Planning Ahead

As per my previous entries, I will be in Lima until the 1st of January, as I try to grind out SuperNova on Stars. Hopefully I will have made enough dinero by that time to sustain my journey without having to make too much along the way. I plan on playing a lot of poker, as much as possible, and should be stopping in at least 7 cities that spread live NLH. Wifi, being unreliable as it is, and casinos I've never been to in countries I've never been to, however, mandate that I be prepared for a lack of volume and/or winning. Anyways, my stomach is pretty weak, at least relative to the type of bus adventures South America offers, so I think I've mapped a little route that will keep individual trips to under 12 hours while being able to see everything I want along the way.

The destination is the carribean island of Grenada, just off the coast of Venezuela and Trinidad. There my ex-girlfriend, hereafter refered to as The Med Student, is, as her sobriquet implies, going to medical school. Traveling across a half dozen countries over a couple months... you guys must have a real thing eh? Not really. I wish we had anything right now, contrived, but preferably real. Right now we have very unappreciated one way communication. Thankfully for her, I am not easily dissuaded, and have the time and inclination to travel overland half a continent in order to take her out to dinner.

Back to the route, which I've drawn on this handy map below. From Lima I'm making at least two stops along the northern coast of Peru, in colonial Trujillo, and then Tumbes near the border of Ecuador. I only plan on this part of the trip being a 3 day affair. From Tumbes I'll cross into Ecuador, pay a hefty fine for overstaying my tourist visa, and go onto Guayaquil, the country's largest city. At Guayaquil, a coastal city, I will have the choice to book an expensive trip to the Gallapagos, something I want to do desperately. So it is fairly imperative I make a lot of money in the next 6 weeks while I can, or else I will have to skip this enriching detour. After Guayaquil I'll ascend high into the Andres to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, where more no limit games and sure adventure awaits. If I end up going to the Galapagos the total Ecuador leg should be around 17 days, otherwise I imagine it will be closer to 10.

I just discovered this article in my research for Ecuador. No wonder it is impossible to get information on the casinos... they are all closing down! The justification is on the state as nanny lines, which is fairly nonsensical of course, since from what I can tell the casinos are like the ones here in Lima, located in the rich tourist heavy districts and mostly frequented by expats and the well to do. So if the six month timeline is accurate they should still be spreading the games when I roll through, but who knows how individual businesses will react to the legislation.



From Quito I will cross into Colombia, hitting Bogata, Medellin, and Cartagena in succession. All three have casinos that spread NLH and I will be on the grind. I am very excited for these three cities. After Cartagena I will be taking another tourist detour to Ciudad Perdida, literally the lost city. Much like the Inca's Machu Pichcu, knowledge of this large pre-Colombian city, built by the Tayrona culture, was lost when the Spanish conquered the territory. It was rediscovered in the seventies by would be grave robbers, four hundred years after it was last inhabited. Apparently the ruins are not that spectacular, and that the main appeal is in the six day jungle trek. Total time spent in Colombia should be around one month.

Assuming I am alive after all this I'll enter Venezuela, where I may not stay long, as it seems the most expensive of the countries. There is basically two route options, either I go via Caracas to the north eastern corner of the country where there is a boat crossing to Trinidad, or I make a pit stop on Isle de Margarita for more gambling life. There is a strong possibility that some establishments along the way will only spread too high for my tastes. For example, the only information on NLH in Cartagena I found in english is from a 2p2 thread 4 years ago detailing super high variance game with tourists and corporate suits playing 10-20 USD. God how sick would it to be to sit in such a game on this trip? Evil thoughts. Anyways, the Isle trip in Venezuela I am not set on, it will basically be a time scheduling issue. Because if I get to Venezuela and can't afford to hit that I will have bigger problems than taking a shot at a 10-20 game populated by vacationing oilmen.

In any event, once I've crossed Venezuela I will hop a boat to Trinidad followed by either another boat or short plane to Grenada. There are apparently casinos in Trinidad as well, so I could potentially play live in five countries this trip. I'll fill in more details as I get them, but that's my current plan. Surely foolproof say you? I couldn't agree more.

Salud y Suerte

Gareth

I've settled into my place in Lima and buckled down for the grind to SuperNova. As mentioned in last week's entry I lost 1.5k soles playing live poker last Friday night. This ushered in a bit of a bad run online as well, some break even days, some small winning days, some losing days, and some bad/stagnant play. Well that definitely ended Friday as I put in lots of sessions throughout the day for a big win. It is always good to book days like this, its my 2nd biggest winning day at 50nl lifetime (see picture below). And the great part is I didn't play perfect. I did spew in some spots. I did make some calls where I could have folded and saved a street. I didn't go after all the limped pots I should have. There was plenty of room for improvement. Actually there were two times I could have conceivably got away from kings preflop, one where I was very close. I got away from queen's preflop in one spot I am sure was good, after having 4 bet for value (i.e. to call), but making the fold based on a timing tell. I am pretty sure there is no one playing 50nl 6 max right now who is making some of the plays I am, and this gives me a lot of confidence moving forward.



I did play some 100nl this week and finished up over 2.5 buy ins for the week, but I don't know when I'll be moving up permanently. I've always been one to stick to one limit, but I probably mixing it in when I feel good or see a good table will be best. After all playing 100nl is going to get me to SN faster than 50.

Here is another play I am pretty sure no one at 50nl 6 max is making right now. This was NOT a misclick:

Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players -

MP: $27.85
CO: $51.00
Hero (BTN): $92.85
SB: $72.15
BB: $16.80
UTG: $37.75

Pre Flop:($0.75) Hero is BTN with Q :diamond: Q :spade:
UTG raises to $2, 2 folds, Hero calls $2, 2 folds

Flop: ($4.75) A :spade: K :club: A :diamond: (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($4.75) Q :club: (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River:($4.75) 7 :spade: (2 players)
UTG bets $3, Hero folds

Economistas

Lima is a pretty interesting place right now. The Peruvian economy is doing exceptionally well the past decade or so, especially in light of the preceding decades. One in every twenty buildings or so in my district is either under construction or has been built in the past six months. The din of high rise fabrication is constant and ubiquitous. Peru's GDP grew by between 4 and 10% every year from 2002 to 2008, had a set back of 1% in 2009, and registered 8.8% last year, with an estimated 7% growth this year. This is astounding improvement and stability, considering that the 1990s had three years with negative growth, including 1990's figure of -5.3%! The election of former Chavist Ollanta Humala hasn't seemed to inject the tension some had worried about (and a few had hoped for) as the economy continues to roll. Major hurdles moving forward resemble those of most developing countries, extreme inequality on regional, ethnic, and urban/rural lines, bringing the underground or informal economy into the fold, systemic corruption at local levels, and generally high unemployment.

Some market norms haven't entirely taken hold here yet, not just the fact (previously mentioned) that no Peruano knows how to operate an ATM machine. Service is a big issue here. You either get fantastic world class service (at the world class restaurants, Starbucks, or the casino), or you get terrible service (everywhere else). There are a lot of inefficiencies in the little things, queue design is a really obvious one. Taxis' absence of meters would be another. You would think this might lead to price efficiency since negotiation (local optimization) is taken at every market interaction, but in practice it doesn't. There is a big information asymmetry between what the cab driver knows the trip is worth and what the passenger estimates it is worth. For markets to be efficient vast information asymmetries can't exist between producers and consumers, or price will never move properly. When cab companies have metered cars you are effectively buying both their rate and their trustworthiness in calculating the price (unless you stare at the meter the whole ride). There is never going to be a trust in the price with a negotiated cab because you know he was willing to take more of your money for the same good just moments before. Moreover the act of negotiating cab fare is the definition of inefficient. Lima's roadways, while serviceable, leave something to be desired. Two lane high traffic routes are constantly being clogged and bottle necked by a taxi pulled over on the nonexistent shoulder to haggle a 3USD fare with a pedestrian.

Thus we can see state intervention, in mandating metered cabs, would actually lubricate the economy, not to mention the thoroughfares themselves. As far as the government's ability to pull such a move off, I think they are there, whereas perhaps a few years ago they were too anemic, disorganized, corrupt, and so forth to worry about the type of nuts and bolts governance issue that is taxi regulation. One can see a market, like the one for online reselling of concert or sporting event tickets, being most efficient with individual levels of negotiation and a complete absence of government intervention (the only governance being applied by the business/website connecting the negotiators). Yet a totally different market like taxi fares, negotiation at the individual level is inefficient for both parties negotiating (consumers more so than producers), as well as creating undesirable externalities for everyone else (the guy waiting behind the cab, the guy behind him, and so forth). So if you ever hear someone say that across the board government intervention in, or regulation of, the economy destroys wealth, that it is, without fail, rubbish, that it is the tentacles of greedy collectivists and so on and so forth, just be quietly confident that they have no idea what they are talking about and are most likely a lazy thinker. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and each market sector has different properties, different ingredients for lubrication and efficiency, and thus some sectors warrant a totally hands off approach from the state beyond the legitimization of currency, whereas some sectors need a bit more structure in their competition. I guess it is a bit easier to see these things in a developing country, where some things are still more wild west than best western.

I'll save more economic observations for later. This week I only played live once, at the Wednesday freezeout. I busted early, so my results have gotten worse every week I've played the event. I'm going to keep plugging this week so we will see if I can erase all my profits from the first week victory before I am done!

Salud y Suerte

Gareth

Apartment Tour




Maido.... will have to wait



Had a pretty rough week playing live, consequently I didn't actually play much, opting to grind online instead. Things have been going very well online so I didn't even put in a Saturday night live session. I final tabled the Wednesday freezeout but bubbled again, making a high variance call that I think now was a mistake, though it took me a few days to figure that out. 1k sole was running Friday night and the line up was really good. Suffice to say things did not go well, but for the most part I played fine. I'll probably get back on the horse Tuesday playing 500 sole or on Wednesday at the freezeout. Unless I have a big rush I won't be sitting at 1k sole again any time soon and unfortunately won't be eating at Maido :(.

Tuesday, 500s NL, 1.5 hours, -26 soles
Wednesday 300+30s, 6 hours, -330 soles
Friday, 1k NL, 2.5 hours, -1460k soles

This week: - 1816k soles

Total: +2643 soles

Supernova

Basically my plan in these next two months is to play enough volume to make supernova. Its going to be tough but I think I got off to a good start. I played 26k hands this week online, including one day where I played 6k. If I can come close to hitting a 5k/day pace as I work up my endurance I should be on a great track.

Ok, more interesting things next time!

Salud

Gareth

So at my hostel are a few guys who have been hanging out together. I sleep in an 8 bed dorm so you get to meet people from all over. On Saturday 3 guys, Oscar, a late 30 something from Spain, Bastion, a 20 year old from Switzerland, and Braden, a 30 something Van-city boy went out to the neighbouring district of Barranco for drinks and fun. I of course was grinding it out at the casino, as I am want to do. Oscar ended up getting robbed at gunpoint in an area I know as fairly safe and have been to before (in fact, have walked home from at 3 am). A broken thumb was thankfully the only physical damage, but he lost his passport, health insurance, immigration card, camera and memory card, and thirty bucks. Luckily he had used my laptop to transfer some of his photos from the camera to the memory card and I hadn't deleted them yet, so basically everything but his camera is recoverable at no large cost. This was slightly worrying to me. Because I am staying in a communal place I don't leave my live bankroll at the hostel. Instead I carry it around in this effeminate zipper bag that the waitress used for make up but left in my backpack one day. I keep it zipped in a jacket pocket out of sight and I figure that if someone were to see it unopened would not immediately assume that there was 3000USD in stacks in there.

The night Oscar was robbed I was walking home from the casino at 5 am and a more typical situation for Miraflores, the district I am in, happened. I was solicited by a prostitute. Solicited is slightly inaccurate, stalked is more like it. These heeled women basically strut around late at night trying to get business in the manner you would expect, but this one followed me for 5 blocks without any provocation. I only noticed that she was following me halfway there because she started softly cat calling to me from five paces back. I had one earbud in and was pretty oblivious but once I saw her my strategy was to ignore. Of course, the worst possible outcome in this spot obtained. I got to my hostel and rang the bell so that the guy on duty could wake up and let me in. After a certain time of night they don't autobuzz you in, but rather look down from the second floor to see if they should come down and unlock the door. Of course Fernando, who I know well and is part of the hostel owner's family, looks down to see me and this hooker in the walkway, her saying to me (loudly) "Buenos noches mi padre, ciao." Sigh. So now I'm the hostel denizen who spends his Saturday nights on the local working girls.

Some of my friends, not just Oscar, have been much closer to real danger recently. Braden for example, was just in Guatemala where he got beat up by police multiple times (basic muggings) and actually witnessed the murder of a whole household of people (no joke) in a turf killing. He told me about the kids in the neighbourhood casually picking up shell casings off the street the next morning for toys. My other friend, an America who has been living in Lima for 5 years, Tom, went to Mexico in September and was extremely close to cartel violence one night at his hotel. Thankfully him and his family were in a gated compound as automatic machine gun fire rang out, the police having set up a sting for cartel smuggling that resulted in a half dozen dead. Fireworks are just so popular here in Peru, especially in non urban areas, that often you will mistake gunfire for fireworks at first, it is only after the accompanying shouting and distinct rhythmic frequencies of a gunfight will you realize that no, actually, this is not the usual Saturday night fiesta

I do this

Got another weirdo fold this week (though this one I was trying to get). I opened A7ss in UTG+1 8 handed to 30 (6x), button calls, both blinds call. Flop is AT9ddh, I fire 50 into 120, button, young bespeckled kid calls giving off a lot of tells, of strength but also of indecision. SB crai to 115. I didn't know much about SB if anything, but he seemed to be suffering from low stack syndrome which is a typical affliction of live players. Once their stack gets past a certain point they resign, say fuck it (often out loud), and punt the remainder into the pot haphazardly. They don't seem to be aware you can add money on the table. I didn't really know how severe this customer's case was, but I wasn't going to fold this hand on this board. OOP against the initial caller I saw he probably had 400 total when we went to the flop (as always, I cover). So I made it 250 and he folded AQo. Easy game boys and girls. Getting value and bluffing, make sure you always do both at once. I never was trying to weirdo fold QQ or AK in the two hands last week, if I knew either guy had that hand I would not have raised all in. I was definitely trying to fold A8 or AJ in this spot, but folding AQ would seem quite ambitious. I feel like seeing these mucks is going to cost me in the long run :D.

I played four days later with the same guy who folded AQ in this spot and on the second hand of the session I just owned him so hard. Three people limped 8 handed and I checked my option in the small blind with Q7o. BB checks and the flop is AQ7fd. I led 3x into 5x, it folded to him and he took the following actions, give tell, raised to 6x, give tell. So I folded face up. The table was full of some regs who so far (in the past two weeks) have been pretty puzzled with what to do with me in general. Suffice to say there were some questions after this open fold; one European expat actually had his mouth open, vacillating quizzically between me and the board. Villain scrunched up his face and asked what I was doing folding that hand (before showing A7). Sometimes you just have to own people.

This is what actually happened, I knew there was a very good chance villain would show if I did. I knew the worst hand he could have was A7 so there was no risk of him showing that I made a bad fold (bad for my image) and I was very deep stacked with the player on my direct left, the aforementioned Euro. Said Euro is very bluff capable and probably is one of the better bad players in the game, knows some math, is positionally aware etc, and I thought he didn't really respect my game as much as he should (given what he had seen from me to this point). So I wanted to get a bit more of his respect. You might think that showing that I can fold a strong hand would make him more likely to put me to the test in deep stacked situations, but this is not the inference he pulled. Live players are astoundingly results oriented. Instead, as I had hoped, he inferred that I speak hold'em, left me alone, giving my c-bets credit and letting me go about my business of taking the people on my right's money.

Last night I got fairly dirty once again. If there is a rule of live play it is "don't try to make people fold overpairs." You have to do a lot to get someone to consider folding an overpair. Thankfully one such spot came up. 4 people limped before the guy on my right made it 20 (4x), I called next to act on the button with the beauty Th9h. Every limper called and we saw the flop 6 way. Around the time the 5th guy was calling villain leaned over to me and put his palms up to the ceiling like "I can't believe it." This would factor later. Flop was 9s8c7s and it checked all the way to me. I c-bet 55 into 130. It folded to the initial raiser and he made it 170 with lots of chips. After some thinking I knew he would have overlimped with any JT. After that my decision becomes pretty easy, he would not have raised his palms like that had he 77, 88, 99 pre since he wouldn't have formed big expectations about the hand, as he would with QQ, KK, AA, or AK. It seemed possible that he would take this check raise line with AK because when people miss with AK they don't typically like c-betting, but they also don't like giving up, so occasionally they spazz. But I thought it more likely he had KK, AA. As we can see my equity against AA with the backdoor flush draw is fine, more than enough to get it in here with my hand and the dead money in the pot:

Board: 9s 7s 8cDead:
Th9h 43.636% AcAs 56.364%

So with his range narrowed to mostly check raise calls with KK+ and the occasional check raise folds with AK,
my job at this point in the hand is to 3 bet shove the flop and look as strong as possible. I took my time,
he had about 550 behind before picking up a ten high stack of 100s and slowly crossing the betting line
with them before letting them slow tumble outwards, giving them maximal volumetric appearance. I know
this ended up being better than some of the other physical options since some of the degen observers who like
seeing money go into the pot chortled with delight. Villain, about my age, stewed in the tank, before folding
AsAc face up. Let's look at how much better it was for him to fold for me than for us to get it in.

If he calls the 550 shove, then the pot is 1100+340+130= 1570 and I have 43.64% EQ for a 685 sole
return. I put 740 of my effective stack in, so one way we can think of this is that the times he calls I am -55 soles from that, whereas the times I fold before I shove I am -20-55 = -75 (my preflop call plus flop bet). So shoving and being called is 20 soles better than folding. But the times he folds after I shove I am +280 (170+5x20+10). So investing in trying to look as strong as possible when I shove is very important.

Title Defense

The freezeout I won last Wednesday had 39 runners this week and paid top 6. I ended up bubbling a standard way in 7th. I was really happy with my play and the structure is really good, such that, I think if I keep playing precisely and valuing my tournament life, I should be able to make deep runs regularly, so I plan on playing it each Wednesday. I made one mistake of note in the mid-stages but played the bubble really well I think, making one absurd ICM fold. I made the game selection mistake of playing a different tournament with a terrible structure on Friday, I resolve to only play this Wednesday freezeout from now on. Online went really well this week too so everything seems to be lined up for November.

Anyways here are my results from this week:

Monday October 24th, 500s NL, 3 hours, +209s
Tuesday October 25th, 500s NL, 2.5 hours, +421s
Wednesday October 26th, 300+30s, 6 hours, -330s
Thursday October 27th, 500s NL, 2.5 hours, +706s
Friday October 28th, 300s tournament, 2 hours, -300s
Saturday October 29th, 500s NL, 7 hours, +348s
-----
+1054s

Last week + 3405

Total since returning: +4459s

Tournaments, buy ins 960, cashes, 5052: +4092
Cash: 40 hours, +367

Definitely hoping to improve my hourly in cash going forward :(, but hey, I won every cash session this week, so there is that. The Maido goal is very close. Two entries ago I said that I had a goal of going back to Maido only after I had a) 3 winning live sessions in a row and b) was up +609 soles or more overall. Well I should say this is going to be a cash game rule, so I've won 5 cash sessions in a row but am only up 367 at the moment. Hopefully I can eat there by the end of the week :).

Apartment Hunted

I really saved a ton of money these first two weeks in Lima staying at a hostel for 180$ soles (70 USD) a week, so 300$/mo. But tomorrow I'm moving into a nice apartment for 1 or 2 months, for 875US/mo. Everything is including in the price, Wifi, cable, etc and the location is absolutely perfect. But it is still overpriced in terms of market value, even for a short term stay. I'll try to do a little cribs video for next week. The owner is an American, which to be blunt, is a huge plus. The business mores in Peru leave something to be desired, to say the least, so renting from an expat is extremely preferable. Professionalism (what we would consider professionalism) is so low in adult Peruvians you would often think that they don't want to take your money. A perfect example of this occurs in keeping appointments or being generally punctual. With a peruano, or someone who has been here too long, it often never happens. People make appointments, don't show, and then say they can't make it after you call them (having waited 20 minutes), all the time. A much more hilarious example occurs at the ATM machine. Never get behind a Peruano or Peruana in line to the ATM. They treat it like its a video game, and I wish I was exaggerating. Because ATM etiquette dictates that you must remain a certain distance from the user, I haven't for the life of me figured out what they spend their time doing there, but I have watched on more than 5 occasions one or two or three Peruvians fiddling with the ATM machine for 10 minutes. I once took out my iPod and timed two women... 8 minutes. They press seemingly every button, every sequence of button, in their attempt to win the most amount of (presumably) their own money. Anyways I might end up staying in Lima slightly longer than I had originally planned if the first month of this apartment works out. Basically I think I can manage to squeak out Supernova should I lock it down and grind a ton online in November/December. So if the first two weeks of November go well such that I think I can make it, I'll get the place for one more month before heading out to Ecuador (and hopefully, should I have enough dinero, the Galapagos).

The Stephen Pinker book, as expected, was excellent.

Salud y Suerte

Gareth

Third world Internet? Third World PC?

Basically immediately upon my arrival in Peru 10 months ago my laptop stopped working, so I had to buy a new one. I did and while it seems to work just fine, it has real problems with staying connected to the internet. I go grind at this starbucks style cafe called "Holly's" which boasts wireless internet. Its been timing out 3 minutes every hour. Just like in Cusco I am timing out constantly. I don't know if its their connection, my PC, or both.

I don't even want to think about how much money I am losing, but very conveniently the day it was the worst was the day I decided to sign up for a few tourneys to start my session (meaning time outs hurt much more). Just one example of many:

Poker Stars $15.00+$1.50 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 1489071
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

MP1: t3180 63.60 BBs
MP2: t2990 59.80 BBs
CO: t3360 67.20 BBs
BTN: t3201 64.02 BBs
SB: t2304 46.08 BBs
BB: t3000 60 BBs
UTG: t3000 60 BBs
Hero (UTG+1): t3000 60 BBs
UTG+2: t3000 60 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is UTG+1 with A A
1 fold, Hero raises to t150, UTG+2 raises to t3000 all in, 7 folds

Final Pot: t375
UTG+2 wins t375


Running Hot

I've been back to running here in Lima. Not having run for 12 weeks in Cusco, sticking to basketball, yoga, and hiking, I was slightly worried about having my legs. It was not an issue as I breezed through a familiar 4 mile route, my blood undoubtably thickened from 12 weeks at 3,400 feet.

The cash games here haven't gone well by any means so far, but Wednesday I sat down with 42 others for a 330 sole buy in freezeout, which went quite well since I won it for 5k soles. I ran quite hot. I guess I'll just talk about 3 hands.

Getting a big stack.

I had over average (20k starting stack) with 38k or so when I picked up AA in the 3 hole 9 handed. UTG with about 18k in opened to 2k at 400/800. I flat. CO snap makes it 8k. UTG fish cold calls. I back raise to 18k, CO shoves for 37k, UTG folds JJ, I call. Its AA > KK. I have big stack.

Getting a giant stack.

I had about 85k at 500/1k. UTG opens to 2k, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 calls, I call in the sb with 45ss. Not too happy about this call but I can't fold I don't think. BB calls. Flop is As7h3s. I decide that not leading would get more money in the pot than leading. I check, BB bets 10k into 12k with 16-18k behind. UTG shoves for 28k, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 shoves for 39k, and it folds to me. It seems quite unlikely that UTG can have a flush draw opening where he did, and UTG+2 can't really have a flush draw too often given that he had no fold equity. So I decided to put my money in, figuring I'm a favourite in that 22x side pot unless he has a set, and if he does I'm still super live. Most likely that between the BB, UTG+1 and UTG+1 there are a lot of Ax and maybe some 7x dead, so I should have stronger re-draw protection than you might normally think. Moreover, if I win this pot I am going to have about 20% of the chips in play with 18 people left and if I lose I will still have workable ICM valuable stacks in this non-ante format. So with my monies in, we saw UTG+2 had the AKo (no spade) and UTG, unfortunately, had the 78ss. I stoved this and still somehow had 28% equity, I would have thought it much lower. I binked the 2h right on the turn and held, scooping just a giant pot.

HU Fold and Closing the Deal

I ran retardedly hot this tournament (SNG) but also did a bunch of things that gave me a huge advantage over the field. One was only paying off one river bet (and being right) the whole tournament. This trend reached its climax during HU play, where I checked my option with Jd8c and saw the Q95fd flop, led 1.3x, got called, checked through the 4o turn, and check folded to a 2x bet on the Jo river (we were like 20x eff w 43x in play so this was not an insignificant pot). This is how sick I play sometimes. Villain showed KT for the nutter butters (shout out to SkinnyBrown) and I silently thanked him for confirming one of the tells I had on him.

With 9 players left I think 7 wanted to make a deal badly and the 8th agreed as well, but I said "no, seis es sufficiente." Meaning the original 6 being paid on the tournament structure was what we would play for. I wasn't chip leader at this point but around 2nd or 3rd. The same thing came up again at 7 left and again I refused. No one asked to make a deal again, which was surprsing, considering that 1st was double 2nd and that 60% of the prizepool were in the top two spots. They just played the bubble so badly, I was able to re-chip up. This unfortunately resulted in me trying to bluff my eventual HU opponent with Q9hc on 367ddd, Jd, when he had defended his bb w 5s8d turned the flush and never planned on folding. The turn bet I fired was pretty valuable ICM wise, so I regret not taking more time to read his body language.

By the time it was 4 handed it was bordering on 3am and I was quite tired. Thankfully I was not as tired as my opponents. I remained alert, watching them intently, and thinking through my decisions, while the tourists I was facing quick folded and telegraphed their interest in the pot. The worst player of the bunch was running absurdly hot and was shoving all the time, picking up KK against the 4th place stacks 44 in a spot where there was no way 44 could fold to the 3 bet shove. I then coolered the 3rd place stack in bvb w QQ v AT. HU went back and forth as I tried to play as small ball as possible with eff stacks between 15 and 25bbs. I saw him complete with AKss (we checked it down, I had K high for sdv) and this later figured a lot into my toughest choice. He open shoved the button for either 16 or 17x effective, which was 85% of his stack, and I had KTcc. One unproductive thought I had in the tank was how I would call KJs and probably KJo. This was pretty unhelpful. But villain was giving one tell of strength he had given a lot. You might think that if he gave it a lot on these preflop shoves than his range was probably wider than I thought, but I doubt it. I am fairly confident he just was picking up a ton of hands that explained his shoving frequency. I actually ended up folding. Maybe 4 orbits later I called all in with A3o v A6s and spiked a 3 on a board that looked to be a chop. From there I folded my next button (36o), shoved my next (64o), doubled him, and then shoved my next button (K7o), and flipped again his 55, rivering a 4 card flush for the win. In general I just ran really hot with all ins, losing the small to medium ones and winning the biggest ones. I was only all in at risk once the whole tournament, which was HU, so that's good.

I got back to my hostel at 430am and tried to wake up the 24 hour minder. Couldn't do it with the bell, so I had to actually wander around for a couple hours. Miraflores is quite safe though so I was never in peril really. There is lots of security in Peru, mostly for show. For example taking my flight from Cusco to Peru the only thing security did was deflate my basketball (they didn't even check/scan my check in luggage). But there are guards or policia types wandering around pretty much every block every hour of the day so the large amount of cash I had on me wasn't really worried.

Two Weirdo Folds

I got two Peruvian donks in their 20s to fold absurdly strong hands in the cash games which was pretty bizarre. Just wanted to go through these two quickly...they show a few concepts at work. The first one is that they treat all in bets with a ton more respect than normal big bets. The second is that donks can raise for information to fold value hands. First one I open to 60 (12x) at 5/5 sole over a 10 sole straddle and two calls in the sb. I probably should have made it a bit bigger. Only the straddler calls and flop is JJ7fd, I c-bet 70, he quick raises to 200 and I shove 650. He later tells me he folded QQ. I don't actually believe him so this one is inconclusive. Hand two, villain exposed, so there is no doubt of his foolishness. Villain is running sick hot, hit a straight flush for like a 1k bonus, and has made lots of hands. He limps utg 10 handed. 3 limps in front and I over limp with AQo. I had just raised the hand before big and got one through with AK on Q93fd 4 way to the flop so I figure my c-bets if I iso-c-bet are going to have substantially less f.e. in this spot and there is nothing wrong with over limping here (see VitalMyth's vids). Folds to BB who makes it 3x with 88 (lol) with 7 others in the pot. UTG calls along with 2 others. When it gets to me I have no fear of UTG any more and BB is a spewy player just having fun with 43x. So I make it 20x. Villain shoves for 43x. UTG calls and it folds to me. So UTG has called x/3x/43x. Who knows what he is doing. But I had a pretty strong read that he was uncomfortable with me not folding so I put in the 220x 5 bet. So in summary I limped fourth in to 3 bet resqueeze to 5 bet all in over 200 big blinds in a 10 handed live game with AQo. Yeah, it all seemed to make sense to me at the time. Villain sunk into his chair, held his cards up with a disgusted expression on his face, and tried to put them into the slot on the table for the dealer tip chips. I got him to fold AKo. Well played sir! Now our hero is flipping for like 140x for 43x invested, flop is QJT, which could only add to the poor donks frustrations. Spewy hit the 8 ball on the turn, but no big deal. Anyways my line and the flop that eventually came out tilted this guy so much that he ended up spewing another 500 soles or so before leaving, all the while yelling in Spanish "He just called 5" over and over as well as "That's not poker," apparently saying I shouldn't have done that and that I'm a huge donkey. Well, I'll leave that judgment to you dear reader.

So this week's live poker profits/loss look like this:

10/17: 500s NL: 3 hours, -609s
10/18: 500s NL: 7 hours, -86s
10/19: 300s+30: 8 hours, + 4722s
10/21: 1000s NL: 3 hours - 297s
10/21: 200USNL: 3 hours +84 USD (235s)
10/22: 500s NL: 5 hours, -600s
10/23: 500s NL: 2 hours, +40s
+3405s

Put in a giant online session Saturday. 4.5k hands then went to the casino. I bought Steven Pinker's new audio book "The Better Angels of our Nature: Why violence has declined" and its 37 hours long, which is awesome. Hard to get bored at the poker table this way.

Wanted to talk a bit more about Peru this entry but I think its long enough as it is. Less poker content next week! Suerte mis amigos

Gareth

Featured Blog

Looks like I've made it. Finally. Feature blog status on CR. Its been quite the journey. From the view count on my last entry I see there are new readers to this space so let me give you a proper introduction. I'm 25, originally from Canada, and have been living in Peru for about 10 months. I am a CR Pro with a half dozen or so videos out and grind 50/100nl 6 max online as well as 200/400nl live, in addition to the occasional tournament. I'm not really looking to get into new games but definitely trying to develop a FR cash game. My main goal in poker is to continue to feed myself, but I guess I also have secondary goals of eventually moving up to 200nl 6 max on Stars, being the best coach I can be, and getting my Full Tilt money back :). I used to play exclusively rush, managed to withdraw a lot in the period between Black Friday and FT's shutdown, but still took a sizeable BR hit, which I have seem to been able to since weather (still eating).

I'm a CR success story. I spent all my Full Tilt points to get 1 month of CR back before any Truly Free Poker Training scheme. Less than 10 days later I had a 4.2k score, my biggest at the time by 3.9k. I honestly attribute a fair amount of this to watching JSchnett and Adanthar vids, even though variance is insane in MTTs, I made 10 preflop shoves in said tourney I would not have otherwise. I stopped being an MTT donk after going broke multiple times (mostly the fault of having to eat and playing too high for my skill level) when Full Tilt came out with rush poker. I always knew that to take the next step in poker I had to learn cash games, but I never really realized how true that was until after I did. Rush proved to be the perfect opportunity, since the level of play was so bad the first 2 weeks, I printed enough money to get a BR together, build some confidence, and have a buffer with which to learn cash game fundamentals. BR management didn't come easy, but after a few months of huge swings on a 20bi rule, I became a supernit with a 150bi rule :D. The only other thing you really need to know is I dropped out of university (not for the first time) in early 2010 and moved to Peru (cheaper, warmer) in January 2011.

Adventure bound

I'm going to update this blog every week for the next little while, every sunday night or Monday. I'm going on a little poker adventure, playing live and online in at least 3 different countries over the next 3 months, Peru (Lima), Ecuador (Quito), and Colombia (Mendellin, Bogota), with possible stops in Panama City and the Bahamas. Without further ado, we pick up the story in the small valley town of Pisac...



The waitress and I spent the last little bit of time I had in the Cusco area vacationing and lounging in the Sacred Valley's Pisac, a village of about 2,000. We relaxed, played ping pong, and perused the local markets for knick knacks and handicrafts.

I woke up late Monday, quite late. I had told the waitress when she left at 6:50am to go to work that I'd be at her restaurant by 9:30 for a last meal. It was 10:30 by the time I finished packing my things. I couldn't find my iPod. This might be my first casualty of my travels, I've managed to not lose anything up until this point. It would really suck if it didn't turn up, since I have a lot on it, and is an essential tool for me at the poker table. I caught my StarPeru flight at midday and everything went smoothly enough. I felt a lot safer than on the Peruvian Airlines flight I had taken to get to Cusco in the first place; about two weeks after the government shut the airline down due to safety violations and inspection failures. This is Peru, as they say.

Brewing the Big Pot

After getting off the plane and taking a taxi to my hostel in the lush Miraflores (I don't know if the translation should be literal, but if it is, it means, look at the flowers) I immediately went to the best sushi restaurant in Peru, possibly South America, Mitsuharu Tsumura's Maido. I think half the staff recognized me and the other half was wondering what this young greasy bloke with dirt under his fingernails was doing ordering up sashimi moriwasi with an extra order of unagi on the side. Honestly this restaurant is so good I would eat every day there if I could.

Like any self respecting gambler, I headed to the casino a mere 5 hours after landing in Lima. I sat down with 545 soles with 300 in my pocket, blinds are 5/5 and there are 10 seats at the table. I played some small pots, nothing of too much interest. I made some small mistakes, nothing to note, but mostly played precisely and with patience. Often online players are too excitable at the live table, especially after taking time off from the action, but I has no problems with the slow pace of play. About 90 minutes into my session a player sat down 4 to my right with somewhere around 1k soles and I immediately took out my 300 soles (didn't have more cash on hand). Basically unless I recognize someone at the table from iRock's twitter picture I'm going to assume I want to play as deep as possible with them. For the first time in a long time, I didn't cover the table at a Lima casino.

There were 3 calls in front of a straddle, so I made it 65 with AQss in the cutoff. I definitely could have raised more, something like 80 for 16x was probably better than 13x. In any event, only the deep stack player called me after the straddler and first limper folded. Flop was KcJd2c and he led 65 into about 170, I just called. From what I could tell he didn't play a lot of hands by table standards and he had an ego. He had been intently watching the table since he sat down, trying to get reads on the players. He knew how to roll a tipping chip across his knuckles with competence. All this led me to believe that he wouldn't be the best target so I wouldn't be going out of my way to play pots with him, though I still definitely wanted to be deep.

My flop calling plan is to raise a lot of turn cards all in as a bluff. His bet looks quite weak to me and I make the most money when he puts in two streets to fold rather than one. He also, presumably, can't be that strong not having raised preflop. Finally I give myself a chance to spike the T ball and see his actions again on the turn. He ends up checking the 2s turn and I bet 155 into 300 with 405 behind, planning on bluff shoving almost all rivers when he check-calls. I simply don't think anyone in these games plays deep often and expects someone to open the full clip on them the first pot they play. I suppose villain saved me money, since he min (under) check raised the turn. That is to say, he made it 300 on my 155. I told the dealer it wasn't a raise and then she prompted him to make it 310 (which he did). So there was a clear and large amount of time between when he put the 300 in and the extra 10 the dealer asked him to. This should have been a call (and I said as much). Of course, the floor was called and the guy laid a red herring for the head floor man, talking about how he put the chips in physically and what their string raise rules were. It wasn't a question of string raising though, it was a question of his initial sizing. A guy I knew at the table told me after the discussion was over "you could have asked to gone to video and you would have been proved right. I couldn't say that much since I wasn't in the hand."

I have always deffered to letting fish things slide in these Peruvian live games because I don't want to become unliked, so its unlikely I would have chose this option had I known about it. Basically in my mind I was close enough to angle shooting as it was since his intention to raise was clear enough and even though I shouldn't be punished because he made a mistake, I also shouldn't be trying to manipulate a situation so that I can try and freeroll a T ball for a big pot when I can't continue in the hand otherwise. So in any event I folded. It seems like he had to have a KJ, A2, or quads type hand. He was playing quite selective preflop, so I can only imagine he would play all these hands this way preflop, with the possible addition of JJ. For reference, another example of things I let slide is regulars often check down pots, even exposing their hole cards on the flop if HU to one another, laughing etc, and not just in cash games, but tournaments as well. I never call out a Peruvian for this, for slowrolling, for acting out of turn, for being loud and boisterous, or anything really. These people pay for my meals at Maido.

Sometimes the bad rulings go in your favour though, as was the case in the following fun hand. With a straddle and 2 calls in front of him, an octogenarian with some disturbing skin ailment overlimped on the button with a 20bb stack. Covering those still in the pot I isolated to 65 once again with KJhh. It folded to the cut-off, a loose passive friendly retiree who I love having at my table (he smiles and doesn't mind losing money), who called. This prompted the button to put his 100 sole stack in the middle. Friendly retiree had about 200 soles (40x) in front of him, which made for an easy re-shove by me. Except that button hadn't actually made a legitimate raise, so I shouldn't have been able to make it 200 effective, and just been able to call. But my re-shove was allowed, in fact, not even I noticed until about 30 minutes later. The moribund button, having overcalled practically last to act preflop, of course, had the rockets.

Don't let the downs get you down

Last week was quite bad poker wise and it spilled into last night's session. I think I am down over 2k in the past 7-9 days or so. Though a smidgen over 700 of this is from investing in fellow CR pro Timex and PS Team Online Pro Andrew Brokos, who both managed to brick out on their October European schedules. These seemingly good investments continue my streak of (wait for it) never, to date, making profitable purchases in terms of staking packages. Just another week though.

I made a really fundamental mistake that showed my rust in the casino which was followed closely by my exit as I exceeded my 1 buy in stop loss. I checked KTo in the sb and the bb checked as well, we saw a 5 way flop which was K96ssh, I lead 15 into 25 and receive 2 calls, from the worst two villains of the four (excellent). The turn is the 8h, putting out a flush draw which I don't have any suits of. The pot is 55 and I am out of position. This is a great spot to bet big, so I did, 50 into 55. The first over caller audibly says "no" and quick folds (thus we know he folded a worse made hand like A6) and the 2nd caller calls quickly. The river is the Jc, completing QT but really nothing else. I check and villain bets 125 into 155. The only thing he can bluff with here is missed spades, since he would check back 78, JT, QJ, hands like that. So, one problem I was having in the tank is a lot of spade spade hands made some sort of pair. Then villain did something that is usually a tell of strength. Thing is, I had seen him do the opposite when strong before. And I didn't think he was going to be capable of value betting something like 68 (as easy as that would be). So basically I had set up a really profitable and clear spot to bluff catch because our villain is not going to be capable of value betting effectively. The other thing is that I had seen him fastplay very strong hands, almost involuntarily in his excitement at making them. This means that, when confronted with my big bet on a draw heavy turn, he would have raised, likely a shove. So normally his river betting range would be missed flush draws, KJ, and slowplayed sets or kings up. But given how I'd seen him play good hands, he can't have slowplays. Moreover, he showed me the tell, whose inference I basically got backwards. Usually this tell is of strength, yes. But I had seen him show a value hand not doing this tell (one point of inference), but rather in fact doing the opposite (another point of inference). It was all there for me to see! If I had dwelt on either the point of him not being able to slowplay to the river or what his physical tell meant, I could have come up with enough reason to call. And I folded. I was pretty angry with myself about this actually and it thankfully coincided with me dropping below the -1 buy in mark so I quit at the end of the orbit. He did show 47ss by the way. The mistake confirmation may have been frustrating in the moment, but its much more important for me to use this information effectively in the future.

Without my iPod I proceeded to scribble notes furiously in the inside back cover of "Curso Completo de Lengua Espanola" and villain saw this. While I showed him what the book said on the cover, I don't think he believed the ruse that I wasn't writing down the hand history and the intimate inflections of his visage. I really hope I find my iPod, as making notes will return to becoming discreet.

So I've gotten off to quite the inauspicious start. In my first session I lost 609 soles in 3 hours of play. Now I have a goal that I can't return to Maido until I do two things, 1) have 3 winning live sessions in a row 2) be up 609 soles (or more) overall in live play. I'm going to work with a 1125USD live bank roll, starting today, Tuesday the 18th. This represents my apartment deposit that I just got back (3 months later) from my former place in Lima. I think its important to keep money segregated, BR and spending, even if there isn't even a separate bank account available. Some experimental economics has shown that (like chips at the table), even superficial differences in representations of money can make quite the impact. So this 1125 is what I'll be playing with and works out to about 6 buy ins, I'll keep it in a separate pocket from my spending money. If I end up losing it all, well I can always draw from my living expenses, but that wouldn't make me too happy. That is of course the ultimate danger on this little adventure of mine, going broke. And that danger is real, in case you are on the fence of making this a blog you'll check regularly. If the waitress ends up coming to Lima and I am broke, my baller status in her eyes, could be quite reduced.

Until next week

Gareth

PS Check out my Quickie video coming out on the 22nd. I actually play the hand well, I promise.

I have one week left in Cusco, the former capital of the Inca Empire, and affectionately named "the navel of the world." Once you climb up to a vantage high enough you can see why, as mountains surround every angle of an expanding universe of adobe brick houses and not quite shanty neighbourhoods.

The waitress and I decided last night to make a one day/one night trip to Urubamba, a town in the Sacred Valley. A typical Andean community of 3000, Urubamba serves as a type of transport hub for the surrounding area, meaning its thoroughfare is even more dust swept than most Peruvian main streets, a feat of no small (or great) accomplishment. The decision to go was made on a whim Saturday night, the waitress having Sundays off, and after we sent off a visiting Welsh medical student that we had become quite close with. In typical Cusquena (someone from Cusco) fashion the waitress took me to a dark street far from my usual haunts, where we arranged to cram into a van like sardines with 7 other people. What no Peruano (that's someone from Peru, en espanol) seems to understand is there is literally no difference in my wallet's marginal utility, spending 7 soles for the sardine experience versus spending 20 soles on a private cab. 7 soles is 2.50 and 20 soles is 7$. But there is however, a difference in my stomach's marginal utility, that is to say in one scenario it is much more likely to exceed its margins. The waitress' frugal intentions churned out poorly, as I spent the final 10 minutes of the ride, a bumpy, switchback laden descent, assuming the void while pacing deep breaths in an effort to not vomit. I was relatively fine about 20 minutes after disembarking, though, my stomach nausea returned later in the night, after 30 minutes or so of similarly vigorous motion.

We stayed at an eco-lodge in the mid price range, a well spent 55 USD for a 1 night matrimonial with private bathroom, Wi-fi (not taken advantage of), and a working fireplace (taken advantage of). The night's excitement commenced with a scream from the bathroom, prompted by the waitress announcing the presence of a large spider. With visions of Annie Hall in my head I took to making fun of the skittish female disposition. Then I saw the spider. It wasn't so much of a spider as it was a man-eater; the only similarly sized arachnid I've seen was in the zoo. I took to bludgeoning it to death immediately. Afterwards, my red light-bulb remained packed.

The next morning we made a true friend sitting at the lodge's gazebo. Her name was Juliana and she was a dog. Upon advisement from another guest we chose to hike a trail that led us to a panorama view of the Sacred Valley. Unprompted, Juliana decided to be our guide along the unkempt terrain. We came upon some typical Inca ruins, unmarked, unattended, previously-walled granaries. After that we took some well earned pictures.










Later walking from the lodge back to town we encountered things typical of Peru: two donkeys chomping at the bit, the occasional mototaxi (half motorcycle, half rickshaw), and locals washing up in the river. In a picturesque scene, we walked past a lot with a brook running through it, ducks bathing in that, and their owner, a rooster, and three chickens looking on. Chickens seem to be the most popular animal kept, but cows, donkeys, ducks, pigs, and sheep are also common. More unusual are the fauna the Peruvian tourism industry touts to gringos, the llama, the guinea pig. and the alpaca, though they are certainly not rare. Guinea pigs live like kings here, that is to say, Peruanos construct little adobe castles with little moats in their yards, for their safekeeping. If said yard happens to be in proximity of a place that serves food, visitors can pick out which little piggy they desire for their lunch. Cuy (guinea pig) was, and remains, an Inca delicacy, consumed by tourists, but also roasted on spits for fiesta, their open mouths garnished with a pimienta rojo (red pepper).

After grabbing lunch and touring the plaza d'armas the waitress called a close family friend who picked us up and drove us to accompany them for chica and a game of sapo. Along the road whitewashed hovels often simply bears the name "Keiko" in pastel blue or pink -- a show of support for Keiko Fujimori, a right wing candidate in the recent national election, who lost in an extremely tight run off vote (51.5-48.5) to surprising winner and former Chavist, the populist Ollanta Humala. As any run off electoral system is susceptible, the centrist candidates cannibalized their chances in the primary vote, leaving the two extreme ends of the political spectrum as the country's only choices. Keiko enjoyed a strange dichotomy of support. The ex-pats and the educated Peruanos, those who would (having read a book) understand that state price controls and nationalized industries have a poor record of developmental success, generally lent support on a policy or "the least evil" basis. For those living outside the cities, there exists a more emotional and nostalgic attachment to Keiko, for her father, the formerly exiled and now disgraced Alberto Fujimori had as President during the 90s, rid the country of revolutionary terrorist guerrillas, most notably the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Marxist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (named after the 16th century revolutionary, who was indeed the namesake for the Westcoast rapper).

Should you pick the brain of those who lived through Peru in the 90s, a decade of legitimate terrorism, uncertainty, and recovery from brutal hyperinflation, an unusual thing occurs. Those who support the elder Fujimori and those who don't generally agree on the facts, but disagree on the necessity. The agreed "facts" being that Fujimori generally abused his power, and used protofascist tactics to cull the country of revolutionary terrorist forces, resulting in the deaths of many innocent people. Often the cocktail party banter reduces into a true ends justify means dialectic (in which I am always solely an interested observer). Those issues notwithstanding, Fujimori was legitimately corrupt on other grounds, and is currently languishing in jail, found guilty on a litany of charges after having returned from exile to unsuccessfully recapture former glory.

Chicha, returning to Sunday's activities, is a terrible beverage in Peru made from fermented corn. The main type is alcoholic and yellow, though on this day ours was pink, flavoured and coloured with strawberries. Perhaps more popular is chicha morada, which is not fermented and doesn't contain alcohol, but rather is purple corn boiled with various ingredients and made into an overwhelmingly sweet nectar. Every form I have tried has been disgusting and today's batch did not buck the trend. Sapo is the Spanish word for frog, and playing sapos refers to the act of throwing small disks or coins from a distance (a la darts), at a box with 9-12 holes in it, the centre one being the seat of a metal frog, whose open mouth requires much accuracy. To say I suck at this game would be an understatement, as I ran up quite a deficit facing a rotund 50 something year old woman. Having enjoyed their company for a couple hours, the waitress and I hired a taxi to drive us back to Cusco as the sun set over the Andes. Cloud piercing snowcaps and mist shrouded peaks constituted the view on the return trip, as we ascended the valley's margins to the plateau that separates urban zones.

I have less than a week here now, and my inclination is to buy a plane ticket to Lima instead of the bus I had originally planned. Having recently gone over my finances I seem well equipped to take on such a cost especially if it would save my stomach. Indeed I think I could, despite the claims of preceding entries, take the rest of the year off poker to simply travel to Lima, Quito, and Bogota, and forgo the local casinos and my laptop. But what fun would that be? I can't wait to get to Lima's Majestic Casino and value bet some unsuspecting and hapless middle aged Peruano suit thinner than he ever previously thought possible.

Salud y Suerte

Gareth

Moving On

So I am heading back to Lima. I finish out here in Cusco on the 15th of October, and I may spend a couple more days in the area going on a mini-vacation with the waitress. So that has been decided. Quito, Ecuador for late November early December, also decided. Then on to Bogota and finally Grenada.

What hasn't been decided, which was brought to my attention last night, was that waitress might actually come with me. She says she wants to. On this point I am really unsure. I guess this would be a good point in the story to divulge that the reason for the final location of the journey, Grenada, is not just that its a Caribbean island with sandy beaches, azure water, and beverages served in coconuts (actually I don't know if it has those). But rather, it is also the location of the medical school at which my ex-gf is attending, and the presumed location where I will try to unsuccessfully win her back. I imagine this will be quite complex if I have another girl in tow. "Who her? Oh no she's just back up in case (for when) you say no." Does that sound like it will go over well to you? On the other hand, I have visions of getting an apartment in Lima for a month where waitress will be making me breakfast and dinner in between my live and online sessions, during which I'll be bringing home the proverbial bacon, greeted with back rubs and sensual whispering in ear spanish lessons.

In any event, I plan on playing live poker at night and online during the day during this Lima->Quito->Bogota trip as they have casinos in each country. I am going to update this blog regularly with my live poker results. And actually, as a warning, I'm probably going to start having this space be well written (this sentence notwithstanding). So if you hate big words, paragraphs, allusions to popular or historical literature, and well constructed anecdotes, you should probably not come back to this URL for a few months. There are plenty of other poker-related blogs that feature sloppy writing at best. Otherwise, strap in as I swashbuckle across South America, regaling you with tales of gambling for my daily bread.

Euro Sweats

I got tiny pieces of Timex and Foucault for their October Euro schedules. I have 0.5% of Timex's 100k package over 5 events or so. This morning he busted the 20,000 Euro buy in London High roller in 27th/76 where 8 paid. Not good for my equity! Think he has a 10k Euro tomorrow and then some WSOPE events. Then I got 1% of Foucault in the WSOPE ME. Should make for good sweats. I rarely invest in other players but I feel good about these two whatever ends up happening.

Videos

My two part live series on Party came out last month and turned out well I think. Definitely some crazy hands in that footage. I got a quickie coming out nearer to the end of the month on a hand that features "capped ranges" as well as some good hand reading and a huge monkey bluff. Pretty excited for it. This month I'll be working to put together a 3 part Quickie series of my own hand histories where I turned made hands into bluffs. This should be mostly at 50nl and 100nl but I may find some hands at 25nl and 200nl if I go looking. In any case I think the micro community at CR will like it because turning made hands into bluffs is one of the last skills they acquire, and there are in fact spots where its almost mandatory at the micro stakes. Also Matt Janda put out a theory video about this which will hopefully work in good conjunction with the series. At least, I'll be offering it as homework :).

ok peace guys

State of Affairs

I've been in Cusco, Peru for about 9 weeks or so. I am pretty tired of it. I eat out every day and work out everyday, and that's fun. I have a warm place to sleep and know a lot of people in my neighbourhood. The owners of the local restaurants, my landlord's 2 year old son Salvador, and the hustling and bustling Peruanos who have real jobs. That being said, grinding, for one, is quite a chore, as I don't really have a good place to do it. Half of the restaurants claim to have WiFi, none (besides McDonald's) have Wifi that works. And so I grind with my laptop on my lap as much as I can stand, which isn't that much. And I'd like to grind pretty hard atm as I'm not in a position to just take the rest of the year off. The weather here is getting pretty shitty, even though rainy season is still 3 months away. If I were to stay longer I would have to get an apartment, which would be fine, and cheap, and have a nice desk and WiFi, un cocina y cosas por un vie bien. But, I would be tied down here, which I already feel like I am. The room I have rented is up on October 15th, and I plan on leaving then.

The only real problem with this, and it is a big problem, is I've stumbled into having a girlfriend here. She asked me out, so fwiw, this wasn't entirely a problem of my imagination. She's 29, a waitress at a popular restaurant for gringos, speaks 6 languages, and basically won't leave me alone. I really have nothing but good things to say about her, but even if I were to stay here for 6 months more, I can't stay in Cusco forever. And she has to know that. So, I'm going to have to talk to her about it this week, because if I can't stay here forever it would be way better to leave sooner than later. Its really going to be brutal though, since a couple weeks ago she described her two previous serious boyfriends as Americans who came, left promising to return, and never did. She's from an Andean hamlet with a population of less than 100, and has done quite well for herself -- she' running the restaurant at the moment, while the owner vacations for 6 weeks in Australia. Spanish, French, English, Italian, Queshwa, and Portugese to answer your other question.

The owner returns around the same time I plan on leaving and has told my girlfriend that mandatory vacation would be in order for keeping the place running smoothly in her absence. We had planned on taking a little trip to Urubamba, a relatively small town in what they call the Sacred Valley, with nice bed and breakfasts, hiking, horseback riding, and river rafting. I don't know if she'll still want to do this once she knows I'll be getting on a bus to Lima once we get back.

The Road Ahead

In Lima I know I can grind online comfortably in a few places and I know I can live close to the casinos where the games are quite good. I do miss live poker. But, I have intentions of leaving Peru soon, for Grenada, possibly for Panama then Grenada, by the new year. So, this is what my current plan looks like:

Take a bus back to Lima (22 hours), save money on the flight, get a room for 4 weeks near to the casinos. Wake up late, go for a run, head to the cafe, grind online for 6 hours, eat dinner, head to the casino, grind live for 6 hours, sleep, repeat 28 times or so. Hopefully by the end of this I'll have made enough money to make the rest of the following trip and arrive in good shape. I could leave planning on paying my way as I go, but this seems ill advised. I'm a nit, I'd rather have everything over budgeted in advance.

Next step: take a bus to Quito, Ecuador. From Lima this will be quite a distance, but I want to save some money on flying. I also want to see if I can hop the border on the cheap. I've overstayed my tourist visa here by about 6 months already, and they charge 1USD/day you overstay. That is to say, they encourage illegal overstays, as long as you pay for it. I could afford to take a plane straight from Lima to Grenada and pay the 250$ on top, but if I can avoid it, I might as well try. Plus I've never really greased anyone's palm before. Once in Quito I plan a similar method, get a room for at least two weeks near the local casinos, grind online during the day and live at night. From there, same process, grab a bus to Bogata, Colombia, get a room near the casinos, play online during the day, live at night.

After that I will have two basic options, and depending on how swollen my BR is, what month it is, and my disposition, I will either fly to Panama City, to repeat the exact same process, or I will fly to Trinidad and onto Grenada, to stay for 3-6 months, where I will be confined to grinding online. That should bring me to around May/June where I might fly to Vegas to play some 1ks etc and then to Canada, for a couple month visit back home. I imagine most, if not all, of this plan will change as I go. I have the option of going to Australia for January to play Aussie Millions, but that seems quite an expensive proposition at the moment.

In any event, I know playing live in Lima is quite fun, and I imagine Quito, Bogata, and Panama City would make for equal amounts of excitement. So if I end up doing this route I will try to update this blog weekly with how the games are going, my results, and some of the more interesting happenings. I always keep meticulous track of my live results so this blog will be a good (and hopefully humourous) way to do so.

Poker

That's about it I guess. I haven't actually been doing too well poker-wise since last blog. Coaching has been going well, but I wanted to be playing 100nl regularly by this time. I lost a fair number of buy ins at 100nl two weeks ago on Stars, including ~6 in one day, and I lost ~3 bi at 100nl today on Party, so it looks like 50nl grinding it is. I really haven't been playing well at all. I think, on a few points that I've been working on, I am doing things better than I've ever done before. But, on the vast majority of things I am doing worse to far worse, than I've done before. A lot of this I think is complacency and discipline. Back when I wasn't so desensitized to money, and had none of it, I was the most disciplined player imaginable. Now I can be fairly undisciplined and I really dislike the feeling. I shouldn't be so complacent, considering the state of my BR, the stakes I am playing, and the fact that I think I have the potential for both to be much higher. So I'll probably rewatch some old CR videos and try to regain my fundametals. I'm playing really not solid right now it feels like, most of my profit comes from pulling huge bluffs or betting 3 times the size of the pot with the nuts and getting called. I think, I've got to get back to basics, as being spewy at 50nl is the worst way to make money.

For the past month, I actually havent looked at my all in EV once, and I haven't looked at my results after a session 90% of the time. I know they are bad though, because both my cashiers on Stars and Party haven't gone up! I wonder if my idea of not looking at results, including All in EV, is even a good one, or if its having a bad effect on me. Like, it could very well be that I did a good job of looking at my results and All in EV before, and not being results oriented about them. Or more likely, that looking/not looking has nothing to do with me playing C game the past 4 weeks and that I just need to get back to A game on my own. I haven't been tempted to look at All in EV though, which I'm pretty happy about.

I did have one bright spot Sunday though, as I played the 216$ WCOOP and cashed in 400th ish out of 10k ish for 600$. I was really patient over 9+ hours and happy with my play. First lfietime WCOOP cash, I think in 3 events.

Once again, this is long enough. Pray I escape the Latina's wrath (and any and all advice is appreciated).

Salud y suerte mis amigos

Back in Action

So for the past 2 weeks I've been playing on PokerStars and PartyPoker. Obviously my FT roll I am still considering lost and gone. I had to start at 50nl as I only had 29 buy ins across the two sites to begin with at that level. Its gone well, I'll be moving up to 100nl soon. I haven't played that well, but I think I am now really starting to adjust well to nonrush. Game selection is interesting, a skill I guess I am developing. But most 50nl tables are pretty good. I am also probably playing in pretty suboptimal conditions, got my laptop on my lap sitting in a wood chair with internet that has timed out conveniently when I had aces etc.

Oh yeah, I am using HM2, and I like it a lot. I don't know how to get it to say the actual earning number on this pretty graph though:


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So in lieu of that here is my whole HM2 database up to now. Obviously I suck at 10nl. This is basically just my last 2 weeks plus a session on Stars at 10nl/25nl before I got money on around the 1st week of August.


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Coaching

I am more comfortable coaching now that I have some nonrush volume under my belt. Again I would ideally coach 10nl-50nl 6 max players. I am still charging 40$/h and if you book a 4 block session I'll drop it to 150$ total. I'd really prefer to do these 4 session blocks for 4 weeks, same day/time each week, to individual lessons. Haphazardly coordinating with people from all different time zones hasn't been the easiest or the most successful thing. Plus you'll get more out of 4 sessions in a semi-concentrated manner. If you are interested in this and haven't gotten coaching from me before you can pay for the first session for 40$ and then if you want to continue the next 3 for 110$. Add me on skype gareth . chantler or PM me on CR. If things keep going well for me as they have been I don't anticipate the 40$/h rate lasting, just as fair warning, because as far as I know its the lowest rate on CR (not like its going to skyrocket or anything though).

To give you a good idea of what I offer typically I coach over Skype and we review your HEM and replay hands with teamviewer. I send a follow up email after each session where I assign light homework between sessions usually in the form of reading an article/watching a video or finding some hands in your database that fit certain criteria. If you know what you need to work on then I can do that, if you don't and things aren't going well, then looking at your HEM will usually give me some ideas. I also will probably be starting a google group for students to bounce ideas of each other so you will have access to that resource as well. I have former/current students on CR that I can refer you to if need be.

Videos

I put out a quickie this month about live poker aimed at players coming from micro stakes or small stakes online. So if you play 10nl/25nl/50nl online and want to hop in 200nl live at your local casino you should def check it out. In September I should have a 2 part live session of me 4 tabling on PartyPoker coming out as well as another quickie at some point in the future. I've only recorded one session on Party for video and I think I am going to use it, there are some pretty fun spots against fish from what I've reviewed. I'm really excited about the quickie as well as I'm going to talk about one hand where I pull a pretty monkey-ish bluff.

Vacation

Just some highlights:

So me and my buddy went to Astrid y Gaston, which is apparently the 43rd best restaurant in the world (according to S Pellegrino), and the best in South America. It was awesome. This is one of the things we ordered, on the left is guinea pig meat, on the right is the little pita's you put the meat in. Guinea pig is a popular delicacy here in Peru and we got to eat it without cutlery like savages:




Obligatory Machu Picchu shots








Obligatory me being stalked by a killer llama shot:


Peace guys