Originally posted by Varune
I Keep forgetting to post in here. It's one of the few blogs that reminds me of the good old days of PS.Originally posted by BadHabit1989
next guy who wont return from thailand
I spoke to this one guy when i was in Thailand, he was from Canada.. We asked: "oh How long have you been here in Thailand", expecting an answer of a few weeks, like most backpackers would do. 'Oh i'm here now for 5years'. #VisaGTFO
Blackrain79? ♦
Originally posted by BadHabit1989
next guy who wont return from thailand
Hard to tell what future brings but definitely plan on hitting up Vegas to play live CG there in July so this time 80ish days is great
Originally posted by Varune
I Keep forgetting to post in here. It's one of the few blogs that reminds me of the good old days of PS.Originally posted by BadHabit1989
next guy who wont return from thailandI spoke to this one guy when i was in Thailand, he was from Canada.. We asked: "oh How long have you been here in Thailand", expecting an answer of a few weeks, like most backpackers would do. 'Oh i'm here now for 5years'. #VisaGTFO
Always happy to see you here man!
About Thailand, if you have some friends that have stayed there over 1 year but constant stay without returning to home country, I would be very interested to hear how they pulled it off. Eventually I might actually move to live there as living costs are close to Serbia and Asian girls are there + beaches <3
There are several options i can think of of the top of my head.
1) Fuck the system and just overstay on your visa. You do need to pay a fine when do plan to leave and this adds up PER DAY you overstay. So this is probably not an option. Also no clue what they do in the country itself when you get checked in traffic or something and see your visa has expired for a couple of months. probably some jailtime. 
2) Visa runs. Self explanatory i think. Does cost you 2-3 days everytime you need to do one, which should be every 3 months nowadays.
3) Thailand elite: You can stay in the country for 5years, but this comes at a cost of 15k euro i believe.
4) And then there's people that use a education visa instead of tourist. Education lets you stay for a year, but they're alot stricter i've heard with you actually having to attend classes etc.
5) Marry a thai.
Originally posted by Varune
2) Visa runs. Self explanatory i think. Does cost you 2-3 days everytime you need to do one, which should be every 3 months nowadays.
Since the 2014 coup, hasn't there been a substantial risk of being questioned by the police during a re-entry attempt?
If I ever have enough financial stability to consider emigration, I'd rather get the Nicaraguan permanent residency by investing $30K into their economy, or the Montenegrin temporary one by setting up a firm there. But then, I'm not interested in sex tourism, YMMV
And thanks for wishing me well, Pedja 
When i did my Visa run this year there were a couple of guys that were already doing their 3rd or maybe 4th in a row. Believe they only really start questioning you when you stay > 1yr on tourist visa's. And the other thing i've heard is they put a special stamp or note in your passport like: "this is your last one for now", so you can still enter the country for the next one, but getting one after is going to be tricky for a while.
These are some rumours i've heard while getting mine, So i'm absolutely NOT sure if it's true.
Remembers me of this 50yr old guy we saw at the embassy, his passport was almost falling apart from all the stamps and visas in it. The legend. 
Great stuff gang - keep it coming !
Have a friend who stays on educational visa for a year now but he has to attend classes. This kinda sucks unless its some classes where there is hot Asian chicks, if so sign me up ♦
For the Visa runs I heard that after several attempts they mess you up a bit with similar experience Varune shared.
Marrying Thai girl, maybe, if not bar girl but some non prostitute who knows.
Don't won't to overstay visa in any way and get penalty or jail time - not worth it imo.
Finally not sure about that 15k Thailand elite? What happens after 5 years? Can you give 15k more and stay or?
That possibly is the best option , 3k per year, 250 eur per month extra to be 100% safe there to stay - if its legit and works. Worth considering!
Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Finally not sure about that 15k Thailand elite? What happens after 5 years? Can you give 15k more and stay or?
That possibly is the best option , 3k per year, 250 eur per month extra to be 100% safe there to stay - if its legit and works. Worth considering!
Yes, this program offers renewable 5-year visas, you can pay for 5, 10 or 20 years of membership upfront.
But you must be loving the country so much to pay €210 a month (500K baht ~ €13K every 5 years) just for the privilege of staying there 
Originally posted by tonypmm
Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Finally not sure about that 15k Thailand elite? What happens after 5 years? Can you give 15k more and stay or?
That possibly is the best option , 3k per year, 250 eur per month extra to be 100% safe there to stay - if its legit and works. Worth considering!Yes, this program offers renewable 5-year visas, you can pay for 5, 10 or 20 years of membership upfront.
But you must be loving the country so much to pay €210 a month (500K baht ~ €13K every 5 years) just for the privilege of staying there
Thanks for the link Tony! I checked it out last night before bed, browsed through it, and from what I saw, that seems to be some "special" long entry tourist visa. When I think about it now, 2 things come to mind:
1) Its +EV if I decide to save the hustle from exiting and entering every 60 days.
2) Its a bit -EV considering that I get rights as tourist which likely means if I want to invest money in some business in Thailand or become resident, this won't allow me to do it as much.
I like the idea of going for 80+ days now.I will teach, grind and work on another project while there and for the 1st time I will stay close to 3 months in Thailand. That means that I will see beaches xy times, tons of girls, try tons of different food and stuff. After a while, I want to see the spirit that I feel inside while there. Will I feel that's enough and I need to go further or will I feel like I found perfect, ideal place to both work date get married eventually etc. Time will tell but what I do know is that my immediate and close future plans are resolving around:
- Grinding as much as possible to make as much money as possible due to games getting more difficult each year and the fact that I want to secure life, poker, betting and investing BR asap as I consider myself due to sample and results in all areas to be +EV.
- Vegas for a month, live CG and living there checking out the city and what it has to offer (parties, tours, concerts, events etc). Vegas is more of a dream type of thing that I want to make happen but also to test myself there on 1-2, 2-5 or higher - depends on BR I will bring by July 2018 (that is my target travel date for Vegas).
- Start diversifying my time and income. Create passive income streams via investing (side business both online and here live in Serbia). Also building separate BR for betting and creating ways to invest on single match betting larger amounts of money. Continue teaching music, decrease grind poker time and increase time into making passive income streams happen.
- Be always ready to get back to my town for family and also if something goes wrong with life BR it is still most +EV to stay home and grind (Thailand is 2nd best of course). Hence, staying somewhere for super long time is not what I want at this point in time.
- Start hitting live poker on more occasions, whenever BR allows it and i go with some friend. Prepare myself to play 2-5 and higher, get rolled for these stakes properly. Use these live poker games to travel in Europe to cities that I want to visit and get to know better or simply connect with friends there more.
Having all these things in mind, even 80 + days in Thailand will be very interesting "stretch" for me since I don't plan pure vacation (which was primary idea, 28 days of no teaching and poker just plain fun!) but rather to work and enjoy my time there. Being there, surounded by Asian girls, lovely weather and beaches, low cost of living will be ultimate test how productive and dedicated I will be to grind, teach and invest my time in passive income streams. If I pull that off, I will be very close to reaching fuck you money moment in near future and from then on I can play live poker whenever I want as well as live and just travel the world to have fun with my friends. I will of course be able to provide for my family everything which is always priority when it comes to my internal goals.
Long post but hopefully clears the cloud about long term stay somewhere for me. I am sure a lot of guys and girls reading this post and planing to travel somewhere for longer have same or similar goals if not doubts. Hopefully this post helps them see the clarity that I have about my own path and goals that I set to accomplish in 2 years time.
Enjoy your weekend on and off the tables!
One important thing to consider when planning a very longterm stay is taxation. Even though I guess you can manage to evade the Thai income tax even if you stay for more than 180 days in a calendar year (thus becoming a tax resident liable to pay the tax on all worldwide income, including one from locally illegal activities such as gambling), the enforcement might become stricter in the coming years, so I wouldn't commit to the elite program for more than 5 years.
Originally posted by tonypmm
One important thing to consider when planning a very longterm stay is taxation. Even though I guess you can manage to evade the Thai income tax even if you stay for more than 180 days in a calendar year (thus becoming a tax resident liable to pay the tax on all worldwide income, including one from locally illegal activities such as gambling), the enforcement might become stricter in the coming years, so I wouldn't commit to the elite program for more than 5 years.
Smart thinking Tony. I think there are better countries to go for tax purposes and play like Malta and such but I agree with you, it is very important issue.
The guys I know are on multi entry tourist Visa. You must still leave every 2 months, not sure if the extension is possible at immigration for 30days every 2 months. Might be. Or just on normal Tourist Visa- you have 2 months and can extend for 30days at immigration. Don't think it is that bad to leave the country every 3 months anyway. A lot of people go to Penang Island over the weekend (Island in Malaysia, right at the South Thailand border) and then get new Visa there. Short and cheap flight to there. I heard it is a nice Island with lot of mixed culture and good food. But you also have cheap flights to all of the Asia- Honk Kong, Macao, Vietnam,Bali, Philippines and even a longer flight to Japan was like 100€ if you don't just want to take care of Visa, but take a few days off for a vacation and exploring the world.
As for re-entry after the coup, as far as I heard, it is more of a problem when you are on a free 30 days Visa Exemption, with Tourist Visa I think you are all good. Not sure how tough it is to get Education Visa nowadays. Usually people got it for language learning and didn't even attend, I think now it is not so simple anymore, but not sure.
As for the business everyone told me to be REALLY careful. A lot of stories of people getting fcked over there. I know some of them really good, so be extra careful about that.
I wish that you have an awesome stay there and Thailand is always a possibility for me haha, so maybe see you there!
Has anyone here read and applied 'Deep Work' by Cal Newport (I haven't)? If so, how much do you think it helps a poker pro? The description sounds promising.
Regarding an earlier talk about learning to play vs regs:
Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Originally posted by krugger3000
Very nice to heardecent winrate, probably beatin 90% of the field easily but not able to win anything vs me because of very exploitable strategy and not much adaptation. They seem not to understand that you found a leak and are over exploiting them in some spots.
I wish you the best and hope not to find you at my tables !!
I agree with you.
Until you reach 30s on Stars or even 60s, it becomes less important to focus on reg vs reg play because you have high % of recreational players per game on average. On other networks however that is not the case. Even from lower limits there are regs who are post RB winning or be or crushing, so mix of them + you get to play a lot more games vs 2 regs. This is why it becomes very important not only to understand how they play or what game plan they have but rather to learn to interpret stats and readjust accordingly. So that is something I am working now on and towards - covering my own game plan leaks and deviating my strategy based on opponents leaks.
The remarkable thing about Stars is not only that there are fewer regs per table, but also that, at the low stakes, the player pools are big and certain regs run into you less often, thus you don't lose too many chips to exploitation by a reg who knows you well because regs generally won't have a sufficient sample on you unless they're high-volume, but even then, they usually don't have enough time to check advanced HUD stats on you. Therefore, exploitable play aimed at getting the most value from recs is actually quasi-optimal.
So where to play is a matter of taste - those who're good at exploiting the concrete dynamics vs a handful of certain regs are better off playing in a small pool where screen names are permanent, whereas those who're good at robotic grind vs general population tendencies are better off in a big pool or one where names are changed frequently (such as Microgaming) and shouldn't really be upset about getting exploited once in a while.
But either way, I feel that database analysis (of either the most frequent opponents or the whole population) in search of the easiest exploits by the 80/20 rule gives much faster improvement at stakes <$25 where hardly anyone plays GTO anyway than the use of GTO tools.
I don't see the need to do things aimed at beating $25s+ (such as watching Doug Polk) until one actually gets there, because it's necessary to beat the rake at the low stakes to get the bankroll for high ones, and the rake can be beat merely by a narrow margin if playing GTO, it seems.
Actually, one of my most costly leaks is that I sometimes herocall a rec's bet just because my hand is near the top of my perceived range. This logic would be necessary vs a frequently encountered reg but is very spewy when facing a rec who usually doesn't even bother to put me on a range. Instead, I should simply assess his range and my equity vs it because his betsizing is usually correlated with the strength of his hand.
Originally posted by Mystt
The guys I know are on multi entry tourist Visa. You must still leave every 2 months, not sure if the extension is possible at immigration for 30days every 2 months. Might be. Or just on normal Tourist Visa- you have 2 months and can extend for 30days at immigration. Don't think it is that bad to leave the country every 3 months anyway. A lot of people go to Penang Island over the weekend (Island in Malaysia, right at the South Thailand border) and then get new Visa there. Short and cheap flight to there. I heard it is a nice Island with lot of mixed culture and good food. But you also have cheap flights to all of the Asia- Honk Kong, Macao, Vietnam,Bali, Philippines and even a longer flight to Japan was like 100€ if you don't just want to take care of Visa, but take a few days off for a vacation and exploring the world.As for re-entry after the coup, as far as I heard, it is more of a problem when you are on a free 30 days Visa Exemption, with Tourist Visa I think you are all good. Not sure how tough it is to get Education Visa nowadays. Usually people got it for language learning and didn't even attend, I think now it is not so simple anymore, but not sure.
As for the business everyone told me to be REALLY careful. A lot of stories of people getting fcked over there. I know some of them really good, so be extra careful about that.
I wish that you have an awesome stay there and Thailand is always a possibility for me haha, so maybe see you there!
My friend - great write up!
Thank you for great information and wishes. I hope we will meet in Thailand from 15th of January on 
Tomorrow morning I will phone Thai consulate in Belgrade and find out whether or not I can purchase 80+ days return ticket and get 90 day tourist visa with it that is single entry or not (due to 60+30 day extension). Depending on answer I will proceed to book and buy ticket by the end of this week. I want to finish as many things as possible about Thailand (already payed 28 days of accommodation, found out about internet for guitar lessons and poker, now want to finish plane ticket and arrange consulate information for it) so that I can focus maximum in next 13 weeks (I visit Thailand in exactly 13 weeks!!!) on grinding and making money from poker and teaching. On the other side, I also pre-payed all my internet, cable, cell phone bills until April 2018 in the past week so only thing left to do here is to pay 3 more rents (Jan until Apr) and then the rest of the money is for food, coffee, gym membership and such things before I leave.
I put things down on paper and with 300 hours of grind in next 13 weeks I will be more then ready for Thailand 80+ day trip. So very soon all that will be left to do is to focus on 4 sessions grind per day which is not that difficult especially due to all the hunger towards poker, grind, making money, improving steady that I have.
I really hope we will meet in Thailand and have some shots in some strip bar while amazing Asian girls are trying to get us to buy them drinks and pay them 200+ eur for short stay. We can then play max exploit or GTO line and in real time we can show our skills either how to pull amazing stripper for free, or for food after working hours, or to get light bluff catch by stripper and run into top of her range by paying 200+ euro for short time in the club.
Life is all about black and white , you either have it or you don't 
Originally posted by tonypmm
Regarding an earlier talk about learning to play vs regs:Spoiler
Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Originally posted by krugger3000
Very nice to heardecent winrate, probably beatin 90% of the field easily but not able to win anything vs me because of very exploitable strategy and not much adaptation. They seem not to understand that you found a leak and are over exploiting them in some spots.
I wish you the best and hope not to find you at my tables !!
I agree with you.
Until you reach 30s on Stars or even 60s, it becomes less important to focus on reg vs reg play because you have high % of recreational players per game on average. On other networks however that is not the case. Even from lower limits there are regs who are post RB winning or be or crushing, so mix of them + you get to play a lot more games vs 2 regs. This is why it becomes very important not only to understand how they play or what game plan they have but rather to learn to interpret stats and readjust accordingly. So that is something I am working now on and towards - covering my own game plan leaks and deviating my strategy based on opponents leaks.The remarkable thing about Stars is not only that there are fewer regs per table, but also that, at the low stakes, the player pools are big and certain regs run into you less often, thus you don't lose too many chips to exploitation by a reg who knows you well because regs generally won't have a sufficient sample on you unless they're high-volume, but even then, they usually don't have enough time to check advanced HUD stats on you. Therefore, exploitable play aimed at getting the most value from recs is actually quasi-optimal.
So where to play is a matter of taste - those who're good at exploiting the concrete dynamics vs a handful of certain regs are better off playing in a small pool where screen names are permanent, whereas those who're good at robotic grind vs general population tendencies are better off in a big pool or one where names are changed frequently (such as Microgaming) and shouldn't really be upset about getting exploited once in a while.
But either way, I feel that database analysis (of either the most frequent opponents or the whole population) in search of the easiest exploits by the 80/20 rule gives much faster improvement at stakes <$25 where hardly anyone plays GTO anyway than the use of GTO tools.
I don't see the need to do things aimed at beating $25s+ (such as watching Doug Polk) until one actually gets there, because it's necessary to beat the rake at the low stakes to get the bankroll for high ones, and the rake can be beat merely by a narrow margin if playing GTO, it seems.
Tony with close to 90% of your post I agree 100% however, the last part(s) I don't agree with. I will do my best in short time to elaborate what I mean.
Use of GTO tools - to do it or not to do it
Several years ago, GTO solutions didn't exist. That pretty much meant that people were doing things either by 1) random guesses how something should be played IP and OOP 2) or by doing DB analysis and then using cREV and such software
That lead to tons of coaching videos, sites and simply BAD ADVICE that coaches give. Do this because I say it works so and so, or I have such and such win rate. The big problem with both of approaches that I mentioned here is: 1) Doing things random, subjective feeling applying to strategy things can only work so far and its a hit and miss + if you are not theoretically strong, your subjective feeling might be right (gut feeling of what opponents do) but you still don't have numbers part down how to exploit them properly to maximize EV 2) doing db analysis is great HOWEVER GAMES CHANGE, tendencies change and what worked 2-3 years ago, today are different standards and tomorrow and 4 years from now there will be different standard in play. This is why 1 DB analysis can give you great success and increase your EV but in reality solid regs can re-adjust their game plan and then you are screwed because they outsmarted you. In future, more and more games will be tougher and people will be less exploitable - thanks to GTO solver software.
Now I get to WHY its important to LEARN and PRACTICE with GTO solvers.
Number 1 reason is - YOU GET A GREAT STARTING STRATEGY! If you start with GTO strategy and learn what you should do IP and OOP as GTO, then you understand by doing DB analysis for both regs and recreational players what they are doing different from GTO. And now, having this information, you can always deviate from GTO and adjust it to exploit super specific leak or stat from reg or fish based on the reads/hands/sample/stats/exploit. BUT, if you play new regs, don't have hands on them, or simply play unknown opponents, GTO is the way to GO because it covers your LEAKS which is very important (opponents cant exploit you) and then you can deviate based on their plans.
I did work and still do in PIO Solver. Its my go to study tool. I will not go into specific ways how but I am sure you get what I mean when I say that having starting GTO base strategy (especially vs solid REGS) is the way to go - because they are the ones that then show you their own leaks vs your GTO and then you can tweak it to increase your EV further vs them.
Finally, in regards to "no need to learn from Polk until at such and such stake", again, I refer you to what I said now. Polk talks about balanced strategy and also discuss exploits. Doug talks in depth range vs range, specific hand selection, bet sizings, different run outs and vs specific opponents how to adjust. Simply put, Doug Polk is as close as it comes to FREE COACHING for GTO and Exploitative APPROACH how to play a hand as well as whole range. And that right there is PRICELESS. I would pay thousands of $ for such information and Doug decided to share it with the world on his YouTube channel.
It shocks me to a very high degree that a lot of regs in all game areas still think GTO is "shit" "garbage" "useless" "not applicable to their limit or opponents" when they all along have no clue what the whole point of GTO is. The way I treat GTO is to learn super solid STARTING strategy vs VERY GOOD PLAYERS. Then I can analyze, study that strategy and understand why EVERY SINGLE HAND is played the way it is played pre flop. Now when I play recreational player or reg with such and such stats, I can take GTO strategy and thanks to work with it understand how to ADAPT that strategy with exact EV results and not by feeling/gut or subjective opinion.
I am on the road to perfecting this and of course by the time I reach end of my journey I am sure I will not perfect this ever 100% but my goal is to stay ahead of the curve (whole field + individual regs that crush but I don't want them to win anything vs me) and to print money thanks to this approach which will bring me multiple game plans and to always be ready to maximize EV with sufficient prof (hands/sample/notes/showdowns/dynamics and other factors) while still focusing on playing very solid balanced poker, protecting my ranges both pre and post flop so that no opponent can rape me and exploit. That is the point of learning, practicing and understanding GTO.
But what to do in games where no GTO solutions are available yet, like Power Up that's hopefully coming out next week? 
I mean, a tracker for it will likely appear much sooner than a GTO tool for it, as the former is easier to write.
Also, even in those games that have GTO solutions:
1. There are too few very good regs at low stakes.
2. Some of the best regs of those stakes still don't wish to spend money on a solver because they're using strict BRM and beating the games even without a solver. Spending a large portion of the BR to get an unknown amount of ROI boost is scary to them.
3. It's possible to play profitably at more tables, thus the frequency of DB analysis can be increased due to a faster speed of collection of samples.
4. Recs' tendencies are much more static than regs' ones and don't require frequent readjustment.
Originally posted by tonypmm
But what to do in games where no GTO solutions are available yet, like Power Up that's hopefully coming out next week?Also, even in those games that have GTO solutions:
1. There are too few very good regs at low stakes.
2. Some of the best regs of those stakes still don't wish to spend money on a solver because they're using strict BRM and beating the games even without a solver. Spending a large portion of the BR to get an unknown amount of ROI boost is scary to them.
3. It's possible to play profitably at more tables, thus the frequency of DB analysis can be increased due to a faster speed of collection of samples.
4. Recs' tendencies are much more static than regs' ones and don't require frequent readjustment.
Again, this could be true (depending on site and limit) or false, and again it can be situation currently. Remember the price of solvers when they came out and now? What do you think price of these software will be in 2-5 years? Less then 250$ that's for sure.
I am not talking about beating low stakes. In those games you can play exploit strategy based on DB analysis and that's it. Still, learning GTO will never hurt you because it only makes your game more balanced and strenghtens it, never makes it weaker.
About other formats, its not my place to say but I believe that while there is no GTO solutions in those formats there will likely be huge EV to be made from guys who do amazing adjustments and guesses or simply have deep understanding of what balanced and exploited strategy should be in such format. Finally, I don't agree that regs don't invest in GTO solution software. If you are talking about micros and low stakes, very likely yes but guys on mid to high stakes, they are not fucking around, their game plans are very close to GTO day by day. I know because I have GTO solutions and I check vs their game plans and see whole bunch of stats and hands matching up. So that either means that they pushed up their studying game and apply knowledge WELL or that they are very good bots, or both.
Again, I play games where I face regs constantly and knowing GTO is a must in those spots because unlike on Stars, these regs are much better, more close to GTO in all the spots and to beat them requires minimum GTO approach with emphasis on super specific spots where they are not defending or attacking enough to materialize on EV difference.
I know, I make it sound like I am playing high stakes spins with amazing players but trust me, guys that I play are also playing highest stakes as well and for me it has become mater of getting sufficient roll to play them at highest stakes with current adjustments I have made to remove larger leaks I had and to improve EV in all areas of my game.
Spins are going to get a lot tougher that is for sure, and you have coaching programs + GTO solvers to thank for that - nobody else
Originally posted by IvicaIliev77
Still, learning GTO will never hurt you because it only makes your game more balanced and strenghtens it, never makes it weaker.
It doesn't hurt except that it takes time, energy and memory and maximises longterm earnings rather than shortterm ones, whereas the lack of fast positive results may be discouraging and depressing to a microstake player.
