One Step Beyond- My 60k Journey-From Thailand to Bali

Originally posted by Varune
End of the year, so Oktober+, till maybe jan-feb '19...

I'm planning on staying on hometurf during the summer months this year, last year i went to Thailand during the raining season, i kinda want to flip that around.

Yeah that is my plan every year also, I like to be here for the summer as well, as most of my friends around the world come back and it is warm and lot's of action That is why usually perfect months are now. December until March or April. I usually always check these :
Phuket:

Samui:

So we have to go now!! But yeah count me in end of the year, will be great to go together!

I'm in for a few months next winter. We should rent a nice villa with some more people!

I just wanna say, I have enjoyed reading you blog Bro! I've been following it on and off since May of last year.

It's funny because about a month or 2 before coming across your blog (around march last year) , I had just commenced a new 9 month contract at work and I specifically set myself the goal of saving as much money between April-December 2017, quitting my job in December regardless of whether they offered me a new contract and then with my savings at the start of 2018 going out to live in SE Asia with the goals of making money from poker! So when I came across your blog I was like no way this is awesome, this guy is doing all of these goals!

Reading your blog these past 12 months or so it's been a great eye opener for me and very insightful, so thanks man! And finally the time has come, I have quit my job and I have booked my flights to Asia and will be living first in Penang then in Phuket all the way to July. I can't wait!!

Also Until today I didn't realise you were in CFP, I've been a student since March last year, I am in the 6max-Zoom course though!
It'll be pretty cool if you return to Asia and we're in the same area! I would definitely get you a beer

Originally posted by ladyboyrapeme
I'm in for a few months next winter. We should rent a nice villa with some more people!

Sweet, will be epic!!

Originally posted by SiKWiThIt
I just wanna say, I have enjoyed reading you blog Bro! I've been following it on and off since May of last year.

It's funny because about a month or 2 before coming across your blog (around march last year) , I had just commenced a new 9 month contract at work and I specifically set myself the goal of saving as much money between April-December 2017, quitting my job in December regardless of whether they offered me a new contract and then with my savings at the start of 2018 going out to live in SE Asia with the goals of making money from poker! So when I came across your blog I was like no way this is awesome, this guy is doing all of these goals!

Reading your blog these past 12 months or so it's been a great eye opener for me and very insightful, so thanks man! And finally the time has come, I have quit my job and I have booked my flights to Asia and will be living first in Penang then in Phuket all the way to July. I can't wait!!

Also Until today I didn't realise you were in CFP, I've been a student since March last year, I am in the 6max-Zoom course though!
It'll be pretty cool if you return to Asia and we're in the same area! I would definitely get you a beer

SiKWiThIt, thanks so much for the words. Means a lot to me to read this, as that was also a purpose for me to write my blog. To show it is not something too tough to do and to provide some info and tips and problems you can face For me it sure seemed not too long ago like this kind of life is science fiction for me and I know reading things like this would help me a lot. To inspire anyone through my journey, struggles and happy moments is the most I wish for this blog to achieve, along with being a diary to me. Congrats to making the step towards your dreams, I am sure you will love it and will learn a lot about yourself and the world while at it, with best times of your life I hope that you also write some of the happenings, would love to read about Penang, as I meant to visit it many times, but still didn't get to it!
I am sure we will meet sooner or later! Good luck

When are you going to accept my skype invite?

Originally posted by Varune
When are you going to accept my skype invite?

finally it worked

Hey guys!!

I am late with the update as I was in Malta and I prolonged my stay there.

First let's go over January.

It was a bit messy month. Entered a year without big enthusiasm and clear picture of what I want to do, but around 8th or so I started with my plan to grind everyday until going to Malta on 25th and then when I get home to grind another day and get the desired 160 hours of playing.

However I missed a few days before Malta as my best friend was in Slovenia and then in Malta my plans of playing didn't really happen and I ended the month with I think 130hours and a nice - 1000€ downer. Got schooled a bit on NL400. So the end result was just 2200€

Malta

I was in a ok resort by the sea, indoor pool, gym. Internet should be good but as it was on the 7th floor, which had great sea view balcony, internet sucked big time. It was 5 seconds on, 5 seconds off, otherwise fast when it worked, but it was almost impossible to listen Youtube songs normally. So I focused my time on exploring Malta, having fun and meeting people. I was there with a strictly platonic female friend I know for a long time, which everyone found super weird for some reason. First day we were resting almost all day and just had a nice dinner and a drink. The smell of the sea was awesome. The second day we went to Valleta, the capital city, walked around a bit and then met with some russian girl. We ended up drinking together and also met all of her friends that live and work in Malta. Awesome bunch of people and they actually all worked for Unibet! People started ordering rounds of shots and it was too many people for that to end well. After everyone did their round, we were pretty lucky to find the way home. The problem was also that next day in the morning we had rent-a-car booked. Not the best idea of going there with a huge hangover and then driving on the left side with manual shift. A bit weird feeling to shift with left hand, but just the mechanics are actually pretty easy to get down and on top of that people drive nice, not sure what was all the fuss about when I was reading online about it.

Btw, a quick tip here is to rent car over Ryanair or online because it costs about 5--7€ per day, but otherwise it is 25€ per day if you try to book in person. They also offer a full additional insurance for just a few € per day. Really cheap. We had Peugeot 208.

So with the car we just went all around and looked at most of the things we find online, went also to Gozo and it was fun. Otherwise Malta didn't win me over completely. The weather was chilly at nights, as I didn't have enough warm clothes with me and during the day when the it was sunny it was pretty nice, when it was cloudy and windy it was a bit colder. All of the buildings are the same color, nature is pretty rocky without much greens, but on the other hand it is still island, sea and you have all other EU countries close and everyone speaks English, so it is still pretty convenient. But I don't think I experienced that "Wow" factor, where you experience a magical scenery, like I did in Asia or Spain. I actually went to check it if I will move there in the future because of the taxes, if I will do some other things aside with poker. I really liked Mdina, the old capital city and Gozo island is pretty nice, I felt those smaller towns in Gozo had better vibes and character. Valletta is also looking good and there were good restaurants pretty much everywhere on the island. It also help to learn a bit more about history, as then everything became a bit more interesting. A little note about prices is on general not the cheapest, specially comparing to Slovenia. Meal is more aroun 10-18€ and beer about 4€.


1.Red Tower at night with super moon 2.Popeye's Village 3. Sunset at Dingli Cliffs 4. look from Valletta's Upper Barrakka Gardens

When it came time to return home, we got stuck in a huge traffic and needed 3 times longer than planned to get to the airport. We also took a wrong turn close to the airport and we missed out flight back!... Never had this happened before in my life... My friend had to leave on the same day urgently, as she had work, but the ticket of course was much more expensive :(. We luckily found some pretty decent option for a bit over 100€, while I found a ticket back for 16€ 4 days later and decided to stay 4 more days, basically free-rolling. One of the perks of being a poker player and I find it so valuable to be able to have freedom like this!

So it was back to renting car online, booked the cheapest one, but actually got Peugeot 108 with automatic transmission that are otherwise at least 4x more expensive. Must say it was much nicer to drive automatic, then shifting left handed. This time booked a place almost solely on internet reviews and got it in a nice location for pretty cheap. It just so happened that next day I was without electricity as they were doing something on that street, so again grinding was out of the question... Then I met with some really cool local girls and saw some pretty nice places like Golden Bay and such. I played just one evening about 3 hours, got some tan and it was a nice vacation all together!

Golden Bay is on the left barely seen, I forgot the name of the other bays- great place though

My plan that I made in January to finish my contract in 3 months, started with very little playing and 10 days vacation, so am really not acting like a professional. After I came back I started thinking of maybe going to Thailand for a month as the adventurous spirit got the hold of me again. There was also a lot's of things happening with my friends and I had a few beers every day and February was just passing by. However on the coaching I confidently said I will play 200hours this month, which as I played all together 3 hours until then was greeted with laughter haha. So, of course Scott and Lauri each bet 50€ against me doing it. I don't back down to a challenge although I didn't think it through completely to be honest. It didn't help that next 2 days I managed to play about 3 hours per day, so now on 8th I am at 9 hours in the books and I think today I will manage close to 10 hours session. Definitely need to get some hardcore hours in, but hey 10k month will not come by playing 3 hours anyway, it is time to go again full hardcore mode on!

Wish me luck and let's crush in February!!!

P.S. Actualy am playing all night and doing 15 hours. Schedule will be messed up again, but I played a marathon session with one villain and couldn't quit.

First week of playing in February was pretty crazy!

Everyday it was fireworks at the tables and if a few key hands would go my way this would be my far the best week ever. You know when you grind the guy down and are up 500€ and then he sucks out twice for his last 20bb and then gets 3 coolers and I am down 500€ all of the sudden, just to grind back up to 0 over next 200 hands and he leaves. Then some full stack flips and it was quite swingy. I had almost all first 5 days like that, that ended break-evenish in the end. Doesn't really matter for the longrun, but I feel it is close to better results now that I am doing better at higher stakes also.
This is some of the NL400 hands, unfortunately quite some is missing but I think it paints a pretty accurate picture:

I definitely feel more confident in my game and I don't play different on NL400 limit, like I did before and ended up with some weird moves.So I started winning a bit on NL400 as before I was just losing every month that little bit that I played. Don't call it a comeback..

I ended the week with about 50 hours played I think, messed up my schedule when I played a marathon session versus a guy on untracked where it also went up 400 all the way to down 600 and back to zero. So after that I am awake all nights, sleep during day and I am missing Spanish learning and watching videos because of that. I don't have free days because of the playing hours bet, so not sure if I manage to fix it. Priority is playing atm.

Results were about 900€ I think

Lost on untracked sites.

For week 2 I will play about 60hours and I think third week I will have to do more like 70 or so to get to 200h. But I feel fine and I really enjoy poker lately!

So let's go!!

Very nice blog !!!

Originally posted by aafrancis
Very nice blog !!!

Thank you and Cheers aafrancis!

I designed a new master plan to make it in February and also to help with my biorhythm schedule on general!

When I was traveling I noticed a huge difference in my sleep quality. There are several factors to that, I think the biggest one is less sitting and more physical activity, along with being outside a lot. I also noticed how much of a difference a good deep sleep makes! Even if it is not a long one.
All this is leading to the secret ingredient called: Melatonin! I am sure a lot of you know what that is. It is a hormone that your brain start naturally producing in the evenings, that make you sleepy basically. I think it also helps if you are outside to see the night fall and it for sure helps if you are away from the computer/phone screens as blue-light also prevents/decreases that to happen. While I am not a big fan of taking any kind of pills I think this is pretty + EV if as my lifestyle suppresses that, to take the supplement and get a better sleep, or to help me regulate a more consistent sleeping periods when I mess it up with some fish that comes at the end of session and then make me play all night. As it is also natural, as far as my knowledge I got from talking with a few of friends pharmacists, it doesn't have long term consequences. I don't want to take it regularly so it will be reserved for times I'll mess my schedule up.
If this thing works it will make me have more energy and my brain more in action and also I will not age as fast haha. Although I should have thought about this 5 years ago already when I was still more of a baby face. I meant there are tons of benefits of a good sleep, so I want to start putting more emphasis on that.

Other things I can do is quality of a mattress! This one is huge and I already put a lot of money into my bio latex one, but I can make it even better with some awesome thick second layer.Is it called mattress topper? Well something like this. Other things to add are going out on the sun everyday and as much physical activity as possible. I have trouble with sleep for too long now, so it is about time to fix this. I will be so much more productive.

Btw in Slovenia you need prescription to buy melatonin, but I got some pills for jetlag that has it inside unfortunately along with some other stuff. I tried it and it gets me sleepy, but I don't want to be taking any other ingredients for sleepiness, as I don't want to get addicted or have substances drowsing me. I will get pure ones next week and will tell you how it works.

As for the bet and playing hours, I did play quite a few hours, but I got really tired on Thursday and had an unplanned day off. For Friday and weekend had a plan to play 15 hours a day, but damn, it is not so easy to play so much in one day! I got to 14, 11 and today I was tired all day, so plan didn't work, however I am still keeping pace for 200hours by the end of the month! Results are awful,I had a really bad weekend where everything went wrong, but it is not over yet, so will make a weekend report later, not too happy though.

I wouldn't advocate taking melatonine long-term as it'll probably alter your natural hormonal balance and give you even worse sleep. Also the dosage difference is quite huge between brands. Some have 0.1mg pills, others have 3mg+, that's 30x times stronger!!
I had a bottle of 0.1mg pills with me when i was in asia, I tend to sleep real bad when i'm in a new place so that's when i took those. Otherwise i would advocate getting a better sleeping schedule, that's the best remedy.

As you're probably playing through the night, different times you go to bed every single day. Your body can't adapt properly to that.
Also the best time to go to sleep is 10-11pm(right at/after sundown), if you stay up after that your body will release a bunch of cortisol. Falling asleep then is very hard, as you'll be awake clear as day.

Yes, agreed. I will try to go about it as naturally as possible and not take melatonin just freely. But I have a weird sleeping schedule for a looooongtime. I think my lifestyle of being awake during night and sleeping bad during the day has even worse effect on me as am missing on melatonin that has really positive effects on the body, so probably already causes hormonal imbalance and I feel some effects of sleep deprivation.I mean I look pretty much like Joe Ingram in his last videos about cheating on Americas Cardroom and on interview with Doug Polk. Even some girls commented on my red eyes, so you know it's time to take action.

Second playing week didn't end too good either! I started pretty good, until I had a disastrous day where I lost half of my months profits. After that nothing seemed to go ok anymore and I was winning some, losing a lot and was mostly BE. Also action really sucked for me. In my last few hands I got two set ups on my highest limits on NL400 and NL500 and that is why there is some profit this week.

It might be that my game is also suffering a bit. It is harder to play so much and I think I am losing perspective when I play and to the general strategy and get too caught up into different adaptations I was making with other opponents and am not thinking about opponents ranges and adaptations perfectly. Am clicking buttons too automatically and also had some tilting moments.

Otherwise the pills that I got did help me to have better, deeper sleep and I feel much more rested, so it does help atm. I will put a big focus to better my play in next days.

The challenge to 200hours it self is much harder than I had imagined. I am still in tempo to make it, but it will be quite a sprint in the end. At the end of week 2 the monthly result was at 1672€ and 107 hours played. (so weekly it was about 770€ profit and a bit over 50 hours played)

Did a bit better on untracked this time.

Also I am listening to The 10x Rule- Grant Cardone audio book when I am taking a walk and love the mindset and motivation that it gives me

So I don't have much more free days, my plan was to play almost without free days + do some extra long sessions during the weekend and hopefully finish the month a day earlier to get ready for March.

End of third playing week!

Well what a week! My whole week’s plan was to do some long session and grind up another extra day, to rub it in their noses for the 200 hours until end of the February challenge and already spend the 100€ before March. However I had an operation at the doctors done on Wednesday, that I underestimated a lot, nothing health dangerous, but maaan I was in paiinn. I needed to rest a lot, could barely move and while I managed to do some shorter (6-7 hours) sessions, I was slowly falling behind. Was still not far away though and even though I started to play late on Saturday, I managed to get in longer sessions, and same on Sunday so I am now at 169 hours played and 3 days to go.( 11,10,10 hours per day: easy :f_ugly:). So, no rest for the weary.

Result wise it was pretty bad in the beginning as I was losing money really easy, usually played a few hands and lost half a stack, or got hit and ran, but somehow ended up break even all these days. Not a lot of higher stakes action or action at all though got me worried and the month was taking the turn in the wrong direction. Then on Friday I managed to get in a more normal session and it went pretty good also got some set ups on higher stakes and it also went fine on Saturday and Sunday where I put in decent hours as mentioned before. So it all ended out pretty decent

I think I managed to play 63 hours this week and I got 2529€ profit. (the month now stands at about 4200€.)

I did really good on non tracked sites.

In the end I slowly used my free day with low hours playing days, but it ended up ok. I have 3 more days to go, 31 hours of play left, so see you again in 3 days I will try to play really good poker and I also know what I have to do for better results now. While I can for sure improve my play, I think skill is not the biggest limiting factor atm, but I have a lot of potential in sites and how to make the most use of my bankroll!

I was sleeping whole day on Monday, also had a really good sleep, started playing at 7:30pm and then just kind of decided I am rested enough that I will play all night until coaching that I have at 2pm next day. Well at about 8am, I regretted decision a bit as I was becoming tired underestimated a bit, but then I got pass that and back to energy. I was doing good, had action on lower limits and some good stuff on NL200, was running it up slowly to about 700€. Was hard work and slow process! Then 1 minute of disaster happened. About 5 hands all in all and I lost pf ai on NL400, then on NL200 and one more for 125€ and GG. So after 16 hours of grinding back to zero in a second. When you play many different stakes this is how it goes.A bit demoralizing, also hoped I could make something nice happen out of this month in the end. So I just ended the session at 11:30am as I remembered I needed to go to the doctor anyway.

The good news is I made quite a stride forward in the challenge + maybe fixed my sleeping schedule all in one stroke. I managed to play 3 more hours in the evening before falling asleep. Plan was 5 but I couldn't do it. I got to 188 hours played. Today I am at it since early morning so I will have about 4 hours of playing left after coaching for the afternoon. I would say that makes it a pretty casual finish

The month is over, the bet is won

I actually did overtime hours as I had good action and ended the month with almost 203 hours played and 5229€ of profit. Not a bad last day.

Today I had a day off. I didn't feel tired before, but today it all came back at me. I also met some friends, cleaned and organized my working space and tomorrow I'll get back to work. In March I want to also remember the long-term goals I set myself and make sure I am moving towards them.For this I need to include them into a schedule as otherwise it will never happen.

I am also thinking of buying a new office chair as I will be in Slovenia for longer time this year and a 42" to 50" 4k monitor/TV. The added USB dongle for extra screen on my laptop doesn't work perfectly, so that big 4k one would help a lot!

And March I am going for 5 figures

This is so awesome, I'm really at the point where I consider making the step myself.
Would I be able to talk to you on Skype or w/e about your experiences so far?

And amazing threath Mystt! Really interesting, looking for stories like these.
Almost everything seems to be quite outdated, great to see some up-to-date content.

Hey Blackwidow1908, thanks a lot! PM me your Skype, I'll add you.