, but manage to achieve the grand majority (in the tune of 70%+) of them yo And since separating with L a good 10+ months ago, this is actually the first time that I am settling back into a routine : I will be in Lima for 6 months until I make it to WSOP Vegas at the end of June yo 😀

• Being a Loving Person: Perhaps it might sound trivial to insist upon this category, but because it remains the important one - albeit perhaps simplistic in terms of life goals... -, I will make it our first category 😉. Being happy. A loyal, faithful and a sound support for C (in every aspect of our relationship). A good son. Brother. Friend. And fellow human being. Lest we not forget y'all ♥ Online Poker : After being restricted from playing on Unibet, I will need to reestablish a solid online hourly once again. I have found a promising site and should easily be capable of crushing it, but am also looking for another site to accompany it/of always having a plan B in the back pocket 😉 And also reestablishing a grinding routine, as, if Unibet had Rakeback milestones thus forcing you into putting a certain amount of volume and oftentimes a good 25-30% beyond what I intended to do weekly, now I am left with pure personal motivation, no more. So aiming for 25h weekly grinding 6 tables should be the new goal yo Live Poker : My Lima goals will be minor ones : binking a Peruvian flag on my Hendon Mob ; grinding a steady 3-4h weekly at the Marriot for pocket money for the week, live entertainment, free food + drinks and a massage at the table. But more importantly : giving myself a good shot at a 6-7 digit live MTT score in Vegas, Montreal or wherever else the circuit route might take me this year I also would like to be within the top 500 on the Canadian Hendon Mob list, which would require approximately 80k in cashes in 2025 yo MMA Training : Now we are talking real goals!!! 😉. So, as previously mentioned, I will be challenging myself to be a complete (enough) fighter within the next 1-2 years in order to be able to square off in the Octagon yo Which means mainly working on my Jiu Jitsu, and especially takedown defense, but while also improving my Muay Thai chops to thus increase my potential victory odds And getting my cardio in resilient enough shape to be fairly strong for the length of 3 x 5 minute rounds. So a ton to work to do, really. But given that I was already in the top 25 percentile in my MMA gym despite only having 2 years of experience, the challenge seems feasible. And that I am seemingly learning at a 10% percentile clip. So assuming my late 40s body doesn't completely break down before this combat happens (I would be 49 years old if it does), I believe this to be a viable challenge, albeit most unlikely to happen... Also, a disclaimer : Spoiler Show

I was training with 3 other fellow my age group in my Argentino MMA club, and God damn were they fracking weaklings/old men yo 😮:shocked:🙄 One of them couldn't even spar/grapple (his body was breaking down), the other I slapped around like a fracking little boy, and the last one was okayish, a little feisty, but definitely still an old frack 😆😃😉

Spirituality : Along with your standard daily 2h of meditation and one ten day Vipassana retreat this year, I want to do 2-3 Ayahuasca ceremonies. This year and yearly moving forward. Being in Peru is obviously the perfect setting for such goals, so I will hence dip deeper into the Spirit World yo 😀. Volunteer Work : This one is unlikely to even start this year, but it remains of essence towards what I am advancing : to be able to give back to folks in need. Perhaps here in Lima... In a poorer barrio... Cooking food/running a Soup Kitchen... Who knows!!! But I had promised to life that if I had binked 7 digits (or close to) during my recent live MTT stint, I was going to just play poker recreationally and make the latter my sole goal. And to be completely honest, part of me aches to have to go back grinding online like I have done so professionally for 14 odd years 😊

( y'all ♥

Establishing a Legit Routine For those of you that have followed my blog on the Unibet Community thread - that I have alas, been outcasted from :( -, will be aware that I have not benefitted from the stability of an ongoing routine since March 2024. Yup. That long. Most of my time went towards initially trying to emotionally (and legally) survive a tough af breakup, then came dating in Lima, WSOP Vegas, 2 weeks in Dawson, a couple of months in Montreal ; followed by a month in Lima - well spent getting to know C yo ♥ -, 6 weeks in Argentina (donating all the material stuff I had accumulated and WSOPC Rosario), a couple of weeks for BSOP Sao Paolo, then EPT Prague, Montreal and - am catching my breathe here... :p 😮:shocked: - finally looping back to Lima to be with C for the next 6 months. So yeah, as much as settling down was downright needed, establishing a sane routine is not as easy as waving a magic wand, you know 😉 First on the agenda was the search for a dojo. Because I have been (almost) solely focussing on Muay Thai and boxing during the past 2+ years of my MMA training, I want to focus on my ground game for the next several months : here enters Jiu Jitsu yo Starting this evening, I will be hitting the mats twice a week for a couple of hours of intense training with a coach in a small group And considering that I have but a minuscule cumulative experience of less than 20 hours of Judo and Jiu Jitsu, the upcoming sessions will likely be tough af 😊. Think having to live all over again the first day of high school kind of tough, of being the new kid - ehhhh at 47 fracking years old man 😊 - on the block :p. Also, because these will be intense grappling lessons, there will not be an hour of bodybuilding prior to the training like it was the case in Argentina. Thus meaning that I will have to add to the latter schedule 2h of weekly gym as to build up those muscles - criatine yo 😉 -, strength and to preserve my Muay Thai training 😵 ; add to this the Salsa class that I promised to take with C, and I am not to sure if my body will be capable of holding up or not 🙄 As mentioned, I was forced to move on from Unibet after a great 6-7 years grinding the soft games over there, sigh :(. I did manage to win just shy of 7 digits on that site, which is amazing, but having to give up your bread and butter is never an easy game, even if the new site seems not only very promising, but perhaps even softer... The thing is that I only made a deposit of 2k and am trying to build organically my roll, as opposed to splashing an extra 5-10k on there, meaning that most of my volume is coming from the 200 PLO games (with a random shot at 500) until I can move up Add to the latter 3h of weekly studying, an entertaining 3h of lol live, and I should manage a healthy 30h weekly yo As far as entertainment goes, it will certainly not be lacking in Lima. Last WE C and I went to a theatre play and attended some live music, this week will be outdoors live concerts, next week will be an MMA fight (FFC 86) and am still contemplating perhaps overspending af to see Messi play a preseason game in Lima at the end of the month... We will also start going south of Lima in February when the summer really kicks in, hop on a plane to do an Ayahuasca trip in Cusco, along with visiting the more remote beaches up north in Tumbes (by the Ecuadarian border) ; so no, distractions will not be lacking yo

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Glad to hear your new relationship is working out, and congrats on working out on your MMA quest. Better you than me on that journey 😀

by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58858756#post58858756)

Glad to hear your new relationship is working out, and congrats on working out on your MMA quest. Better you than me on that journey 😀

Thx friend ♥ On the love front : this relationship will need a FRACKING ton of work from both of us, if not it will fail. Insecurities from her past relationship keep popping up, which makes it EXTREMELY HARD AF for yours truly, unfortunately. The good part is that she agreed to do a Vipassana retreat. Or an Ayahuasca ceremony. Or both. Or whatever it takes to transcend her inner stuff, as she is a highly confident woman in life in general, but not so much in her love relationships 😊 On the MMA front : I might be giving up on Jiu Jitsu, and thus strictly focussing on Muay Thai moving forward... There is a reason why I always chose to go to my MMA dojo when Muay Thai or boxing was being taught, but avoided at all cost the Jiu Jitsu schedules : it simply bores the living shyt out of me!!! It is a bit too technical. Which does not really use my strongest aspects, which is my strength, heart and tenacity. I will be 48 within a few weeks and part of wanting to improve my ground, is this idealistic vision of becoming a well-rounded and (almost) perfect fighter, you know, as opposed to just sticking to what I love, what I excel it and just striking away yo Spoiler Show

I did do fairly well in my Jiu Jitsu class though and managed to pin down a couple of white and blue belts yo 😃

This Game that We have come to Love/Hate "Has the game passed me by" mutters in doubt that inner voice/that little devil that is guaranteed to pop up every time I hit a prolong downswing :(. Except this time around, I have come to redefine what prolong means unfortunately, sigh and a thousand and one times sigh 😮:shocked:😊. As a reminder : I have been on a 10k downswing since late February which, even in accordance to the incredibly wild and unpredictable variance of PLO, is still worrying af :p. That being said, I had crush like no tomorrow in Jan-Feb of 2024, to the extent that I still managed to finish with a semi-acceptable winrate (online) by the end of the year, a number that of course happens to be half/a third of what I was netting in my peak years, but that remains nonetheless an acceptable base salary moving forward given my luck with investments and the state of the online games. Now, the fact that I find myself having to grind a new poker site with a much lower RB deal that I use to have, adds to the uncertainty of the equation, obviously. Hence why I must ask myself again : "has the game passed me by?". This question is as old as the game itself and has been thrown around in the poker community since I started playing professionally, shortly before Black Friday in 2011, which, let's recall, was seen an apocalyptic end to online poker with the poker Gods striking us mere (virtual) mortals with all their THUNDEROUS MIGHT, right 😮:shocked: It was a time of doubt. The beginning of the end, many thought. And an adequate moment to get out of the game, not dive deeply into it. Not being one for following the tides, I obviously listened to not a single soul and, against the general consensus, proceeded to accumulate monies yo That being said, most of it came from an extremely soft live game, north of nowhere in the Yukon a few kms away from the Arctic Circle, a game that had not a single professional partake in it and within which the faces never changed, to the extent that my exploits, personally adjusted for each player, worked out incredibly effectively in the short, medium and long term yo - think of a WR of 25+bbs an hour over the span of 14 years yo Crushing online was a different story though, and if I (too) comfortably accepted a smallish hourly in online MTTs for my first few professional years, I started to absolutely crush the virtual cash games when I switched from MTTs back in 2017 at a 2-3x hourly that I had managed live, which not only increased my WR beyond expectations that I had set for myself, but gave me the absolute flexibility to travel freely the world without a financial worry yo And I maintained this (crushing) tangent up until 2023-2024 where my WR took a slight dip (and then a bigger one), but at nevertheless acceptable levels. The good news is that those peak years saw me invest wisely - HODL, gold and safe market investments yo -, never indulge in a lol look-at-me-Balla-approach-Oh-too-common-in-the-world, so I hence find myself in this ironic and curious position where playing poker professionally has become questionable while my BR has significantly gradually increased Spoiler Show

as an example : even if I myself in the midst of a 5.9k downswing for 2025 (-4k while editing these lines), I have gained 35k over the past couple of days in crypto alone 🙄

. Anyhow, to come back to our narrative : every time that the question "is the dream of playing poker for a living still alive?" has existentially popped up in the poker world, I have loled it off, shrugged the question away, as even if such was the case for the majority of the aspiring pros, my WR simply asserted otherwise yo - and perhaps I was the exception to the general rule... But come 2025, the question is stronger then ever : "has the game passed me by?" Think AI. RTA. Inflation (while playing at the same stakes). New ways to cheat. The general population getting better. And perhaps indeed my golden years have come to a screeching halt! What I do know though, is that I am emotionally (and almost financially) ready to move on from the game, that this inner fire to forever crush has since left me and that even if I am still going through the motions of studying sufficiently, preparing myself mentally for the grind on a daily basis and all, I do believe that the light is dimming at the end of the 2-4 card tunnel... But then again, if such is the case, the question becomes : what awaits next...??? In the short-middle term, I will be focussing on establishing an acceptable WR online ; as far as live goes, if I had initially planned not to invest more than 50k in BIs and mainly during WSOP Vegas, by all appearances I will be firing twice as much in series across Peru (a small stakes series next month), Vegas (both WSOP and WPT Wynn Championship), Montreal (WSOPC and WPT) and Europe (not sure which series, but ones that involve exploring a new county yo ), as the second half of 2025 will be spent away from C/and hence traveling somewhat freely 😊

(

Da Routine is Back Yo An excellent week in the books as, firstly and perhaps most importantly, we are now back in the black yo Yup, I went on a 6k+ upswing which, might not seem as much compared to my standard lol weekly - 4 card 😉 - swings of the past few years, but considering that I wanted to pull another deposit-a-very-smallish-amount-and-withdraw-a-large-6-digit-amount like I once did on Unibet Spoiler Show

a (not at all) subtle brag : I originally deposited a mere 1.5k (CAD$) on Unibet, proceeded to cash out 1/2 million before being forced to deposit anew a 5k a few years later (to once again cashout a few hundred k, deposit a last 10k when I had 30k in liquidity riding on politics/sports bets

, so I hence find myself playing mainly smaller games, 5-6 tables of 200 with 1-2 tables of PLO 500), with the majority of my action focussed on the great game of Omaha 😀. Now that my BR has significantly increased on this new site and that I get to lower somewhat my variance by running it twice (most opponents agree to do so/have their settings automated in accepting the double runouts), I will be playing 500 PLO once again with eventual shots at 1k. As far as holdem goes, I am afraid that it will be mainly to fulfill enough volume/tables going and mostly at the 200 level (with infrequent tables of 500). I am presently in the lab with my 4 card game and will not study the 2 card game until perhaps April (and then study holdem MTTs a couple of months before the WSOP). Anyhow, it was a satisfying week on the felt, my confidence is coming back and my attitude towards playing poker professionally has changed (for now...) given the softness of this new site (albeit with lower RB) ; let's hope it stays this way 😉 In other areas Off the felt/in the Muay Thai ring, it has also been quite the successful and uplifting vibe : after visiting 7 dojos overall, I have finally chosen one which I am quite satisfied with ; the gym is nice, spacious, with a ton of (various sizes of) boxing bags, a ring to sparr in, a shower, weights/Dumbbells to warm up with and some very warm and charismatic teachers ♥ One thing that I had to come to terms with though, is that the Muay Thai courses do not distinguish in between beginners and advanced students (unlike the Jiu Jitsu courses), so I thus elected to pay extra and get private courses instead of training with noobs, kids and teenagers yo It is 4x the price, but still very affordable. These will be twice weekly but I will still be training 2-3h on my own as to put to execution the newly learned techniques (my next AirBnB has a gym and a boxing bag yo ), and to continue my body-building and whatnot. So yeah, am pretty content in that area of life as well. I have the impression that it will not take much time to get a solid social circle going : first of all, I connected very strongly with C's family/friends - her mom not withstanding, sigh and a thousand times sigh 😊. And am getting quite close to a male friend of hers. Moreover, I crossed paths with a foreigner Muay Thai student who is about my age and while I usually befriend more locals than expats, this fellow (from Texas, but with a seemingly Arab background...?) looks very open-minded, nice af, has also learned Spanish in Argentina and seems to have had quite the interesting life experience... So yeah, nice to rapidly expand a little bit the social activities and at a rate EXPONENTIALLY faster then I did in BsAs yo We will be going to the beach south of Lima for this long WE with some of C's friends ; it should be fun times

( well all ♥

Sounds things are looking up on all fronts. Good to hear.

Da Beast In Rocky Balboa - which is technically the 6th film of the franchise -, Sylvester Stallone came back with a critical smash hit after the (critical) flops that had been the previous 3 installments (since Rocky 2, basically). And one scene in the movie that really shook me upon rewatching it last year, is when the character of Rocky, who we all know to be as humble as can be, self-erasing, compassionate and an overall very nice fellow, finally cracks and reveals why he still wants to square off in the ring at such an advance age : "BECAUSE I HAVE A BEAST IN ME 😮:shocked:!!!" screams out the usually mild-mannered Rocky : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et_Bdct1... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et_Bdct1T0U) Those words jabbed me right in the fracking face 😮:shocked: as I also recognize this same beast that roams freely inside of me, untamed, growling nonstop to be unleashed, to fracking lash out towards all of life's obstacles 😊. You see, gone are the those youthful 90s, AKA those juvenile grudge days of screaming along to Rage Against the Machine lyrics and thus canalizing all of that inner angst towards society, injustices or whatever societal issues that were popular to protest against at the times ; but with maturity (and the personal responsibility that comes with it), one must accept that the Demon was always alas internal 😊 Safely locked up. Prompt to erupt at any God forsaken instant 😮:shocked:😡 Here comes into play MMA's Hexagone : this unspoken region in the dead centre of the Labyrinth where only fringe angry creatures head out to discover 😉. You see, we are hermanos at heart, shake hands before exchanging blows, bloody hug each other once the dust settles and after a winner is naturally chosen. These bloody brawls have always been an intrinsic (and anthropological) part of civilization since Greece... Or the Mayas. Or whatever Civilization, because everyone knows that every (bloody) road leads to Rome, right... 😉 😃 It is better to be a Warrior in a Garden, than a Gardener in a War (Miyamoto Musashi) I am ashamed to admit that over the span of the past year - or more precisely, since being exposed to an overly complicated separation with L that lead to a ton of anger -, uncountable were the occasions where all Hell (almost) broke loose, alas and a thousand and one times alas 😊 :( Sure, Buenos Aires changed me. And one needs to fight for every inch of space in LATAM. And Argentino's vertiginous economical fall was no walk in the park. Nonetheless, I have come to accept that a physical confrontation only belongs in the Ring. In a controlled and regulated setting. Securely tucked within 4 ropes, as to contain both warrior's rage. And far away from the streets yo. Thx bro ♥ Peace y'all ♥

NSOP Chiclayo On the poker front, things have not been too great, unfortunately. If you folks remember, we had just got back into the black for 2025 by a couple of thousand bucks, but... alas and a gazillion times alas, the swonnngggsss in the 4 card game are just HUMONGOUS af 😮:shocked:🙂 So yeah, since the last poker update, we proceeded to drop 5k+, but managed to recover 40% of it this week yo The exciting news is that I have included a couple of 1k PLO tables in my grind, along with the standard 500 and 200 PLO tables (the NLHE have mainly been of the 200 variant, at least until I get back into the holdem lab in March-April). In other (semi) exciting news : I will be playing a small - ehhhh tiny af 😊 - series in Chiclayo starting this evening called NSOP (National Series of Poker). I am in fact at the airport waiting for my flight right now. The BIs range within the lol minuscule levels of 100-400$ (CAD$), no joke!!! But when this series will come to Lima (and if I am still kicking around...), the BIs do thankfully double-triple at least. Nonetheless, it should be fun I have booked an apartment in a building with a gym, so I will maintain 45 minutes of daily training yo I will try to update daily this week as to keep my daily grind in check, as well as provide (hopefully...) entertaining material for this thread, of course 😉 Anyhow, talk later y'all

(

NSOP Chiclayo DAY 1 Even if I had set the good ole iphone alarm clock at 10:00am, at 9:05 I am wide awake in bed, and thus accept my fate and proceed to sit str8 and meditate for an hour. I throw on some pants, a grinding t-shirt, toss a few fruits in the mixer, some yogurt, milk to thin that shyt down and shred that mamafracker into a smoothie yo 😃. I hop into the Uber, cross the city of Lima towards its international airport - on the outskirts of the slums of Callao, where I plan on training Muay Thai starting April with folks that know how to strike, you know . I end up waiting at the wrong gate - who would of phunked that they would offer 2 flights at exactly 13:00 on the dot for Chiclayo, one of them at gate 10 and the other at gate B10... 🙄 -, run to the right departure gate after the flight agent gets a good lol at me, get there for the last call, sweating balls, but ultimatelly avoiding missing my flight yo :p The meditation on the flight is smoothing and prepares me for the lonnnggg night of grinding ahead (I plan on hopping into the day 1A/ AKA the first flight of the 250$ Main) and, alas, the horrible check-in experience that would ensue... :( Spoiler Show

first world problems, but got into it with the agency renting me the apartment from Booking when they basically told me to suck it up when I inquired about getting a fan to be able to tangle a little bit with the Chiclayo summer mugginess ffs 😡😡😡

. Nonetheless, I get to sweat it out/expulse the rage in a rapid 35 minute gym session, jump in a cold shower, put on some live MTT grinding clothes, hop into an Uber, and head out towards the Wyndham/NSOP we goes yo After talking to the organizers for a bit, I buy into the Main, wait at the table for the (1h delayed) event to start, but alas, only a single other player shows up 😊. So there we are, waiting for a third valiant soul to join us... 20 minutes go by, AKA 2/3 of the first 30 minute level of the potential 15levels to be played today, before a semi decent reg joins us. Shorthanded (which is definitely my area of comfort ) and sitting in between a weak reg and a half arse suicidal maniac, life is good yo And then a 4th and 5th player rapidly join us and while the latter are definitely on the weak tighter side, I failed to fully assess it during the first few rounds and find myself oblige to pay off on the river with nutted bluff-catchers that would of been - sigh... 😊 - snap-folds 30 minutes later/with enough observed HHs at hand. That being said, even if I kick myself for not having found the fold button, I am not one from wanting to deviate TOO FAR from the top of my bluff-catching range (with nutted blockers) vs unknowns when I don't have enough info gathered on the new villains, even if one can safely deviate extensively in general when playing low-stakes fields/these player types. After one hour though, I do get to find these extremely exploitative folds easily vs obvious lines/betting sizes ♣♦♥♠ A couple levels later, a solid pro sits down along with a predictable lowstakes overtly agro pro (to my direct left), common in 1-2 and 2-5 live cash games. The latter was very easy to deal with despite having position on me ; for example, I eventually proceed to open 2bbs K♠J♣ UTG, he would go on and3bet me 3.5x in UTG1, only to (happily) see him have to fold to my 2.6x 4bet 😆 Spoiler Show

I would then go on to eventually bust him with my bottom set in a 3 way pot after I flatted IP the original raiser's cbet (AK) on K97♦♦ and he raised IP with 86o-called my shove after the first player had also flatted his raise 🙄

I am now the chip leader. We are down to 5 players. It is 1:00am and I figure that I have about 3h to go before reaching blinds of 2.5k-5k levels, which will be the last potential level possible this evening and also bring us to 5bbs when having the equivalent of a starting stack (and the level that tournaments usually reach a min cash in), but given that we are severely shorthanded, I figure that all those chips will be in front of me probably a couple of levels before we reach that deadline... After all, it is just a matter of time : I am by far the best player, have positional advantage on the only other decent player at the table and I am focussed af after today's meditation session/Gym session Far behind us is that tilt of having hero called weak tight players in the first couple of blind levels... In fact, that mistake would not even amount to a single BB anymore, as I scoop in more chips, apply the right amount of pressure, am always aware of the stack sizes and get all my bluffs through every single time, be it preflop (a few 3-4 bets) or post (multi-barreling with the right range advantage/repping the correct holdings). Before I even realize it, I (finally) win an all-in (I had been 1/5 in trying to eliminate villains thus far), 66 > A♣J♣, the staff approaches and as we are about to start our HU match (2 players left from the original 10), we are suddenly informed that we are bagging up for the evening!!! "Oh really!?!" I say out loud, "they must of said so while I was being sleepy/not paying attention to all the Spanish being spoken by all the different parties..." I think to myself.... Which is great, tbh, as, as much as I feel that it would be a matter of minutes/of a couple of levels before eliminating villain a chunky 85%+ of the time (I have a bit more than 2 to 1 in chip advantage, but his game is pretty darn weak and passive, thus (almost) making it risk free), the guy is actually a pretty darn nice fellow and I sincerely don't want to bust him, even if it costs me a sizable amount of chips/a little equity in the process. After all, the tournament is far from over, I am no longer about destroying souls and I have been lonnnggg enough in this game/made enough monies, that strict EV is no longer the end goal, you know... ♥ We bag up (returning to 75bbs as the lol present chip leader), shake hands, call it an evening and head out into the Chiclayan twilight...

( out y'all

NSOP Day 2 : Mystery Bounty 325$ Spoiler Show

Technically Day3, but I rested on day2 for the Dealer's Choice 125$

As seems to be the case, cards did not hit the felt until well past 4pm : folks definitely like late starts in these parts 🙄 And it was not easy sailing to start off the event : within a few rounds and after 3betting K♣3♣ from the SB vs the button, my tripple barrel (on Q flop, turned fd and river blank - a little punty) - all-in led to... my 2nd bullet 😉 I got put back at the same table which turned out to be the most reg heavy, unfortunately. But like pretty much all pros at this level, they are quite predictably unbalanced, lean towards the agro side, and made my 4bet bluff OTB with K8o vs the SB 3bet quite effective yo 😃 An interesting situation popped up several rounds later when I opened A8o in the CO, villain (the same one) 3bet me as they lol like to do repeatedly at these stakes, and as I am about to click it back 2.35x (we are fairly shallow at this point), I misclick and only raise it by 1.45x... sigh 😊. The dealer corrects the amount, motions as if I meant to call, and I exclaim "nah, nah, I messed up, I meant to raise it!!!" I snap, quite angry with myself for misclicking/and also wanting to pursue the act of being and thus in fact keeping (ironically) the initiative. The floor is called as another player protests and believes that the bet is open/it was a raise. After it is confirmed a call, a flop of Q♦8♦x shows up which, while I do hit it somewhat, it still remains a bit better for villain's range... But given that we are repping the absolute top of our range and have an okayish blocker, I cbet 30% pot Spoiler Show

villain takes about 20 seconds before finding a folk

Tbh, I have not been given a lot to work with card-wise all day and in fact, the only reason I manage to survive/stay close to average in chips throughout, is because of well-timed bluffs and frankly, very creative plays. Until I pick up AA UTG, min raise it and lo and behold : an agro reg from the SB rips it in for 22bbs with... A9o 😆 After busting villain, we show up at the final table as the chip leader yo Spoiler Show

( dumb looking face is because the photographer kept telling me to lower myself as to not block the view of the shorty behind me 🙄:p

And... long story short as it is 3:30 am and I need to meditate/rest : I GII as a 80% favorite, QQ♣ vs KT on a J♣T♣x, but lose, sigh, to the absolute worst player at the table (probably the tournament...) 😡 I do manage to finish 6th for lol 1.25 BIs, but a far cry from first that had an equity of roughly 25BIs Back at it tomorrow yo ; we got this

NSOP Day 3 : 225$ PKO Holdem (AKA the dynamics) Well, I managed to bink a couple of bounties (and get some of my initial BI back), but then ran my A♦K♦ into AA, 33bbs effective, ehhhh 😊. But I do not want to talk about live MTTs and about how every time I get deep for a potential decent 6 figure score, I run into it/get smacked in the face by negative variance - even if in this particular series, I am barely down and have a ton of EV locked up with a solid 75BBs for day 2 with 20% of the field left Nope. I wanna talk about it the different dynamics that occur in small time series as opposed to the highstakes one a la Vegas, Aussie Millions (back then) or other 5-10k events. You see, in first world countries and within the secure and publicized boundaries of known high-stakes series, it is quite common to fraternize with CEOs, multi-millionaires/billionaires, celebrities and whatnot as they are looking to either challenge themselves competitively, splash away (and be seen/heard doing so) or indulge in whatever quirks they may desire!!! In third world countries where the monies for tournament BIs is not easily accessible, one alas encounters much more gangstas/dirty money 😊 On Monday, when I arrived fresh off the flight and hopped right away into Day 1 of the ME, an older (mid 50s) fellow with robust facial features showed up for (very) late registration. Instinctively, I caught myself thinking "He is the last fellow I would try to f**k over😮:shocked:". Even if he was clearly at a somewhat advanced age, he gave off this vibe of "I will leave you dead in the fracking ditch son!!!", which is definitely not a feeling I get often - if at all... - and the last time around was in a series in Rosario, Argentina, where the fellow (also in his late 50s) literally told the table (but it was clearly directed at me) of having dumped recently a corpse on the highway, ffs :shocked:😮:shocked:😮:p (he would go on to repeat this story an hour later, just to make sure to get his point through to me). This Chiclayan drug Lord gave up the same vibes. But was sitting across the table from me. And had yet to (indirectly) threaten my life. And, in fact, would meticulously observe my actions every time I was playing a massive pot and (most of the time) bluffing and thus deliberately controlling my motions. It turned out that my suspicions were (most likely) confirmed about (let's call him) Mr X : the way that people flocked around him all through the week, constantly walked up to the table to salute him, wait behind in (total) respect before beginning to interact with him, the hot and young women pleadingly (and metaphorically) kissing his hand, the special treatment manifested by the staff, the management and the personal soldiers that watch over his back. When I showed up at the table today, I was seated in between him and one of his seemingly fake-tough-guy-but-prompt-to-literally-stab-you-in-the-fracking-back gangsta fellow who clearly gave me a sneer when I showed up. Thankfully though, his boss has taking a liking into me yo : something about being respectful with him from the get go and about being a (somewhat) successful mid-highstakes grinder - the rumor gets around rapidly, especially because, much like in Argentina, I am the only (non-Latin) foreigner. The curious thing about Mr X - and now, my read might be absolutely off, but I don't think so, not after playing with him all day/having seen him for 3 days str8 - is he seems, at least on the surface, willfully like a nice guy. He deliberately tries to treat people well. Is personal. Respectful. He tries to keep his emotions in check Spoiler Show

he did jump up when his AIPF KK got cracked by AQo on the river, but walked away from the table to (privately) calm down, as opposed to losing it in public

in a stoic sort of way. He is not charismatic by any means and obviously attracts all this respect by pure power, but seriously seems like a fellow that is trying to be good, according to his perspective and his code, of course. As opposed to his soldiers that seem frantic. Unpredictable. Angry af. Juvenile. Curiously Mr X sighed out loud when my AKs ran into AA today, publicly exclaiming his esteem for me and maintaining that stoical Business Man image that he has surely worked on for years now. As I was walking away from the table, I got myself thinking about how life is so fracking complicated and how tribulations of this fracking Bottom World probably exposed X earlier on to multiple emotional scars which toughened the living shyt out of him. Perhaps one of the rare actual choices that he had to make in his life (beyond survival of the fittest/the streets) was to be a pleasant being... That being said, and it is worth to repeat it : he is one of the rare individuals that I would not dare to cross!!!

( y'all, we all got a lot of inner work to do ♥

I'm thinking about the possibility that rather than you facing Mr X HU for the Main Event Title in Peru (I think that's where you are) what actually end-ups happening is that you face him in the Muay Thai Ring. And you'll just be by yourself in between rounds, with no coach to give you a pep-talk and put your mouth guard back in etc., while he's in his corner surrounded by his various "carers". And I reckon Mr X will probably lose the fight (because he doesn't have time/need for training etc.) but still will be given the "win" on some local technicality. But, it won't matter, because Mr X being a genuine guy will let you have the prize money, even though he doesn't need it. Unfortunately you'll have to concede that the "trophy" always had his name on it --- I mean X does mark the spot, right?

NSOP Day 4 : 400$ lol Highroller Once again, I easily navigated through the field, showed up as the chip leader at the final table and... I couldn't get the job done :( I was pretty card dead on the bubble and even if I did act accordingly by trying to steal with broadway blockers, for example, I got shoved repeatedly by peeps who are not the most ICM aware/were perhaps playing back at me, ehhhhh 😊. And then I found myself having to fold in a very awkward triple barrel spot by the (at the time) 2nd chip leader... And then finally shoved my final chips when I was last in chips (but the 4th and 3rd were a mere few bbs away) for 10.1bbs when UTG (2nd chip leader) opened for 2.5x (like he always did) and the CO flatted (chip leader) ; I figured that I was flipping most of the time, the added 2.5bbs was significant enough to take this spot and given that I was last in chips/was aiming for a top 3 spot, I decided to take it. Spoiler Show

UTG shoved and had.... ehhhh QQ 😊

. I am not sure to what extent my cash game thinking translates to MTTs, even if I was last in chips and the payout is top heavy... I just don't know. Part of me - the results-oriented part 😉 -, is victim of hindsight thinking that "I could of laddered up"... But then again, it is not as if recs are making tremendously awful mistakes with stacks of 12-15bbs five handed... Anyhow by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58901195#post58901195)

I'm thinking about the possibility that rather than you facing Mr X HU for the Main Event Title in Peru (I think that's where you are) what actually end-ups happening is that you face him in the Muay Thai Ring. And you'll just be by yourself in between rounds, with no coach to give you a pep-talk and put your mouth guard back in etc., while he's in his corner surrounded by his ... See full post

Haha, I love it! Except I could fathom squaring off vs one of his soldiers instead - which I would absolutely take pleasure in doing so in a controlled environment - and easily KOing him after safely analyzing his fighting style, patiently pouncing on his weaknesses and eventually wearing him out (Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister fighting vs a Conservative Senator prior to being the leader of the Liberals) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuSpZ3_5... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuSpZ3_5pTc) Spoiler Show

Now I do try to sway away from political stances since... well, the pandemic, but it makes me really laugh that Trump, who always sits court side during UFC events, never got in the ring for the fracking life of him even if talks tough and whatnot, but Trudeau, who is soft-spoken, actually walks the walk yo (even if his fighting form is not great). Anyhow...

All that being said, MrX was actually the 2nd chip leader and the one who eliminated me this evening QQ > 77 😊 Peace

Hey folks, I will be posting my final update on the NSOP this evening (or tomorrow...), but beforehand I have a favor to ask for anyone that has any legal knowledge about the following generic situation. You see, despite having never updated any of my MTTs scores while grinding live MTTs in Argentina, Codigo Poker, which was the major news outlet covering the events in Argentina (and apparently in LATAM), has effed up as far as my profile goes ; when you do a Google online search of my name in these parts, the second result that pops up is my name along with Codigo Poker and these words underneath : Se trata de un jugador que ya posee un historial criminal y ahora está acusado de estafar a otros jugadores., which roughly translates to "This is a player who already has a criminal record and is now accused of defrauding other players." Spoiler Show

https://www.google.com/search?q=jean-ser... (https://www.google.com/search?q=jean-serge+baril&client=safari&sca_esv=eff6c482c754397a&biw=1433&bih=738&ei=l2K-Z_aCPISs0PEPrrDysAw&ved=0ahUKEwi2qq7fjOCLAxUEFjQIHS6YHMY4ChDh1QMIEA&uact=5&oq=jean-serge+baril&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiEGplYW4tc2VyZ2UgYmFyaWwyBxAAGLADGB4yBxAAGLADGB4yDhAAGIAEGLADGIYDGIoFMg4QABiABBiwAxiGAxiKBTIOEAAYgAQYsAMYhgMYigVIti9QAFgAcAF4AJABAJgBAKABAKoBALgBA8gBAJgCAaACC5gDAIgGAZAGBZIHATGgBwA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp)

Upon a short investigation and after using other search engines, it became clear that this was simply a headline to an article (about an alleged criminal and scammer) found on Codigo poker : https://codigopoker.com/noticias-general... (https://codigopoker.com/noticias-generales/un-nuevo-caso-de-estafa-sacude-al-poker-profesional#:~:text=Se%20trata%20de%20un%20jugador,de%20estafar%20a%20otros%20jugadores.&text=%2C%20quien%20recibi%C3%B3%20m%C3%BAltiples%20acusaciones%20de,en%20una%20partida%20de%20streaming.&text=Adams%20no%20es%20precisamente%20un%20chico%20bueno). As you can tell, this is a headline of an article of importance found on Codigo poker (and when you search my name on other search engines, other Headlines appear beneath my name). Anyhow, I have messaged Codigo Poker on facebook, sent a few emails, but have yet to receive a reply after 30h now. I have reported the link to Google (and will report this evening as a legal issue). My question is : do I have a legal stance vs Codigo Poker? I am thinking of contacting a lawyer Thursday if this issue is not resolved smoothly. Thoughts?

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58905018#post58905018)

Hey folks, I will be posting my final update on the NSOP this evening (or tomorrow...), but beforehand I have a favor to ask for anyone that has any legal knowledge about the following generic situation. You see, despite having never updated any of my MTTs scores while grinding live MTTs in Argentina, Codigo Poker, which was the major news outlet covering the events in Argenti... See full post

Dubn, I'm not sure whether you have any legal case but a good idea to contact a lawyer imo at least. Should help to get Codigo to resolve it.

by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58905080#post58905080)

Dubn, I'm not sure whether you have any legal case but a good idea to contact a lawyer imo at least. Should help to get Codigo to resolve it.

Thx jr! Yes, I will speak to a lawyer about it, but in the meantime I want it resolved, and hopefully as smoothly as possible... I am definitely not looking to get into a legal fwiw, but Codigo Poker is ignoring my messages...

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58905081#post58905081)

Thx jr! Yes, I will speak to a lawyer about it, but in the meantime I want it resolved, and hopefully as smoothly as possible... I am definitely not looking to get into a legal fwiw, but Codigo Poker is ignoring my messages...

Maybe Tommy Goldstein is free - apparently he's not playing poker these days 😀

by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58905126#post58905126)

Maybe Tommy Goldstein is free - apparently he's not playing poker these days 😀

I spoke to a (friend) lawyer and they recommended I contacted the site, Google and if not a firm to remove the said Google result

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58905158#post58905158)

I spoke to a (friend) lawyer and they recommended I contacted the site, Google and if not a firm to remove the said Google result

probably a good first step at least

NSOP Chiclayo Final Thoughts : Notepad Style Ehhhh, I finished 10th/282 (for 5.4 BIs) in the Main which, which is I guess a payout I would of accepted at the beginning of the day, but once you actually get there, run into bad variance, lose a flip that would of put you in great shape heading into the final table, it kind of stings 😊. The irony is upon busting out, I felt good. Happy with the series. Feeling that it was a mission accomplished after earning 3 Peruvian HM flags. I thus thanked the staff, congratulated them on holding an entertaining af series and headed out into the Chiclayo night somewhat satisfied yo Curiously the sting hit a bit later, when I was meditating and observing all the accumulated tension on my body… Nonetheless, I managed to brush it aside and simply moved on with my meditation. Until surprisingly my subconscious mind smacked me in the face deep into my sleep, as I woke up in sweats thinking of poker hands : ehhhh, this game of ours ehhh 🙄. Anyhow, here are some notepad observations of the series :

• What a freaking fun series!!! Even if the highest BI was 1000 PEN (just under 300USD$), they really did things right yo . Let’s forget about the fact that they kept registration open until having a starting stack of lol 5bbs for the ME, that they always started tournaments an hour later then originally scheduled and other small hiccups : they provided a fun as hell series yo 😆. Filming the final tables - even if it was a simple God’s view camera with background music- , selling some NSOP branded gear - again, this is a very small series with a max of 100-110 players attending it -, friendly and personable staff, handing out gifts to random seats - I got my share of a baseball cap, thermos and keychains . Curiously though, even if this series has been running for a couple of years now (?), this is the first time that they will send their results to Hendon Mob ; in fact, I was the one that proposed the idea (and mentioned that I would not be attending if there was no way to capture a Peruvian flag 😉. Speaking of flags, I captured 3 of them. For just over 2k (CAD$) overall 🙄. I gave myself 3 chances of having solid scores (for these stakes) by A) showing up twice as the chip leader at the FT and B) for having top 2 in chips during the F2T in the Main. But alas, I proceeded to run into it in the HR, lost a 82% in the Mystery Bounty and a flip in the Main (after running into it a few times) :(. Part of me (the results orientated one) believes that I overly pounced in certain spots, while the more rational side realizes that I just got hit by negative variance in crucial moments. I remember during the Aussie Millions Main (the last time they held it in the year 2000) when Sergio Aido showed up at my table with a mere 15bbs as him and a German HR, who also had a similar stack size, proceeded to completely dominate the table/become the 2 chip leaders. I felt that both took advantage of the fact that cashing in a 10k meant MUCH more to the rest of the table then to those 2, right, as a 10k BI was the higher part of our BI range for us (and 2 players had in fact entered via satellites), while the 2 SHR players were playing the inferior part of their BIs. Which meant that a 15bbs stack for them outclassed the lol table chip leader’s of 30bbs. Of course, I did not get to peak at the SHR’s holdings, but such is how I understood the situation and which I also replicate when playing a low-stakes tournament, especially when the payouts are SO TOP HEAVY : Spoiler Show

ICM is for poor people :wink:

The poker scene is quite interesting in these parts, as it is at its mere infancy. Poker is just not a thing in Peru and the few international live MTT grinders are (seemingly...) living outside the country. In fact, if I was Peruvian, I would be 7th (or something…) on the all time Hendon Mob list lol. And perhaps the state of the game is such that it might mirror the scene up in Dawson City back when I went pro in 2011 in the Yukon, right, when there was absolutely no other professionals to compete against, hence the road was ripe for a single soul to rise up yo Spoiler Show

stakes were such that there could only be one player with a win rate sufficient enough to make a minimalistic living while combining it with a little online action :wink:

Anyhow, it was quite interesting to observe the up-and-coming pros in these parts (with (a weak) one of them actually going to WSOP Vegas this summer with 50k in alleged BIs 😮:shocked:🙄. Another fellow (who I somewhat befriended) that went ahead and won 3/8tournaments, including the Main Event 😮:shocked:. He was definitely one of the stronger players, ran PURE, obviously, but I mean, for a fellow that has single result in his Hendon Mob (a 30k binkage in Brazil yo ), we have to also put him in the up-and-coming pros category, right…. And then there was the babe influencer, sexy - sure -, but flirtatious af, pretty bad at poker, albeit quite agro, and that tried to present herself as an online pro - even if there is just no way hell she has the talent Spoiler Show

she is an agent 😉

Playing so small gave me a (lost) respect for winning small sums of monies ; I mean, don’t get me wrong, I rarely not try to win a tournament regardless of the BI, but I do let myself coast with my B game when I go to Dawson and grind the live game there, for instance Spoiler Show

which nets me an absurd amount of bbs/h nevertheless 😃🙄

. But aside from one FT where I caught my attention swaying away for the span of 30 minutes reading bball relating stuff on my phone, I pretty much played my B+/A game (exercising everyday before the grind helps a ton as well And lo and behold : since coming back to the online realm, I have come to appreciate more booking small winning sessions yo by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58905177#post58905177)

probably a good first step at least

Mission accomplished : my profile on Codigo Poker as well as the article to which the quote underneath my name referred to, have both been deleted Codigo Poker finally emailed me back after I had hired a programmer who sent an email of legal threats yo 😃. That being said, I can't imagine the quantity of Latino players that found themselves with the same Headline underneath their names upon Google searches... 😊. And unfortunately, even if my profile and the Headline/article in question have been deleted/return a 404 error result, a Google link with the false accusations to my name still exists until the next Google crawl of deletes, ehhhh :(

()

In other (personal) news, I booked a last minute trip to Cusco to go do an Ayahuasca ceremony this Monday. Things with C have been iffy recently and I will be seeking answers from the Spirit World yo 😉

Enjoy the Ayahuasca trip, I hope it bares fruits. I was in Cusco, and Peru as a whole, for a while last year. Cusco was a magical city but I was more than happy to land back in Lima and return to sea level.

"ICM is for poor people" would make a great song title (likely a hip-hop one).

by wj294 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58910225#post58910225)

Enjoy the Ayahuasca trip, I hope it bares fruits. I was in Cusco, and Peru as a whole, for a while last year. Cusco was a magical city but I was more than happy to land back in Lima and return to sea level.

Thx friend and long time no (online) speak Yeah, engaging the spiritual realm via Ayahuasca always gives me the jitters, as I never know what to expect... Thankfully though, this time around, my intention will be wisdom/insight about my relationship and experience a solid amount of peace, so it should be a walk in the (Spiritual) park (of dead souls) 😉 by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58910258#post58910258)

"ICM is for poor people" would make a great song title (likely a hip-hop one).

You always chime in with imaginative ideas Doc, and to MC the lyrics for ICM is for poor people , I recommend no other then the infamous Zigmund : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5JD1l54... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5JD1l54LCc) Spoiler Show

Rumor had it at the time that Sahamies had given 10k to partake in the video, if memory serves me right... Edit : ah found this on wikipedia : "In 2014, Sahamies paid 50 000 euros to become part of the Finnish hip hop band Teflon Brothers when they were looking for a new member through an online bidding.[7] He appears as a featured guest on the group's 2015 song "Pämppää"".

The views look amazing yo

The State of the Game Meh, poker in 2025 sucks balls 😊:(. Think AI, rampant cheating, increasing rake, decreasing rakeback, the soft European countries being fenced off and, of course, just an overall lower hourly. Losing Unibet was an obvious financial hit, as I had been crushing that site for 6 digits annually for a good 6/7 years. Of course, there are still some decent sites to average a decent hourly, but both of my coveted top options, can only be played from Canada unfortunately. Along with the fact that live poker is not really intriguing professionally in Lima (as opposed to say Montreal), I have been quite disillusioned with my options in these parts, tbh. Things should be straightened out when I get to Montreal and have access to the aforementioned sites and will most likely go grind live 2-5 and 5-10 games a couple of times a week. Spoiler Show

God I miss the 2018-2023 days of logging for no more then 20h weekly and crushing for 6 digits annually, ehhhhh :(

I have booked my trip to WSOP Vegas and will once again be there for a 3 weeks span, except this time around, the Main will not be my last event played, but my 2nd one and in fact the only NLHE that I will play!!! Yup, I will be targeting 3-4 PLO mid-stakes MTTs after the Main, thus pretty much being there for the closing day of the series yo. I don’t like to start off the series by firing on all cylinders with two 10ks right off the bat to then finish off with lower 1.5-3k BIs, as it will mean that I will have to be emotionally strong/brush off past results if I do whiff in my first two events - the CAD$ has also dropped significantly due to inflation and the Tarif wars with the US of God damn A, ffs 😡 -. On the other positive side of the spectrum, starting with a min cash in either 10ks, would be an emotional boost yo I have booked a comfy AirBnB in the downtown/Fremont st. area. If I originally wanted to go back to the Rio again (or at least an hotel with a gym), the diminished CAD$ just makes the USD$ price tag that much more IMPOSING, especially when considering how fast expenses accumulate themselves in the City of Sin, most notably during days off - my sister will be coming along for a few days, thus increasing activities/expenses significantly during her stay. So anyhow, I had found a room in the Excalibur at 100USD$/night (144CAD$), which is as high as I wanted to go for a 3 week stint, but then the hotel promptly cancelled the transaction/the deal Which sucks, as being on the Strip and being walking distance from the Paris Hotel would of been the best case scenario, me thinks. That being said, I will simply buy dumbbell weights upon arrival in Vegas (I booked an extra day in advance before the PLO Championship precisely to get all the groceries/dumbbells/dep ). Speaking of live poker, the NSOP series will be running again (with exactly the same schedule) in Piura at the end of April ; C and I have made plans to go on a short vacation to Tumbes (about 60kms away from Piura) around those dates, so I will be able to combine leisure with work yo We will also be doing a 10 day Vipassana retreat in early April, thus making my time productive Spiritually, especially during a moment of my professional career that the online grind is simply not worth my time 😉.

( are actually a pair of Muay Thai Inca style shorts edit : after finishing this post this weekend, I proceeded to dump -2k online in an hour ; saw the Raptors seemingly win the game, only to have Shead's fg be corrected/cancelled by mere milliseconds (another -2k) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhfGPww7... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhfGPww7HAs) ; bet on Gaethje-Fiziev finishing off by TKO/KO/disqualification within the 5 round bout, only to discover that it was actually (eventually) set for 3 rounds (and ended up in decision) ; and have Alex Pereira suddenly forget how to fight and (even still barely) lose 3 rounds to 2 (-4k) for fracking-f**king sakes 😡😡😡

I am equally bearish with my thoughts on poker but am also an equally big UB supporter. I'm looking to transition out of poker this year but, at present, I play 95%+ live but the small amount of online play is on there, but outside of there the landscape looks bleak. I have friends who play more online who are more knowledgeable/involved in online poker now who are all more positive than me so who am I to doubt them, I guess? but from the outside looking in it looks very bleak outside of the US regulated markets. Live NLHE is not doing well, it's difficult to play 10/20+ publicly and if you do it's the Wynn game which is a very tough, online esque game at times. Live PLO cash or MTTs seems to be the way to go. I'm a very weak PLO player but look around at some tables I'm sat at where I'm the only 'reg' of sorts in the game, just me and 7/8 fish. A competent reg will be crushing those games. Live MTT's seem to be booming but playing live MTTs full time is a truly sadistic career at the behest of variance. OTOH, I've heard of alleged camera cheating in maybe 5 different midstakes+ locations now, it's such a low barrier to entry way of cheating which is really worrying. Have you ever played at The Hippodrome in London? They have every dealer skim the cards over the top of the felt which imo should be mandatory for dealers everywhere now but gl with that. On a more positive note, your travel plans sound fun. I'm told live PLO MTT's are amazing value and it makes complete sense. How do you like Peru v other South American countries you've lived in? I'm rarely on 2p2 nowadays so apologies if you've spoken on this prior.

by wj294 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58926602#post58926602)

I am equally bearish with my thoughts on poker but am also an equally big UB supporter. I'm looking to transition out of poker this year but, at present, I play 95%+ live but the small amount of online play is on there, but outside of there the landscape looks bleak. I have friends who play more online who are more knowledgeable/involved in online poker now who are all more pos... See full post

Hey bro, thx for chiming in ; also great to hear from longtime followers of this thread ♥ Wow, I just checked the date of my first post in my travel thread and darn, it all started fracking 13 years ago 😮 :shocked: :p. Speaking of being bearish on poker/wanting out imminently : if I put myself back into my mental headspace of 2013, there is just no way that I could of imagined that I would of gone as far as I did in the poker world!!! Not that I have achieved that much, tbf, but the Dubnjoy of ore was always on the brink of being broke, never for the life of him fathomed to have multiple 6 digit years (let alone a few 1/4+ million years), and to be able to indulge in such a comfortable lifestyle by wj294 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58926602#post58926602)

Live NLHE is not doing well, it's difficult to play 10/20+ publicly and if you do it's the Wynn game which is a very tough, online esque game at times. Live PLO cash or MTTs seems to be the way to go. I'm a very weak PLO player but look around at some tables I'm sat at where I'm the only 'reg' of sorts in the game, just me and 7/8 fish. A competent reg will be crushing those g... See full post

Even if I will be in the NLHE lab for the next couple of months, the studying is just to maintain my holdem game somewhat decent in order to be able to fire away in random live MTT's or have sufficient volume online ; it was been a couple of years that I made a conscious decision to switch the majority of volume and studying to the great game of PLO, as the 4 card games were just that more juicy on Unibet back then and I (perhaps naively want to) believe that the solvers are much less useful in the 4 card game as opposed to holdem. And yeah, while I am pretty ignorant as far as live PLO cash games go - but I should perhaps jump into a few them while during the WSOP, perhaps... -, MTTs are definitely soft af yo by wj294 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58926602#post58926602)

Live MTT's seem to be booming but playing live MTTs full time is a truly sadistic career at the behest of variance. OTOH, I've heard of alleged camera cheating in maybe 5 different midstakes+ locations now, it's such a low barrier to entry way of cheating which is really worrying. Have you ever played at The Hippodrome in London? They have every dealer skim the cards over the t... See full post

Ehhhhh, yeah, bubbling after grinding for a few days is the absolute most tilting experience ever, gggrrrrrr 😡😡😡 by wj294 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58926602#post58926602)

On a more positive note, your travel plans sound fun. I'm told live PLO MTT's are amazing value and it makes complete sense. How do you like Peru v other South American countries you've lived in? I'm rarely on 2p2 nowadays so apologies if you've spoken on this prior.

Well Peru is the nuts for food, consuming Plant Medicine and Peruvians are pretty darn nice yo Disclaimer : any nation is friendlier then El Porteno (people from Buenos Aires), but no nationality can touch Brazilians as far as the fracking GOATS of all GOATS 😉 In more pragmatic terms : I love living in Lima, I have access to all my passions in these parts (Vipassana, Ayahuasca, Muay Thai, snorkeling, great restaurants, travel destinations) ; the negatives are that the poker scene in these parts is at its infancy, small stakes and heavily raked, it is a traditional and macho society. In conclusion : my relationship with C is making it all worth it, even though the latter also demands a TON of fracking (inner) work 🙄

I love Peru and Lima and definitely agree with your positives (the niceness being more a thing in Lima and the lowlands than in the Andes tho 😀 ), but I usually can't spend more than 30-45 days or so every 2 years, or the pollution (air, trash and especially the honking, omg, peruvians honk even for no reason at all) start to stress the **** out of me 😃 Btw, we receive plenty of argentine tourists here in Brazil, and Florianopolis in particular gets a lot, and I can definitely say that I'd rather get less tourists here if it means Porteños go elsewhere haha. Argentines from pretty much any other city are normal and nice people tho, other than being crazy drivers 😀

Exchanging Blows The Muay Thai training has been a bit physically taxing lately. Not so much in terms of personal determination or for lack of interest, but more so related to my body - who has thus far completed 48 Earth orbits and then some 😉 - that is suffering from my increased training. First it was my right foot that was swollen like a Mama-fracker for a couple of weeks+ - to the extent that C was pleading me to go see a doctor :p 😃 🙄 - to now having my left leg stiff af after a hefty sparring session that ended up finishing pretty darn equal, and with both of us left in pain :p. Disclaimer : I go pretty hard at it 🙄 If I previously predicted that I had a 30-70% chance of ultimately engaging in a future competitive Amateur fight, those odds might have dropped to 20-80%, imho : the 1 month training camp of 5h daily might by itself put my body out of commission before even throwing a single leg kick, ffs 😡 :p 😊 Edit : after my course today and speaking with my teacher about competitive fighting and whatnot, I feel reinvigorated once again In fact, now knowing that an amateur fight in Peru is only 3 rounds of 3 minutes, that they use (at my category weight of 85-90kgs) 14 ounces gloves, kind of changes everything yo Which also means that my training could be of a mere 20h weekly going into the fight, with somewhat light sessions of 3h (or 2 of 90 minutes). Yup, limiting myself to Muay Thai as opposed to diversifying myself with the inclusion of wrestling, definitely paved the road ahead for a potential rumble yo. by Peace&Love m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58928406#post58928406)

I love Peru and Lima and definitely agree with your positives (the niceness being more a thing in Lima and the lowlands than in the Andes tho 😀 ), but I usually can't spend more than 30-45 days or so every 2 years, or the pollution (air, trash and especially the honking, omg, peruvians honk even for no reason at all) start to stress the **** out of me 😃

Yes, I 100% agree : this was the UNIQUE reason why I did not make Lima my permanent home back pre-covid and went with Buenos Aires instead, because of the constant honking that would stressed me out usually after a month's time :(. That being said, the honking issue has tremendously improved since the pandemic, imho, with signs of "no honking" and more fines being distributed to the (sound pollution) assailants It does also help that I have found an apartment with the GOAT insulation and that barely any sound can penetrate my peace bubble yo 😀 by Peace&Love m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58928406#post58928406)

Btw, we receive plenty of argentine tourists here in Brazil, and Florianopolis in particular gets a lot, and I can definitely say that I'd rather get less tourists here if it means Porteños go elsewhere haha. Argentines from pretty much any other city are normal and nice people tho, other than being crazy drivers 😀

Ehhhh, yeah, fracking Portenos :(😊😡 Back in December at EPT Prague, I had a Brazilian show up at my table and sit on my direct right. We rapidly engaged in conversation with a French fellow from across also partaking. The Brazilian would go on to ask me which I preferred of EPT Prague or BSOP Sao Paolo ; I sneered and answered "Sao Paolo" as if it was the most obvious answer in the world!!! Spoiler Show

Prague is a beautiful af city and I kinda get along with Czech peeps (one of my best buddies is from Czech Republic), but playing tournaments in Brazil is a Gazillion times more lively yo

. After he told me about the Brazil-Argentina rivalry, I went on to explain that it was really weird to go from grinding in literally my least favorite place in the world to play MTT's (Argentina), to my favorite in the country bordering it (Brazil) 🙄

()

If we changed "Muay Thai" to "Poker" that list would still make a great deal of sense.

Synchroncity I just noticed that I have not updated this thread in a month, which comes as somewhat of a surprise, given that so much has happened since... Then again, I have been more reticent over the past couple of years to be overtly publicly transparent about personal life issues, so there is that. And that I have also just served for 11 days in the kitchen of a Vipassana meditation retreat and was thus offline (while C was sitting her first ever course to great success yo ♥ ♥ ♥). Anyhow, here is a quick update. I have moved to the barrio of San Miguel which, while remaining an upper middle class neighbourhood, is definitely not touristic by any means and is in fact located at a good 10kms away from the touristy hub of Miraflores-Barranco-San Isidro - which most fear to sway away from (I kid you not), as they fear to get robbed in more local residential and lower income areas. Granted, I am a couple of blocks from the dreaded district of Callao, which has been recently flagged internationally to avoid like the pest after the killing of a famous Peruvian salsa singer (after he had refused to pay extortion fees). Moreover, like I mentioned, C and I are just coming back from a Vipassana retreat that was mighty powerful albeit tough as nails : for her, to sit there working inwardly amongst external bodily pains ; for me, to volunteer in the kitchen while being short staffed (half the volunteers as usually) and having to deal with a server that has yet to develop a strong enough and selfless volition to properly be of service to the student meditators. But anyhow, to let the heaviness (and lightness...?) of the meditative experience behind, we will be flying to Tumbes this Friday, AKA more pristine beaches by the Ecuadorian border where a bunch of snorkeling, swimming, training, eating out and dancing will be done yo We will then be slowly coming back on the bus down the coast while stopping to a few destinations along the way Speaking of living in San Miguel, upon coming back, I will be seeking a new gym to train Muay Thai in for the rest of my duration in Lima before WSOP Vegas. Besides this, I have found a better and more lucrative site to grind online - thank fracking God 😮 :shocked: 😉 - and will be studying MTTs (mainly PLO) in preparation for the Vegas grind. by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58936727#post58936727)

If we changed "Muay Thai" to "Poker" that list would still make a great deal of sense.

Or to Vipassana, imho.

( all folks, be well ♥

Dub, Glad to hear things are going pretty well in the personal life and that you have found a potentially lucrative on-line option. You mention the upcoming summer grind - does that mean you are traveling to Vegas for WSOP? If so do you have any qualms about the recent issues that some travelers have had with US customs/border officials? If you are coming to Vegas hope it goes smoothly and you crush the games.

Congrats on being a server at a Vipassana retreat: essential task as you know. I still hope I can do the same, sooner rather than later, although I feel like I've been saying this for a long time now.

by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58964849#post58964849)

Dub, Glad to hear things are going pretty well in the personal life and that you have found a potentially lucrative on-line option.

Thx friend ♥ by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58964849#post58964849)

You mention the upcoming summer grind - does that mean you are traveling to Vegas for WSOP? If so do you have any qualms about the recent issues that some travelers have had with US customs/border officials? If you are coming to Vegas hope it goes smoothly and you crush the games.

Yes I will be. I do have qualms and did think about potentially skipping out this summer, but I had bought some non-refundable flights and my hotel dates are also booked accordingly for not only Vegas, but the Yukon afterwards. We have been discussing the issue in the WSOP thread and the general consensus is that there will be a 15-20% drop off in attendance. The curious thing about that thread, is that certain posters (all Americans) fail to see or understand how Canadians and Europeans are feeling disillusioned about the political situation in the USA/the tariff wars and are refusing to set foot in USA#1 - speak of having your head up your egocentric USA#1 arse, perdon mon French 😉. by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58964860#post58964860)

Congrats on being a server at a Vipassana retreat: essential task as you know. I still hope I can do the same, sooner rather than later, although I feel like I've been saying this for a long time now.

Thx bro ♥ I have actually been a server a dozen of times before, but this was definitely the hardest as far as internal (Sankharas) and external factors went ; I have had some much tougher internal struggles when first serving in the early 2000's due to being more inclined to depression and anxiety at the time, but this one was demanding in terms of emotionally caring for the outcome of C (sitting a course for the first time), having very little staff (we actually had to hire some help from the outside that was not a volunteer/has not sat a course before) and have very little breaks during the day. It did not help that a fellow would storm out of the kitchen regularly leaving us high and dry, sigh 😊. But lo and behold : we managed to survive and come out better human beings/meditators yo Off tomorrow for northern Peru ; I might be playing a small NSOP tournament in Piura. Peace

nice updates Dubn. Will be rooting for you to enjoy some summer travel rungood. by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58965102#post58965102)

TWe have been discussing the issue in the WSOP thread and the general consensus is that there will be a 15-20% drop off in attendance. The curious thing about that thread, is that certain posters (all Americans) fail to see or understand how Canadians and Europeans are feeling disillusioned about the political situation in the USA/the tariff wars and are refusing to set foot i... See full post

never forget that we Americans piss excellence!

Spoiler Show

()

Sparring San Miguel. I am still figuring out the meanders of my new neighborhood ; today I went walking by the boardwalk which oversees the ocean, is also delimited by parks, green pastures, small plazas etc. which makes it a GOAT place to sip on mates yo I am still in the process of finding a Muay Thai dojo to train in, but meanwhile, I do have at my disposal a boxing bag in my gym which definitely makes my personal training all that much delightful :wink: On the latter, I feel that ultimately fighting in a competitive setting, even at an Amateur level, is doubtful at best…. In the tune of perhaps a 10% probability. Even when factoring in that I am getting closer talent-wise and physically to endure three (mere) rounds of 3 minutes combat. So what is the problem, you might ask, right, as I definitely feel that I could square off with most peeps in the ring : the difficulties lie in my (advanced middle-aged) body being sore af after sparring sessions and alas, oftentimes finding itself almost unable to walk upon returning home... Or having my foot swollen for 3 weeks+ str8 and obliged to ice it multiples times daily for that duration ffs 😡😡😡

( will still be training unrelentessly. As if I was preparing for an upcoming fight. And will continue to lower my weight/body % of fat (I was @ 94kgs in December (207lbs) and am down to 87kgs (191lbs) with goals set for 84kgs/184lbs ). Edit : Since writing the above a couple of weeks ago, I have been a little lazy both on the writing front - obviously 😉 - and the Muay Thai training. Not insofar as putting the latter on pause - of course not! -, but I have been indulging in the comfort of my apartment building and training/pouncing on the boxing bag in my gym. The plan is to get back to formal training next week and to benefit from group training/sparring. by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58965104#post58965104)

nice updates Dubn. Will be rooting for you to enjoy some summer travel rungood.

Thx friend, much appreciated Run good all

I'm not a fighting man but somehow believe that bruised foot has value. Extending the metaphor with poker once again, it might even be better if poker players woke up with actual bruises after a "tough" session. Rather than bemoaning dollars lost we could just show our bruise and the world would automatically get our "pain". Some might even say "if it hurts so much why do it?", and of course we would struggle to find an adequate response, only to soldier on regardless.

Stepping Out of Oneself A mere month left here in Lima. And perhaps one should feel excited about the upcoming 3 weeks of WSOP Vegas, followed by 10 days in the Yukon and 3 months in Montreal, but such is not the case for yours truly that, alas, has no desire to leave behind the Wonderful and lovely C until November, sigh and a Gazillion fracking times sigh!!! :( - Moreover, writing these lines is making me realize just how much love I hold ♥ for her… I had planned to engage in a couple more plant ceremonies in Cusco, but am now 50/50% - 20/80% while editing these lines a few days later... - on going or not. The plan was to take Aya the first evening and Wachuma - mescaline in the form of cactus - the next. But I will play it by ear. And C might also be tagging along (for Aya) But speaking of the Ayahuascan journey, I have yet to leave behind my body during a ceremony. Nor have I wanted to. In fact, I have only exited once - as far as I know... - my anatomy, and this was in the midst of intense af meditation during a 10 day Vipassana retreat - while waking up in the middle of the night, I found myself momentarily (about half a second...) hovering a couple of meters over my body ; the physical act of having to enter again into my body felt a little entrapping, as I was forced to reengage abruptly the sensorial world going from nothing at all to having half of my body freely vibrating while the other half was stiff. Anyhow, even if all Ayahuasca brews are not created equally, let's say, for the purpose of numerical references, that half of a dosage is given to newcomer, one dose to intermediate pupils and two doses has been my two more recent (a little more advanced) experiences, I have yet to take 3 doses which would be needed to blast off/open a breach to explore freely the Universe yo. And I am not sure if I am ready just yet…. Hear me out! Vipassana is a form of dualistic meditation, in the sense that one is the observer that is aware of his body, of his own ego and areas that are needed to work upon/transcend, as opposed to Zen or Tibetan forms of meditations where the goal is to promptly reach nibhannic states of oneness/non-self. Vipassana is a slow gradual cleanse of oneself/one’s ego until, yes, greater states of consciousness/levels of understanding of the Phenomenal World are reached yo And me, being an imperfect af Dubnjoy with a heavy past and whatnot, am still in the stage of purifying my ego. Sure, I have done several decades of meditation, a ton of inner work and taking 2 doses is nothing to frown upon neither, yet I feel that I want to pursue the purging and purifying furthermore and such is my priority before discovering, you know, life its Multiverses and all its little beings that populate it along with their myriads of secrets!!! by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=58990306#post58990306)

I'm not a fighting man but somehow believe that bruised foot has value. Extending the metaphor with poker once again, it might even be better if poker players woke up with actual bruises after a "tough" session. Rather than bemoaning dollars lost we could just show our bruise and the world would automatically get our "pain". Some might even say "if it hurts so much why do it?",... See full post

Another one of your A++ golden posts TJO, much like you do frequently in Ben’s thread bro Yup I agree : martial arts is a direct blow. A (litteral) fracking punch in the face. Blunt. Raw. And downright fracking direct as can be. Which is what I love about it, as one has to be fully in the moment as to dodge the pain that potentially comes your way, as a jab to the face has an equity of 100% of waking you the f**K up (even if the punch fails to inflict pain). Poker is deceiving. Implicit. Which makes the fish keep coming back, lying to themselves in the process. As it pertains to my personality, I do very much like that I can be nice at a poker table full of strangers, socially engage the table while quietly scooping away da monies and remaining humble in the process yo I feel that unlike many trades/lines of work, one does not need to prove himself to others at the poker table : he does not need to talk the shyt, is his own boss and the long term variance is the only one that can (somewhat) determine his level of talent.

(

The End of the (Lima) Road : Notebook Style Everything comes to an end. Or so they say…. Which is probably why I had to turn my heels last night and leave the Peruvian soil. That and the fact that my visa is CLEARLY outdated at this point 😮😆🙄 Online Poker : The grind has been steady recently, with a satisfying enough WR, or at least closer to how my 2018-2022 peak was So no complaints here. I have also been studying quite intensely (for me!), am happy with the progression of my 4 card game, both in the cash game realm and for my MTT understanding of PLO yo 😀. My 2 card game is whatever, remains somewhat acceptable - I guess... - and while I did delve momentarily into the NLHE lab, holdem is just a small part of my overall grind lately and acts more as a means to satisfy volume (of usually just 200-400), while table selecting quite extensively (I will be looking to attack the 2k PLO online cash games quite imminently/after Vegas yo Sidenote : my ambition of playing higher stems strictly as means to upper my WR/shorten my time spent grinding, ironically, as opposed to any desire to keep moving up in the poker realm 😉. WSOP Vegas : The (tentative) schedule goes as follows :

• We will be starting strongly on June 28th with the 10k PLO Championship.
• To follow with the 10k Main Event, most likely one of the later waves, like Day 1C or 1D on July 3-4th...
• And then the 1k PLO Mystery Bounty on July 8th-9th (if I am out of the Main Event...).
• The 1.5k PLO 6 handed on July 10th.
• And, depending on how the latter goes, I might jump in some holdem events on the 11th and 12th(the 777$ or 2k Hall of Famer...).
• The 3k PLO 6 handed on July 13th Life Plans :. In the next few months, I will be purchasing a house in Les Laurentides, Quebec. Before going back to Lima in December, getting my residency sorted out and buying a flat there (a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice building (with gym, pool, sauna, and rooftop BBQs) with a balcony overlooking the ocean, is a mere 102k USD$ :shocked:😮😃. I also plan on cutting significantly my poker grind hopefully within the next 2 years in order to focus more on being of service/volunteer work yo ♥ Something like starting up a free community kitchen in poorer Lima neighbourhoods might be the direction that I will be heading towards... That and contributing more service in the Vipassana centre as well. I will try to update daily this blog during the next 3 WSOP weeks.

( y'all ♥

glgl in Vegas bro

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59025307#post59025307)

Life Plans :. In the next few months, I will be purchasing a house in Les Laurentides, Quebec. Before going back to Lima in December, getting my residency sorted out and buying a flat there (a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice building (with gym, pool, sauna, and rooftop BBQs) with a balcony overlooking the ocean, is a mere 102k USD$ :shocked:😮😃. I also plan on cutting significa... See full post

Liking those life plans ... a little less variance than the poker.

WSOP Day 0 : Checklist

• Laundry done 1.4kms away in the Vegas midday (overstated 😉) heat : Check
• Groceries purchased after walking around for a good 5kms : Checking blind yo
• Buying 2 x 15 lbs dumbbells in order to train everyday within the comfort of my Super 8 room, as there is no gym here : ehhhh am desperately checking here 😊
• Dinner with a buddy, getting the WSOP app verified and registering for the PLO Championship : Check da out bro 😃 Yup, I was initially tilted when figuring out that the Strat hotel, which was at relatively the same price and is a couple of bus stops south of here/closer to the Paris Hotel, has a gym. Ehhh, I have to walk 10 minutes from my hotel room to the bus stop just to hop on the Deuce that takes 35-40 minutes to get to the Strip. Oh well, live and learn : we got this yo by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59025823#post59025823)

glgl in Vegas bro

Gracias hermano ♥ by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59027225#post59027225)

Liking those life plans ... a little less variance than the poker.

Ohhh for sure! I should of specified that I want to rent out both places when not being used, and that C is also purchasing a 2 bedroom apartment in the richer Miraflores area (on top of her first apartment), so we plan on simply staying together most of the time, renting out the non-used flats and sharing the passive income yo Run good all

WSOP Day 1 : Shoot Me in the Damn Foot 😡😡😡 Tough day at the office, as the table, on first glance, did not seem ripe for the pickings, as everyone and their Mom had a Hendon Mob of 800k+. And then, the cherry on top : Richard Gryko sat to my left, the guy that I have been studying the art of PLO MTTs for the past couple of years on RIO, fml :(. But then I happily found out that a 7 digit HM apparently does not mean shyt, as each and every single one of these mama-frackers at my table had leaks the size of rat sewages yo 😃. And that in fact, I was comfortably the 2nd best player at the table... Except... Richard mama-fracking Gryko, of course, against whom my bluff-reraise on the river vs his weak lead was looked up... against whom I got pot-reraised on the river when the board paired (after a checked turn and my rivered nut flush)... and who finally won a flip vs me for my tournament life (and a bit more than a starting stack size pot) after I had turned the nuts (and also had the T♦ x♦ blockers to his J♦x♦ redraw :(). So yeah, a fracking tilting day :p If I find the motivation tomorrow, I will hop in a 1k PLO at the Venetian. I should definitely do so, as there are not many attractive tournaments this week until the Main starts, tbh.

(

WSOP Day 2 : Picking Oneself Up from Dust I woke up without much fight, energy nor might. But sat up regardless in my hotel bed at 10:30am, meditated for an hour, jumped on the wooden floor and exercised for 40 minutes while reminding myself that "this is Sunday and that many recs are going to be found on the felt!!!". I also had to remind myself that this is only day2 of the series, even if does feel, after dropping 10k on my first bullet, like a BURDEN to pull myself out of the red 🙄 So after showering, spraying some grinding cologne on my neck and whatnot, I hopped in an Uber direction The Venetian to play the 1.1k DS PLO. I was playing my A+ game. Pouncing on every spot and getting away with murder more frequently than fracking Jack the Ripper could/would of 😉. And lo and behold : in no time I had 5+ starting stacks yo Except... shyt ultimately hit the fan after registration period was over, I started running like death and losing 5 subsequent middling and BIG pots, fml 😊. Even my last hand of limping (bad) AAxx, getting raised pot and called twice before backjamming and getting the IR to overjam iso was alas for naught, but... we still have Day 1B tomorrow, a day during which I plan on firing multiple bullets yo The How I got Away with Murder Hand of the Day : After flatting an UTG open-raise of 2.5bbs in the CO with 67♠8♠9♠ - I know it seems loose and passive af, but BB was BUY FAR the weakest player at the table and also the chip leader - ; SB calls, as does BB Flop (11bbs) : 3♣3♠T♥ Meh, absolutely nothing to write home about, but when it is checked to me, I usually take a good 3-7 seconds to contemplate the reactions of villains, to pay attention if they awareness is directed towards me or if they stopped caring about the hand all together... I check back. Turn (11bs) : 3♣3♠T♥ J♠ After the SB checks, things become spicy when the BB bets 2bbs - a CLEAR sizing tell!!! -, UTG makes it 6bbs - wtf!?! - and I think about conquering the world, its Solar System and fracking Galaxy... After all, when the first player exploitatively chooses rock and the 2nd player sneezes it out and opts for paper, all I have to do is select the Nuclear Bomb and fracking BLOW them out of the Stratosphere, right!?! 😆😃😉 ; I make it 13bbs to go ; BB snaps-mucks before UTG tanks for about 10 seconds and aggressively mucks his hand in disgust We got this yo

( y'all

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59028990#post59028990)

The How I got Away with Murder Hand of the Day : After flatting an UTG open-raise of 2.5bbs in the CO with 67♠8♠9♠ - I know it seems loose and passive af, but BB was BUY FAR the weakest player at the table and also the chip leader - ; SB calls, as does BB Flop (11bbs) : 3♣3♠T♥Meh, absolutely nothing to write home about, but when it is checked to me, I usually take a good 3-7 seconds ... See full post

Much appreciated HH: lots of feel good in the fold equity. Just seeing the interior of the Venetian triggers me (I can still hear the soundtrack of that place in my head).

WSOP Day 3 : The Breaking the Ice Cashed in the 1k PLO Venetian DS, am going back tomorrow to (a mere) 10bbs stack, but played my A+ game/had to get (almost(literally!)) with murder a couple of times just to get there. HHs and update to come tomorrow, as it is now 1:26 and must get up in 8h.

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59029793#post59029793)

Much appreciated HH: lots of feel good in the fold equity. No shyt!!! I was going to check-back if I got there on the river with either of my str8 or flush, but probably got a better pair/fd/str8 draw to fold yo 😃.

WSOP Day 4 : A bit of Light I went on a bit of a rush to start off the day as after seeing 2 limpers and waking up with AK25ss in the SB in the very second of the day, I potted most of my 11.5bbs and happily got folds The very next hand, I woke up with KKT6ds in the BB, ripped it over an open-raise (from one of the previous limpers/weaker player) ; seemingly annoyed, he tilt-snap-shoved JJT9ss. But I held The following 2-3h was much of the same as had been during the whole tournament where I just ran bad, probably in the bottom 20-30 percentile and eventually busted with AKxx < TTxx after laddering up 3 levels of times to the tune of 3.1k. I'll take it. In fact, if it wasn't for 2 MASSIVE well timed bluffs, I would of never cashed yo 😀 The How I got Away with Murder Hand History of the Day : After an UTG open-raise to 2.5bbs from a weaker maniac player and a bottom call from a passive push-around fellow, I happily make the call in the BB with the A♦T♦T♣9♠ Flop (9bbs) : 9♣8♣2♠ I tank for about 5-8 seconds, thinking how hitting top pair is a great blocker to have and how having the TT immensely increases my fold equity, but given that the initial raiser is sticky af, I elect to check instead and to evaluate henceforth... Both villains rapidly check. Turn (9bbs) : 9♣8♣2♠ 8♥ Really not a great card for my specific hand, but it does hit my range and I can easily get way with repping it : I take about 5 seconds before betting 4.5bbs only to see both villains rapidly call... Okay... 😊 River (22.5bbs) : 9♣8♣2♠ 8♥ A♣ Hummmm, interesting river... First of all, having an A definitely helps blocking a potential AA holding from the first villain and any A8 from either. Secondly, the A♣ negates anyone from having the nut flush draw on the turn, thus making them potentially less sticky on the river with the nut flush, even if there are potential full houses out there. So having the A and 9 blocker (the T♣ is not really relevant, tbh, as I am only repping FHs), I take about 10 seconds before potting it ; the first villain snap-folds while the 2nd moans and groans, now saying that he has a decision... He tanks for about 20-30 seconds before flashing the 8♣6♣ and mocking it while meanwhile saying that he has no fh blockers to make the call 😮:shocked:😃. Easy game yo

( is day 1A of the 3k PLO Mystery Bounty at the Wynn ; we got this yo

I just realized that I shared the wrong HH, or at least not the one I intended to... The Actual Getting Away with Murder Hand History of the Day : Weak villain from previous HH open-raises button to 3.5bbs ; SB folds and I defend the BB with the A♣Q♠T♠2♦ Flop (8.5bbs) : Q♣T♥9♠ I contemplate a few seconds the merits of leading out, which I would almost always do on such a board, but knowing that villain has a tendency overcbet, I decide to let him hang himself... Villain cbets 6bbs and I call. Turn (20.5bbs) : Q♣T♥9♠ 9♦ I take 3-4 seconds before checking and villain pretty rapidly bets a tentative 8bbs. The question is : is he betting small because he has a full-house or does he want to extract thin value/protect his apparent str8 and is thus loving less life... I decide that it is more so the latter, but because I have a mere 28bbs left behind and don't want to be out of the tournament if I happen to be wrong, I min-click it to 16bbs, hence leaving myself with 12bbs of cushion if villain happens to be nutted... Villain takes a few seconds before muttering "your bet was weird" and tossing his hand in the muck yo

WSOP Day 5 : Down the Toilet Meh, ran bad today. At my first table, I had mainly (weak) pros, which even with their ton of leaks, were prompt to 3-4bet/increase the variance immensely. And sure their games is FAR from being fine tune, but it is not as if they will bleed EV like recs neither... And I really despise running bad vs a weak reg that has just binked a mid 6 digit tournament, has ALL the confidence in the world, and for some reason, the Poker Gods keep shining them with this invincible Sunrun Halo 😡😡😡 My 2nd BI/table was actually pretty fracking golden yo There was not one pro at the table 😮 :shocked: 😃, a fellow was potting/3betting literally 60% of his hands preflop. But, even if I did manage to run up 2.5 starting stacks, the variance of the table was such that I need to at least run at median levels... 😊 Back at it tomorrow for day 1b ; we got this yo

( good all

WSOP Day 6-7 : Lulls (Notepad Vegas Style yo) Upon waking up @ 6:00 after a terrible 3h of sleep and a stressed-induced nightmares, I sat up in bed, meditated for an hour, laid back down to sleep... But when the snoozes failed to come, I left myself with the open option of taking the day off…. After all, I am not obliged by any means - except my own enforced expectations - of firing another bullet in the 3k PLO!!! We are not even halfway into the series and I am tired. Tilted. And need a fracking day off!!! @ 9:10, just when I had started snoozing again, I hear the maid knock on the door. Once. I let it go. Twice. Frack no, I was not getting out of bed!!! Thrice. Jeezus fracking Murphy!!!. Four. And five times. At that point, I stood up, threw on some pants, went to open the door, only to realize that she walked away, but had left her cleaning cart in front of my door. I left my door halfway open, went to brush my teeth, and when she came back to offer her “house keeping!” Services, I stared at her with a lonnnnggg fracking face, angry, and retorted a dry and loud “NO!!!”, suddenly saw her facial expression sadden up, and walk away. Thankfully I got back to myself, searched for 2 x dollar bills in my wallet, could only find one, so gave her a 5$ dollar bill, said “thank you for taking care of my room ♥”, noticed her face brighten up ♥ I went back inside, hopped back into bed, and felt really good with myself. After all, despite being tilted and in a fracking bad mood, I avoided being a complete arsehole and managed to share a bit of love (and money) instead to a person that was in a role of being helplessly passive/never going to react either way. Sometimes it takes effort and going out of our way to be a good person. Anyhow, a few random thoughts on Vegas, the series and whatnot :

• The area surrounding the Super 8 is not as bad as initially thought. In fact, after exploring a bit more the neighbourhood, I would say that most of it is upper middle class with sure, some rough patches. But the thing is, this is Sin City. AKA home of the vices. With a TON of junkies walking around and chasing their addictions like zombies. Anyhow, while I would never stay again at the Super 8 - ohhhh how I can be cheap at times just to save a few dollars 🙄 -, The Strat with a bus stop directly by it (and thus saving myself 15 minutes per ride), would definitely be an option (along with the Rio, like last year, or somewhere on The Strip, of course).
• Speaking of which : it does not cease to be shocking to me how The Strip gathers, within the confines of its 5 blocks per 5 blocks limits (?), the best and the worst that the American Dream/capitalism has to offer. Think about a myriad of elite shows, distractions, GOAT restaurants, the best that money can buy, really, and the freedom to indulge, and then the complete liberty of free falling, living in the streets with nothing but empty dreams, engaging in a multitude of addictions, be dead to the world in broad daylight, basically…. What an odd fracking place 😊
• And here are some odd things/contradictions that this place offers : selling booze and cigarettes in a pharmacy (Walgreen), is beyond understanding to me!!! In Canada, pharmacies act as stores where products are intrinsically associated with “health”, outside of perhaps soft drinks and energy drinks. Sure, one could argue that drugs or antibiotics, are not the must salubrious, but at least it would be debatable discussion as opposed to str8 up booze and fracking tobacco!!! Furthermore, in English Canada, one needs to go to a liquor store to buy booze and cannot do so in a grocery store (unlike Quebec and the rest of the World). Anyhow…
• If I initially thought that this would be my last summer in Vegas, as I no longer believe in the brand that is the WSOP and no longer would want to encourage these greedy f**ks, there is a world where I can imagine coming back, grinding exclusively the PLO events outside of the WSOP and only playing the Main Event and PLO Championship there. That being said, probably not, and it will depend on if C could join me for a few days or not…. I am 85-15% on coming to WPT Wynn this December though
• Speaking of travel destinations, C and I have talked about going back to Brazil (BSOP or KSOP), of course, for a small vacation/MTT series, of Aruba (WSOPC), Ecuador (a small stakes series), Punta del Este, and in Europe (perhaps EPT Paris…?).
• Poker players are interesting, tilting, multi-faceted, intriguing, repulsive… you name it, as you can find of everything at the tables!!! But the single must-tilting table talk in midstakes tournaments, is the f***king luxury watch talk, ffs (emojis). Where players start comparing brands, pricetags, and everyone that is seeking social status around the table, chimes in 😡😡😡
• I have been training 30-40 minutes most days in my room with the help of dumbbells that I purchased (for arms and upper body), while also working the abs with pushups, a TON of pull-ups/sit-ups/Russion Roulette etc. and some shadow boxing/Muay Thai ; with the latter, I have been practicing mainly my footing, defense and general spacing. I am looking forward to getting back to punching on a bag and Muay Thai courses though Alright folks, tomorrow is the last flight for the Main, Day 1D; we got this yo

(

You certainly bring back some memories of Vegas for me (i.e. the zombification of a global entertainment district). I can still picture the same homeless person, asleep on a walkway, that I'd pass in the early mornings when returning from the Aria (where I usually got smashed in the 2-5 PLO). In the end, it's a place of extremes, an endless source of ambivalence. If you feel like reading a great book about the place, especially its contradictions, written by an English poet, Al Alvarez's The Biggest Game in Town is sublime. I'm having a quiet laugh about you choosing to stay in a Super 8, buying weights etc. and then having to tip the cleaner a single $5 because she temporarily put you in un-Zen land, but tbh I greatly admire your choice --- I stayed in a pretty decent condo at the MGM grand way back then and lost many $ (leading me to purchase a few bottles of single malt from the um ... chemist down the road). It's all about focusing on what matters, as you know (like pulling off the mega-bluffs in those PLO MTTs).

unless I misread the list it looks like you finished 1-D with above average chips - if so GL day 2 and then go all the way

WSOP Day 8 : Da Main Event Yo I am not a live tournament pro. Hence why I still struggle sleeping in the evening after a lonnnggg day's grind. Unlike my balanced routine of when I am playing online, that is, where many breaks are taken throughout the day to meditate here and there, train, go out for a Muay Thai session, out at dinner for some fresh air and delicious food, before continuing the grind. Live is nothing like that, at least for me. Thank God I have established the healthier habit of training 40 minutes daily after my standard hour of meditation, to eating a light dinner, but ffs, I still cannot fix my somewhat frequent sleepless nights 😮:shocked:😊. After 12h of grinding live, of mainting that robotic stoic posture for a few minutes while villain stares you down in the midst of a bluff for half of your stack, it just pumps that fracking adrenaline up!!! So anyhow, given that the melatonin has been failing to do its work lately, I purchased Diphenhydramine sleeping pills sold across the counter. Ok.. Why not!?! But here's the thing : your standard cold medicine with Diphenhydramine in it, always give me a fking headache upon waking up and that heavy cloudy and drowsy feeling, ehhhhh 😊. And such was the case yesterday morning, even if I did manage to get snoozes for 7h... :( So anyhow, even after the meditation and the ghost Muay Thai training, I still had not fully brushed away the drowsiness. About 80% of it sure, give or take, but it was (very) nonchalantly that I showed up at my table at the Horseshoe, toke my seat, prepared myself some mates, received my very first cards and opened J♠T♣ to 2.5bbs UTG - which I regretted not limping for table image purposes, but then remembered that everyone knows my name with the app, and with it my alrightish 225k Hendon Mob record), have BB defend, see a J56 flop, cbet 35%, get called, double barrelled 70% on the 8 turn - debatable... -, get X-R, fold (to what villain later admitted being a set), and somehow, unbeknownst to me in the moment, get short-changed 4bbs by the lol dealer 😮:shocked:😡😡😡 3 minutes later when I replayed the hand in my head, I became fracking aggravated!!! For the dealer fking up. For villain taking advantage of a mere 4bbs at the first level - disclaimer : even if I thought better then to bring up the issue after the cause, I would go on to bust him set-over-set in an absolute 80bbs cooler that really seemed Karmic, to tell you the truth, as I had the inner premonition that him knowingly f**king me over 4 fracking bbs at the first level was going to come back and byte him yo 😃 Anyhow, that first hand as well as a nasty run bad in the first level woke me the frack up and it wasn't until the third and fourth level that I would go on to get a bit more then two starting stacks and will be returning to day 2D tomorrow with 152bbs yo by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59035259#post59035259)

You certainly bring back some memories of Vegas for me (i.e. the zombification of a global entertainment district). I can still picture the same homeless person, asleep on a walkway, that I'd pass in the early mornings when returning from the Aria (where I usually got smashed in the 2-5 PLO). In the end, it's a place of extremes, an endless source of ambivalence. If you feel li... See full post

The contradictions keep on striking me about this place ; as an example, it is very refreshing to see that their several crossways where pedestrians can cross and actually have the cars stop and let them pass ♥, which is the polar opposite of LATAM, but then they are is very little recycling bins, even on the strip, as opposed to a green country like Canada :(. Anyhow... As far as staying at the Super 8, it is manageable, perhaps a 5/10, I have grown accustomed of my neighbourhood, am actually enjoying being on the 2nd floor of the Deuce bus and even if I will never stay here again, I can definitely see myself staying at The Strat, for a similar 100CAD$/nightly price tag, which would be a small upgrade to the Super8 as far as having a gym, access to restaurants 24/7, and to be surrounded by action at all times yo But yeah, I definitely cut back on expenses when I am not on vacation with my gf, as an example, where all I really need is a bed to crash on and that's it yo 🙄 I loved The Biggest Game in Town, which was one of my favorite fiction poker books along with King of a Small World

( a great table for day 2, but a very good seat with my stack yo Run good all Note : I know my name is fairly obvious at this point and I have disclosed it 2-3 times over the years itt, but please nobody type it out outright as to not trigger a Google result that would lead to this thread -even though it is not hard to put 2 + 2 together and figure it out, I would still rather not have a direct link upon engine searches, thx!!!

by jrrdesert m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59036214#post59036214)

unless I misread the list it looks like you finished 1-D with above average chips - if so GL day 2 and then go all the way

Yup, that is correct : I finished with 1.5x avg stack, mainly because of solid levels 3-4, but went card dead in the last level, was exhausted af, so I opted to not take standard/light 3bet spots vs the tougher/more active players at the table (namely Ari Engel), as I was lacking wit/sharpness at the point in the evening. So overall, I perhaps played a B- game, but mission accomplished thus far yo

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59034638#post59034638)

Anyhow, a few random thoughts on Vegas, the series and whatnot :- The area surrounding the Super 8 is not as bad as initially thought. In fact, after exploring a bit more the neighbourhood, I would say that most of it is upper middle class with sure, some rough patches. But the thing is, this is Sin City. AKA home of the vices. With a TON of junkies walking around and chasi... See full post

Glad you're finally able to explore the shitshow that is Las Vegas. The Strip is the natural starting point for an exploration, although, if you decide to keep coming back, I think you'll find that off-Strip Vegas is much less tawdry and has a lot to offer (food, hiking, nightlife). If you get a chance, you should walk Fremont (which I think isn't far from Super 8) and pop into the Golden Nugget, which has the only cardroom on the Old Strip. There's also some cool art down there and some cool bookstores/coffee shops: Container Park The Gambler's Bookstore The Writer's Block PublicUS Mothership Coffee by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59035259#post59035259)

If you feel like reading a great book about the place, especially its contradictions, written by an English poet, Al Alvarez's The Biggest Game in Town is sublime.

+1 by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59036227#post59036227)

Yup, that is correct : I finished with 1.5x avg stack, mainly because of solid levels 3-4, but went card dead in the last level, was exhausted af, so I opted to not take standard/light 3bet spots vs the tougher/more active players at the table (namely Ari Engel), as I was lacking wit/sharpness at the point in the evening. So overall, I perhaps played a B- game, but mission acc... See full post

Hope you don't have a chance to explore for a while because of your deep run in the Main. GL!

^ You're very lucky to have a non-degen Vegas vet in your thread here (smiley face). There's is some culture in the middle of the desert after all!

2:20am here, I barely just got back, meditated for a bit and jumped in for a quick shower ; I need to get up in less than 7h, @ 9:15 for my standard pre-tourney preparations. Am going back to 37bbs. I just survived because of well timed bluffs (one all-in with A high after 3betting and double barreling) and some creative moves. But if not, I ran pretty bad 😊 Will post more extensively when I have time - hopefully not any day soon... 😉

Going back to day 4 with 46bbs, just below average, 15 off from the bubble. Twice I was the chip leader at my table and twice I lost 50-60% of my stack (HHs to come...). A top 10 chip leader in the tournament, Chad Power, showed up on my direct left 3h off from the bubble 😊 We got this yo

WSOP Day 11 : The Tournament of All Tournaments Somehow, I didn't think much of the Main Event last year... It felt perhaps a bit teensy-weeny overrated at the time, much like Paris, me thinks, the good ole City of Lights that everyone dreams to visit : beautiful in its halo, but tainted with a parcel of glitter that cannot match the expectations invested in it, mayhaps... Am not sure, but this year, as I stepped out into the afternoon streets of The Strip looking up at the Surreal appeal of facade of The Paris Hotel, the Bellagio Fountains and the mad pedestrian traffic extending itself onto the Las Vegas Boulvard and the Flamingo Road, that deep yet high baritone voice of that fellow that spontaneously started singing deep into day 3 of the Main Event came back to me, as the shuffling of the chips accompanied his chanting and the action on the tables continued as warranted, yet the collective energy suddenly surged with each individual voice vibrantly chirping as the whole tournament area came to fracking life : THIS IS THE MAIN EVENT!!! THIS IS IT!!! WE ARE ON THE VERGE OF CASHING IN THE MOST SPECIAL TOURNAMENT WITH OUR DREAMS OF BINKING IT STILL LIVE AS NO ONE IS DRAWING DEAD!!! I cashed for 17.5k and will take it, even if I failed to capitulate on the chip advantage I had at my table that was very short lived as a top 10 chip stack in the tournament, AKA Chad Power, took a sit to my direct left with plans to conquer the world. One of us was going to come out the victor and be the chip leader of the whole tournament during the bubble early on Day 4 and perhaps next time I will be dictating the terms... (HH to come...). I gave it my best shot and won many battles along the way, even as the dust settles, the end chapter is left unwritten...

( y'all

WSOP Day 12 : Funk Meh, the 4 card game variance can be frustrating af when you have 7 digit HB peeps at your table that have leaks the size of the Grand Canyon and even a Dnegs - with a HM of 56+ mils if I remember correctly - not understanding obvious fundamentals and yet... the fracking 67% fail to hold against fracking regs, ggrrrrr 😡😡😡 So anyhow, bubbled 2 bullets into the 1k today and will probably take tomorrow off (from live) to rest a little/grind online and perahaps... by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59036410#post59036410)

Glad you're finally able to explore the shitshow that is Las Vegas. The Strip is the natural starting point for an exploration, although, if you decide to keep coming back, I think you'll find that off-Strip Vegas is much less tawdry and has a lot to offer (food, hiking, nightlife). If you get a chance, you should walk Fremont (which I think isn't far from Super 8) and pop into... See full post

Thx bro ♥ I should check out Fremont and am thinking of having a semi-day off tomorrow, but I might check out the NBA summer league though instead... We shall see 😉 by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59037007#post59037007)

^ You're very lucky to have a non-degen Vegas vet in your thread here (smiley face). There's is some culture in the middle of the desert after all!

For sure! It is unfortunate that I have to meet Ben or you, Dr, despite being virtual friends on here for a decade+ now. Peace ♥

WSOP Day 13 : Rest So there remains 2 tournaments left that I will fire in : the 1.1k PLO 6 handed at the Wynn tomorrow and the 3k PLO 6 handed at the WSOP on Sunday ; while I am content with my performance in Vegas thus far despite being a little down, I feel that I will not walk away with a smile unless I get another cash. And hopefully a good one. We got this yo

WSOP Day 14 : A Misfired Shot I failed again to capitulate after building a stack, this time 4x BIs+ :(. I mean, this was a 1k and whatnot, but it is impressive to what extent peeps, like most pros, have their PLO fundaments WAY off 😮:shocked: Unfortunately, the 4 card variance is such that one cannot just play solid and expect to scoop pot, after pot, after pot... Tomorrow will be our last MTT, the PLO 3k 6 handed and I got a good feeling about this one, folks 😃 So weird to have a couple chapels by the Super 8 and seeing newly wedded couples that go-in-and-out, slap on a couple or rings, a couple of snapshoots, smiles, and that's it folks!!! I guess my own sister got wedded in Vegas, so... Am not judging, but it just seems like an express-kind-of-way to get something that was originally meant to be sacred, no... Then again, I would probably do it the same way, if I felt the need to get married for visa reasons... 🙄

(

Wow, I have a strong presentiment that it is going to happen tomorrow... here's to seeing if intuition is foolish - as it should rationally be the GRAN majority of the time -, or if this intense level of synchronicity will once again be confirmed... tbd 😉

I invite you to visit my website: againstbookmakers.com Since Thursday’s MLB trivia was such a hit, I’m bringing it back this Sunday! The first 30 people to answer correctly will get the chance to purchase a full-year subscription and 50 fixes for just $500 (normally $3,000) What MLB team plays at Fenway Park? Send correct answer to my email. Unlock 12 months of VIP Zone access and 50 fixes You have 12 hours to complete the payment (after that, the offer becomes inactive)* Oh, and today only – a 100% guaranteed free MLB super fix! Trust me, go BIG on this one – it’s free money! *If payment isn’t made within the given time, the offer will expire and the spot will go to the next person on the waiting list (i.e., the next correct entries — 31st, 32nd, etc.). Those on the list will be notified right away when a spot opens and will have 12 hours to complete their payment.

WSOP Day 16 : Farewell and Goodbyes I really had a good feeling heading into the 3k PLO 6 handed, a premonition that usually leads to amazing and unexpected top 1 percentile results, but that this time around, alas, was smoke/misguiding as my (max allowed) 3 bullets misfired, despite building somewhat of a 2+ starting stack each time... ehhhh :(. Regardless, I rapidly brushed it off, came back home, meditated, talked with C, before unexpectedly crashing for 12h+ yo 😀 Today, I feel great. Happy. Full-filled. I have an amazing af gf ♥, a great life, some +EV life changing purchases of a house and apartment coming up, great health, solid happiness levels ♥ Besides, considering the uptick in BTC, I actually made solid monies in Vegas, imagine that 😃. And the online grind has been going fairly good, which remains my bread and butter for the upcoming news yo Up next : Dawson City for a couple of weeks, Montreal until November (WSOPC at the end of August + Vipassana retreat at the end of October) when I will be meeting up with C in Mexico/Florida ; we got this yo

(

The Great Ole North Dawson turned out to be a 10/10 in all honesty. Meeting up with lifelong friends. Spewing around in the 1-2 NL omaha game, imagine that, where I would at times make it 115$ preflop from UTG and get 4-6 callers, given how much the other players, the respect for my person not withstanding, want to bust me 😃:p🙄 [SPOIL] I was up 12k in 5 days (+3k online) until the last evening when they finally got me in the tune of 3k which, tbh was well deserved and good for the overall mood of the poker community over there [SPOIL] I will be in Quebec for the next few months and also playing the WSOPC in 3 weeks which I might (or might not...) update daily itt, given that I will have about 30-35k of BIs and want to keep myself accountable/share results... But I first, I was messing around with Chat GPT and it came up with a couple of texts a la Dubnjoy000 that I thought were interesting/managed to touch indeed my style a little :

()

"The Cards and the Mirror" — by Chat GPT as Dubnjoy000 (hypothetically) Poker is not merely a game. It is a meditation disguised as conflict, a theater of masks where truth and deception trade hands like worn chips. Each hand dealt is a parable: random, indifferent, and yet pregnant with meaning for those willing to see. To sit at a poker table is to stand naked before fate. The cards are impersonal—pure probability. But it is not the cards that win; it is the self who interprets them, bends their silence into language. In this way, poker becomes a mirror. You learn who you are not through what you play, but how you respond to pressure, uncertainty, and loss. Are you patient? Do you fold too soon? Do you chase ghosts? Bluffing, too, is a philosophical gesture. It asks: what is the nature of truth if its appearance can be bought? When you bluff, you become both actor and philosopher, testing the edges of belief. If they fold to your nothing, did your lie become truth? And what does that make of reality? The best players are not merely calculating—they are aware. Aware of patterns, of tells, of the flow of a game as if it were a river. They do not fight the current. They listen. But even the wisest lose. And therein lies poker’s deepest teaching: you may play perfectly and still fall. Like life, it owes you nothing. But if you accept that, if you lean into the chaos with clarity, you may glimpse something rare—freedom. Poker is a spiritual discipline for the skeptical. It demands risk, demands presence, and punishes ego. And for those who return to the table, hand after hand, loss after loss, something is forged—not just a skill, but a soul tempered by uncertainty.

"The Sacred Bluff" — continuation CHatGPT as Dubnjoy000 (hypothetically) There is a sacredness to the bluff—not because it deceives, but because it dares. The bluff is a rebellion against circumstance, a soft defiance whispered into the face of destiny. When you bluff, you speak a new world into being, and for a moment, if the table believes you, that world becomes real. It is not cowardice to fold. Nor is it weakness to call. But each choice, made again and again, becomes a fingerprint of the self. The table is a monastery of repetition, and we are monks of variance, praying to the gods of probability, hoping they smile once more. Some chase the thrill of the win. Others fear the emptiness of the loss. But the truest player—the philosophical one—chases neither. He seeks understanding. He watches the arc of each session like a philosopher studying a sunset: not for what it gives him, but for what it reveals. Aces crack. Two-seven suited wins. The universe laughs. And in that laughter is the humbling truth: control is an illusion. All we can do is show up, observe, act with intention, and let go of the outcome. In this way, poker becomes a mirror of life’s deeper truths: the necessity of risk, the inevitability of loss, the transient beauty of a well-played hand. What is the "tell," after all, if not a glimpse of the unconscious, the soul leaking into motion? At the highest level, poker is not played against others—it is played against the self. Against the fear of being seen. Against the desperate need to win . And when you lose—really lose—it strips you. If you can remain, if you can return without bitterness, you are no longer just a player. You are a pilgrim. The table teaches, if you’re willing to listen. Not just how to play, but how to be—calm in chaos, brave in silence, and honest in uncertainty. Because at the end, the chips are nothing. The cards are nothing. What remains is you. How you played. Who you became.

Man, that was tough to read. Reminded me of the generic love ballad playing in the uber last night. So deep it's nothing more than an empty well; so wet with emotion it's worse than dry skin.

All Quiet on the Eastern Canadian Front All quiet on all fronts in Quebec, as I have been spending time at my folks place up in Les Laurentides, home to a myriad of lakes yo The routine has mainly constituted of meditating, grinding a few hours, training and booking appointments for checkups, eye surgery. I will be starting Muay Thai classes shortly after WSOPC Montreal in a couple of weeks. And then a colonscopy test ehhhh, long live the late 40s 😊 by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59057012#post59057012)

Man, that was tough to read. Reminded me of the generic love ballad playing in the uber last night. So deep it's nothing more than an empty well; so wet with emotion it's worse than dry skin.

Yeah, good points. I thought part of it did touch a little my style/conceptual ideas, but it also felt deeply contrived. And robotic. And dry.

()

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59062079#post59062079)

Yeah, good points. I thought part of it did touch a little my style/conceptual ideas, but it also felt deeply contrived. And robotic. And dry.

Maybe we'll just get used to AI versions of ourselves. I mean it took me a while to get used to electronic drums and sometimes they're great (e.g. in hip-hop). So much depends upon the context and artistic intent. I mean I'm sure if you ran your text through a number of LLMs eventually you'd find a voice you'd happily call your own or at least Dubnjoy2000.

At the Horizon, the Wind is Rising, Slightly... Quiet af life in Quebec over the past few weeks, as most of my time has been spent with the company of my folks whom, of course, I had not seen much over the past few months. In fact, I left Quebec back in 1999 and outside of going back to university for a couple of semesters and some short stints here and there, I have solely been visiting or passing by in La Belle Province. This is seemingly about to change, as I have made an offer for a lakeside house about 70kms north of Montreal yo The plan will be to spend 3 months yearly in these parts with the rest of the time in Lima, if not for random tournament series (in LATAM and especially in Brazil ). C should be able to join me for a couple of months next year ♥ In other news, I have been training in a new Muay Thai gym up in Saint-Sauveur. They have a course for the kids and then for the adults, which is great, as peeps in my group are mainly in their 30s, 40s and even a 53 year old fellow, with very few in their 20s and none in their teens I have been enjoying getting a fresh look at certain hits, foot work and the technique in general, even if I have already seen everything before, there is still a ton of fine tuning to be done! That being said, the classes are soft af compared to the private workouts I had in Lima where my teacher repeatedly pushed me to go beyond my limits ffs!!! And there is something to be said about LATAM being exponentially much tougher than good ole safe and secure Canada 😉🙄 Alright, I am playing WSOPC Montreal starting this Sunday and given that I am fracking fed up with my ongoing bad variance in live MTTs/lack of 6-7 digit scores, I will updating my process daily in the hope that this will be remediated yo, as that good score is coming y'all 😉 by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59062264#post59062264)

Maybe we'll just get used to AI versions of ourselves. I mean it took me a while to get used to electronic drums and sometimes they're great (e.g. in hip-hop). So much depends upon the context and artistic intent. I mean I'm sure if you ran your text through a number of LLMs eventually you'd find a voice you'd happily call your own or at least Dubnjoy2000.

Yeah, good points. It is a bizarre Artificially intelligent world that we are now entering...

(

Love that you’re continuing to document your journey so authentically and beautifully—it’s always a joy to read. I must have missed or forgot that you were in Quebec! I was just there with my mom and actually just boarded my flight back home. Glad to see things seem to be going well for you!

by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59073813#post59073813)

Love that you’re continuing to document your journey so authentically and beautifully—it’s always a joy to read.

Thx bro! Yeah, my first blog on this forum was started back in 2013 in the travel section and which I will also update quite soon/have been working on a post by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59073813#post59073813)

I must have missed or forgot that you were in Quebec! I was just there with my mom and actually just boarded my flight back home. Glad to see things seem to be going well for you!

Shyt! That really sucks! It would of been nice to finally meet/hangout... Oh well, it will be for another time. Much love friend ♥ Did you just go to Montreal? What were your impressions? Would be curious to see a post of yours in your thread about Quebec...

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59073996#post59073996)

Thx bro! Yeah, my first blog on this forum was started back in 2013 in the travel section and which I will also update quite soon/have been working on a post Shyt! That really sucks! It would of been nice to finally meet/hangout... Oh well, it will be for another time. Much love friend ♥ Did you just go to Montreal? What were your impressions? Would be curious to see a p... See full post

Yeah that really does suck! Since I was there with my mom though, I didn’t really take into consideration meeting up with anyone while I was in town—though in hindsight I probably should have and would’ve loved to! Most of my time was actually spent in Ontario (mainly Toronto, with a stop in Ottawa). Ottawa really struck me—the architecture and atmosphere felt so beautiful and cultured, it honestly left a lasting impression. I did spend a couple nights in Montreal—mostly just in my room playing PLO xddd. It turned out to be an unexpectedly nice spot, and it reminded me how much I truly love the game. Sometimes I forget, but I felt really grateful realizing I’d still rather be battling and clicking than doing almost anything else (even exploring a beautiful new country for the first time 😀)). I did drop a few buy-ins during those nights, and maybe that was just a quiet reminder from God to keep my priorities in balance. I did make it out to Champs de Rêves while I was in Quebec—have you ever been? Easily one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited!

() () () ()

by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59074114#post59074114)

I did spend a couple nights in Montreal—mostly just in my room playing PLO xddd. It turned out to be an unexpectedly nice spot, and it reminded me how much I truly love the game. Sometimes I forget, but I felt really grateful realizing I’d still rather be battling and clicking than doing almost anything else (even exploring a beautiful new country for the first time 😀)). I did... See full post

Such a shame, as Montreal is a wonderful city to discover, mainly its nightlife (French-Latino-World Music clubs, theatres), amazing gastronomy and cultural events (Tam-tams every Sunday, Francofolie, Jazz Festival etc.). Quebec City is also GOAT as far as European influenced architecture north of Mexico Perhaps you could come back for one of the series at The Playground, which happens to be just a few kms away on the south shore from the place you mentioned below : by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59074114#post59074114)

I did make it out to Champs de Rêves while I was in Quebec—have you ever been? Easily one of the coolest places I’ve ever visited!

It looks amazing! And nah, I had never heard of it. In fact, outside of playing live MTT series at The Playground, I really don't know all that much the south shore of Montreal (I am from the north shore, Laval, and if not spent lots of time in Les Laurentides up north or on the island of Montreal itself). But I will be checking it out though, thx The pics do remind me of the Borges labyrinth thingy place they have in Mendoza, Argentina - which was quite the anxiety-inducing experience 😮:shocked:

[emoji109]

WSOPC Montreal Day 0 : (Pre)Thoughts Alright, before engaging the last 8 days of the second half of the WSOPC series in Montreal with the 1k Colossus tomorrow - the first week was dedicated to 150-400$ low BI events -, here are a few thoughts :

• The 1k Colossus is spread across 4 day ones and has 10% of players moving on to day 2 (15% cash), continuing the greedy need of the WSOP of A) raking more ; and B) increasing the guarantees ; ehhhhh 😊 😡 😡
• The 2.5k Main is spread across 3 day 1s, with the 600$ PLO and 5k HR that I also want to grind yo.
• My mental mind approaching this midstakes series is alrightish. Solid in the sense that life has been tremendously good over the past year ♥ Slightly apprehensive in the sense that I have been running bad on the live MTT felt since 2019, sigh and a thousand times sigh ffs 😡😡😡 And slightly unstable because of a recent argument with C - on the other hand, C and I have been sun running our relationship for the past 6 months, so... ♥♥♥
• Poker is great. I mean, my career on both the live and virtual felt has been simply amazing yo Thinking about my initial professional years mainly grinding the live 1-2 felt in Dawson City at the tune of 25bbs an hour - that I can easily picture it being double that nowadays in the PLO NL 1-3 game... - To playing online MTTs ABI of 50$ for a few years in South-East Asia, to then moving to 50-100 online cash games, moving up to mistakes 200-400, to then grinding live high stakes events and HS online PLO games yo What a fracking journey and run that is seemingly on its last miles, at least as far as playing it professionally goes... ♥
• My purchase offer for a lakeside house was accepted yo 😮:shocked: It is insane to what extent that the Quebecois house market is BY FAR the lowest in USA-Canada and that getting a 2 bedroom house with 27k feet yard by a private lake for 300k CAD$ is simply unheard of in the rest of the county/our southern neighbour yo Alright, I should be back this week with daily WSOPC updates yo ; be well all ♥

( Warrior ♥

Look forward to seeing pics of your new lakeside house. Keen to see you win a live MTT, as well, of course (preferably a PLO event because the HHs are more entertaining as a default)!

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59075667#post59075667)

Look forward to seeing pics of your new lakeside house. Keen to see you win a live MTT, as well, of course (preferably a PLO event because the HHs are more entertaining as a default)!

Will do bro. There are albeit a few factors that made the house slightly more cheaper on the market and thus more valuable for yours truly :

• A) It reeks of cigarettes as soon as you open the front door 😮:shocked:🙄
• B) The roof needs to be redone/it has had a couple of leaks before
• C) It is defintely a bit more remote then your average folk would want (and which I absolutely love/was actively seeking yo ) But for anyone that seeks peace/remote areas, it is a fracking paradise yo ♥ I mean, the top floor is dedicated to a bedroom, a hallway and the kitchen/living room, while the basement is a redone loft with a plenty of space for a poker office, meditation spot and a martial arts training area And then outside, there is a cool hangout fire place chill spot (it is also primarily heated by wood (then electricity)), a dock with canoe and pedalo included yo The only ick, is that I will only get to possess it starting December first, which means unexpectedly coming back to La Belle Province in the dead middle of the winter and trying to get shyt organized as, you know, a first time house owner... I will mainly get to truly occupy it next summer and then proceed to rent it in the winter of 2026.

Cigarette smoke should disappear ... wonder if you're going to do the roof yourself? That'd be a decent challenge. (Nothing beats working on your own place.)

Oh yeah, one thing that I am not looking for this week (and always comes in mistakes series), are the chump fracking fake Balla comments on watches/how much they are worth/and what the f**k not posers.

() Recommend this if you need to randomise a migraine-inducing ICM decision at a pivotal moment on a final table (at a cost of not even one midstakes cash bb on Temu).

WSOPC Montreal Day0.5 : Unexpected Delay The summer wind was alas not blowing in my back this morning as, as soon as I stepped out of the shower, put on my MTT live grinding shoes and was about to step outside in the Quebecois summer, the intrusive thoughts of a recent argument with my gf was robbing me of my feistiness to engage the outside world : my mind was simply not on the grind 😊. So I took off my custom made Colossus grinding shoes and kissed the first wave AKA Day 1A goodbye. All good though, as we will be going hard during Day 1B (and 1C if needed), as things are back to their sweet selves with C yo ♥ I would like to advance to Day 2 though before Wednesday, as the plan will be to take the day off in order to attend my niece's 🍰 by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59075683#post59075683)

Cigarette smoke should disappear ... wonder if you're going to do the roof yourself? That'd be a decent challenge. (Nothing beats working on your own place.)

The roof will have to wait until, alas, next summer, as I will get possession of the house only on December first, which means coming back to Quebec for a couple of weeks after Mexico/prior to Peru to move some stuff in and make sure that it will last the winter... I will hire peeps for the roof while I will focus on other renovations/outside work. by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59075694#post59075694)

Recommend this if you need to randomise a migraine-inducing ICM decision at a pivotal moment on a final table (at a cost of not even one midstakes cash bb on Temu).... See full post

Nice, thx for the suggestion bro

( lake in question yo

WSOPC Montreal Day 1 : Small/Awkward Baby Steps towards Nothing 🙄 Bullet #1 : The table is fairly decent, I have the best Hendon Mob - imagine that 🙄 -, I GII in 2 very good spots AQs < AJs AIPF where I had flatted the CO open-raise in the SB (we were about 90bbs effective) ; BB (Christine Do) 3betted 4x to 8bbs, CO folded and I pretty promptly back-jammed 40bbs effective to a snap-call (J on the river). Next hand I GII on the turn top 2 vs an overpair 50bbs effective and... the bottom card pairs :( Bullet #2 : The table is also amazing, my HM is also elite at this table and while I do proceed to chip up slightly (1.5 starting stacks), I do shove my KJ♠♠ on the turn in an iffy spot on a A♠9♠6♦ Q♥ runout vs 2 when the UTG IR double barrels for 35% then 50% in a spot that I feel that top set or top 2 will barrel more heavily... but, alas, my read is off, my blockers pretty bad (blocking AK and AJ, 2 hands that I am targeting to get a fold from with another player behind me left to also act). After all, I did get the right price (3 to 1) to call with 12 clean outs, but would also be left with exactly a starting stack if I whiffed, and was hence free rolling some fold equity or double up situations in my lowest BI in this series, so there is that... On to the next one! Bullet #3 : I end up with the absolute worst table in the whole field which only has one rec, but who's HM is still in the 6 digits and happens to be the only one having a lower one than mine with 3 peeps having a HM of 7 digits in a 1k event, ffs!!! I ultimately get coolered in a hand that I 3bet light ATo vs the said rec at the table, end up making the 4th nut flush on the river and having to call... vs the nuts :(. I do get a table change, proceed to run my 3bbs stack to a full starting stack yo , only to lose a flip shortly after registration is closed, sigh :p Will be firing again tomorrow for Day 1C.

( ended up being a finalist in my house hunting ; it had a pretty big woodsy yard, an access to a lake and had 2 stories/an attic for the totality of 4 bedrooms for the price tag of 300k CAD$!!! A bit too big for my needs and the access to the lake was quite subpar though... Be well all ♥

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59077352#post59077352)

Bullet #2 : The table is also amazing, my HM is also elite at this table and while I do proceed to chip up slightly (1.5 starting stacks), I do shove my KJ♠♠ on the turn in an iffy spot on a A♠9♠6♦ Q♥ runout vs 2 when the UTG IR double barrels for 35% then 50% in a spot that I feel that top set or top 2 will barrel more heavily... but, alas, my read is off, my blockers pretty bad (... See full post

Minimalist Temu keychain could have been used in this spot (with the added benefit of shifting agency away from the decision-maker in the post-analysis, of course). Anyway, wish you hadn't whiffed. GL on Day1C.

WSOPC Montreal Day 2 : The Art of Whiffing 😊 Two more bullets fired yesterday, the first one whistling by its target only to rapidly come promptly crashing down, while the second one was actually fruitful, promising, built up some distance and momentum - tripling up my starting stack and whatnot! -, but alas, also ultimately fell short of its target (a cash) when I busted in the last 30% of the field, ffs!!! Anyhow, a few observations :

• I will be taking today off as my niece is celebrating her 24th bday yo 🍰 Also time off from the live grind is what the doc ordered just before 5-6 days of higher buy-ins 😉
• I sat beside a French Canadian fellow yesterday whose wife is Brazilian, so we naturally got to speak quite a bit about life in LATAM/the cultural differences and whatnot! After which the guy mentioned that he knew who I was, as one of his buddies had whispered to him last year, when they were walking by my table, that I had won a BIG tournament and was a crusher!!! Which is obviously false, as my wins all came in low buy-in events (max 1k) and other MTT scores barely qualify as mid 5 figures! That being said, I do appreciate that my reputation is indeed a bit made in Montreal (as this is not the first time I hear such comments), despite playing just a couple of series yearly in this part of the world and having never once been a reg in any game in this city ; now, if only my reputation did not precede my (live MTT) results... 😉
• One subject that has been on my mind during the past few days of live grinding, and perhaps more so influenced by a Jason Su podcast on Chasing Poker Greatness recently, has been intuition. Jason implies that when one is in the zone (or with the flow), he can almost guess the outcome of a hand... Or, to extrapolate furthermore, how one can oftentimes picture the card that will come... This week, I floated a raise in the early stages with97o/very loosely called a 3bet from a very tight rec (and 2 other callers) IP. When the flop came 723r and the tight 3better cbetted for 35% pot and the other 2 folded, I knew that my top pair was drawing to 5 mere outs and that my implied odds, alas, did not compensate for my terribad price yet... somehow I knew that the 9 was going to come on the turn! And lo and behold : the beautiful 9 does indeed roll on the turn and villain happily check-shoves vs my turn bet which I obviously snap-call while saying "I got lucky" as to not add insult to injury/somewhat apologize for having such an awful holding as I flip over the measly 97o 🙄 But, alas and a thousand times alas, the deuce pairs on the river and there goes my foresight of binking on the turn, fml 😊 by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59077394#post59077394)

Minimalist Temu keychain could have been used in this spot (with the added benefit of shifting agency away from the decision-maker in the post-analysis, of course). Anyway, wish you hadn't whiffed. GL on Day1C.

Randomizing is really not something I do, but might be a good think to include moving forward... I will give it some thought. Tomorrow is the 600$ PLO. We got this yo

()

WSOPC Montreal Day 3 : failing to get my 80-95% to hold up, ffs 😡😡:( After resting a little today, meditating for an hour followed by an hour of exercising and a quick 70 minute online grind (+3k yo ), I was ready around to splash in the 4 card game yo I actually almost VPP for 50% or so in the first few levels, wanting to splash around with tremendously weak players and, things like quite good when I flopped a set in a 3bet pot, GII vs villain OTT who actually only had a gutshot after potting the flop 😮:shocked:🙄, but... of course, he would go on to hit his 8% equity in a 3.5 BIs pot, fml 😡😡😡 Bullet #2 🙄 I would go on to finally build a semi-decent stack of 4.5 BIs but, because my VPP was still in the 25-30% region and that the variance is FRACKING HIGH in the great game of pot limit Omaha, it would dwindle up and down, up and down, up and dow... Until the bustout hand, that is, very close to the bubble when it is limped to me from UTG1, SB completes and check-back the very meh T♠3♠4♠5♥ Flop (3bbs) : A♠5♦6♣ After the SB and I check, the UTG1 fires 2.25bbs ; SB folds and I tank 5-10 seconds, but decide to continue, knowing that this sticky villain will pay me off if I get there... Turn (5.5bbs) : A♠5♦6♣ 7♦ I decide to check-assess and villain snap-pots it, which makes little sense, as I rarely fathom this tight af fellow limping from EP with a rundown, so I decide to jam it, villain snap-calls with... the A559 for a mere 8 outs yo, except... the 7♥ of course rolls up on the river, preventing me from being the table chip leader, from running over everybody during the bubble 😊:(. Tomorrow is the 2.5k Main Event : we got this yo

()

WSOPC Montreal Day 4 : Fallouts Tilt is the word of the day. I guess I did not really feel it upon waking up this morning even if I proceeded to meditate for an hour, pounced on my boxing bag/exercise for 40 minutes, stuffed a bit of food down my tummy, laughed a little with my folks - about the selection of my socks that is a pair of orange Pringles thingies that did not quite match at all the rest of my grinding outfit yo 🙄 - and hopped in my vehicle, direction Playground casino on the Kahnawake Indian reservation Except... I suddenly realized that the tournament starts at 11:00, not at noon like I anticipated... fml 😊 Fracking tilted yo 😡 And then I showed up at my table only to realize that I was the first player at a new table and thus ended up with 3 peeps with 7 digits on their Hendon Mob and a young upcoming online crusher from Montreal, so essentially a day 2 or day 3 table on fracking level 2 of day 1, ffs!!! Then the freaking fracking stoopid af wifi from the casino was spotty as can be, as was my cell signal, thus preventing me from escaping the reality of this tough table... F**king Tilted 😡😡 And then that geek mama-fracker walking around like a Gangsta since cashing for a few million over the past few years and shaking everybody's hand like he owns the God damn place even if he remains this arrogant-cocky-little-nerd-wanting-to-fit-with-the-cool-guys-like-he-was-doing-back-in-2018-when-he-essentially-had-no-cashes. Efffing tilted 😡😡😡 And then to have this annoying stinky meathead rec to my right with his constant hand Strat comments and who couldn't last 20 seconds in a scrap, him and his fracking punchable face... Ehhhhhh I'm tilted :( The only way I survived to level 8 today was because of well-timed bluffs - because I am certainly not going to win an 80-95%, let alone a flip, right!?!?! 😊:( -, most interestingly the following hand : I wake up with T♦8♦ UTG and decide to put to use a couple of bbs from my 50bbs stack to good usage yo ; button comes along, as do the SB and the BB. OK. Flop (9bbs) : Q♥Q♥9♥ Definitely not the most elating board for my hand nor my range, but I do have equity, definitely don't want to go into check-call mode, so I proceed to fire 3bbs ; button folds, which is delightful, as at worst I will be playing IP from now on yo ; SB check-Raises to 6.5bbs, ok... and BB folds! I make the call, with plans to conquer the world if I do not bink 😉 Turn (22bbs) : Q♥Q♦9♥ Q♣ Ok. Interesting... Villain continues his nonsensical story for 3bbs, probably thinking I am a tight rec and wanting to get a cheap card in order to reassess/complete his fd or str8 draw...??? I snap-call. River (28bbs) : Q♥Q♦9♥ Q♣ 6♦ Villain rapidly checks and I take about 5 seconds what size will be sufficient to rep an overpear/get a 9 to fold, and decide to bet 14bbs, leaving myself with 14bbs behind if my plan fails... but villain snap-folds yo

( got this yo

WSOPC Montreal Day 5 : The Downward Spiral When the alarm clock starting yelling like a Mama-fracking for me to get up this morning at 8:30, I thanked whoever invented the Snooze button... 😃. And as the hours passed by, I rapidly came to the realization that I was simply giving up on the Main Event, even if it is the tournament with the most value. Problem is, I then proceeded to drop a bit more then what would be the equivalent of 2 Buy-ins in a couple hours online, fml :p😊😡 Needless to say, but it is pretty hard for me to see poker positively this week... Tomorrow is the 5k HR ; we got this - I think... - yo

WSOPC Montreal Day 6 : HR/the Softest Table yet Curiously, this has been my softest (NLHE) of the week, event easier than all 5 of the 1k Colossus tables, no joke!!! First of all, I was running extremely bad in terms of day 1 tables in all events - minus PLO -, and even this one was medium at the start of the day, but we literally lost the two most competent players within a minute yo The lone competent player was sitted to my direct left, but would look at his hand before it was his turn to act and clearly indicate to me if he was going to play it or not ; thx bro 😃. Anyhow, despite being left with the softest table known to mankind, I still ran pretty fracking bad ffs, but nonetheless be returning to day 2 with 1.6 starting stacks/an average stack, which I'll take. Before crashing, here is a quick HH : Absolute fish opens to 3.5bbs from MP, I flat the HJ with Q♣9♣, button clicks it to 13.3bbs, the table spot calls as do I. Flop (42.5bbs) : T♣6♣3♠ Decent flop for my hand which goes check-check-20bbs, call-call. Ok. It is important to point out that we all started the tournament with 500bbs, making speculative hands like mine much more profitable yo Turn (102bbs) : T♣6♣3♠ 9♠ Check-check-check. Ok. Great! River (102bbs) : T♣6♣3♠ 9♠ A♥ The table fish donks for 25bbs, a sizing that not only caps his range, but permits me to attack his sizing and potentially get an A behind me to fold ; I make it 92bbs and villain pretty rapidly folds

WSOPC Montreal : End of Series After Thoughts, Notepad style Day 2 of the HR went as bad as can be, having to reenter during the last level of registration, doubling up, only to flame out, ffs 😡😡😡 Anyhow, here are a few thoughts on the series :

• I am felt pretty heavy the day after the series and pretty much avoided the outside world, even, alas, not going to my Muay Thai class, as I settled for the introspection of a few hours of meditation instead. And observing my inner pain.
• I ended up revisiting my glory days of 2018 today, AKA my breakout year when I started crushing 400nlhe online (to the tune of 150$/h) and averaged an hourly of almost double that on the live tournament trail that calendar year. It felt like it would last forever. But I also remember taking the clear decision that year of reducing my volume (and thus my overall winnings) in favour of balance in my life and hence happiness, as opposed to solely focusing on the grind/amassing more monies that I could handle :p
• I feel that given my net focus on MTT studying for the past few months, my game has evolved significantly, at least enough that I can clearly pinpoint mistakes of certain players that have accumulated 7 digits on their Hendon Mob yo. So perhaps it is just a matter of time before I get a significant score... Even if I remain 0/5 thus far in 6 digit equity situations...
• Today I had to pick myself up from ashes. Dust myself off as well. And then some... As always, I had to remind myself how privileged I am of playing this game for a living, high stakes, and how far I have come throughout my poker career, no matter how bad my luck has been on the live MTT felt over the past few years ♥♠♦♣♥♥♥
• I feel that I have to trust my live reads a bit more and rely a bit less on mechanical fundaments/hand reading : there was a couple of times where I got involved in HUMANGUOUS pots when I had 3bet/X-Raised and barrelled, but failed to shove the river after the board got ugly, yet my Spidey senses were telling me that villains were weak... I gotta trust my reads more. Alright, I will be reserving a hotel in Vegas for WPT Wynn, even if I guesstimate I am somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40-60% on going, depending on how moving into my new house in Quebec will go in early December, AKA in the dead middle of the Canadian winter 😊, and other life stuff (like family) and my general mood. Peace y'all

The Pursuit of Happiness Am just coming out of a 10 day Vipassana retreat. Which what, is now perhaps my 40th over the past 22 years, about 25 sat and 15 served... Pretty intense stuff I tell you, pretty fracking intense... From day one I dove deep-down inside and never fully emerged until... tomorrow perhaps...??? Or sometime this week... Who knows when 🙄 The plan spiritually is to do a couple of Aya ceremonies over the next calendar year and another Vipassana retreat in perhaps in July or August in Quebec with C... I will going to PDC and Tulum for a couple of weeks in early November to meet up with C, before going to Florida for a week so she can meet my folks yo Will probably post in the next couple of weeks to round-up my 3 month stint in Quebec.

( well all ♥

Quebec Stint (Coming to an End) : Notepad After 3 weeks in Vegas and a couple in the Yukon, my 3 months Quebec stint is coming to an end. Well, I will be coming back for the month of December to claim my rural house and spend Xmas with da family, but reuniting with C in Mexico awaits me in a couple of days as does returning to Peru in January yo Anyhow, a few notes to scrutinize my time in La Belle Province :

• My family time was definitely a success, getting to help my folks with their moving (they are recently just retired and are relocating into rural Quebec). Albeit living with them has naturally tested my patience over the last few weeks, as I feel I need to get back to my own life as opposed to living within their realm...
• The long-distance relationship with C has also been quite successful although, alas, we have hit a rough patch lately and happily will get to (potentially...) smooth things out imminently in PDC, Mexico ♥
• Poker has been... so-so 😊. My live MTT blues have been following me from Vegas to WSOPC Montreal where I whiffed almost everything outside of a min cash in a 1k (after running fairly hot in Sao Paolo at the end of last year, sigh :(), and my online WR is just not what it used to be. Thankfully though, I have grown to accept my latter hourly rate on top of having managed extremely well my saving/investments over the years, so
• My health is pretty darn solid at the dawn of my 49th rotation around the Sun yo I lost 4kgs since Vegas, am at a very acceptable weight (for me) and looking to only shed off an extra 2kgs while maintaining my present workout schedule (5-6h weekly) of body building and cardio yo 😀
• Spiritually I will be aiming to do one 10 day Vipassana retreat in 2026 and 1-2 plant retreat(s) : at this point, it is just a matter of continuing the practice of both, as my spiritual practices have been quite established/deepened af over the course of the past 3 decades yo
• Am not sure when I will be back in Quebec, but most likely next summer in the vicinity of June-July, me thinks...

( well all ♥

Am off to PDC-Tulum-Tampa for 3 weeks ; my stint in Quebec was definitely a success in regards to purchasing a nice, idyllic (for me!) house, spending quality time with my folks/sisters/friends, so a 9/10 - poker kind of sucked though 😊. These next 3 weeks should be fun af as well as great to be reuniting again with C, December should be alrightish in the crispy autumn/winter month of La Belle Province and returning to Lima, getting my residency over there and purchasing an apartment should be interesting ; this lifetime is interesting isn't it, at so many levels 😮:shocked:😀 Peace

I like how you're setting up homes in both North (Quebec) and South America (Lima) but not so much in the all-powerful middle ... best of luck in Tampa!

2025, A Year in Review Quite a positive year, on almost all fronts outside of poker, the latter being a less important part of my life as I have been progressing upwards through age and financial security yo So without further ado, let's break this down by categories, shall we not!?! :

• Health : This has been a NOTICEABLY strong year, particularly as far as muscle mass and cardio went, the latter ironically the strongest ever in my life and this after 48 (and almost 49...) full rotations around the sun yo And as far as my weight goes, well... while I have struggled to get much below 200lbs/91kgs (192lbs/87kgs was my lowest), my % of body fat has steadily decreased while my muscular counterpart has seen a noticeably upward climb The goal for this year is to make 195lbs/88kgs my new oscillating threshold and aiming to finish the year at 190lbs/86kgs while, of course, further cutting down on body fat/increasing muscle weight 😀 Wealth : After an extremely terribad separation with L in Argentina and witnessing that country fall into a shythole and hence having to abandon ship/all the goods I had accumulated in 5 years and thus seeing myself forced to start over once again, I elected to invest in a house/cottage by a lake in northern rural Quebec and to essentially have a place in the world that I can call mine, that I can store certain material goods in, comeback to, fall back on, if all else goes down the drain Similarly, I am looking to purchase an apartment in Lima in the upcoming months, which will serve as an AirBnB/passive income, as well as providing me with a place to stay for half the year!!! Happiness Levels : In hindsight, it has been an extremely positive year. And must of it is due to my new found relationship with C ♥ That being said, they are moments where I feel that I should be more grateful for being able to roam constantly across the planet, to play a game of cards for a living, for simply being healthy, wealthy, from a first world country, loving family etc., but I feel that I fail to elate myself to levels that I should, that being said : Spirituality : Along with the standard 10 day retreat and 2-3 Ayahuasca ceremonies, I will be getting more involved in the Vipassana Community in Lima with (at least) a day monthly of volunteering. And most likely several 2-3 days of service at the meditation centre throughout the year. So it should be a boost as far as spirituality/inner peace goes Martial Arts : Much of the same, as I will be doing 2h weekly in either a group (most likely, in order to sparr twice weekly) or if not with a personal Muay Thai trainer (more expensive, more demanding, but less sparring being held) along with 3-4 additional hours in my personal AirBnB gym (with a boxing bag) or at Smart Fit gyms with C. I will most likely not engage in an amateur fight after all, like I was working towards last year, although there is still a slight % chance, I guess... Projects : Not much outside of the standard meditation, Muay Thai, Aya, travelling, working on the house, playing live MTTs and grinding in general, but I will add, along with contributing to the Vipassana meditation centre, of a day (or two) of volunteer work in a poor district of Lima. I know this one will cost me more in terms of exhaustion levels as I will literally be surrendering a part of myself in terms of time and energy levels :p I will be searching how I can give a bit of myself, but it will most likely be in terms of cooking food for the poorer... I will also be working to add progressively days moving forward. by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59143059#post59143059)

I like how you're setting up homes in both North (Quebec) and South America (Lima) but not so much in the all-powerful middle ... best of luck in Tampa!

😉

()

♥ thanks for putting this together sir very happy to see that things have been going mostly well for you

by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59197679#post59197679)

♥ thanks for putting this together sir very happy to see that things have been going mostly well for you

Thx bro, I appreciate your comment ♥ I should state that indeed, 2025 has definitely been one of my better years, but not on the felt though, as both live MTTs - of course! - and even my online grind have seen dwell in the red 😮 :shocked: That being said, I found a site a few weeks ago that now make me understand the crazy HIGH winrates that certain players achieve Granted, I have to play on a not so regulated site, most of my tables are of the 2 card variant as opposed to the 4 card one - lol nlhe - and I am playing up to 1k and 2k, but darn, I have never encountered such a soft app/site in my life!!!

Congrats on your 2025. I like the plans around vipassana (subtle message to myself to do the same). While I know you don't measure happiness in such reductive terms but I suspect a spike in your Hendon Mob in 2026 might be meaningful!

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59198419#post59198419)

Congrats on your 2025. I like the plans around vipassana (subtle message to myself to do the same). While I know you don't measure happiness in such reductive terms but I suspect a spike in your Hendon Mob in 2026 might be meaningful!

Thx bro ♥ As far as contributing/spending time at the meditation centre, it is the nuts!!! Your meditation simply becomes stronger and given that I suffered from a solid amount of social anxiety a couple of decades ago, learning to work with others WHILE GOING THROUGH EMOTIONAL STORMS that Vipassana manages to stir up, is liberating af :p😆♥ Anyhow, moving forward, I want to give some of my time through perhaps some administrational work and splitting it with volunteer work in poorer Lima hoods. The gist of it, is that I sincerely want to serve, as opposed to serve as a medium to elevate my own meditation. Anyhow, more on this in the upcoming months. Be well bro ♥

Went to see Bad Bunny yesterday in Lima. It was amazing. Definitely above expectations. And expectations were HIGH. Especially given that I have been training with Bad Bunny's music daily for the past few months And... well... everything else is going pretty much awesome in my life, even poker, which had been my achilles heel for the past year. And anyway, it struck me during the concert that my during my next Ayahuasca ceremony, I will be asking : "how can I be a better human being". I hope this does not sound arrogant... GN all, much love ♥♥♥

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59208613#post59208613)

Went to see Bad Bunny yesterday in Lima. It was amazing. Definitely above expectations. And expectations were HIGH. Especially given that I have been training with Bad Bunny's music daily for the past few months And... well... everything else is going pretty much awesome in my life, even poker, which had been my achilles heel for the past year. And anyway, it struck me ... See full post

So ****ing jealous, I'd love to see Bad Bunny live someday, he's great and I'm super happy he's gonna be performing at Super Bowl halftime show. QUE VIVA LA RAZA!!!

by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59208717#post59208717)

So ****ing jealous, I'd love to see Bad Bunny live someday, he's great and I'm super happy he's gonna be performing at Super Bowl halftime show. QUE VIVA LA RAZA!!!

Ohhh, I had to pay a juicy vig for it though, as I purchased it in resales (a bit more then 4x the initial price tag)!!! The concert was split into 3 acts of an hour each : the first one being by far the most solid musically, as Bad Bunny had (almost) an orchestra behind him for the song of his most recent album which are much more instrumental/salsa inspired (along with other world music influences a la Flamenco, for example) ; the first part in fact made this concert a top 15-20 ever (and I have seen a SHYT LOAD of concerts, especially between the ages of 17-22 where we would travel to NY, Toronto, San Francisco etc. for festivals (Lollapalooza and Tibetan Freedom Concert amongst others) ). The last parts of the concert (that lasted almost 3h) were more his older reggaeton songs, which were fine, but for which I care a bit less for. C and I will also be going to "A Noche de Salsa" in March and then to see Mon Laferte in May ; outside of your typical reggaeton artists, Lima offers little in terms of American/international band/singers besides your Iron Maiden/Megadeth etc. of the world - which I care little for - , but not your Tool, Tortoise, Jane's Addiction, Arcade Fire, the latter which 3 I got to see in BsAs.

( I will be watching the Super Bowl for the first time in 29 years this year Not that I have anything against American football, politics not withstanding, but it is not one of my favs sports (unlike combat sports and basketball) nor one that my peers indulge in (unlike Futbol here in Peru and hockey in Quebec).

Strange Lands Curious times in Peru that have been ongoing for almost a year now and that has forced the government forced to instigate the Emergency act. You see, a group of Narcos have been assassinating bus drivers nonstop, unfortunately, as the privately owned bus companies have ceased to pay for the extortions/AKA the “protection fees”. Curiously (for me, at least...), city buses are privately owned in Lima, meaning that not only are they managed in order to be lucrative by a private entity, but it also forced the hand of bus drivers of yesteryears to not stop to pickup students (that have a discount prices) in favor of your working folks, as the bus drivers also rent out the buses from the aforementioned bus companies. Since then, national laws have forbidden these behaviours and enforced strict fines if put into practice. But I digress…. Back to the Narcos. Dozens of bus drivers have been gunned down by moto churros/AKA thieves on motorbikes that simply shoot down their poor victims in broad daylight (and certain passengers have also been assassinated, even as far as a Mom and her child!!!). Anyhow, one of the strategies implemented by the government, has been a restriction on foreign bought telephones. I suppose that the Narcos were purchasing smart phones from abroad to somehow bypass the law agencies spying on their activities, so us, foreigners, find ourselves incapable of buying local sim cards/are forced to pay the extra fees of using a foreign sim cards or finding ourselves having to hack our way into a local registration of our phones. Or having to purchase a local phone, of course. So such has been my first 2 weeks when I spent numerous hours trying to identify what was the issue, then trying to find ways to resolve it, to then refusing to pay a suspicious hacker in finding a way to work around it, to finally purchasing a cheap 2nd phone to use in the meantime!!! First world problems, I tell you, especially that while I do live more of somewhat a local life in a middle class local neighbourhood (with very few tourists), I nonetheless never use municipal bus services. In other areas of my life, things have been going pretty fracking great!!! Namely :

• I found al alrightish Muay Thai gym which I have paid for 2 months, but might be returning to a dojo in Miraflores which has been my lifetime favourite thus far

• I will be doing an Ayahuasca ceremony most likely in February with the intention of knowing how “I can be a better human being???” ; edit : I might do a month of microdosing meanwhile with C though...

• As far as a Vipassana meditation retreat goes, it will not be until some time in August-September with C in Quebec. -I have made a residency demand for Peru and should get an answer within the next 4-8 weeks.

• Things with C are going amazing yo ♥

• As far as poker goes, online has been amazing and live pretty much non-existent and will remain so until I get my residency/can escape the country for a series in Brazil, as apparently the NSOP, AKA the Peruvian national series of poker, has closed doors when they allegedly suspected that they were not going to meet their set guaranteed back in August in LIma. Edit : WSOPC Montreal will be offering a 5k Main Event come August with a 10 million guarantee yo, equalling what WPT once did (in 2019, I believe...), while failing to meet the guarantee by a mil!!!

( y'all

Changes I don't feel the sun's comin' out today It's stayin' in, it's gonna find another way, yeah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liZUTMMM... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liZUTMMM5pE&list=RDliZUTMMM5pE&start_radio=1) Well I just got my Peruvian residency ; that was fracking quick 😮 :shocked: 😃. Much faster than in Argentina, when it took almost 2 years and (almost) triple the fees, ffs, and lest not forget about the fact that shortly after getting it, I set sails for sunnier shores, AKA ones that no longer had L included in them - but rather C :p😃😉 - and where the country was not in a (seemingly...) irreversible financial downward spiral :p. :( I feel pretty darn good about the news and will most likely be travelling to Brazil in April with C for the KSOP as eyeing to purchase an apartment in the imminent future yo No drinks will be had to celebrate the news and not even a little ice cream, alas, as I am preparing my body/mind for a (potential...) upcoming Ayahuasca this weekend. I always get a little anxious before engaging an Aya ceremony, primarily because I have gone deep down into the dark Underworlds before and have suffered immensely in the presence of Demons ; moreover, I am also touched with the wisdom that even elevating af blissful journeys also demand its fair share of inner work, alas :p. But such is the journey in this bottom world and the way to transcend it, right... Edit : it is looking more and more like I will forego this weekend's aya journey in favour of microdosing for the feasible future with C... Which means then instead of having a diet free of sugar/sweets/meats/alcohol etc during a week, I will double down on my already relatively healthy diet which will be great to A) Knock down a couple of kgs B) Focus on my meditation (and C's) C) Start doing some volunteer work

( from my apartment Peace y'all

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59223599#post59223599)

ChangesEdit : it is looking more and more like I will forego this weekend's aya journey in favour of microdosing for the feasible future with C... Which means then instead of having a diet free of sugar/sweets/meats/alcohol etc during a week, I will double down on my already relatively healthy diet which will be great to A) Knock down a couple of kgsB) Focus on my meditation (... See full post

Awesome view! Nice to hear things are going good! Good luck on the weight loss, as always I am in the midst of another kick at the can. Careful around the buses and keep crushing life! 😃

Midlife Introspections Today is my birthday. AKA my 49th revolution around this planet. Well not exactly today, as it is unbeknownst to me when these words will actually be posted, but it nonetheless befit the overall narrative better to state “today is my fracking bday”, ok!?!?! 😃:p🙄😉. And with the additional year added to my lifelong calendar, comes a certain dose of contemplations - as if these did not occur on a regular basis 🙄 My buddy (who is also 49 years old) just lost his 2nd child to be (his gf is 43 and this was going to be her third). I mention this as he procreated for the first time a couple of years ago, much like it has been on my mind to do so recently. I only see 2 potential outcomes branch themselves moving forward - or at least purposefully - : one in which I become a father and put 100% of my energy levels on the upbringing of a little one in this bottom World, or a future where I do not procreate, but prioritize instead volunteer work. Both of these destinies seem to imply that I will gradually be stepping away from the (live and virtual) felt, albeit never fully, I suspect… Speaking of the latter : while I have found an INCREDIBLY soft site and am not overly concerned about my long term WR, I have hit a nasty downswing over the past 3 weeks and it has dipped me into the eternal contemplations on the game with questions like : "why do we play this humongous pain-inducing game again...???". "Am I still a very good player in this day and age...???". "And to what extent will my time spent on the felt remembered positively when it's all said and done...???". To which I (always) end up replying : primero, for the challenge of surpassing oneself, as any competition/sport does ; segundo, still very solid, but mainly for the implicit aspects of my overall longevity as a pro/mental stability throughout a couple of decades/and capacity to save and invest wisely my time and profit ; tercero, I will probably view in hindsight my time spent on the felt as just another job/time spent to accumulate monies, albeit exponentially more productive than my time spent flipping pans in kitchens (as well as better paid yo ). Edit 1 : I have since gone on a 20k upswing since writing these words yo Anyhow, the next few months will be spent microdosing Aya and thus doubling down on my forever ongoing efforts to be (mostly) clean!!! Edit 2: We are on our second week of microdosing Aya albeit the 3 little fracking teensy drops have been POWERFUL af yo!!! A familiar pain in my tummy has clearly indicated that the cleansing effect has initiated, while the second day has seen me be noticeably more balanced, handling nasty af variance with a smile on my face yo while C has also experienced a great dose of tranquility and peace ♥ Edit 3 : I will be volunteering in a soup kitchen this upcoming Monday and at the Vipassana centre this Wednesday ; while I have volunteered quite extensively at the latter and know exactly what to expect, the former will be new to me and I guess we will see how it goes... I do not mind at all for the life of me that it is a Christian community, just as long as no religious propaganda is involved and that the volunteering is based on selfless service, then will be cool ♥

( Nerd e tron m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59223798#post59223798)

Awesome view! Nice to hear things are going good! Good luck on the weight loss, as always I am in the midst of another kick at the can. Careful around the buses and keep crushing life! 😃

Thx friend and great to hear from you ♥ Yup, weight loss is going pretty good, albeit my goals are pretty modest (2-3kgs for the year) and more focussed on losing fat/building muscles (while also using creatine) at this point

Haven’t had a chance to read the update. But happy birthday! Wishing you all the peace and happiness in the world!

happy beeday dubn! Regardless of the path you choose as you approach the half century mark (!), I'm sure you'll continue to do great things.

Volunteering Interesting day outside the office/in the streets of Lima today. Because one of my priorities this year is to strengthen my volunteering efforts (and consequently gradually to step away from the felt/or at least spend less time on it), I had created a thread stating my intention on an Expat in Lima Facebook group, eventually got an invite for a soup kitchen (operating in the evening from 6pm-1am), snap-accepted it, and adventured out after a normal half of day of meditation/grinding/training yo I instantly connected with the peeps volunteering over there whom, when all things considered, are seemingly kindred souls that simply want to give and help out the folks in need. I did get one of those conversations when the girl (about a decade+ younger) shared her experience of previously practicing meditation, but had since been informed that the practice of yoga is inspired by demoniac forces - lol 😃. Nonetheless, her story did not come across as preachy, but more so as just sharing her personal experience. Disclaimer : while I do come from Catholic backgrounds and do not judge by any means another mortal's religious beliefs and definitely have the upmost respect for the historical person of Jesus Christ (and even Biblical), I do alas have a lot to say about the church, especially the ones that have political (or in this case, drastic) perspectives. Edit : I have since gone 3 times to cook/distribute food for the homeless and this form of volunteering works for now. I eventually want to approach my time spent serving as more entrepreneurial, in the sense of perhaps starting my own project, but splitting my time in between serving at the Vipassana meditation centre and helping the needy in the seedy parts of the city, is a good way to wet my feet in Lima for now In other news, I started attending Muay Thai classes in a new gym located in a poorer part of Lima (in Lince AKA the Red District, where I will be living for the next 3 months yo ) and this is by FAR the best martial arts dojo I have trained in!!! The course is more advanced ; the teacher, passionate af (and has previously trained in Thailand) ; and the students, from tougher backgrounds ♥ I did get the good ole standard treatment of certain tougher peeps wanting to bash the face in of that rich foreigner, of course, but which is exactly what I was looking for yo by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59240837#post59240837)

happy beeday dubn! Regardless of the path you choose as you approach the half century mark (!), I'm sure you'll continue to do great things.

by RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59239088#post59239088)

Haven’t had a chance to read the update. But happy birthday! Wishing you all the peace and happiness in the world!

Thx friends ♥

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59254205#post59254205)

Edit : I have since gone 3 times to cook/distribute food for the homeless and this form of volunteering works for now. I eventually want to approach my time spent serving as more entrepreneurial, in the sense of perhaps starting my own project, but splitting my time in between serving at the Vipassana meditation centre and helping the needy in the seedy parts of the city, is a... See full post

Will be keenly following as your charitable enterprise develops. I'm wondering how your status as a non-local (for the time being, as I'm guessing you'll soon become a familiar face) changes your approach? It probably shouldn't matter, as you don't have any kind of religious/missionary agenda, and most will likely be accepting of any help provided. Do you even regard what you're doing to be charitable? Or are you thinking of it in a less orthodox way?

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59256057#post59256057)

Will be keenly following as your charitable enterprise develops.

Hey bro, thx for reaching out and your always insightful questions/POVs ♥ A few things here to breakdown : by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59256057#post59256057)

I'm wondering how your status as a non-local (for the time being, as I'm guessing you'll soon become a familiar face) changes your approach?

Which is why I am slowly dipping my feet atm, both at the Vipassana centre and in the homeless realm ; even if I am vastly experienced in the former community (approximately 40 courses sat and served combined), I am not one to impose myself in a foreign country. To be fair, I do not lack assertiveness in certain areas of my life/personality, but am nonetheless sufficiently humble to not force upon others (at least explicitly) my experience especially those stemming from a different culture or way of perceiving things. And I do lack experience in volunteering in general (but was sufficiently close to living in the streets/sleeping in parks/under bridges in my extreme adventurous backpacking decade), so I am thus taking in the experience atm. Observing. But do not think I will be long with a community that, sure is focussed on helping out peeps in need, is centred towards converting lost souls - albeit not many Peruvians are not Catholic/Christian, tbh. All this being said, I feel that Peruvians are generally more passive (especially the Incas) as opposed to say more European Latinos like Argentinos, Brazalians or even Colombians, imho, and as such are more receptive to listen/trust outside voices. Have you heard of Paul Rosalie, the humanitarian saving thousands of acres of the Peruvian Amazonian every year and in the process preserving tens of thousand years of heritage of jungle tribes :

https://lexfridman.com/paul-rosolie/ Lex Fridman #369 – Paul Rosolie: Amazon Jungle, Uncontacted Tribes, Anacondas, and Ayahuasca | Lex Fridman Podcast (https://lexfridman.com/paul-rosolie/)

If I remember correctly, this is also the podcast during which Lex speaks of his first Ayahuasca ceremony, drank in the midst of the Amazonian jungle Paul's 2nd visit on the Lex Fridman podcast is even emotionally enticing than the first one, as hard as it might be to believe, as his humanitarian efforts have since crossed paths with myriads of natives still living naked, with crossbows and completely clueless to the modern reality of the outside world - or at least the realm located beyond the Amazonian bubble, sort of speak, and also he has unfortunately crossed paths with Narcos that have put Rosolie on their death list and even intended a couple of assaults on his life :

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/489-paul-rosolie-uncontacted-tribes-in-the-amazon-jungle/id1434243584?i=1000745040953 Apple Podcasts #489 – Paul Rosolie: Uncontacted Tribes in the Amazon Jungle (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/489-paul-rosolie-uncontacted-tribes-in-the-amazon-jungle/id1434243584?i=1000745040953)

But all this being said, I suspect that if approached correctly, I should not have many issues with peeps accepting the charitable help, if I do not rub the wrong people the wrong way (and perhaps the right people the right way...). by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59256057#post59256057)

Do you even regard what you're doing to be charitable? Or are you thinking of it in a less orthodox way?

As far as the sentiment of charitable goes, I believe so... but let me explain how my sense of serving others has (innerly) evolved over the years : first of all, outside of the standard stuff like helping out friends moving out, with their houses or kindred cooks in their restaurants etc., my volunteering of yesteryears has almost been strictly limited to the Vipassana centre. Moreover, at the time I was more focussed on my own inner work and would meditate 5-6h daily on top of being the kitchen manager in the centre. Which is a TON of meditation when combined with the serving workload. But my priority was my own inner evolution, thus lessering/deprioritizing my compassion levels of feeling for the meditators taking the course. This attitude took a severe U-turn when C sat her first Vipassana course last year and I was serving it in dire conditions, as we were lacking a good 3-4 servers :shocked:😮:(: I was literally ready to kill myself of exhaustion trying to save the course from collapsing (we also had our water tank dry/all toilets clogged up/no showers, as well as issues with a server that was playing games on his phone all the time etcetera and etc.)!!! And during that experience, I developed a sincere desire to help selflessly others ♥

Thank you for detailed response! To me there are two key considerations: compassion and cultural awareness. Vipassana is certainly conducive to and generative of compassion and I guess cultural awareness grows from immersion in the culture itself as well as the reflective ability, and willingness, to step outside one's own sphere. Appears to me you're in position where this is already happening, given how much time you've spent in Sth America and travelling in general, where you've experienced a little of what it means to "sleep rough". Another thought that came to mind, after hearing your description of serving at the under-resourced Vipassana centre in Peru, was how different it is from poker: it ain't zero-sum that's for sure. Aside from providing the basics of food and shelter, it is about creating an environment where meditation is the primary goal: very much a positive-sum game (although the wear and tear is something to consider, the fatigue and stress that emerges when trying to keep the metaphorical ship from sinking). I wish you all the best, particularly as I believe any charitable impulse should be encouraged, keeping in mind the perceived cynicism that often hovers around these discussions (notably among poker players who often forgot that "zero-sum" decision-making isn't always the best way to approach life) . I also respect the fact that you appear to be taking a long-term view of the endeavour.

Punching in the Face I am just coming back from my Muay Thai and my (somewhat) advanced middle-aged body is hurting af 😮:shocked::p. Primero, this course is 90 minutes (and bi-weekly), as opposed to the previous one that was a mere 50 minutes. Segundo, it is much more advanced. Think fighters stemming from poorer, and thus tougher, neighbourhoods. Several of them being pro fighters (even a girl!!!). On top of the teacher being experienced, demanding and attentive. Tercero, because of the longevity of every course, we focus more on unpopular techniques like clinching, changing postures/defenses to southpaw and, of course, more sparring!!! I feel that I will be exclusively training in this gym moving forward. At least until my body that, as a reminder, has already partaken in 49 Revolutions around the sun - and some… -, holds up… If not, life is pretty darn good. Like in all areas yo ♥ In the past, when things were going too good, a (anxious) part of me was (anxiously) anticipating that shyt would hit the fan eventually…. But not this time yo Of course, life is full of unforeseen obstacles and bad variance is always ready to strike, right, but I don’t know, it seems that I am presently operating fluidly along some sort of karmic flow… And because that online has being going seemingly, with me crushing somewhat easily midstakes (100-200) NLHE and PLO, along with selectively hopping in 1-2k NLHE games and beating them to noticeable success, a (superstitious?) part of me believes that I will have similar success on the live MTT felts in both Brazil (BIs fluctuating in between 300-4k) and Montreal (the 5k ME has the biggest guarantee in CAD history with a whopping 10 million guarantee yo 😃:p😉!!!). I am presently in Brazil with C, chilling for a few days. Tournaments will be debuting on April 8 ; we got this yo

KSOP Preparations, Notepad Style A few things before engaging this 2 weeks long KSOP series : Mental fatigue has crept in and I will be thus taking these next 3 days to engage the tournaments wholeheartedly. Primo, by doing 18h of meditation, hence 6h per day. I feel that my mind direly requires it!!! Some tranquil time of going to the beach, walking around, watching bball and whatnot will also be what the doc orders and outside of sports betting, very little online grinding will be done yo (perhaps less than a handful of hours at the peak/most profitable hours). And then, upon day 1 of the events, I will switch back to my more normal 2h of daily meditation and one hour of gym/Muay Thai training. I will be focussing exclusively upon tournaments where my ROI is higher in, which means large field events, and consequently lower BIs, as opposed to say the daily turbo HRs. Unfortunately, while there is a ton of PLO MTTs offered, all of them are of the 5 card variant, so will most likely not play any. The rake is a ridiculous fixed 20% (on top of 3% gratuity fees) across non-HR tournaments, so outside of the last 3k HR which has 60 minutes blind levels (while other tournaments offer 25-30 min) and a 10% rake. Yeah, the rake is indeed stupid and the structure turboish, which makes focussing on higher value fields that much more consequential and…. They are Brazilian players yo 😉

• I am still working my way to be in the top 100 players of the CAD on Hendon Mob, a goal that I would like to achieve (slowly but surely) by the time it's all said and done. 1.2 mil is 100th right now (and probably 1.5 mil by the time I get there...). I am about to crack the top 600 with my next 10k in cashes. Given that I am looking to lower my BIs to the tune of 20-50k yearly, it will probably take those full 2 decades, barring a 7 digit score.

( got this yo

Made it to Day2 in the 350$ Warm Up ; it was an EXTREMELY soft field, obviously, with a single pro showed up at my table - well, technically there were some other pros at my table, but so fracking bad, that I will just discard them as bad regs... - and sat on my direct left (I busted him within 2 levels yo ). Am very happy with my play, the gran majority of my bluffs got through - and even bluff-catched 3 streets in a 3bet pot with Q♣Q♠ on A♥xx x♥ x♥ 😆😃), but did fail to reraise bluff a triple donk bet vs 2 when my spidey senses were tickling af, but opted not to do so vs 2 villains (but was shown the bluff!!!). A good start to the series, even if it is in my smallest (by far) BI ; we got this yo

KSOP Day 2 Not much to report outside of a min-cash (with a couple of ladders). Tomorrow will be a 800$ Deep Stack and if I bust early, I will probably just chill in a bar watching UFC 327, as the interesting MTTs really don't debut until Sunday with the 1k Progressive KO. How (I didn't) get away with Murder Hand of the Day : After it is folded to me ITM just after the bubble bursted in the SB, I limp with K♣5♠ vs a very aggro (unbalanced) young pro, planning to call a raise, obviously. Villain checks back. Flop (3bbs) : 9♣3♠4♦ Even though I have obvious showdown value (villain would have raised any Ax), I opt to bet 1bbs, wanting to clear out any equity villain has. Villain calls. Disclaimer : yes I know I bet too frequently in limped pots and goes against what the solver says, but whatever!!! :p🙄 Turn (5bbs) : 9♣3♠4♦ 6♠ I was about to check-decide but when I turn the OE, I decide to bomb it, trying to fold out any sticky pair with gutshot type of hand... I bet 4.5bbs, villain tanks-calls. River (14bbs) : 9♣3♠4♦ 6♠ 6♣ I was planning on value shoving a pot size all-in bet with any 2, 7 or K hitting, but when the 2nd highest card pairs up and thus unlikely to hit villain after I potted turn and villain tank-shoves, I snap-call his extremely polarized range (that is, as a reminder, excluded of any Ax) only to see the lol bad news : 64 for the FH 🙄:(. GG me 😉

( y'all

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59279647#post59279647)

K♣5♠ Turn (5bbs) : 9♣3♠4♦ 6♠

I misquoted my hand : I completely unblocked villain's bluffs (78 and ♠s), and thus did not hold the 5♠, so it was the 5 of another suit. I also fathom he was going to float flop with almost all of his range in order to steal turn, so when I potted turn and he called, I naturally put him on either top pair (which he never has after going all-in on the river) or a nutted draw.

Day 4 of KSOP : Day Off I chose not to show up at the Expo Centre today, as the only appealing tourney, a 700$ DS, did not offer a guarantee, which, alas, after yesterday's absence of any players after I late regged 80 minutes a 1k 6max, is not a good foreshadow. So online it was going to be! And online it was, I was up 5.5k in just one hour, before eventually finishing +5k in 3h yo, rendering the low MTT BIs of the past few days to the (insignificant?) background... I mean I totally get where I am coming from choosing to play the softer fields of 350-1k events this week and whatnot, and of course the 1.3k ME holds the most value (as does the 3k HR), but I wish those figures would be five fold as to make better use of my time - I literally just spent 2 days/12h grinding a 350$ tournament for a lol 550$ score (when I get those swings within literally 5 minutes online (and a minute, when playing 1k or 2k NLHE!!!)). Anyhow, I will give it more thought on how to approach more optimally live MTTs moving forward... Tomorrow is an 800$ PKO.

( got this yo

Day 5 of KSOP : Whiffing at an old age!?! So my AA ran into QTo for 1.6 stacks AIPF, thus busting the PKO 800$ before jumping into the... the 500$ Seniors :shocked:😮🙄 Yup, the lol threshold was 48 years old+ and even though I caught myself thinking "holy ****, here I am at a fracking senior table, meanwhile I sparr weekly vs 20 and 30 something years old and against whom I usually dominate 🙂😃". But, alas, my AK ran into A9o AIPF 😊 Back it tomorrow for day 1B of the 800$ PKO

( got this yo

Day 7 of KSOP : Main Event Fired my first bullet in the ME and... I got through to day2 with 28% of the players remaining (when I expected to fire up to 4 bullets ) with 2.25 stacks But here's the thing : I should have 3-4x this, I have literally - like in literally... 😉 - played the best poker I have in my life and it's not even close!!! In a 1.3k event 🙄 Think spidey senses dwindling af But much more than this - and, tbh, pertaining to a Spiritual Realm -, I was strategically doing stuff that I HAD NEVER FRACKING DONE BEFORE!!! To the extent that I thought of my buddy from Montreal, that has been crushing MTTs in the past couple of years to the tune of lower 7 digits and I was there "darn, this is what he has been doing ".. I not only understood what it meant to be playing a level above, but I was fracking vibrating in the zone, snap bluff-catching like a mama-fracker to a double barrel with K high, triple value betting light to amazing success, and just not fearing any lines, even if it meant that being balanced in certain spots meant that I would have to go in the tank for a few minutes after villain double barrelled vs me on a 4 str8 middling board in a 3bet pot and that I would successfully call yo Anyhow, variance was still a bitch, but I have made it to day 2 with 28% of the field left ; we got this yo

(

Day 8 of KSOP : Live Coverage Going back to the Mystery Bounty day2 on the bubble with 21bbs ; was live for 6h over here : https://www.youtube.com/live/pXHyBmGs0ss I still need to meditate + shower and only got 6h until the alarm goes off... Peace out y'all ♥

KSOP Final : Notepad Style T-I-L-T 😡😡:(. Think despite having 4 cashes, a couple of small ladders and a deep run in my highest BI BI 36/746, and yet still coming out 4k in the red, imagine dat :shocked:😮 But anyhow, details below in the Notepad :

• So how did I end up so much in the deficit despite firing just 1 bullet in the Main, being 6h on the live stream and making it to day3 of the ME!?!?! Think 20% rake and payouts debuting at a mere 1.36 BI in the Main, ffs 😡😡😡
• So I thus went from "I will be spending lots of time in Brazil, henceforth coming yearly and thus wanting to learn Portuguese", to I don't know if I will be back....
• And speaking of picking up a new language : I was thoroughly excited about the prospect, especially that the process was going to consist of a mere 1h weekly of intense studying, while the rest was going to be complimented with some passive viewing of movies/tv shows with Portuguese subtitles. I guess that I still have a small time slot open in my schedule to include a new (intermediate level) academic study, so I will give it some thought... The upside of Portuguese though, is that it is so damn close (with Italian) to Spanish, so the whole ordeal was not going to be as mentally costly as learning Spanish and English were...
• As far as deception goes, I feel that the results were <<<<<<< negatively correlated to my A+++ game play, which just added to my overall disillusionment :(. The last time that I felt this way, was during my 2 weeks stint at the Aussie Millions in the year 2000 (where I broke even by cashing in the ME + one ladder up).
• Poker can be such a cruel game and it was full display yesterday, during day3 of the Main, when I (correctly) chose to not take certain (extremely close) spots twice, when I would of ended up more than triple/doubling up my stack in each spot, but ended up taken a clearly more +EV spot AQ < KQ which, alas, obviously failed to hold up. The same happened in the Mystery Bounty when, after capitalizing on 2 bounties, I opted not to take two spots for 2 + 3 eliminations in situations where the rest of the table (was incorrectly) taken them, but would of ended up binking them :(:(:(
• As far as future events goes, I will not be going to Vegas this year and just have some monthly events at the Playground planned out, along with the WSOPC 5k 10 million guaranteed. C will be in Quebec at that time, so we plan on renting out an AirBnB in Montreal for a week or so during that series (where I will be focusing at the most on 2-3 MTTs).
• The positive note is that if I maintain my level of play from the past 2 weeks in other upcoming series, it is just a matter of time before a solid score happens 😃: We got this yo

( to C, microdosing Aya and Muay Thai tomorrow yo ♥

Do you play these events 100% on your own or do you sell/swap? Variance live feels more brutal when you can't just reg something else right away. Also live feels more 'epic' so you'll always remember the narrative of the hand/tourney, whereas online is just one more click, flip, 70/30, whatever. It shouldn't be different and we should just play for chips but well, we are humans so of course it stings more to bust a live streamed tourney than a random sunday $100 on your website of choice. I'll be in Lima sometime around october-november, would be great to link up if you're around. Best of luck in the upcoming series and in life in general!

by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59286568#post59286568)

Do you play these events 100% on your own or do you sell/swap?

100% of myself. I rarely swap (and did not in this series). by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59286568#post59286568)

Variance live feels more brutal when you can't just reg something else right away. Also live feels more 'epic' so you'll always remember the narrative of the hand/tourney, whereas online is just one more click, flip, 70/30, whatever. It shouldn't be different and we should just play for chips but well, we are humans so of course it stings more to bust a live streamed tourney th... See full post

Oh yeah! Since I rarely play MTTs online neither, the variance hits me hard indeed!!! The accumulated nasty variance in HIGH equity spots as well (am 0/4 in 6 digit situations) is just seemingly sinking its teether deeper... :p by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59286568#post59286568)

I'll be in Lima sometime around october-november, would be great to link up if you're around.

Great friend ; I should be back in Lima in early November from a 4 month Quebec stint by ramabranch m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59286568#post59286568)

Best of luck in the upcoming series and in life in general!

Thx bro and much love ♥

The Unbearable Heaviness of da Swings Disaster hit on/off the felt last week, when not only did the Poker Gods stick out their (divine) tongue at me in dat ininteligible humour of theirs, but they had to rub it in in multiple ways, sigh and a thousand times sigh!!! The variance on the felt disgraceful af (-13k in 12h), but so was my sports betting (-9k) - f**k the first round of the NBA 🙄 The good news is that I made back 6.3k on the felt in the past 24h yo There is a small tournament in Lima coming up at the end of month ; nothing to write home about, a simple 500$ tourney, but with 3 starting flights and a 40k guarantee for first ; for a country within which poker is an afterthought, I am pretty happy on the prospect of not having to travel/cover expenses for this event If not, I am just getting back into the gist of my Peruvian routine after being in Brazil for 3 weeks. I feel that I was slow to get back into the swing of things... Not paying much attention while grinding online and thus letting myself get distracted by the art of multitasking content... 😊. I also failed to go to my Muay Thai last week and just went to the gym once. Thankfully though, this week I have largely compensated by being active in the past 4 days (3kms of running with C and then gym-gym-Muay Thai yo ). I also volunteered at the Vipassana and am back in the cash NLHE lab yo! And yes, it feels amazing to be back in the swing of things with studying, ample hours grinding, Muay Thai, gym and running down my list of errands yo 😀

( well all ♥

The Cage I am stubborn. Stubborn af! I think that one doesn't become a poker pro without jamming their head repeatedly against the trial-by-error wall! Nor travel the world as a hippie-nomadic-backpacker-hitchhiker without an implacable inner drive. So when I initially started training in MMA at the advanced age of 45, I told myself... no : I imposed upon myself with a sense of urgency, that I needed to train for a minimum of 2 years, no matter what!!! Sidenote : The Asian fellow on the Only Friends poker podcast that had trained for 5 years in Jiu Jitsu, stated that after 2 years of an average of 5h weekly training, a practicioner of Martial Arts becomes an 80% favourite vs a random fellow in a street fight. Of course, this was coming from a pure estimation, but given his analytical mind, it did hit home for me During my first year, I trained for 3h weekly : two at my MMA dojo and 2 x 30 minutes sessions at home. It was below the above mentioned 5h weekly threshold, but given my extremely high discipline levels and the fact that I put my ♥ and soul into my training, I noticed that I was advancing quite fast (compared to my peers) and thus very content with my evolution. My motivation dropped, alas, quite significantly during my 2nd year and I hence had to really push myself to go to the dojo. Training at home (on a boxing bag, with weights, pushups and abdominals) has always been easier for me, as opposed to the act of stepping out and engaging the outside world/into the dojo for a (yikes!) 2h training - no less 😮:shocked: - and (potential) sparring!!! I did feel disappointed with my overall performance, but nonetheless kept at it and things got WAY easier when I left Buenos Aires and in the process decided to leave behind the Jiu Jitsu part of MMA - rolling around with sweaty guys on the floor was never really my thing... 😉 - as to focus on the Muay Thai and (to a lesser extent) boxing elements of it yo During my 3rd year, my training took a substantial leap forward : I increased my drilling to 5h weekly. Two months were also spent with the private tutelage of a Muay Thai coach in Lima (which obviously propelled my practice exponentially), combined with the schooling from a different teacher/approach in Canada yo My 4th year has been much of the same, albeit I felt the urge to escape the richer (and softer) courses from the touristic neighbourhood of Miraflores, for a more ghettoish/hardened students and classes of San Miguel (bordering Callao) ; but something was missing there as well, especially when I found myself to be top 2 in terms of talent/sparring... So I headed out to Lince (on the outskirts of La Victoria AKA La Tierra de Nadie (Land of No One/No Man's Land), and boy did I find my place!!!

• Multiple fighters that fight/compete regularly : Check!
• Peeps from the barrio/ghetto that go out of their way to punch/elbow/knee/kick the (unique) foreigner in the face : Check-Jab-Uppercut!!!
• A teacher that is extremely demanding, highly qualified, compassionate and does not shy away from the less popular (clinching!) exercises : Checkeroo yo 😆😃 Anyhow, to come back to the point I wanted to make : I despise losing. I F**king hate it! Of course, I handle the poker variance like a pro and with stoism in public, but despise being NOTICEABLY a more advanced fighter then my 4 years experience warrants - to the extent that I outsparred a 20 something fighter (and thus in his physical peak) that also had 4 years experience as if it was kindergarten yo 😃🙄 -, I do not accept to lose a sparring session vs the 3 gangsta wanna be fellows that clearly take pleasure in striking outlandishly the (rich!) foreigner in pad/partner exercises 😡😡😡 Thankfully, I have out-sparred all 3 of them previously. But the thing is, two of them got back to me when my cardio started failing later in a (90 minute) class... - So anyhow, my last month in Lima/training will be spent outclassing those 2 fracking boneheads, even if I end up huffing and puffing and crashing to the mats!!! Getting them back for all those unwarranted knees to the stomach during simple - and supposedly lenient - exercises. For that nasty elbow to the face. I am 49 and do not have much time left training/sparring as hard as this. My body hurts. I come back home with guaranteed pain after each class. Wake up with bodily pains pretty much every morning. And I do not expect a 25-35 years old anger-fuelled fellow from the barrio to have foresight/empathy for the physical cost of training/sparring that an almost 50 years old foreigner suffers from, but I do take a lot of pleasure in clearly dominating a FIERCE sparring session when I get 100% of my opponent's anger, land distinct jabs/hooks/kicks and manage to discern villain's striking patterns - as I have done so professionally in poker, as most peeps are prey to 5-6 (striking or betting) patterns, as human nature dictates them to do so 😉 - to a successful and (clearly) dominating outcome yo

( well all ♥

The Show Must Go On : An Update (Notepad Style) Hey folks, what's up! I am about to head back to Quebec for a 4 months stint, but beforehand, a quick review on the goals accomplished over the past year and where we go from here : Spirituality : C and I have been microdosing Ayahuasca for the past 4 months+. And while I have repeatedly stated ITT how I immensely trust the divinity of The Plant, it nonetheless cannot be overstated to what extent it has tremendously changed C's life ♥ I mean, she had no previous experience smoking weed, so hence zilch experiences with plants/psychedelics. And sure she has done a Vipassana retreat (and has a Catholic faith), but outside of this, the Spiritual Realm remains newish to her. But lo and behold : The Plant is now guiding her miraculously through the meanders of this bottom world yo ♥ But anyhow, more concretely, what lies ahead for us is : to continue microdosing when C gets to Quebec in a month preferably Ayahuasca (if not Mushrooms), attend a 3 day Vipassana retreat in September, a 10 day retreat (just me) in October and a Full-on-intense-af Ayahuasca ceremony in Cusco for the New Year yo Martial Arts : if you folks remember in a previous post, I had the goal of dominating specifically 3 fracking douche bags in a sparring match : by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59311775#post59311775)

The CageSo I I do not accept to lose a sparring session vs the 3 gangsta wanna be fellows that clearly take pleasure in striking outlandishly the (rich!) foreigner in pad/partner exercises 😡😡😡

2 of these have been fulfilled, but I could not get to the third one as, alas, I have been afflicted with a cold over the past couple of weeks which has brought my classes to a halt, given how my energy levels are easily negatively affected at such an advanced age. Nevertheless, I have to give myself a solid 8.8/10 for my past 6 months of training that has seen me square off against some mighty feisty fighters yo As far as the next 4 months in Canada goes, I will mainly be training at home with the help of my punching bags and accompanying C to the gym ; I might train boxing for a month though (more accessible than Muay Thai and closer (20 minutes driving) to my rural house)). Poker : We had hit a nasty downswing a couple of months ago but came back (up)swinging in the tune of 40k yo in the online streets. Sports betting has also been going solid (hit on a 17k San Antonio bet), but a lot of it will be determined by the outcome of Holloway-McGregor (I got 12k riding on the former). Also, I got a couple of tournament series coming up : a smaller one at the end of July (a 2.5k and 1k MTT) and then in August the WSOPC super circuit with 10 a million guaranteed in the 5k ME. Life : The core of my outward focus in La Belle Province, will be dedicated to working on my house. Getting the roof fix. Getting to all the small indoor issues that need attention. Painting. Cleaning. And ultimately getting ready for renting it out (it is close (9kms) to a ski hill). C will be helping out. And of course, all of this will be done in between grinding hours and a nightly bonfire and daily dips into the lake yo ♥

( y'all

Flying Home At the airport waiting for my Montreal flight. C has also received her CAD visa after being denied last year ; she will be joining me in 3 weeks ♥ She already gets along absolutely formidably well with my folks and is planning a ton of activities with my sisters, so it will be a hell of a fun time, me thinks, and will also permit me to get away for 3-6 days for the WSOP Super Circuit 5k 10mil guaranteed and 6k PLO yo The gist of our stay will be working/renovating my recently purchased house (with bonfires in the evening and canoeing on the lake in the daytime yo) and family time. We will be visiting certain destinations of course, most notably Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, Niagara Falls and her sister in Madison USA. I will be solely training at home (got a couple of boxing bags, weights etc.) and in a gym with C. No Muay Thai courses for the next 4 months though, as I will be exercising with C. As far as looking back at this year's stay in Lima, I would rate it a very solid 8.8/10 in terms of my relationship, volunteering, training, poker and advancing life projects goes ; the main criticism would be that I was a bit lazy lately in terms of training and volunteering. It did not help that I was sick for a couple of weeks and that I got into a very feisty sparring altercation with a younger fellow, but the gist of it was just a lack of motivation/pushing myself. So note to self moving forward : as pretty much is the case in every thing worth its time in life, it demands a great deed of dedication/effort levels.

(

Can't wait to hear about the renovations at your new place by the lake. Wonder whether you'll be feeling like a local back in Canada or more of dual- (e.g worldly) citizen?

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59354035#post59354035)

Can't wait to hear about the renovations at your new place by the lake.

Thx bro! When I set on the cycle for "rapid wash" on the industrial washing machine, which one of the many items that the previous owner had left behind - he originally wanted to sell me most of his furniture, but I declined, having already access to a ton of 2nd hand stuff as my folks had just retired and sold their small office (but the owner nonetheless left a lot behind, including a small dock, canoe, raft, a couple of kitchen tables washer-dryer, tools, 2 fridges etc.) - I did not expect the incoming surprise, as the washer-dryer, as opposed to the house and pretty much everything left in it, felt **** & Span new. But alas, the washer overflowed and even leaked into the basement, ffs 😡 That being said, things are rapidly advancing and this house will be up and running real fracking good in no time yo (updates to come). by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59354035#post59354035)

Wonder whether you'll be feeling like a local back in Canada or more of dual- (e.g worldly) citizen?

I always feel/felt Quebecois, but there is a part of me that is still adapting, especially that this area I live in, Lanaudiere, remains largely unknown to me (I am more familiar with Les Laurentides (where my folks live) and Montreal, of course). I did get this uncanny feeling of an outsider when I first stepped into town to purchase goods. I have a small series at the end of the month (a 2.5k, and two 1ks) before C steps foot on the Quebec soil for the first time (she has a 9 year visa yo ).

(

Rang Chertsey God damn, getting rid of 35+ years of constant heavy cigarette smoking in a house, is not an easy thing to do 😮😊:(. Add to the latter the fact that the previous owner did not give a rat's arse to anything cleanliness related, and yeah, I have an arduous task at hand at getting this house ready for renting out. Good thing that I approach this task in a Buddhist like fashion in the sense the journey matters more then rushing to the destination, hence making my days both agreeable, yet productive yo Monday and Tuesday are the two last days for the cleaning lady to come over and that I will be dedicating the majority of my time to house chores before C arrives Sunday. From Wednesday until Sunday, I will be exclusively focussing on a small series at the Playground (a 2.5k HR, 1k ME and 1k Bounty). In other news, a little racist incident happened this week that I have absolutely no tolerance for and take pleasure in putting the detractor back into his fracking little place. I was walking in Hochelaga, Montreal, AKA a place that used to be a bottom-middle class francophone neighbourhood back in the 90s (when I briefly lived there), but that now has been heavily gentrified, and as I had a few blocks before reaching the restaurant where I was meeting my friends, I decided to send a couple of audios on WhatsApp. The first one was an audio in Spanish to C, and then the second one was in English to a friend from New Jersey. As I was engaged in the 2nd audio, mid 20's something francophones crossed my path with one of them blurting out "

• "you speak in English, you piss in my mouth!" Now I am a proud Quebecois as much as the next fellow and perhaps more, giving that my studies were purposely dedicated to Quebec's literature, cinema and music back in my University days, but one thing that THAT I WILL NOT TOLERATE for the fracking life of from ANY of my Quebecois fellowman, is an attack on one's ethnicity, culture or choice of fracking language. Unfortunately, by the time my brain had decoded his racist babbling, I had lost sight of them, sigh and a thousand times fracking sigh!!! I would have definitely taken pleasure in the confrontation and clearly stating to them in bon Quebecois, "yes I speak several languages, you dumb ignorant f**k!". End of rant.

()

A Rapid Small Series Recap Well, even if I had planned out on grinding the series for 5 days, I cut it short after just a couple of days 🙄 A few factors influenced my decision : firstly (and primarily), my house is far from the casino and in normal (non-traffic) conditions, it takes 90 minutes to get there. Combined with my morning preparations of meditation-training-showering-breakfasting, I need 4h total. Which is fine. Or at least acceptable. But there has been construction on the bridge southshore of Montreal, increasing my trip by an hour ffs. And sure, I could of extended my stay at the hotel nearby, but that would increase my expenses by 100$ daily, which is not exactly the most business savvy, at least not for grinding a 1k at least!!! Secondly, given that the Main and Bounty were 1k events, it is not worth any extra sacrifices : it is one thing to forfeit online EV (at an all-time high this year) in favour of having fun splashing on the live felt, but when Happiness EV also goes MIA, then all shyt hits the fan, right 😊🙂🙄 Thirdly, live tournaments are fracking tilting!!! I have been on a 75k upswing over the past 3 months and yet bubbling a 1k still freaking-fracking tilts the living shyt out of me 😮:shocked::p. Well, at least for an hour or two anyways 😃😉 So yeah, I busted out of the 2.5k during the last level of registration in day 2, but decided not to reenter after seeing the soft af 1k field. Which turned out to be a great decision as I rapidly built up an 8x starting stack (and was top 3 in chips, if not the chip leader) with 10 to go to the bubble (10 would eventually cash/move on to day2). But, yeah, you know that young unbalanced aggro pro that has just binked a small tourney the day prior and is still sunrunning on HOT FUMES, gets a sit on your left during bubble time and takes pleasure at 3betting you nonstop, just because he assesses that you are an old nitty rec... Yup, and not once did I have a 4betting hand to pursue (any Kx or Ax would have done!) until... of course, I got coolored against him!!! It does not cease to surprise me how ego and variance in the poker world are such that the weak reg that runs in the top 0.1 percentile for a short-medium period of time, will be completely unaware of the MASSIVE leaks he displays and simply associate his outlier results to skill... But (temporal) success is not known to be objective, is it now... C is arriving this Sunday and August will see us working on the house and going to a few concerts, visiting Montreal, Quebec City and whatnot, before I grind the 5k WSOP Super Circuit in September and 6k PLO HR ; we got this yo

(

Seems like +EV life decision (cleaning the house rather than trying to clean-up an "unbalanced aggro pro" on a sun-run). I've been playing some MTTs this year and immediately noticed how I was much more vulnerable to composure issues at the table, particularly as I felt more constrained by the format (e.g. can't just chip-up and/or seat-change, etc., when faced with aggro-ness).

Wow, I guess we normalize everything pertaining to us, but I guess not many people have hitchhiked across Canada 8 times, across the bus 16 times, the airpline 25 times and this is without the hitchhiking/bussing/training/plaining done across multiple other countries!??!!?!??!! Wow!!! I guess I might of had a beer too may tonight, but it does hit home.....

Growing Crops C and I will be getting a 13 weeks puppy next week. A cross in between a Labrador and a German Shepherd. We initially were in the process of adopting a 3 year old German Shepherd, but fate had it - or a series of unfortunate (fortunate...?) incidents made a family cut us in the queue - that we decided, after wasting too many hours investigating, driving and losing all together time, to simply purchase a coveted (breed) dog as opposed to an abandoned one... So anyhow, Juliet - the only name we agreed upon and for me, because it had a literary semantic beyond the flexible multilingual ease of French/Spanish/English - will be joining our little family this Monday yo I have booked a hotel for the evening in between Day 1B and 2B of the 5k 10 mil guaranteed WSOP Super Circuit, but will nonetheless give priority to our new family needs, if such is the calling... A part of me (the ego) really wants to play the Biggest-ever-Canadian-MTT (and the PLO 6k), but another personal facet - a much more mature one, to be frank 😉 - realizes that my bread and butter is da online pokerz and that, more importantly, my little family nucleous precedes all exterior demands. So we will see... Speaking of online poker, I have been (atrociously) submitted to a 21k downswong in the past 3 weeks. No need to get into the gist of it, but it remains pretty interesting that my biggest upswing since 2021 has been followed by my steepest slump since perhaps pre-pandemic days 😮:shocked:🙄

( y'all

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59366291#post59366291)

Seems like +EV life decision (cleaning the house rather than trying to clean-up an "unbalanced aggro pro" on a sun-run). I've been playing some MTTs this year and immediately noticed how I was much more vulnerable to composure issues at the table, particularly as I felt more constrained by the format (e.g. can't just chip-up and/or seat-change, etc., when faced with aggro-ness)... See full post

Rereading your comment, it really reflects/puts into perspective my above post, in the sense that despite my recent 21k DS, I am nevertheless averaging 100$/h and should really focus on the latter!!! But then again, this part of me wants my 1/4 mil Hendon Mob to increase to, you know, 1/2 mil... and then a full mil... and then... Online is SO anonymous, that I feel that one only gets exposure/fulfillment in the poker world through the superficial prism that is public acknowledgment... And what a superficial conquest, one might say, of course, after obtaining it! And yes, peeps in da poker world are not my favorite community, even if you can find absolute gems (as demonstrated by readers of this thread) ♥ And what about you friend, are you still playing poker professionally or even semi-professionally while combing it with music and writing endeavours??? I do miss your (absolutely excellent and criminally underrated) blog, albeit 2 +2 is obviously not what it once was...

Congrats on the pup dubn!!

by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59378917#post59378917)

And what about you friend, are you still playing poker professionally or even semi-professionally while combing it with music and writing endeavours??? I do miss your (absolutely excellent and criminally underrated) blog, albeit 2 +2 is obviously not what it once was...

I've enjoyed railing your MTT adventures and understand the bittersweet rewards it offers, such as being a legit member of the Hendon Mob (a rich data source for poker nerds, the more you delve, I've gotta say). Given the extremities of MTT variance, I certainly admire the strategic nous, discipline and will-power of those who excel in that world (not forgetting that quantitative success is best measured in terms of ROI). I very much remain a "small money" pp, rarely playing more than 1000 hours per year, often travelling (in the USA atm, much of the last few years in South East Asia), still focused on reading and writing (finished an unpublished novel, hope to start another soon) and planning a new musical phase (centered on piano rather than playing drums in bands). I don't believe I'm too different from "the persona" in my old blog, probably less rock-n-roll/now forever wishing to be more zen, so, even though I'm not the one who can ultimately judge (the "I" we associate with our everyday thoughts is far from fixed, as we know, especially considering the circular nature of how we view it), I shouldn't complain too much (about my well-being etc.,). I still have to make a conscious effort to think in a philosophical and compassionate way, most days, which probably isn't a bad thing, either, although I have to admit I struggle with the dystopian, AI-driven tone of our times and am genuinely concerned about who's driving the bus (if fact wouldn't mind at all if it were one of those "beings encountered in the DMT state").

Life Changes Well, this week has been one immersed in poop and pee, giving that the Little One, AKA a 13 weeks Labrador mixed with German Shepherd, has been letting loose af :p🙄 In all honesty, she is quite behaved and impressively educated as a young pup yo But, of course, it has brought quite some significant changes to our household and to our couple as a whole, to say the least 🙄♥ In other news, I am ABSOLUTELY loving the Psilocybin microdosing ♥ In fact, exponentially more than the Ayahuasca microdosing, even if Macrodosing the latter is >>>>>> than any other psychedelic that I have tried (MDMA, Molly, LSD, Mushrooms). If not, I have the WSOP Supercircuit coming up in a couple of weeks, even if I will have to leave aside all house work, the new little puppy and C being here in order to really focus upon those MTTs...

( well All ♥

by DrTJO m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59380569#post59380569)

I've enjoyed railing your MTT adventures and understand the bittersweet rewards it offers, such as being a legit member of the Hendon Mob (a rich data source for poker nerds, the more you delve, I've gotta say). Given the extremities of MTT variance, I certainly admire the strategic nous, discipline and will-power of those who excel in that world (not forgetting that quantitati... See full post

A+ post and profound description, as always And yeah, the live MTT world is such a different kind of beast and one that I have yet to master to tame and (even less) dominate, unfortunately 😊:(. And this despite firing Countless bullets like a madman over the years while barely surpassing the 1/4 million mark on the good ole Hendon Mob - albeit the latter never included about the same amount of scores of (undisclosed) live scores in the Yukon and slightly more online... This being said, I have thus far (mis)fired 3 bullets of the 5k 10 million guaranteed, a prize pool that actually got smashed by over 3 million+. And yet, I still feel that my live MTT game has reached new heights this year, despite the lack of results to reflect it, but I will nevertheless continue to fire bullets, however empty they might seem to appear to some peeps... This Thursday will be the 6k PLO event yo ; we got this by bob_124 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59379014#post59379014)

Congrats on the pup dubn!!

Thx bro and a pic of the most diabolical/angelical puppy to ever roam this bottom world :

()

A Brief Update After whiffing on my three 5k bullets for the WSOP(super)C Main, I also misfired on my lone PLO 6k bullet on an extremely low EV table (all 8 of us were pros, with half the table having 7-8 digits on the Hendon Mobs, while the other half being was specialized in PLO cash games (me!) or MTTs), albeit on a dream spot of opening AA♥K♥J UTG, getting called in MP, 3bet OTB, called in the SB, giving me the dream opportunity to 4bet pot-it-almost-all-in, but... the SB ended up making the call with a combo that I loathed seeing : the dreaded 3♥3♦5♥5♦ Ace cracker (40%) 😊:(. I was somewhat tilted after the hand and considering the field was not great (albeit the other tables held much more value), I decided to call it a series and head back to my loving folks, gf and puppy yo ♥ Things have been going STAGGERINGLY fast : think buying a (2021) car tomorrow (Kia Soul), forever renovating the house (new roof, foundations, painting and a ton of small handy work!!!), numerous activities with C, a new puppy, planning the upcoming Lima winter and etcetera and a thousand times etc.!!! On a more balancing life event, it seems like my good buddy will be renting my house for the winter, which will help out with the expenses and peace of mind yo ♥

( y'all ♥

Enjoying the updates! Hope you can FT one of the 5ks/10ks soon 😀

Things are forever moving vertiginously fast : am presently in Madison, Wisconsin, visiting C's sister for the week. If not, I have booked a rad looking apartment in my favourite (bohemian and non-touristy) district of Lima ; it has a gym, pool, is located a few blocks away from my Muay Thai, but more importantly, it benefits from a balcony, nearby parks and play area for our little puppy yo

( RoadtoPro m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59398385#post59398385)

Enjoying the updates! Hope you can FT one of the 5ks/10ks soon 😀

Thx bro! to FT one of these will be tough variance wise, given that I do not see myself travelling extensively in the upcoming years for tourneys, now that I have a puppy to care for combined with my forever (increasing...) deception in my lack of HS live MTT scores... I will nonetheless keep firing in Montreal's solid series and in Lima's rare 500-1ks low stakes events yo

Desolation (Angels) Emptiness is the word that comes to mind as I am navigating the 30 minutes drive that separates my house from my folks place... A clear gap that has been created by the absence of C, whom I just recently dropped at the airport for her flight to Lima... Emptiness and sadness, that is. Her stint in Quebec was an astounding 10/10 and beyond one - if superlatives meant enough for me to leave behind mathematical soundness... We also got to visit Quebec City, Ottawa, Madison, Tremblant, Saint-Sauveur, Montreal, to name a few places, when the tranquility of my (very remote) house became (paradoxically) heavy to bare for her. Whatever the case, that 10 grading has vertiginous fell to a 4, as the sorrow of her departure is being felt by your truly and our little puppy, who has been deprived of her usual vitality... But I am not one to dwell in self-pity, so as soon as we arrive home, I sit down, cross my legs, shut my eyes and observe my bodily pains reflecting my heartache. I have 6 weeks left in La Belle Province before heading back with the puppy to Lima. My buddy, who is alas going through a divorce (father of 3), will be coming over tomorrow and for the feasible future (might rent my place for the winter). If not, I will be going to my annual Vipassana 10 day retreat in a week and a half. Moreover, small work on the house will get done (the roof still needs to be done), taking care of the Little one - the puppy, that is 😉 - and grinding dem online tables yo

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by Dubnjoy000 m (https://www.twoplustwo.com/post?postId=59403659#post59403659)

Things are forever moving vertiginously fast : am presently in Madison, Wisconsin, visiting C's sister for the week. If not, I have booked a rad looking apartment in my favourite (bohemian and non-touristy) district of Lima ; it has a gym, pool, is located a few blocks away from my Muay Thai, but more importantly, it benefits from a balcony, nearby parks and play area for our ... See full post

Enjoy the good puppy vibes! Was briefly in the Northern vicinity a few weeks back (saw the Fall colours in Marquette and played a PLO home-game in Milwaukee on the way). Beautiful region of the world that's for sure. I'm now all-in on lakes that appear to be horizonless ...