Back in Malta, teh best is yet to come

Yo, will try to make it short today bc last update was only couple of days ago.

Took an early morning emirates flight to Malta and arrived in the afternoon. Prolly flying only emirates from now on whenever there is teh possibility bc that was def. much better than anything i've seen so far. Servicewise very good, food definitely better than anywhere else and they seem so take a look at their air hostesses before they actually give them a job. Weather in Malta was/is quite allright in teh mid 20s even though it feels cold if you come from Bali/Dubai, but that should change rather soon.
Moved in for a couple of days in teh flat of another pokermate who is currently in Germany that i have some time to sort something for myself. Just finished 1st session which was basically teh first really decent one in a longwhile. Maybe i even manage to get back to even for teh month in teh next 2 days, who knows?! Also it seems that i underestimated how important fast internet with a very fast ping is really for me because i seem to get significant moar good seats now compared to last months...

Not much moar to write about teh pokerz bc i haven't played in Dubai.

Big problem after tis april is though that i have moar questions than answers. So far everywhere i travelled i had an interesting time but Malta was always teh number 1 when it comes down to teh question where i want to spent teh majority of my time. Now i'm pretty confused. Bali was fucking amazing and Dubai is on another level as well so i prolly will reevalute teh next couple of months what to do. Definitely staying here until october though.
Regarding Dubai my first impressions got confirmed during my last 3 days as well. It seems like a city just built for me. After teh wednesday party and thursday aquapark we went to a brunch in a beachclub on friday. Weekend there is friday saturday and teh city is basically famous for it's friday brunches. Every place is doing them and for something between 40 and 100Euro you get all u can eat and drink for 3-4hours. In teh end we made teh right call to do teh brunch in a beachclub rather than an irish pub. Over teh course of teh day we managed to get insanely shitfaced and when a filipino hen night with 20hens arrived around 3 in teh afternoon we knew that could possibly get interesting. But it went even better thereafter. I'm quite sure i have never in my life seen that amount of beautiful chicks in one place. There were literally 25 girls in that beachclub who could've easily worked for victorias secret - just mindblowing but probably quite std for Dubai.
After we didn't finished our 3rd bottle on wednesday we decided to go back to Cavalli Club in teh evening (after a whole day of heavy drinking) and finish wat we started. In retrospect maybe not teh best idea. Lost my mate a 2nd time this day and i have absolutely no clue wat i did between 1 and 4, memory completely wiped out, but i didn't got arrested so it wasn't too bad.
Next day resulted in a terrible hangover for both of us. Still no clue how i managed to buy teh new Galaxy in teh morning but thereafter we couldn't be bothered to go up teh Burj Khalifa bc we were just too fucked...
So at this point i'm quite sure i'm doing Bali in winter still for a couple of months but thereafter i have no clue if i stay in Malta or move to Dubai for good. I'm 29 now and this city just caters so much moar to a guy in that age compared to how Malta does. In Malta i go out and in most places i'm on teh older side of teh crowd even if i don't feel or look like it. If i go out in Dubai i belong to teh young guns... And besides alcohol and party everything is quite affordable - in fact supercars, cigarettes, fuel, taxis, electronics and some other stuff is ridiculously cheap compared to europe because they just have no taxes over there <3 Guess only time will tell wat happens...

In a couple of hours i meet wit my estate agent and try to sort a place for Malta. From then on it will be alot of working time in may and hopefully june as well while i will take a little bit moar time off during peak summer in july and august. I also hope i manage to visit some good friends in Ibiza this year.

That's it for now, holla!

Sick life in teh middle east

Hello folks,

back again writing a little something something from Dubai this time.

Have to say finally i really enjoy that travel and hate it moar and moar that i blew 3 months in Australia but what can you do.
Left Bali on saturday and arrived in Doha early in teh morning. Have a good english mate who is working there so that i could stay at his place. Plan for Doha was basically doing nothing besides good food, some gym sessions and put in some hours in teh office. That all worked out and even though i'm not running as horrific as in Bali anymoar i'm still far away from something i would consider running decent but it seems at least that i'm back to winning money even though not much for now. Have not checked exact results but definitely first month in 5 years of playing poker for a living i'm down significant amount of money even after rakeback. Would assume it is around -5k but just don't wanna check results and see teh disgusting garph. There's just no point. And once again teh phrase: "one day you will run way worse over way longer time than you ever could imagine" becomes true. Swings are sick but why should i care, longrun is all that matters and there's still alot of money out there.

Anyways, that should be it for poker. So while goal in Doha was to grind plan in Dubai is and was to see something of teh city, take some time off poker before coming back to Malta and party quite a bit.
I absolutely didn't know wat to expect when i came here. It's teh first two really muslimic countries i've went to so i had no clue. But i have to say so far i love every bit of it. While Doha seems moar like a business hub Dubai is for sure built as a prime holiday destination with business in teh background. It's like those guys took a look at some really cool cities like Berlin, Barcelona, Vienna, etc, than sat down and looked what's good in those cities and said we gonna make it even better and what's bad and we cut it out completely and then build teh city. Stuff you see here is just fucking mindblowing. My mate was living for a while in this region so he knows quite a bit and i profit of this wisdom for sure. Some examples: There are no bums here on teh streets, everything is clean, everything is hypermodern, it's fairly cheap for what you get, service is from absolutely another world no matter where you go, there is basically no crime, etc.
I really like how those guys just handle stuff: Went to some steakhouse chain teh other day and they literally had like 50 waiters running around for maybe 25 guests who were there. All those guys speak way better english than i do, had t-shirts with "i love my job" and u really have teh impression they love wat they're doing even if they get paid shit for sure. If you would have teh same place in Malta you would have two miserable waiters and you could read on their faces that they would rather shoot themselves instead of working another week in that place.
Regarding crime from what my mate told me you have one chance here and zero tolerance and if you blew that you are out. So u don't even try to take your chances. You steal from a shop you get thrown out of teh country and you are never allowed to come back. You fight somebody for no reason and the same happens. If they would apply that system to germany you wouldn't have all those morons who ask you in nightclubs why u looking at them only to provoke an argument and stuff - how nice of a place Germany would/could be haha...
It's a bit weird in teh beginning that you cannot drink on teh street, there's no alcohol in supermarkets, etc but if you like me and either you go ALL IN or don't drink at all this really makes not much of a difference. I don't need a beer for dinner to feel alive and if i do i can still go to one of teh hotels which all sell. Alcohol also is pretty much teh only thing which really is expensive. Fuel and cigarettes are amazingly cheap, mostly because they are just not taxed. Going to restaurants and stuff is not supercheap but definitely not expensive either. Probably comparable to a normal european city but as being said you always get 120% service by competent staff.
Amount of 4 and 5 star hotels is sick as well. No matter where you go to people open teh doors of your taxi and greeting you with a friendly smile wishing you a good day etc. Taxis btw are amazingly cheap as well and you can ball it up here over white BMW taxis, 7series limosines and Bentleys however you like...

Went out yesterday to Cavalli Club which is definitely one of teh sickest clubs i've been to so far. Interior, setup, etc. just on a completely different level, service once again out of this world, etc. Had a table and if you only 2 persons it gets quite expensive but still miles cheaper and miles better than anything i've seen in Australia. Bottle of Jaegermeister was around 200euros, bottle of JD around teh same. As being said not cheap but not teh 350euro australian shit either.
You definitely can have a very decent lifestyle here without spending sick amounts of money if you don't go to crazy in teh clubs and with shopping.
Speaking of shopping we went to Dubai mall now twice which is out of this world as well. Huuuuge place where you can get literally every fucking thing. They have an aquarium inside, a vip cinema, like 40 different electronic stores, any fashion designer you can think of and and and - just fucking sick.

Weekend here is friday and saturday instead of sat an sun but after having a solid night out yday we decided to keep a low profile and save some money instead today and rather go big on one of teh friday brunches later in some beachclub. I never heard of those brunches but apparently they seem to be a big deal here so everybody goes to a brunch on friday noon where you usually have an open bar and free food for 3-4hours and all people get shitfaced. Sounds like good fun to me and definitely worth checking out.

Weather is pretty good as well. It's not as sick hot as in summer while it mostly has over 40°C so atm it's quite allright with alot of sunshine and 30-32°C.

After teh brunch we are prolly fucked and not going out to a night party but we'll see what happens. Saturday my mate is leaving in teh evening and i stay one night longer and take an early emirates flight back to my 2nd home so that travelling comes to an end. Also pre ordered teh new Galaxy S4 today that after almost 2 weeks without a phone i will finally be mobile again. Was quite a pain in teh ass using my Galaxy cam as a phone because teh thing is just too huge to carry around to clubs and shit haha.

After all i've seen so far from Dubai i'm quite convinced i will come back for a bit longer somewhere beginning next year if things work out. Maybe 6-8 weeks or something like this. There's just too many things you can do here so that 4 days are just not enough. Furthermoar Dubai and Doha as well are highly motivating me moneywise because you see so many people who really make big cash and not just teh pocket change i do that you just think about what you can do to make moar moar moar. Really looking forward now to may and finally be back on teh grind again and hopefully making some money.

Landing Malta on 28th and then directly searching for a nice summercrib for just myself teh next day. Gonna be good summer for sure but i don't even know what winter is anymoar anyways :P

That's it for now, need to catch some sleep before teh brunch with booze and Booth...

peaze out and teh usual shots of my travelz!

my room and office in Doha 24th floor in CBD

2nd skyline from Atlantis at teh Palm in Dubai

Burj al Arab ******* Hotel

Nightout at Cavalli Club

Teh rulers of teh Dubai and prolly UAE as well

Doha at night

VIP cinema wit teh english boiii

Last pciture before leaving Bali

When it all started

In front of Dubai mall

Burj Khalifa aka highest man made building in teh behind

Expect teh unexpected

Small update today, but thought i need to write another post before i leave Bali.

While life is good poker is/was absolutely not and so i'm right in teh middle/end of my biggest moneywise downer so far. Everything was going fairly meh aka breakevenish for teh month until i started one session and made like 2.5k in maybe 500hands (most at 600). Thereafter you would naturally assume that teh goodrun is back and you are back to making money. However after this small success i dropped around 8k$ straight in significantly less than 10k hands. Quite sure i haven't seen such a run in my 5 years of playing. Winning literally zero flips for 100BB stacks, AA or KK getting cracked litereally each hand by fish no matter what they called pre, they get there and a sick amount of hands where you flop big and after turn and river come you have a weak bluffcatcher otr. If all this comes together and if it stays for a while that's a receipt for disaster obv. So my mood teh last days was not teh best but on teh other hand it's part of teh game i love and there's nothing i can do besides pushing harder, keep playing a-game and hope things turn around. As it seems of now the worst part is over bc my last session was actually a winner but you never now. And if we are honest this run was long overdue, i cannot run every years several 10k's above EV and expect nothing is ever going to happen.  Also learnt one important lesson in regards of bankrollmanagement which was slacking a little lately and so i will rebuild my online roll to 100Buyins for 200 and never drop below that again bc now i really cannot comfortably mix in 400+ anymoar without decent chance having to push new money into my Stars account which i don't really plan to do. But once again we'll see what happens...

Anyways, for most parts i still was satisfied with my game even in that stretch (a fool will say that he will play 100% a-game even if shit hits teh fan but i did not play (m)any hands which i would play much different in retrospect which is good.) Big problem for me in such downswings is i tend to get a little too passive but if you get assraped any given hand then it's kinda hard to not get a little paranoid after a while.

Enough of teh bitching though. It doesn't matter if i lose 5000, 10000 or 20000 in teh shortrun as long as my longterm EV is positive which given teh state of games it 100% is. Nothing changes, i have enough money on teh side to still continue that lifestyle without having to worry about shit which is good and gives some peaze of mind.

I finally managed to get a 5mbit connection and stable internet here in Bali which is a little late but better late than never and good to know you can get that speed for my return end of teh years.

Another funny story is about two fellow players with whom i played quite a bit. Alot of people ask me when they hear i play poker for a living if it wouldn't be a good idea to play in a team:

So these two guys were both supernova elites, making at least 200.000US$ a year playing poker and were best friends in real life. So they decided for whatever reason it is not a cool thing if they take money of each other (i disagree here, one of teh most funniest part of teh game is to suck out on somebody you know you go drinking with tomoro and win a couple of 100s of him - maybe my mind is just fucked up, who knows).
Anyways, they decided 12 months ago that they will softplay each other which means essentially they are not playing big pots against each other, folding when teh other guy bets, etc. I cannot tell how far this agree went beyond this but that enough to understand teh situation. They even claim that they thought this behaviour would be allright bc no other players get hurt directly by it. Because they both have to be highly intelligent people to make as much money as they did i just assume they are superyoung and insanely naive bc it's kind of obvious that this is never within teh rules.
Whatever, end of teh story is Pokerstars closed their accounts, conficicated 80.000$US from both of them and they are banned to play on Stars or Full Tilt for 3 years. Moral of the story is think twice before you act and softplaying, colluding, etc. will be punsihed by Pokerstars.
So it does not make sense to play in any sort of team on Pokerstars bc risks and penalties you face for being caught are far to sick to justify it...

That's it for poker. Was playing decent volume lately, especially since having good internet so that i wasn't doing to many other things but yesterday we managed to do a trip to Lembongan Island which is very similar to Phi Phi Islands in Thailand. Lotta small and supernice islands, not overrun by tourists yet, sick beaches, cheap food, etc.

Gym is going pretty good as well. Even though i pulled my ligaments and had to stop running for a bit i'm down to 73kg now and from what it looks like i'm supersatisfied and don't wanna go down anymoar. But now teh hardest part comes which is mainting this. Food here is like perfect fitness food, will not be that easy in Malta to eat as sound as here unfortunately.

My friends leave Bali tomoro and i follow up on saturday. As being said i loved every minute here (maybe not those where i lost big haha) and will be back end of teh year for a couple of months, most likely from october ongoing. There is still so many things i haven't seen yet, teh food is fantastic, teh locals friendly, weather amazing. etc. Just teh perfect spot to continue euro summer.

Saturday i'm flying to Doha where my english mate is working so probably playing a bit til wednesday because he has to work as well and then going over to Dubai and going completely mental for a couple of days there with hopefully no imprisonment. Flight to Malta is booked for teh 28th of april so i shall return to my true home fairly soon :)
Plan there is to find a decent crib for teh summer and also to play alot during may where Malta is still quiet and hopefully make some money back.

thanks for reading and peaze out!

Welcome to that promised land aka teh island of gods

"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."
(Genesis 12.1)

Who would've guess that god really meant Bali, Indonesia when talking to Abraham back in teh days?

Have to say wow, just wow. Travelled quite a bit now and never felt that happy, energetic and satisfied anywhere else i've been so far. Yes, you could probably compare it to Thailand but only to a certain degress because this here is just on a different level. Been here for a week now and haven't seen anything which really pisses me off or annoys teh shit out of me while i could've wrote a book on tis topic after my first 24hours in Crapstralia...

This post gonna be mainly about Bali and not about poker because I just haven't played any significant volume so far. There just were alot moar and better things to do here than spending my time in front of my laptop.

To start at the very beginning i landed last saturday afternoon and had to buy visa directly there at the airport. Had no clue about currency so i got way too few money out of teh ATM teh first time because 1.000.000 here is teh equivalent of 100USD. After that 2 friendly locals where helping me out wit my lugage and obv wanted and got a tip for that haha. Once out of teh airport my host from whom I'm renting teh villa was waiting for me and we decided to wait another our for Victor, my swedish mate from Malta, to arrive.
So we went for a coffee and i was able to get to know teh guy a little bit better while waiting. Dude is definitely quite a character, 49 years old but looks moar like in his late 30s and probably feels like end 20. He's slovenian guy who moved out of there and basically never returned...
An hour later Vic arrived and we were ready for our trip to teh villa in Seminyak which is like a moar upscale tourist area 15km from teh airport. Trip took us moar than an hour because traffic was just insane, bikes everywhere, streets jampacked, supersmall etc.
Finally we made it to the villa which has a nice pool, outside living area and 2 goodsized bedrooms. It's not supermodern but definitely nice and quite affordable compared to Australia as well...
Met up with a local girl of whom i got the contact from a mate via facebook that night so that we had somebody to guide us through the night. She showed us couple of interesting places and music was amazing pretty much everywhere. House, techno, electro - no commerical bullshit, exactly what i want to hear while i'm out and last time i heard that was in Melbourne...
So this girl basically developed to be our personal tour guide, driving us to places, recommending stuff, etc. Hard to find such a nice person with such a good character anywhere in europe but people here are just moar helpful and friendly in general i assume - thanks again, Yuki ;)

Was quite happy also to stay with a non-pokerplayer for a while for a change (even though teh guy was first starcraft pro in korea and played poker thereafter he has not been doing this for years now and this sounds moar like teh profile of a nerd which he actually isn't).
Anyways, he is leaving today and we decided to party it up every 2nd day. Also got a decent antihangover recipe from him which seems to work fairly well because after those nights out i was always waking up before at least 2 which i barely ever managed before.
Tried Sky Garden Roof Top on monday and went there wednesday and friday as well. I don't really like teh music there but besides that place is pretty cool. Lots of tourists, spacious, modern etc. Since we were bottling it up while being fairly social we know basically all teh staff by now and always had a blast there meeting alot of people. Vic for sure is going to miss this place. I'm prolly not going there too often because i want to check out alot of different places teh next 2 weeks.
On wednesday another non-pokerplaying mate arrived from Germany so that he moved in with me and Vic took teh villa next door. Basically we didn't do too much this week besides partying and chilling in some beachclubs/bars and having nice food.
Food ranges from good to absolutely fucking brilliant depending where you go. You can have meals for as cheap as 5$ but also can go up to 75$+ if you like to ball.
General cost of living is quite cheap even though you probably would expect it to be cheaper but i assume it increased over teh last couple of years prolly bc australian dollar got stronger and stronger as well.
Pack of Luckies for example you can get for under 1Euro while alcohol is quite expensive with 40$ for a bottle of Absolut in a supermarket. Already got a connection though where i get stuff which fell from a transporter for half teh price :) Country is highly corrupt which i actually like because once you have money this is a thing which definitely almost always works heavily in your favour. Also funny is that smoking is not banned here like anywhere else which means you can smoke everywhere, literally!!! But no matter what you do and how you live it will be extremely difficult to spend alot of money unless you go completely mental in a nightclub.
Weather is awesome as well, pretty hot and temperature doesn't change ever so that they average 27degrees all year around even though they have dry and rainy season.
Only thing which is really suboptimal is internet so far - our connection seems to be fairly stable but it's only 0.5Mbit which means if somebody is downloading something i cannot really play poker. Got a stick as a backup so it's possible to work without any timeouts whatsover but you cannot really download tv series and shit. From what i've seen you can get up to 8Mbit which will be extremely expensive with 400bucks a month though but probably necessary investment once i'm back.
Location of our place is quite good also so that you have over!!! 100 restaurants in 10mins reach by food + you have a big variety ofs delivery services which i haven't used so far. Also they seem to understand that there are people who have to be awake at night so you can find a couple of late and 24hour options which is just brilliant for me.
Found a decent gym 1km from my place as well so that i can try maintain teh body i built over the last weeks. Probably having one of my peaks regarding to shreddedness and power and feeling really good atm - besides teh stupid alcohol i'm eating and drinking fairly sound though. Definitely a good place to eat very healthy for not much money at all.

Island reminds me alot about Malta, it's alot bigger though, has almost 4 million and locals are way moar friendly for teh most part. Nightlife is crazy, weather is good, cost of living is cheap and it is insanely easy to get to know people and make new friends.
I have now 2 moar weeks with my mate from Germany and another 2 guys will join for a couple of days later as well. Plan is to keep a little bit lower party profile now and do a little bit moar daytime stuff like visiting some temples, maybe a smaller island, go on a boattrip, etc. Probably taking a flight to Dubai or Doha around 20th of april in order to catch up with a mate who lives there and maybe attend teh formula one grandprix in Bahrain. Thereafter it will be Malta again for summer.

As soon as summer in Malta is over i will book one way and stay here for at least til christmas, maybe full 6 months. Quite satisfied that i finally found a country/island besides Malta where i can imagine to spend a significant amount of time in my short/midterm future. I would say maybe all this is just superexciting for me but even my swedish friend who is defintely different in alot of aspects loved this place alot and wants to come back for moar soon and almost everybody i spoke to only said positive things about Bali. Another good thing with Bali is that even if i would go completely by myself that as being said you get to know people way faster than somewhere else (maybe a big advantage of islands) and if you know as many people as i do (hidden brag) there will be always coming people here for 1 or 2 weeks you already know because it's just a main tourist hub even for alot of euro people.

Furthermoar i learned an important lesson now from all teh travels which is that i will never ever commit to a place again if i haven't been there before like i did with Strya. Basically I realize extremly fast, i would almost say in teh first week, if i like it somewhere or if i don't. After Sydney i knew if things don't massively change for teh better this will not be a country i want to spend time and money in but still i had 3 months prebooked and couldn't back out. If I wouldn't have done that i could've visited a couple of cities and New Zealand and proceeded directly to Asia while so i was commited for 3 months. Of course it's way easier and moar convinient to have everything already arranged and lined up but in teh meanwhile you just waste time you could travel to places you might like moar and make new experiences. Anyways, this will not happen again.

Finally couple of pictures from here, they basically all on facebook but since not everybody is following me there i believe it should be good to share them here as well. Hope to increase pokervolume over teh next weeks a little bit as well but we'll see how that goes- definitely plan to grind alot in may before Malta really gets busy :)