Horror immigration

Never had I been through a rough patch like this at the tables over the past month.. it just has been sickening and it seemed like it was a never ending downwards spiral, how many times did I not ask myself. Why the hell am I doing this to myself? Why can't I catch a break and just run normal once. Thoughts of quitting went so many times through my mind. So I cleared up everything and moved to Thailand to hibernate, get back to my zen status and hopefully things would be normal again.

I flew over, visited Chiang Rai, then drove all the way to the border and enter Myanmar for a lot of shopping. Basically I did everything that didn't have to do with poker :) I enjoyed it a lot.

Then came the day of return to Singapore.. everything seemed to be fine, but then at the immigration I got stopped by the police and told me to go to interrogation room. I followed along and then I got dumped in this 'waiting room'. You can't call it a waiting room, it's a prison cell, small, no windows, and no communication allowed, with a camera over your head. I had to wait there for 2 hours before they picked me up. I was ofcourse pissed as hell. In my mind I just was thinking, gosh, when it rains it just pours, I'm just soooo unlucky in everything lately. Then I got this officer who was just blatantly rude, and told me to put my thumb on the machine for a fingerprint. I put my finger on it, and she was saying, no, not like that and grabbed and pulled it onto the machine. I was like wtf, take it easy, did I kill someone or what? Then without any words, I got thrown back into the 'prison cell' ... waiting, then another officer picked me up and I was allowed outside. The outside officer told me that everything is ok and I could go. I was like, can you people be any more rude? this is like you treat a criminal not a passenger. He said, I'm sorry we are only doing our job. I was like, so???? you can do your job in a normal and respectful fashion also! then he said, but we have to treat everybody as a suspect and be careful, then I just replied, you are innocent until proven, that's how the world works, and not otherwise. Pissed as hell I just left and grabbed my bags, talking about a nice welcome back to Singapore eh?

Anyways, the break apparently did do very well to my brain, I dropped down to lower stakes and things have been running.. well not normal, still not that good, but at least it's not insane like before and I'm very confident I'll be clocking my first winning week, since.. well 2 months or so. A sigh of relief will definitely going through my mind for sure, when I see my bankroll go in the right direction again. And I can save up some monies for the future.

While I was away, my student performed very good, diligently worked a lot of hours and crushed the NL200 stakes and shipped almost 6K$ while I was away, and even more important, now not just one but like multiple people are congratulating him for improving his game so fast in such a short time. Although he still has quite a lot of leaks in his postflop game (which is normal, you can't learn that in a few months), he's becoming a lot more stable as a professional poker player. And after improving his postflop a bit more, I'm sure his winrate will be increasing more, and variance dropping down. I still can remember the day he saw me 12 table on two screens and just stood there amazed and said, wow, it goes so fast! how can you keep up? and now .. well he basically is doing it himself :D little things, little changes can make such a huge impact on life. I guess there is some truth in the chaos theory.

While being in Thailand, I was thinking about my future, so I think I'll be going back in a few months and stay in Thailand again. The thing is, my expenses are lower, there is so much more entertainment and it's such an easygoing life over there. Plus also the fact that some of my best friends are coming back also for a longer period. So I think I'll try to help Jon with some postflop coaching and then make a trip back home to Belgium to visit everyone and then return for a longer period in Thailand. Just grind it out there, make some monies and take it from there. Wish you all good luck and enjoy the good life :)

Ryu Dang

Trick or Treat

Well can't say I'm doing well on the poker area (except maybe the coaching part), just been disgusted with how I'm running lately.. and it doesn't seem to go better, but well... I whined enough about it already for weeks now to everyone is remotely near me, so I'll just shut up and wait for better times. I'm flying back to Bangkok in a few days, to visit some friends and take a complete break from my new environment, I hope it will help... and I sure it will, if the red shirts aren't blocking my way to the 4 faced buddha haha :)

Anyways, have a funny story to tell, hence the title of this blog post.. one night we all planned to get supper at Geylang around 4am or something like that after the live game. A friend of us, who is indian (and didn't shave for weeks :p) drove us in a minivan to pick up another friend who was waiting at the busstop near his home. He never met my indian friend before, so I told him to just drive the van in front of him, go out and give him a good scolding and scare him :D it was so hilarious, suddenly having a stranger walk up to you, he grabbed his phone immediately and was prolly scared to death while we were hiding in the van laughing our asses off. Nice first impressions are always life lasting. haha.

Since I'm losing money and a sad koala, I bought a guitar again, and started tuning it, ready to form my asian boy band in case my poker career doesn't work out lol.

The only positive note to end this blog, is that another poker player complemented Jon that his game has improved so much recently. I guess I can be a bit proud about that comment, and it does prove that coaching is the way to go to improve your game. Taking a break for like 2 weeks now, gonna spend some time at the beach/clubbing/lazying around in Thailand, so I doubt I will blogging much in the forthcoming period except if something extraordinary happends :) gl to you all out there...

Ryu Dang

my first bad experience in SG

So a few days ago I went to Sim Lim Square, which is basically an IT center comparable with Panthip Plaza in Bangkok or just a huge mall with all IT shops. I went there to buy an iPhone 3Gs for my friend. So after browsing around a few small shops I ended up at one shop and he quoted me 820$, I asked if I could see it, and he brought me the phone. I asked him if it was factory unlocked already so it can be used worldwide, he confirmed, so I asked ok.. pack it. I'll take it. Then he says, wait, and comes back with skins and extra batteries and says he is giving me a good package deal, but well, my friend was only interested in the phone, so I declined everything. My friend handed over the 850$ and he said ok, one second. I figured he went away to make the warranty and give back the change, but he came back with nothing. Suddenly the cheery mood changed and a dark and serious face came instead. He said, the phone I just gave you is jammed, if you want a working unlocked one, then you have to pay 1100$. I'm like, uhm what? Yeah this is how it works. This is called a trapped and it's easy to get in, but very hard to get out... I'm like WHAT?!? then I said, whatever dude, give my friend back the 850$, he said, no, if you want your money back, you can have it back if you come back after 3 hours. I'll keep it for 3 hours then you can have it back. At that point I was seriously pissed off ofcourse, I grabbed the phone in front of me and just said, last warning, give my friend back the money. He said, no don't drop it, give back the phone. I said, I'll freaking break more then this you son of **** if you don't return the money NOW. He went away, came back with the money in his hands, but still didn't want to give it, told me to give back the phone first before he will hand over the money... really guy? think I'm a retard or something? eventually he gave back the money, and if my friends weren't there to stop me, I would have decked the guy for sure. Never had something happen like this before in my life, such a disrespect towards others. I hope karma works out for that guy.

Ryu Dang

hell week and rambles ^_^

wow.. had one of the most horrible weekend results since a long time in my poker career, dropped like 6k, only had one good end day, a positive Sunday and the rakeback sure covers a lot of the damage, but still, it's really nothing to be excited about lol. I think I didn't play my best, and also ran bad, which makes a bad combo, so I re analysed a bit of my game and started also playing differently on other sites this week to recover from the losses and the start of the new week seems very promising. I'm targetting 10K for this week, to recover my losses and make some profits, because life in Singapore sure isn't cheap :p

anyways, the coaching part seems to be working out better, Jon seems to be more "zen" with the swings when he sees me getting owned (I guess it does have it's positive side effects lol) and he also recovered from his swingy week, and started off like me pretty decently and very keen to looking to hit his first 10k month win.

Took a break yesterday night to go see the double IP Man movie showing, it was a special avant-premiere, and they showed ip man 1 & 2 back to back. Man I was so hyped, the first movie was so amazing, he's such a crusher.. while the second one, meh, first half was good, second half turned out to be like some rocky horror movie show. Hated it so much. They really should script out white people out of asian movies (no racism or anything here intended :p) but usually the guys that do wanna act in lower budget asian movies or willing to work in it are such terrible actors that it just makes me scream. Anyways, if you didn't see the first one yet.. you are missing out. Need to become a crusher now also on the tables. Work, Dedication, Passion, Zen.

Ryu Dang

hero comeback needed :/

So the first week went pretty chill, went pretty well on the coaching area, adapted my protege his handrange a bit and went over some other basics, and he did quite ok during his first week. For myself I went on a pretty bad end of the week, which almost killed all my winnings, which left me.. almost break even (once again) sigh. Anyways, I wasn't that upset about it, until the last few days, I just got totally crushed, owned, soulread on NL1K which led me to drop like almost 4k in 2 sessions.. sigh, it was so disgusting, I wanted to just throw my laptop out of the window... so I definitely need a good hero comeback this week or else my week is gonna end up a disaster :(

As for Jon, his week is superswingy also, lost first day, won it all back second, but lost again today, so he's not having his best of days either.. I guess we are both in a rough week, but I'm confident we will get through it and it will only make us stronger. I'm thinking about analysing and going further and deeper into his preflop actions now, until he understands what dynamics it creates at the tables. On the other hand, I feel so bad coaching someone while I'm not making money at all and losing so much haha.. but well a cheer up talk from my friends in Bangkok helped me and I at least made back some already today. Let's hope this will continue and last for the week.... ran against these sick beats again in today's session, but I guess it's normal. Focus. Hero. Comeback!

Ryu Dang

Singapore!

Just settled in my new crib in Singapore for a few days, had to take my time a bit before I could actually hit the grind again, and well in the days that I have been playing I ran pretty normal on the midstakes, but I got crushed on NL1k again, so there goes my profits once again, good thing my rakeback and my live game winnings covered most of the expenses and things I bought and spewed onto. So I guess there will this insane major heater coming soon haha :)

Had the first coaching session today with Jon, first step was analysing and reforming his preflop game, and this will probably take a few sessions before it will be like it should be and he understands what impact it makes on his game. So the masterplan has been set in motion..

Really enjoying my new environment over here, and also the fact that I'm dodging all the nasty red-shirt fighting stuff that is going on in Bangkok at the moment. Still need to test out the swimming pool and jacuzzi downstairs, I guess it 's a nice way to unwind and untilt ;) hope things will be looking positive and my winrate goes higher, since I've been really running on the lowest winrate ever... wish you all the best

Ryu Dang in SG

Coaching and the run bads (nothing new here :p)

So just a couple more days before my return to Singapore.. I must really say I have been running terrible the last few weeks, not that I'm actually losing money or anything, but I think I should have shipped so much more then.. well this (for me :p) almost break even run. Things just need clear up, I ran against 2-outers, 4 times in total today in one single session and, stacked off 4 times obv, so if I would have won all of them (which would be normal), how different would my day have been? damn you poker.. it's still such an evil game, no matter how long you have played it. I'm taking a small food break now, going to try to make up for my losses of today after I have updated my blog and maybe watch some serie :)

I must say I have been receiving quite a lot of requests for coaching from a lot players, it's like suddenly they actually understand that with a coach their game will improve dramatically, definitely when it comes to online play, this is very true. Since I'm going to be a full time coach already for my roommate Jon, I'm not sure if I will be able to handle more students, but I guess time will tell. I also want to give quality the utmost importance, because I think I will be very thorough if I'm only teaching one person at the time, and I will try to bring out everything that person has, and with groupsessions I think specific guidance will be less effective. I also consider Jon as an reference I guess once he has cleared the trials, but in the end, if one makes it or not, not always is the coach to blame, he's the first one to get sacked though haha :D

So if you feel lucky, you can always spew at me and persuade you into a coaching package, I won't bite, but to be honest, chances will be pretty slim in the near future. I am excited though, it's quite a challenge...

Ryu Dang (still running BKK)