Time in Brazil comes to an end, time to move it move it again...

Sup, fools?!

After not posting for a while i figured it's about time.

My time in Brazil comes to an end and on saturday I'm going to move to Buenos Aires for another month in lovly South America.
Poker is being quite good atm but moar about this later. I was staying at a big mansion close to Praia Mole Beach the last 5 weeks living with alot of different poker related people. All in all was a good time, after carnival i needed some break from all the parties and drinking which result was working a shitload aka > 200 hours and > 200.000 Hands of Texas Holdem and only going out once on the weekend.
Living close to the beach had it's advantages and disadvantages. Being able to walk down to the shore in 3 minutes is kinda cool but on the other side there's not much else around here and especially since we returned our rental car mid march it kinda sucked for me mainly bc of the lack of restaurants. Yes, there were a couple of them at the beach but eating chicken nuggets each day is not really a good solution. The brightside with the current place was the private gym at our condo which i could use 24/7 so I managed to put in some good sessions and stay in shape for european summer which will be there soon.

Concerning Brazil overall it was a nice time for sure but I'm not really sure if I'll come back (at least for longer than a short trip) because if you don't speak portugese as already mentioned it is kinda tough. Obviously you can learn a language but this takes alot of time and effort and for sure you cannot learn to be fluent in 2 months... I definitely plan to learn a new language after seeing how important it really is but figure atm that spanish will have alot more value for me so i prolly try to focus on this.
I never would've expected it's that bad language wise here but it is. From what i've experienced i would say that roughly between 5-10% of Brazilians who are living here speaking english and Florianopolis is one of the rich tourist cities so I can only assume how bad it will be somewhere else. While I'm not expecting that a cashier at a supermarket or a guy who cleans the closet is speaking english I was shocked by the amount of people in my age who don't speak a single word english. I don't blame them, they don't really need it here but for me it obviously sucked. So with 80% of girls or boys in a nightclub you have no chance to communicate, slim chances you get directions on the street from anybody, no chance to call a restaurant to order food, big deal to rent a car if the one guy who speaks couple of words in english has his day off, etc. If you are here for a week that's not such a big deal but if you are here for 8 weeks and more like me it's getting annoying and kind of frustrating after a while.
Another big part as mentioned before are prices. I'm making good money atm so i couldn't care less but i still don't understand how people who having a normal job here manage to survive with their salaries... Entrance to a nightclub is always 30Euro++ for guys, in almost every restaurant i've been i paid at least 25euros for my meal and that can easily go up to 50 or 60euro and i'm not talking about baller places.
The brightside of my stay definitely were the people with whom i spent the time here. I cannot remember having an argument with anybody, we always had fun, made alot of party, spent alot of money, had a good time. If it wasn't for poker i wouldn't even know a single one of those kids :)

Tbh I'm kinda happy to leave now to spent some time in a big city, have restaurants around the corner, do some shopping and still maintain a good work schedule. So far i heard alot of positive stuff about Buenos Aires so I assume I'll gonna have a decent time there. Even if I travel there alone i know a bunch of other poker players who live in there so i will have some locals with me which should make life alot easier. Orginally i had planned to go to Rio for my last month in South America but after seeing the real estate prices there (i got one quote for a decent but non-baller 90m² 2bedroom apartment in Ipanema from 1april-22april for 7500EURO!!!) and a short conversation with a fellow poker mate from BA i decided that prices in BA suits my lifestyle alot better and on the other hand i get the chance to visit another country. Without too much hesitation i booked a nice loft in a very good and recommended neighbourhood for a decent price (at least
compared to Rio).

Already booked my flight back to Germany as well so i hope i don't like BA too much that i want to stay longer. Date for flight is 27th of april and for the first time in my life i booked business class for this 21 hour trip (mainly bc of the fact that it was only like 400Euro moar compared to the economy). Will arrive in Frankfurt on the 28th to catch up with some of my mates who doing something like a real job for a living. Looking forward to these meetings as well but first BA...

Prolly staying around a week in good old Germany, trying to schedule a visit with my parents as well and then it's time to return to my beloved home in Malta where my beloved Corvette is waiting eagerly to go for a spin...




Pokerwise as mentioned I'm having a good month. After a pretty rough start things going well. Games atm are insanely good from what I see and I have alot of fun playing and putting in alot of time atm for some sick reasons i don't understand. Like 2 weeks ago ZOOM poker got introduced, a new sort of game where once you folded you get directly moved to another table with different players and you directly getting
a new hand. I played 20-30k hands at NL100 here, because there is nothing higher atm (it's not even 100% confirmed that there ever will be) and i made decent profit there but in the end of the day it is NL100 and after basically playing 3 years only 200 and above i'm not really able to take it too serious and made alot of light calldowns or bluffs which were unnecessary... In the beginning of the month i moved 600 out of my filter because i wasn't to confident there but lately i feel alot better in this case so 600 is back being one of my regular games. I also have kind of a heater at 400 where I won over 6k alone this month in not too many hands. Not much more too say here besides just to show the garph. Month is not finished yet so i hope i can add teh one or teh other 100$ to it... Goal is obviously to have that long due 20.000US$ month but therefore I'll need to make 5k$ the next two days which is not an easy task...

NOSSA, BOM DIA Update Brasileira Style

Allrighty friends, it's been a while and so far I was only writing about pokerrelated bs nobody give a crap about so it's time for teh real brazilian shit this time.

When I was in Thailand and all the boys told me to get my ass down to Brazil asap I was sure it would be nice... Little did I know how sick it really is. So far I've seen alot of advantages compared to Europe while only few (minor) disadvantages.

Let's go into detail on different parts about the daily life.

Weather: weather so far is amazing, it's end february now and I haven't seen days here were temperature was below 22c°, in general it's around 30°C and sunny. You always have some clouds and it's raining like every 10 days but all in all nothing to complain. However you will not have the maltese summer with like no clouds, no wind, no rain for 90days in peak saison.

Girls: there's alot of girls here. In fact a shitload. In fact even moar than a shitload. Rule of thumb is when you weren't here you cannot imagine. It's as easy as this. And the very good thing about this is the majority of this shitload of girls is hot. Not like London where 1 out of 10 is hot, not like Malta were 3 out of 10 are hot and not like Ibiza were 5 out of 10 are hot - it's moar like 8,5 out of 10. So far so good. OK, that's the good news. Unfortunately bout 8,5 out of 10 of these beauties are not speaking a single word english (which gets quite annying and frustrating after a while) plus you have some decent competition here. In the Hotspots of Florianopolis like Lagoa or Jurere a 6pack for guys is quite common and almost everybody hitting teh gym quite frequently. Nevertheless, while these are certain disadvatages it is still up to yourself to learn portugese and to work harder in the gym then the other kids. Nothing in life comes for free...

Parties: mindblowing, just out of this world. Forget Malta, forget London, forget Ibiza, forget what you were used to be. I've never been to Vegas but alot of my pokerbuddies from here went and they told it's still another league here. Main reason for that is most probably that you always have significantly moar then 50% girls, no matter where you go. And probably also bc of that you see rarely any fights.

Prices: Ok, one major disadvantage here is, if you don't have some money to spent it will suck eventually. They have some sort of nice system here (which I love) that they charge guys like crazy for parties. Guys always pay at least double entrance fee than girls do, sometimes even 5times the fee. But again, this is a major guarentee for a good girl/guy ratio. Entrance for parties in general varies hardly between events and clubs but even for normal nightclubs it's not uncommon to get charged between 30 and 50Euros entrance as a guy. Drink prices are fair though compared to something like Ibiza. We were like 12-15 pokerplayers over carnival and table grinding heavily. Tables range between 800Euro and 4000Euros but I'm sure that you can easily find moar expensive ones. Bottle prices kinda fair again with Belvedere and Goose around 130Euro and Champagne slightly moar expensive. Still there's basically no limits, for example in the one hipclub cafe dela Musique was open bar party couple of days ago with 500Euro entrance fee and something like 80/20 girls-guys.
That's for the parties. Food-wise you can find cheap buffets if you search a little bit but in general what I've seen so far I would tend to say it is a little moar expensive than Germany or Malta in a vacuum.
Yesterday I bought a new phone which was like 40% moar expensive than in Europe and they didn't even had the newest model yet. Cars are supposed to cost a fortune here as well from what I heard. Renting places depend highly on what time you rent. For example the villa I'm renting for the next 5 weeks was rented out over 9 days during carnival for the same price I'm paying for 5 weeks from tomoro which is sick. I assume if you rent places for very long time you get very good deals, even better than in Malta for example and there are some sick sick properties available here, in fact sicker than everything I've seen so far.

Internet: For the grinders a quite important factor. It seems to vary alot as well. From what I've seen you should always have a USB stick as a backup especially if you are playing SNGs and such rubbish.

Language: As being mentioned it's not easy. Literally 10% of people speak english and they who do are in general the ones with higher education so you will experience some nice fails in restaurant, taxis or supermarkets. But still, portugese does not seem to be to hard to learn in general and if I return next winter eventually I should come off alot better.

Safety: So far I cannot say anything bad, never felt unsafe at any time here but you have to take into account that we are in one of the safest cities in this big country so I assume you will encounter moar shit once you move direction north.

Food: Lots of different sushi places here if you are into that kind of food... they seem to love pizza alot and you find buffet restaurants at every corner which range from very good to very mediocre.


Service: Never thought anything could be moar worse than Malta in this case but it is. In 80% of restaurants you wait ages to place your order alone, than decades for the food and another year for the bill. Yesterday I needed 2 hours to buy a phone and a SIM card even I went in and said directly which phone and SIM I want, would take even in Malta max. 15 minutes. So you have to be very patient here for almost everything or otherwise you will explode.

If you are interested in other areas of life just shoot and I might add some other sections later on but I imagine this gives a slight overview of my experiences so far.

Have to come to an end of this post. Need to take a nice beachrun b4 hitting a BBQ at the other house of players later. Tomorrow we move back to Lagoa (from Jurere) in the new villa 50m away from Praia Mole Beach. Really looking forward for this, time to get back on teh grind and living the sweet life under the brazilian sun. So the next 5 weeks are basically planned. Not really sure what I'm doing thereafter but for the moment it looks like we all move to Rio in the beginning of April which should be a sick time as well. End of april it's time to get back to the rock. Really missing my car :( And some rock people as well...

Boa tardes and take care...

FAQ: My Pokerstory and the question if it is reasonable to still go professional these days...

Bom dia, amigoz!

First blog entry from Brazil but I don't want to say to much about Brazil yet besides that it is very cool country, with amazing weather, sick hot chicks and maybe 35 people speaking english...

However this blog post will be about some questions I'm getting asked quite frequently, when I got started in poker and why -> my roots... So instead of telling teh same stuff over and over to different people in future I can just crosspost this blog-entry and probably will be fine...


Q: When you started playing, what did you play, where did you play, etc.?

A: I got in contact with poker quite early to be honest but unfortunately didn't realized the massive potential (especially money wise) which was involved there. I can only guess when it was exactly but I assume it was shortly after Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP 2003 and poker got alot moar attention in TV. Since I was frequently watching sportschannel I realized that there was moar and moar poker (texas holdem, where i did not even knew the rules when i saw it for the first time) and in the beginning I tought it is quite boring. However after seeing some commercials I signed up with Europoker (one of the bigger rooms back then) and started playing play money. What can i say? I was instantly hooked by the game. Nevertheless it took me at least 2 or 3 moar month and numerous fights with my conscience until I pulled my visa out of my wallet and deposited 20$ real money on the side. This was probably somewhere around 2004 (the golden days...). I started playing small SNGs and MTTs, won some, lost some, cashed some out, deposited some again. There was not really any bankrollmanagement involved but even with only minor theory sessions I assume I was one of the better players back then bc I knew at least a little bit what I was doing. The biggest succes I had back then was a final table at a 1$ saturday evening MTT and I won a small 33$ SNG for something like 630$ which I still remember as if it was last week and which got me thinking for the first time if there is not maybe away to make serious money with poker. Unfortunately that was still long long before I started getting serious with poker.
A friend of mine told me then about a pokerstrategy site which is giving you 50$ for free on Party Poker when you pass a quiz and even if I had my doubts first I got registered there and started grinding SNGs again. At a certain point I was kind of a semiregular at the 11$ SNGs playing something like 6-8 at the same time. I think I was beating them by a very small margin but had my studies and my job in the meanwhile that there wasn't too much time to invest in playing or learning theory. When I was running bad I sometimes didn't played a hand for weeks and then came back because I could never forget this sweet feeling of winning money and cashing it out bc it still seemed unreal to make money playing a cardgame you love...
This went on for a while but eventually I finished my studies in Business Information Systems and got a job in the company I worked parallel to the studies so I got more money now and less time and so I almost entirely quit playing. The only time I played now was maybe a sunday evening when I was bored and that's about it.
The job I had was something like a junior controller and even if pay was ok it got insanely boring over the time and I needed a change. I wanted to live in a new city, if possible somewhere abroad, and I wanted to switch to marketing&sales. So I told that a bunch of people in the company, told them I'm flexible, can work alot of hours, want to do marketing or sales, could go abroad, etc. All I was getting was a fuck you which sounded like "You cannot work in marketing or sales bc you are a controller" (mindblowing if you ask me that it is so hard to switch the field you work in even if you only worked there for like 12 months) or "even if we are a multinational company we cannot sent you somewhere else".
Anyhu, I was left with two options: Stay in my current job, in my current town, in my current flat and in my current life and continue to post every monday morning at 10 on facebook "god when is the week finally over and i can get shitfaced again" or quit my job and change my life.
After couple if days my decicion was made and I handed in my canccelation. Little did I know back then that this would be the worst decision I ever made shortterm, the best I ever made midterm and about the longterm prospects I will not say anything yet.
So I started writing applications, a shitload of them. In the end I think it was close to 90. I was 24, had a degree and was superflexibel, so what could go wrong? Well, 90% of these 90 applications got denied directly, some didn't even bothered responding and I got some interviews out of them but nothing worked out because there always was somebody who had better grades, studied abroad, was fluent in 4 languages, whatsoever.
But let's go back to octber 2008 where I started writing the applications. I still had some money saved in my bank acc and the support from my parents so I was self-sufficient at least for a while. And unemployed. And when you are unemployed you have a shitload of time bc besides writing of applications and attending interviews you do nothing. Kinda obvious that this brought my attention back to poker so I fired up my Pokerstars account realizing I still had a whooping 500$ lying there. So what to do? Play a little to kill time? Withdraw everything and spent it on booze? OR TAKING SHIT SERIOUS FOR THE FIRST TIME AND MAKE SOME REAL MONEY? About the same time I read in the blog of a german guy called Rennwurm that he switched from SNGs to Cashgame the beginning of the year because "he thinks that there is moar money in cash then in SNGs" and concerning his graphs the kid was right. He was making what was a shitload of money for me back then with 10.000$++ months and rakeback not even included. So next thing I know I was ordering a couple of books and reading reading reading. Especially the Harrington on Cashgame books helped alot back then.
So I started playing at NL25 with like 4 tables in the beginning and was literally making money from day one. Until the end of the year I managed to move up to NL200 and back to NL100 again, probably making around 7500$ this last 3 months of the year and achieving the supernova status at Pokerstars. So far, so good. Definitely good money but not really something you would base your entire future on. Job market didn't looked too good as I already said and my parents got worries more and more.
So in the beginning of 2009 I was playing NL100 with around 15-18 tables at the same time and I had big plans. But my main plan still was finding a job and I was in the final round for one in vienna...
Pokerwise it wasn't going like I wanted it to go - damn variance. So I found myself breakven after the first 100k hands mid january 2009.
I was quite frustrated and thought about the situation. I was convinced that I was able to beat NL200 for a decent amount of money but was only breakeven at NL100 so my best bet is to go right to NL200 where I get the respect I deserve amirite? NO, WRONG, IN FACT VERY WRONG...
Nevertheless this was what I'm doing. I had around 5000$ on Stars back then and decided it is time to play 15 tables NL200 and go big or go busto OR really really focus on my search for a 9to5...
Thankfully the pokergods were on my side and at the end of february I made over 20.000$ and was almost on pace for the highest VIP status on Pokerstars: Supernova Elite.
I was highly motivated and decided to take a look into march and if this month going to be like january or february I will quit searching a job and play poker for a living....
End of march I told my parents I'm not searching for job anymoar and cancelled all outstanding interviews, decided to move to Malta in summer, etc.
That's it for my roots and my way...

Q: Can I make poker as a side job?

A: While a couple of years back I would've said yes I don't really think this is possible today, especially if you are just getting started. If you were a good pro the last 2 years and now got a real job obviously you can make some money on the side. But if you only played with friends and a little play money so far then it is quite likely that you will not make any money playing poker part time. To get started these days (and make a profit) you need shitloads of theory. And talent. Poker is like a program of studies these days and it is barely possible to work and do a study course at the same time and be good in both of them. Ofc you can try but if you think you just do a little theory, play 5 hours a week and end up making decent money this is never going to happen.

Q: What variant should I play?

A: I cannot really tell you this. I play cash and besides the occasional MTT cash only. But I know people who make a shitload of money playing SNGs, or playing MTTs or playing PLO cash. There is basically money in every variant of poker and every variant is a little bit different. The only real advice here that I can give you is that you should start playing as a bigstack. The larger your stack, the greater your skill advantage will be (once you are a good player) and the moar money you can make.

Q: What stakes should I play?

A: Once again, it depends. If you don't want to invest your own money and start with the 50$ you get from somewhere you should obv. start at the very lowest stakes if you don't want to play lotto. If you are fine to invest 750$ you can start at something like NL10 or NL25. Starting at a limit higher then NL25 or above the 10$ buy in level for SNGs I would not recommend because you cannot get this skill limit just by doing some theory and jumping directly in the action there IMO.

Q: I want to play poker for a living, what should I do?

A: First you have to see how long you are in the game.
When you just getting started continue your job, studies, school what so every and try playing poker and doing theory in every free minute you have. Do the for a while and see if you have success. Important is that you really do that for the while. Only because you won some money in your first week doesn't say anything about your abilities because there is still alot of luck involved even if poker is a proven skill game. If you realize after 3 months that you make sustainable money with it, having fun, etc. then you can think about if you really want to quit your job/study and focus on poker exclusively.
When you are already in the game for a while, played decent amount of hands and made some money the decison-process is a little easier. But you should still consider if it is worse quiting a decent job or a study you have 75% finished in order to have more time for poker. This only makes really sense if you invest more time in poker. Alot of guys quitting there studies to play for a living but in the end they putting in the exact time into poker that put in before. And you should never forget that a study is a nice backup if something bad happens. You never know where poker is going. Plus you can easily study and play poker at the same time if you have a good time management.

Q: I always read the games got so hard they are barely beatable anymoar, is this true?

A: While it is true that games got harder over the time there is still alot of money to be made if you are good and putting in alot of time and effort. But is is definitely not like in 2005 where you just started playing with an above average IQ and make money or in 2008 where you read two books and started making money. There is a little moar work involved these days.
The good thing what I would say is that the games atm staying on a pretty constant level for a while and not getting any harder anymoar, at least at the moment...

Q: Which Pokersite is the best?

A: There is not really a best site. Every site has it advantages and disadvantages. While at Pokerstars you get a very good software and your money is pretty much a safe as in a bankaccount you will face the hardest competion you will meet online. Smaller sites might have significantly worse players but you have the risk that the site goes busto in 2 weeks and you lose all the money you had online there. I play only at Pokerstars atm but ofc you have to decide for yourself which factors are important for you and choose a site accordingly.





I leave it like this for now. Please if you have other questions feel free to ask them here or via pm on facebook so that I can expand this little FAQ sooner or later...

peaze out

Back to Samui, Thailand Update no3

Been some days until my last update and I got some spare time so here some new details. Life is good atm and besides deciding which hands to get in preflop and which not my other main decisions are to which restaurants I'm going and if I spent my time in teh sun at the pool, the beach or in front of my lovely villa.
But let's start a little earlier. After my time in Khao Lak I went with Alex to Krabi for the weekend there. Not too much to say here. Krabi is a pretty small town with a pretty overrated Ao Nang beach. They telling it is one of the nicest beaches in Thailand but the beach is literally 3m wide and dirty as fuck. We arrived saturday noonish and after some decent lunch at the tourist mile we decided to do a last ALL IN night while we both are in Thailand. We were staying in some meh 4star resort but in the end it was cheap and it was only for 2 nights so I guess it was ok. Night out was kinda funny though. In Krabi they have no clubs but a shitload of Bars and Beerbars (or as I call them: Hobbyhookerbars) so your only option is to get shitfaced in one of those and see where the night is taking you. After finishing up Alex minibar we got us a tuck tuck and headed towards the city for 1Euro charge. When we got there some Thai PRs got us into a bar with no protitute where we started what we do best - drinking. Alex went for his usual Vodka Absolut + 2 Breezer bucket and I sticked to double Vodka Soda with lime.

From now on the night went pretty fast. Alex memory went on holiday after the next bar and mine maybe 2 hours later. I'm getting the cheque for this the next day when I'm not able to leave bed and eat food until an hour b4 midnight.
On monday our ways spilt while he is heading to Phuket and back home the next day and me heading to Samui again. Main reason for this was bc I knew some german pokerplayers living in a villa here and wanted to give them a visit. Arrived there in the afternoon and things are kinda messed up bc they don't have a physical adress and living on a mountain close to chaweng so one of the guys has to come with his scooter in order to pick me up and guide the taxi with my lugage. Next 2 days I spent with these 5 guys in their villa on the mountain but there was only one spare room left with an airmatress and it was a massive hassle to get food (hard to get food delivered when u don't have an adress) so I decided I'm doing better if I buy me in one of the resorts down at the shore again. Thankfully I had my best night at work the night before I booked so my last 5 days were already more than paid for which was a good feeling. I always wanted to check out a Nikki Beach resort and since there is one in Samui I decided to roll with it:

I'm paying like 150Euro a day now which is quite alrightt for what they give you. Probably the best resort I've stayed in so far (even I have to admit I haven't seen much because I was not too much travelling until now). They have like 15 supermodern villas very close to the beach, the best internet I had so far during my trip and a sick pool area with a massive soundsystem where you can listen to house tunes all day long. While that might be not something for everybody it is definitely something for me. I'm definitely a big fan of Nikki Beach after my stay and can't wait to check out another one (even though alot of the stuff here is very pricey especially for Thailand, I feel very good here and in the end I think that is what counts.)
So I arrived here on wednesday and after finding out that a couple I know back from my days in Mannheim, Germany was staying very close to me we decided to spent the night out together. Was defnitely very nice to catch up with the guys who I prolly haven't seen during the 1.5 years or something like this. Still it was kinda mindblowing how less busy the nightlife district already was compared to the time around NYE when I was here with Adrian and Alex.

The next day was somehow ok for some reason compared to my usual hangovers to that I was able to get out of bed at 1, having some lunch at the beach and visiting the gym later. Yesterday and today I did not do much besides playing cards, eating, working out, beaching and sleeping and I hope that continues this way until monday when I leave bc some recovery time is definitely a nice thing after all the parties during the last 3 weeks.

Part of my good mood is definitely due to the fact that I'm running and playing pretty decent atm. So I found myself up around 7.500$ (incl. rakeback) after 50k hands and basically already played back all the money I spent here and even a bit moar... Especially NL600 likes me atm so that I'm getting the best seats there and winning the big pots which is highly appreciated. I should not forget to mention that I'm up a decent chunk of money EV-wise (as usual).

Since this is probably my last Thailand post here some thoughts about it. I definitely would recommend everybody to have a look at it and travel around for a bit. It is definitely a very nice country with amazing food and very friendly inhabitants. I was a little bit shocked though about the general english skills in such a touristic country. Now at Nikki Beach I'm in the first resort here where you can actually really have a conversation with the guys at the reception and the front desk. I mean, tbh I would expect that from every 4stars resort here ffs. There are some nice parties here but things get boring pretty quickly from what I've seen. Male/female ratio is not really working in males favour and for money you can litereally have sex with any thai girl here (there might be exceptions, no offence here) but the amount of hookers you see here everywhere (bars, clubs, streets, massage salons, whore houses, etc.) makes St. Pauli look like a village. Furthermore even though Thailand is still cheap it is buy far not as cheap as I thought it would be or as if you would think it is. Ofc you can eat for 50cents if you go to some tiny village in the middle of nowhere but if you are in some sort of semitouristic place you will still pay 8-10Euros for your meal. All in all it was definitly interesting to be here but for now I could not really imagine to live here for a long period - maybe 3 months but that's about the max I would do.

best regards from Nikki Beach, Samui

Khao Lak and Poker update

Hello there, me and Alex arrived in Khao Lak 2 days ago. We r staying in a pretty nice resort in 2 Villas very close to the beach. Yesterday we had dinner in Khao Lak which is like 5km away from our resort. Life here is alot moar quiet and relaxed compared to Patong (Phuket), Samui, Phi Phi or Koh Phangan. But since we want to keep it slow for now, relax, work and work out it seems we are at the right adress.
Unfortunately I managed to get sun rash (prolly for teh first time in my life) which shows that the sun here is alot stronger compared to anywhere in europe. First I thought my neurodermatitis which I had as a child is coming back or that it had something to do with the extreme alcohol consumption during teh last 2 weeks but since Alex showed me an article about sunrash it was pretty obviuous that this is the right diagnosis...It's pretty uncool bc atm we have decent weather and I have to stay away from beach and pool but there is not much I can do about it and it seems to get better now. Good thing is, that we have pretty reliable internet here and a very good gym for a hotel so I can make some money and work out without getting to bored. Atm we thinking about if we longer our stay here for 1 or 2 moar days bc we really like this resort b4 heading to Krabi which is basically our final stop in our Thailand journey. Attached some picz of the resort that you can get a feeling how it looks like:

Well. the good thing concerning my sun rash is that I have plenty of time to play cards and make some money which is working out well so far (had only one day where I lost a bunch I think.) Haven't checked every results but yesterday I made almost 2.000$ in not even 5000hands which is pretty nice and related to my rungood at teh NL600.

I never imagined working with only my laptop would be that easy and work out that well but it does (stacking > tiling as usual) so I'm not even sure yet if I'm going to buy a whole setup in Brazil.
Pokerstars announced big news shortly before NYE where they changed their Rake(back)system from dealt to weighted contributed which means that in the old system every player who was dealt into a hand would receive the same bonus points at the end of the hand while now only the players who actually put money in the pot receive bonus points. That results in a system, where players who play moar hands, aka play moar loose, getting moar rewards while tighter players getting less. In the end with this new system basically every casual player gets a little moar while almost every poker professional (besides the loosest players) gets significantly less. I'm no exception here. I was always playing a so called TAG style, not too tight, but not extremely loose either and after my first session I was pretty confused when I got 0.35points for every hand while last year I was getting 0.5-0.55 almost all the time. If you now put that in money terms you can see that I lose about 30% in value and achieving milestones gets significantly harder which would result in a net-rackback loss of something between 20.000$ and 30.000$ which is alotta money. Furthermoar I really thought about shooting for Supernova Elite again this year but with about 3million hands needed for it I will for sure not pull the trigger. At the moment it seems like Stars will compensate players a little bit better after a meeting in teh end of january but no matter how this meeting goes I will never make close to what I did in teh past in case of rakeback with my tight-agressive style and playing 20-24 tables.
Ofc everybody hates it when somebody takes something away from them if they felt it belonged to them in the first place. But poker is a fast industry and everybody himself has to find solutions to maximize their earnings. My solution after that first horrifying session this year was: "if they want me to play looser, they'll get it". So I experimented a little bit and now playing somewhat different compared to last year with only 15 tables at the same time and an improved tableselection. So far everything goes pretty well but I ofc have to see how other regulars will react to my new style once they have my correct stats in their HUD. Pointwise I still get a little less per hand (10%) but I assume after the aforementioned meeting I will have at least the same if not moar per hand compared to last year. The pokereconomy moves fast, is permanently evolving and changing all the time and if u decide to play for a living you basically have to accept that and make changes yourself accordingly. Moral of the story is that it is very unlikely I will shoot for SNE as it was planned in the beginning. Bad thing is I will def. lose some value in rakeback (which I can hopefully get back from worse players) and good thing is I will have plenty of free time this year and will never be forced to play too long sessions, play when I don't want to play, play when hungover, and so on.
I cannot exactly say yet what I think about these changes but things don't look so bad atm which can always change rapidly ofc.

best regards from Khao Lak and good Lak at teh tables!

Trip Report Thailand no1

While sitting in teh Hotel Lobby in Patong and waiting for our Taxi to Kao Lak I figured I have some time to keep you guys update.

Arrived in Phuket teh 29th of december after a direct 10hour flight from Munich. After my arrival I met up with my travelmate Alex in order to move to Koh Samui for New Years Eve. Unfortunately all flights were completely booked so we had to take a taxi + ferry for appr. 350km. Was not a big issue moneywise bc taxis are sick cheap here (paid like 150Euros for that distance) but obv it takes some time.
Arrived in the afternoon at our nice 4star resort in Koh Samui were my roomie Mr. Aussie was already waiting for us. Hotel was quite nice but rather expensive though (170 a night) and internet was shit unfortunately but since I wasn't going to play anyways the first days it didn't matter to much. We then went out 2 nights in Koh Samui which was quite cool, pretty nice Beach Club/Bar and thereafter a massive
club in teh center of Chaweng (which is sort of the touritown in Samui). On NYE we headed to Koh Phangan for the countdown party, This was really massive. Koh Phangan is like a small island designed to make party. I would estimate that between 10k and 20k people were dancing through the streets and on the massive beach which was def. a sick experience and I only can recommend to anybody who is coming here to
attend a fullmoon party there. However my night ended rather quick when my good aussie mate decide to give me a vinegar shower so that I took a boat back at around 4am. Probably bc of this incident my phone wasn't really working the next couple of days but now it seems to be fine again. We than chilled most of the 1st day in 2012 and went for some nice Brazilian Restaurant in the evening. Food in general is
awesome here, I love the Thai Food and will def. miss it once I leave.

On the 2nd we took the ferry + taxi back to Patong/Phuket where our next hotel was waiting for us. It's a pretty nice Boutique Hotel where each room is designed a little different, but again not so cheap haha. Internet here is alot better though so that I was able to play some hands the last couple of days. Games seem pretty decent and alot of regs probably at the Bahamas atm which is a good thing. We went out twice here but I have to admit that Patong is a little bit too much for me. You cannot walk 2m without having a guy trying to sell you a taxi, ping pong show, a hooker, a beer, whatever. After a while this gets really stressful. Nevertheless I cannot say we haven't had fun here... Went for elephant riding the other day which was cool, were attending a sick magic show and went to Phi Phi Islands for 2days and one night which was massive. It's a beautiful island without cars, alot of nice beachbars and insane beaches. In retrospect I think it
wouldve been better if we would've stayed longer there but anyways. The main party road here in Patong is called Bangle road and for people who know Paceville in Malta it is like 10 times this. Really insane.
As being said now waiting in the hotel lobby for another guy to come and pick us with a taxi. Kao Lak is our next stop on our tour and should be alot moar relaxed. Our goal now is to take it a little bit slower bc I'm already sick of all the alcohol so it's detox time and time to get a tan and my ass back in the gym and on teh grind. Booked like 2 Villas in a 4star resort at the beach and will hopefully spending most of my time at the beach the next 4 days. Weather is finally better compared to the start where it was raining alot and not
much sunshine but I assume this is the price you have to pay in a subtropical climate. However it is always 30°C so it's still nice even while raining.
After Kao Lak we going to Krabi for another couple of days until Alex is going back to Malta. I'm flying from Krabi back to Koh Samui where it all started to stay there for a week with a couple of other german poker players in their house until I fly back to Phuket and from than to Brazil. So still alot of stuff to do and I'm pretty excited about it.

cheers