Back at it!

Didn't expect that I would be so dedicated and working so hard while being in Thailand, but the opposite seemed to be the case.. I have already clocked in 40k hands so far and using PT again to see where things have been going wrong. I must say that I feel so much more relieved now that things are going 'normal' again. I'm still running like 10 buy ins below EV but I did have some 16 BB's /100 sessions which made me a happy koala. I'm gonna continue at it and try to clock at least 75k hands for this month and (hopefully) clock a winning month since a long time. I must say my graph has been pretty stable so far and it's back where it's supposed to be.. back at where I belong or left off.. let's hope this will not stop and I won't be in that long break even stretch anymore like I was during my stay in Singapore.

Still arranging everything here, and looking around for a decent place, although I haven't had much issues with my current internet (it's slow but pretty stable) and I'm still not sure which school to pick to start my lessons. Will settle most of the things next week and then head back to Belgium.. just realised that I don't have a single Euro left in my wallet, it really has been almost a year lol.. time goes by so fast and I also noticed that my train ticket which is a 10 trip ticket is going to expire soon also haha.. I guess I should just buy the standard 1 way ticket ^_^

good luck to you all
Ryu Dang

Uncle Ryu :)

So this last Thursday (29th of July), during my live game session.. suddenly I got this phonecall from my brother in law. He told me he was in the hospital now with my sister and that she just delivered her baby.. and it's a beautiful son! :) So it makes me a proud uncle for the first time. Another stepping stone in life. The funny thing is that at exactly at the time he called me. I peeked down to see my 2 holecards and I saw AA .. wow, what are the odds of that happening?! I foresee a good future for this kid haha :) I raised and did a normal C-bet and it got folded around hehe.. good thing it didn't get cracked ;)

anyways, have to tell u guys about this amazing hand that happened last week.. so first of all it's a 1/2 game, but the stacks are pretty deep, around 1k$ each and we have a few of these crazy (or high level) gamblers at the table. So one guy bought in for 700$ and he went down a lot but made it all back to like 900$ ish and had 43$ in 'spare' chips, so he decided to straddle his last hand with his 'spare change' before going clubbing. One guy called, another guy called.. and it went back to him. He still hasn't seen his hand, but decides to just bet out on the flop 150$ blind.. flop was Q93 rainbow. One guy calls (he had like 260$ behind after calling) and one guy who was very deep (had like a 1.5K$ stack) flats there. Turn comes a T. Still without seeing his holecards he splashes in 300$.... first guy goes all in and the deep stack guy was in pain.. he showed to the other players that he had 78, giving him an open ended draw, and well..  according to him  a lot of implied odds to make this call lol. anyways, he called and the river was another 3. Finally the guy who straddled blind, and betted out blinds peeks down his cards and shoves in his whole stack. Deep stack guy folded obviously, shortstacker had Q8 giving him top pair.. and blind guy.. yep he has QQ lol, the whole table was in shock.. straddling, and betting out blind all the way with the best hand, you can only do that with some serious high level skill imo :D

I'm enjoying my last few days now in Singapore. To be honest, I would have loved to stay here and continue my work here, but sometimes you just have to make that choice and decision. I hope I'm making the correct one here by moving back to Thailand. First I'll arrange everything in Thailand for my visa and condo.. and then I'll fly back to Belgium for a short period to visit my nephew and friends, then it's going to be a long period in Thailand.. just hope that everything will work out, and that I don't regret making this decision.. I sincerely had an amazing time in Singapore and made a bunch of good friends and meet a lot of nice people. I wish them all good luck and I hope my student will finish the work he started. I will still be following his progress from afar, it will be different ofcourse, but I'm sure things will work out.. because some things you just need to do yourself to master that last step towards your finish line.

probably my last blog update from Singapore for now ^_^

Ryu Dang

Bustohood

yep, busto! well, ofcourse I'm just kidding, but that's how it feels like, haven't made a single $, euro or SGD in the past 2 months online, poker feels like such a drag, I tend to break even nowadays instead of making anything at all.. sigh, need to clear my mind and refocus on my game. Nowadays I play very agressive preflop, giving me like 15% 3-bet percentages, it's been working out better, but I still need to balance it out postflop I think, or I'll become the biggest spewtard, which is not the way to go :) But I just feel that, that is the way the games are evolving to nowadays, a lot of light 4-betting and a lot of wide ranges in preflop raises.
Well the good thing is that Jon doing pretty good, he's been putting in more hands, and becoming a solid player, which is only a good thing, now I should be helping myself instead of helping others. Back at being selfish? haha :) anyways, I look forward to go back to Belgium and take a global break from poker and see how my cute little niece or nephew will look like ^_^ and visit my old buddies over there, it's been quite some time by now, maybe they don't even know me anymore haha
I really hope things will get better soon, or I might just consider finding another job, because I can't be breaking even for 4 months or so, I still have a lot of bills and rent to pay.. so better get my heater soon..

gl to all of you
Ryu

The Noble Eightfold Path

since I'm back at running horrible, I'm just going to type down the noble eightfold path, if you are a buddhist, you should know this, if you are not, it's still pretty to read and follow

Wisdom

1. Right View

2. Right Intention

Ethical Conduct

3. Right Speech

4. Right Action

5. Right Livelihood

Mental Development

6. Right Effort

7. Right Mindfulness

8. Right Concentration

I wonder if buddha said something about living +EV and variance in life :D

Ryu Dang

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