BUZKASHI!!!

So, I'm reading this article about Kabul to get the low-down (down-low? No doubt) about the bombing that happened there recently and so happy to know that my buddy Clayton Still is safe, but I found something strange in this article: 

.............................

"KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Afghans watching the traditional sport of buzkashi on Wednesday, killing seven people in the north of the country, officials said."

"Buzkashi is akin to polo, but players on horseback use a HEADLESS GOAT CARCASS INSTEAD OF A BALL."

 .............................

 Headless Goat Carcass, you say? Good to know.

 "Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombers for attacking Afghan civilians."

 "He also expressed disappointment that the headless goat carcass used for the game was not of regulation size and that bigger goat carcasses need be used for professional events"...lol, ok, maybe he didn't say that last part, but seriously, what the fuck???

For those who'd like a glimpse at this totally whacked out "sport", here's a video:

How to Beat Airport Security Lines

On the way back from Costa Rica I land in Miami.  As I'm entering customs I realize that the line is gonna take FOREVER!!!   It is MASSIVELY LONG!!!  So while contemplating about how miserable I'm gonna be in this line I glance over to my left and see a sign:

"HANDICAPPED INDIVIDUALS AND THOSE WHO NEED ASSISTANCE"

There is nobody there, not one person waiting in this area where I'm sure there is hardly ever a line.

The wheels in my head start turning.

I limp over to the lady near the line, dragging my right leg behind me.

Me:  Excuse me, ma'am.
Lady:  Yessir
Me:  I injured my knee recently.  Is there anyway I could possibly use this line?
Lady:  WHY OF COURSE SWEETIE!  Here, let me help you.  You just walk right this way and you can see this gentlemen here, he will help you out.

I wait 2 minutes for the customs guy to finish with his current individual, then I step in, ahead of EVERYONE.  That's right, I don't see my own customs guy, I get to CUT THE LINE, in front of ALLLLLLLL the people who have been waiting FOREVVVVVVER!!  As I finish up with customs I drag my leg behind me for what seemed like an eternity until I turn the corner and exit into the next room...where I immediately haul ass to my connecting flight.

LOL..

Cookbook Runbad

Go to book store to buy cookbook for our house lady so we can have delish lunches from now on. Spend 25-30min looking through the 200 or so books at bookstore. Decide on a book about chicken. Get back to house, go to kitchen to put book in obscure cabinet that we never use. Open cabinet to find it almost empty aside from THE EXACT SAME GODDAMN COOKBOOK I JUST BOUGHT!!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS!!!?

 Dammit.

Funny Poker Hit and Run Story

So I'm playing this guy named Synt3x on stars at $1/$2 and was putting a pretty severe beatdown on him.  After I stack him for the final time he SNAP leaves the table.  He must not have been very happy.  A couple of minutes go by and I continue to play some other players.  I win and lose a few small pots here and there, Nick quits for the day after a great comeback from being stuck earlier, my other roommate Jason loses a $1,600 pot all-in preflop where his AQ loses to some guy who calls his all-in shove with Q9 on the first hand (wow, lol).  Jason is now pretty livid and bitching up a storm.

So after a couple of minutes my friend Synt3x returns and buys back in.  So I welcome him back...

Me:  "Oh, you decided to give it another shot, welcome back".

Synt3x:  "Yeah, I just won $800 in one hand!"

Me:  "Really?  What stakes?  That's sick."

Synt3x:  "$10/$20"

After processing the fact that this terrible player actually went and sat $10/$20, I realize this may actually have been the same guy that min-3bet Jason and spaz called off Q9 for $800 dollars!  So I ask Jason the name of the player that sucked out on him and sure enough it was my opponent Synt3x, lol.  This guy took a huge beatdown from me, must have stormed off completely irate, sat Jason at $10/$20, picked up Q9 and 3bet preflop vs Jason's raise, then when Jason shoved for $800 he must have (in a completely fed-up fit of psychotic anger) said "FUCK IT!!!" and clicked the call button and sucked out on my roommate for the $1,600 pot!  LOLOL.  Poor Jason.  Then he comes back and loses another buyin to me (of Jason's money, lol).

I started typing and chatting with Syntex telling him that it was my roommate sitting right next to me who he sucked out on.  He didn't believe it at first, but after I told him how the hand played out he was typing up a storm of "LOL"s.  He told me to tell Jason that he was sorry.  He also said that he clicked the call button and just got up and walked away from his computer and didn't even look at the screen.

LOL.  Crazy.

Robbed at Gunpoint

Awesome night. Made a G on the grind, had an amazing meal at Praha, and then got robbed at gunpoint.

Myself and 4 other poker players go to this really nice restaurant to eat called Praha.  After dinner we walked to the road just 20ft from the restaurant with tons of people everywhere behind us when two guys on a moped stop and ask us if we know where Del Rey apartments are. As we're telling these guys that we have no idea where these apartments are, the guy on the back of the bike inconspicuously pulls out a gun, demands our phones and our money, snap grabs everything out of our front pockets and they take off.

This literally happened in a matter of 10 seconds in front of an open air restaurant with people everywhere.

When he demanded my phone I told him "No tengo". I don't have a Costa Rican cellphone yet and I usually never take my iPhone out with me. Lucky for me he didn't check my back pockets, I forgot that I had brought my iPhone to the restaurant to take some pictures. Unfortunately, I knew we were gonna play credit card roulette at the end of dinner for the bill so I had $200 cash on me.

The funny thing is that whenever I walk to the grocery store here, I always keep $20 in my pocket and put my large bills in my cigarette pack. If I was on the way to the store when this happened the robber would have pocketed $20 and then handed me back a cigarette pack full of large bills. I woulda had a good laugh at that.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

So after all this, my friend's girlfriend (a Costa Rican girl) came over to his place and we told her what happened.  We also spoke with our security guard and after listening to them tell stories and asking them if it was safe just to walk 3minutes down the hill to the grocery store, we found out just how insanely dangerous Costa Rica is.  Even where we are in Escazu, the NICEST area of San Jose (it would be like Alpharetta, Georgia), you shouldn't be out at night.  This motorbike style robbery is totally normal and it's not uncommon for people to get shot if they have no money or refuse in any way.

Apparently, earlier this year, my friend's girlfriend took a cab with her boyfriend and a couple of our other friends to her place to get some things from her house before heading back to his place. As she walked inside a group of guys pull up in a car and wait for her to come back outside. As she comes outside they hop out of the car and start quickly walking toward her to rob her then they stop because they see that the cab is full of guys and I guess they didn't have guns and didn't want to get into a brawl.

Keep in mind that this is Escazu. This is THE NICEST AREA of San Jose!

I found out that even our regular cab driver, Tomas, got robbed while jogging during the day a few weeks ago. A Tico jacked him for his iPod and whatever else he had on him.

We live in a complex with just 4 houses and our place is gated with razor wire all around it, we pay for a 24/7 armed security guard who regularly patrols the grounds with a flashlight, and all of our neighbor's complexes are the exact same. I used to think it was overkill on the security, but not after hearing stories from these locals. And like I said, we live in the nicest area in San Jose. There's a Maserati dealership nearby and we see Ferraris when we walk down to the shops! That's how nice of an area we are in! And it's still not safe to walk outside your complex at night! There are other stories that I could share but they aren't nearly as common and I don't want to scare the hell out of my parents.

There's a saying the Ticos have here:  "The good people live in houses that look like prisons (because of the bars on the windows, gates, fences topped with razor wire, metal doors, alarms, padlocks, etc) and the criminals roam the streets freely." I can tell you from being here, that is completely accurate and not an exaggeration.  At least the weather is nice.

Living in Costa Rica!!!

As promised, I'm going to try and start blogging again. Can't believe it's been over 8 months since I'd written a post. Alright, where to start...

So if you're reading this blog you probably know that I've chosen to move to Costa Rica to continue playing online poker. Everyone seems to be super excited for me because "Costa Rica is awesome", "the beaches there are amazing", "you're going to have so much fun"...in reality though, I came down here for one reason and one reason only: To make a lot of money.

I've been here for 5 days now and all I've done is played poker. Not all that exciting. Well, we did have la policia called on us once already I guess. I'm living with my friend Nick and our buddy Jason in a small complex with four houses on a hillside just outside San Jose. Two of the other three houses are full of poker players, so it's sort of a poker community.

A few of the characters here:

Neal: I don't know him very well, but he lives in one of the houses and comes over occasionally. From what I've heard, he grinds super small stakes tournaments (like $2 buyin, 180man Sit-n-goes...how this works i have no idea) and does not make very much money. I think he's actually going home soon.

Matt: Lives in the house across from us. He plays tourneys online and has made a couple of $5,000+ scores in the few days I've been here (good job Matt). Matt is the only poker player in the complex who is relatively fluent in Spanish and he has a Costa Rican girlfriend who doesn't speak English. Hells yeah! 

Gaz: Apparently, there's a guy named Gaz here who I haven't met yet. From what I've heard, Gaz is Austrian, has a funny accent, smokes a ton of weed, and is hilarious (looking forward to meeting this guy, lol).

Paul: Paul is our landlord. He's a sketchy fat old biker lookin' guy who invited Nick and Jason to lunch the first week they were here at a restaurant/casino/bar full of hookers.

Tomas: Our go-to cab driver. Speaks English alright and is super nice and helpful. Always wears a New York Yankees ballcap.

Andrew: A poker player who lives further in the city. He has a penthouse to himself with the sickest view of San Jose (pics coming eventually). Inside he is installing a stripper pole for his Costa Rican ex-stripper slam piece that I'm not sure is or is not his girlfriend, lol.

I could write about a few more things, but I'll save them for later since it's 5am and I need to get to bed. Pics and stories coming soon :)

Bears love pizza

There's this pizza place in Whistler called Fat Tony's. It's pretty delicious. It's the standard late night spot, open 'til 3am, so you can get your grub on after the bars close. If you're ever here get the nacho pizza, so amazing!

So good, in fact, that bears stop in occasionally for a bite.

Click here for video

2/4 and 3/6, Largest Losing Day Ever!

When playing poker, one of the most important things a person can do is move up in stakes. If you're good enough to beat the next level, the amount of money that you will win increases exponentially. Anyone who wants to make a ton of money playing poker should move up the stakes ladder as soon as they are good enough to beat that level and are financially capable.

The bad thing about this is variance. Variance is the difference between your short term results and your long term expectation. On any given day, you can get all of the money in as a substantial favorite and still manage to lose every hand. If this happens to you at the highest stakes you play as soon as you move up, well, it's painful.

I just moved up to 3/6 and 2/4 not long ago, and yesterday I ran into a massive and insanely aggressive fish at 2/4 (3-betting me 40% and barreling relentlessly). I had started the day up about $400, but that was all about to change. As this guy proceeded to run hot, cooler me, 2 outer me, win every flip, my bankroll takes the biggest nose dive I've ever seen. There's something funny that my roommate and I have talked about before in regards to poker: If you're having a losing day, there is a point at which you lose so much money, any amount you lose after that point becomes irrelevant. For example, if you're stuck $2700, you don't really give a shit if you lose $800 more.

Poker is brutal.

A Night Out in Whistler

So it's been awhile since I've blogged, but I figure since it was the end of the month I ought to give everyone an update. Story time (This may be a bad idea and I'm probably going to look like an asshole):

So last night we go out. I learn about this new shot called A Grenade. Pretty cool concept and the shot, when I describe it, will sound terrible, but it's actually surprisingly good. You take 2 shot glasses (1 with tequila, 1 with Jager) and a glass filled 1/2 way with redbull and you wedge the 2 shot glasses at the top of the glass of redbull. When you pull the shot of tequila out (aka, pulling the pin) you shoot it and the shot of Jager drops into the rebull, voila, Jagerbomb.

Here's a pic of a grenade:

I was so hungry at the end of the night I went to a place called Fat Tony's Pizza and asked for Nacho Pizza (best pizza ever), they said they only had veggie. "I hate veggie pizza, whatever, gimme a slice of veggie". Took a bite while the girl was giving me my change and said "Gross. Why did I even buy this", and threw the whole slice in the garbage in front of her as I took my change, lol. I'm an idiot.

After getting home at 3am, I decided to play poker and somehow managed to make $1,200.

Oh, also, at dinner the next night with friends I mentioned that I could have gone home with this girl if I hadn't been cock-blocked, turns out the guy she was supposed to be dating was at dinner with us. God, I'm retarded. At least people get to laugh at my stupidity.

Knock Knock

So Nick and I are playing poker and then all of a sudden...

*KNOCK KNOCK*

someone is knocking on our door. Weird, we don't really know anybody here. Who would be knocking on our door. I look through the peep hole and there is a random girl in a hoodie looking pretty rough. I open the door.

Me: Hey.
Girl: Hey.
Me: Can I help you?
Girl: Umm...I...smell marijuana.
Me: *wtf*...do you now?
Girl: Umm...yeah.
Me: Umm...nope.
Girl: No?
Me: No.

slowly close door.

Just because you smell pot in the hallway doesn't mean that you can knock on a random door hoping to score free weed. And if you do smell it, and you just HAVE TO knock, be sure and knock on the right door. Have people lost their minds?

Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard

If you play online poker cash games, then you should be aware of a website called pokertableratings.com. Pokertableratings is a tracking site that keeps a record of almost every online poker player on the internet and is a useful tool when looking up your opponents to see their stats. It's also a sort of poker community with blogs, forums, news articles, and something called the Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard.

The Ultimate Grinder Leaderboard shows what players are making the most money at all possible stakes online. Every month it resets. If you end the month at the top of the leaderboard you earn a badge on your player page showing the world that you were the best player at your stakes for that month. Here's an example (click to enlarge):



What does this mean? It means that out of all the major online poker sites in the world (Full Tilt, Pokerstars, Merge, Cake, iPoker, Party Poker, UB, AP, and Bodog) you won more money than ANYONE IN THE WORLD for that month at whatever stakes you were playing.

I stated on facebook that I was going to try and earn the UGL Badge for $.25/$.50 this month. It would be pretty cool, I think, to be considered the #1 $50nl player in the world :)

I'll keep everyone posted on how I'm doing. So far I've earned $1,176 at $50nl which puts me in 8th place so far. The average UGL winner for $50nl earns about $5,750 for the month. If I can maintain this pace then I should earn about $7,000. We'll see how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Learning about a new beer

So last week Nick and I go down to the hot tub at our lodge after a long day of poker. Super important to remember and take it easy after playing poker all day. Nick grabs the case of beer he bought earlier and we head out the door.

Get to the hot tub. No good lookin' girls. Oh, Whistler, why do I even hope anymore? We crack open some beer. Molson something-or-anothers. Not the regular Molson Canadians anyway. There are some other people in the hot tub drinking Kokanees. We're just sippin' away, hangin out, meeting new people. Everything's fun. We just have 2 or 3 beers and head back up to the apartment and play some more poker.

NEXT WEEK...

Nick buys some beer, same beer as last time, our trusty Molson-whatevers, we are thinking of hitting up the hot tub before the lodge closes it down. Then I hear Nick, "dude, are you serious"

Me: what?
Nick: This beer is non-alcoholic
Me: What!? Are you for real?

On the side of the can it says "MOLSON EXEL" and then ".5% ALCOHOL", but the decimal is insanely small compared to the number. Canadian beer is standard 5% alcohol. Why would we even look for the decimal?

So these people in the hot tub must have thought we were either recovering alcoholics or just incredibly lame. Can you imagine if I had asked them if they wanted to shotgun a beer with us? God, we are retarded.

Cons: Bought non-alcoholic beer, looked like idiots
Pros: Can pound beers while i play poker all day and not worry about it hindering my play. Haha, syke, there are no pros. Sigh.

Milk Jugs*

So my roommate Nick and I drink a lot of milk. We literally had FIVE 1-gallon jugs of milk in our fridge the other day. I've told Nick (who is working out religiously) about the importance of the quality of protein from milk, eggs, tuna, and chicken since he is trying to put on as much muscle as possible while here in Whistler.

So why am i telling you all this? I'll get to that. Let me start off by saying that occasionally I've see Nick, sitting in front of his computer, with a gallon of milk just chillin' on the floor that he's drinkin' on. He's obviously dedicated to getting the protein he needs in order to put on muscle. Good job Nick.

So what happens later?

He gets a mega-donkey at 25/50. What is 25/50 all the non-poker players are wondering? Well, if you don't play poker, "blinds" are the money each player has to post in order to play a hand, in this case each player will take turns posting $25 and $50. A standard all-in pot at 25/50 where both players have bought in for 100 big blinds is $10,000. I've seen massive $40,000 pots at these stakes.

Yeah, it's an expensive game. The next level is $50/$100 and is considered "nosebleed stakes".

When a bad player wants to play you at $25/$50 you absolutely DO NOT WANT TO GIVE HIM ANY REASON TO LEAVE!!! Nick's winrate is around 25 big blinds per 100 hands and most players can generally play 150-200 hands per hour heads up online. What does that mean? That means a typical opponent at $25/$50 is losing $1,875-$2,500 PER HOUR to Nick. You DO NOT want him to leave, no matter what!!! If your phone rings, ignore it. If your dog is eating the furniture, let it happen. If the doorbell buzzes, they can come back later.

...and if you have to take a piss, don't ask the guy to wait on you, he might leave, just grab the empty milk jug at your feet and piss away.

Turns out that throughout the day Nick had pissed in this milk jug several times as I was casually listening to Primus, clicking away on my mouse, playing online poker, completely clueless that my roommate was taking a whiz in our living room and there was a half full gallon of urine just chillin' on the floor.

This level of dedication is what serparates the soon-to-be nosebleed grinders from the small/midstakes players. I think. I wonder if my friend Caleb, who is also a pro poker player and is married, I wonder if his wife would understand if he just had to piss in a drink container in the living room, lol. We'll never know.

A Post About Poker, ldo

This blog is called "the online poker life..." right?

So why haven't I posted about poker? Because I thought the other posts would be more entertaining? Partly, yes. But truthfully, I was kind of embarrassed about my results.

Confession time...

Before Black Friday (the day online poker was shutdown in the US), I was killing it. I had played nearly 1,100 hours and over 250,000 hands of online poker and was winning at a rate that would embarrass other heads up players at my stakes.

So what happens when I get to Canada...

I lose. And lose some more. Then I win...but then I lose again. Win. Lose. Win. Lose. After a week of (luckily) breaking even I realize things aren't good.

This is not good.

Drastic measures must be taken.

I wake up, watch a 1 hour training video on CardRunners, review all my hand histories, then I play. 10-12 hours per day, constantly making mental notes of the situations that give me the most trouble and thinking how I can better adjust. Nick watches me play and lets me know what adjustments he thinks I should be making. Halfway through the day I stop and watch Nick play for 30min-1hour or so and I take more mental notes, then I keep playing until I'm exhausted, I climb into bed, watch another CardRunners video and review hands...rinse and repeat.

I've been doing this for about 6 days now. AND I'M BACK BABY!!!

Not only do I feel I'm back to where I was previously, I feel even better.

This trip is gonna be epic. I've ran terrible the last 3 days and still managed to clear nearly $2,000 playing $.25/$.50, $.50/$1, and some $1/$2. The original goal was to make $60,000 in 6 months, but I'm pretty sure $60,000 is a joke at this rate. Cleared $120/hour today and am thinking this should be the normal winrate within two months.

Big thanks to TC the MFCEO (Nick, my roommate) for helping me with my leaks and another big thanks to my staker for allowing me to use his CardRunners account for a week.

Alright girls and boys, I'm off to bed.

First Big Night Out in Whistler

So after having two decently strong sessions, I decide to go out in Whistler.

This was a pretty eventful night.

First, I call up the girl who I met at the visitor center. She meets up and we head to the village to watch Hot Hot Heat, a band who's here for Kokanee's Crankworx Mountain Bike Festival. I have my first Kokanee and my first poutine (poutine is french fries, cheese curds, and gravy...pretty tasty when you're drunk).

From the show we make our way to Cinnamon Bear, one of the only bars in Whistler that has pool tables (YESSS!). For anyone who doesn't know me well, a little background information: I don't want to toot my own horn, but I finished 4th in the Southeastern United States Amateur 9-Ball Tour back in the day. That's not spectacular or anything, but your average local bar room hustler IS GONNA GET F'N SPANKED, that's all I'm saying.

There I proceed to make friends with all the pool players, Martin, James, Danielle (a cute girl from the UK), Chris who runs weekly tourneys.

The girl I originally came with gets smashed, puts her backpack (with wine bottle in it) on a chair and wanders off. Moments later all money is missing out of her backpack ($150), she realizes this after someone (Danielle) accidentally knocks over the chair the backpack was on. Wine bottle busts and is all over the floor. Girl is furious. Goes ape-shit. Flips out on everyone. Leaves.

Danielle and I go to a club (Garfinkles). Club doesn't accept credit cards. UK Danielle buys my drinks (yayyy, i owe her). Danielle meets some other guy and wanders off (I don't owe her anymore, lol).

I leave Garfinkles and meet some girls from Vancouver. They invite me to a late night poutine stand. Poutine stand doesn't accept credit cards. Vancouver girl buys me poutine (yayyy!). I hang out with Vancouver girl until 5am, she says I have to visit her in Vancouver, I leave.

Walking 5 minutes back to Tantalus Lodge, the sun is up, I'm in the middle of the village, I look to my right, and see AN F'ING BEAR!!!! 20 feet away, on the side walk, in the middle of the damn village, with nobody around, there is a massive black bear, A BIG ONE!!! The distance from the 3-point line to the hoop, that's how close this black bear was. It seemed somewhat disinterested in me, but I decide that I should probably try and scare it off to discourage it from coming any closer, so I clap my hands and make loud obnoxious retarded noises at it and sound like a total idiot and it immediately runs off...black bears are pussies.

I of course felt like a bad ass, but constantly look behind me the entire rest of the way home.

Good first big night out in Whistler. I knew I brought my iPhone out for a reason tonight. Here are some snapshots of the bear!

OMG SGC

As I've said previously, Whistler is the Mecca of downhill mountain biking. That's AWESOME...sort of.

"But Chris, how is that not awesome?" you ask.

There's something called Summer Gravity Camp (SGC). If you're between the ages of 11 and 18 years old, you have a $5,000+ downhill mountain bike, and your parents are willing to cough up $2,500 for the program, then you get to downhill mountain bike in Whistler for a week being coached by the sickest pros in downhill mountain biking...AWESOME RIGHT!!??

NO.

Not when Tantalus Lodge, my home in Whistler, is where all these high energy, rich, spoiled, 11 through 18-year-old kids are staying for 3 weeks.

For 3 weeks we have to deal with these little bastards running around, unsupervised, terrorizing the Tantalus Lodge.

Half the time we're playing poker it's like earthquakes are happening in the rooms above us. Any day now the ceiling is going to cave in. Sometimes after playing poker all day, we wanna go down to the hot tub and relax, have a beer, maybe see if there's a 1-percenter hanging out (as I mentioned before, 99% of the girls in Whistler are less than attractive). But what happens when we arrive at the hot tub? There are twenty 14-year-old kids sitting around in silence (most of them anyway). Most of them are actually alright, Oooooh, except that one kid who is obviously the cool kid in the group. You know the one that won't shut the hell up, the one who you swear might be the most annoying child on the planet and he's obviously here because his parents think it's worth it to spend $2,500 just to get him the hell out of their house. Oh, Colt McClellan, you little snot-nosed punk.

Colt McClellan was that kid. A blonde haired, 100-pound 16/17-year-old, mountain biker who looked more like a 14-year-old girl. Think Taylor Hanson.

I'd like to think I'm above verbally bashing a kid in front of his friends, but Colt was pushin' it. Trying to make the most of a crappy situation, Nick and I say "screw it" and decide to chill in the hot tub anyway. When asking about SGC and downhill mountain biking in general every kid was cool and helpful, except for Colt (nice name btw).

Colt: Have you ever downhill mountain biked before?
Me: No, the only extreme sports I've done are snowboarding and a lot of skateboarding when I was younger.
Colt: Skateboarding's for pussies
Me: *lol, this is gonna be a swell time in the hot tub*
Nick: Have you ever done any motocross?
Colt: pffff, motocross isn't nearly as dangerous as downhill mountain biking.
Nick: Orly? The steel rod holding my femur in place says differently.
Colt: In mountain biking when you do a jump you go long and not high, it's definitely more dangerous.
Nick: I've done 110' jumps on a dirt bike. How far have you gone on a mountain bike?
Colt: About 50'. But you have to go insane fast to hit 50' on a mountain bike.
Nick: How fast do you think you have to go to hit 110' on a dirt bike?
Colt: It's not the same. Trust me it's a lot more dangerous.

About every 10 minutes Colt would chime in to explain how he was the sickest downhill mountain biker, how he totally hit on some girl in the sauna, how he liked the taste of beer (lol).

Man, I can't wait for SGC to be over. For now, enjoy this video of last year's Summer Gravity Camp

Stressful Times

So the first 7 days in Whistler have come and gone and poker is kicking my butt...and by kicking my butt I mean I'm not clearing the standard amount of money I've grown accustomed to, not even close!

Before I was sitting $50nl-$200nl heads up cash games and occasionally taking shots at $400nl. So, what do I do when I get to Whistler? Immediately multi-table $400nl. Why not, I was DESTROYING $200nl and beating the crap out of $400nl whenever I took shots at it...so why shouldn't I start at $400nl? ...maybe because I hadn't played online in nearly 2 months due to Black Friday and I was way out of practice.

So what happened? I immediately make $1,000 only to run several buyins below EV that evening and end up in the hole a pretty fair amount. Upon realizing that I've been sitting on the bench ice cold for 2 months and I'm in no position to sit $400nl, I immediately move down to my normal games and squeak out a small profit for the week.

Now, after a week of playing and getting unstuck I'm definitely back at the $60-$70/hour level again and will probably be moving up to $2/$4 by next month and hopefully clearing $100+/hour.

Nick has had better luck. Playing $400nl-$5,000nl heads up cash games, Nick has cleared almost $25,000 in less than 7 days...I should sweat his games more.

GOALS:

Chris
1) $10,000+/month (July excluded since all of our sites aren't funded yet)
2) Run 4 miles per day, lift 6 days per week, eat uber healthy

Nick
1) Clear $100,000 in one month
2) Lift, eat healthy.

I'll try and post some pictures soon!

First Week in Whistler

So it's been almost a week now and things are starting to come together.

Some things I've learned about Whistler:

1) It is not uncommon to drill a bear while flying downhill on your mountain bike...people literally crash into bears here. AWESOME!

2) 99% of the girls here are unattractive...not awesome. The few girls that are hot have boyfriends (of course).

3) The food hear tastes amazing and costs a fortune. $17 for my burger combo at Splitz. I'm going to be surviving on PB&J for awhile.

4) Weather and scenery are incredible!

5) There is a full moon rave every full moon.

6) There are no fat people in Whistler. Not even close.

7) Bud Light is considered a pussy beer here. All Canadian beers are 5% alcohol or more. Bud Light is less than 5% and has no flavor. If you are caught drinking Bud Light you will be made fun of. When I asked one girl what was worse, drinking a bud light or drinking a raspberry mojito, she said it was too close to decide.

8) Zipline here is top 5 in the world and looks insane!

9) Whistler has a beastly disc golf course (if you're into disc golf).

10) There are an infinite number of hiking and mountain biking trails.

11) Crankworx is next week. Week long freestyle/slopestyle mountain biking bash that is going to rock so hard! Look up crankworx vids on youtube.

12) Whistler is the downhill mountain biking capital of the world. It's easily the Mecca of big air mountain biking.

13) Everyone here gets around via bike and/or skateboard (wish i was here 10 years earlier).

14) Awesome paragliding in Pemberton (just down the road)

15 Top-notch bouldering and rock climbing in Squamish (not far at all)

There are a ton of other things, but what it basically boils down to is Whistler is awesome and there a ton of things to do here.

Cons: it's hard to find good looking single chicks and it's expensive.

Border Patrol

I'm not sure how it is for most people, but entering Canada as a professional online poker player is not fun.

This is Canada's primary concern: You have to leave America in order to make a living...you have the ability to make tons of money while in Canada. You have no reason to come back to the states other than to see family. How do they know you don't just plan on disappearing into Canada for longer than 6 months (the maximum amount of time you're allowed to stay on a tourist visa)? It also kinda looks bad when everything you own is in the back of your truck.

Rachel (250lb pissed off black woman, aka Border Patrol Rottweiler) was NOT happy to see us!

Rachel: So what you're telling me is that you're leaving America to make a living in Canada?
Me: Yes
Rachel: That you've packed up everything you own and are moving here?
Me: Not "everything". And we're only staying for 6 months.
Rachel: Really? What ties do you have to the US?
Me: Umm...my parents and friends all live here.
Rachel: So? Who cares? Do you have a mortgage?
Me: No
Rachel: a lease?
Me: No
Rachel: a wife?
Me: No
Rachel: So what you're saying is you're coming to live in Canada in order to make money because they won't let you in the US and you have no reason to come back?
Me: Um, I have a gym membership that's currently frozen until I get back (she didn't find this funny AT ALL).
Rachel: Are you serious? *Staring at me like I'm retarded* Are you in school?
Me: I just graduated (I thought it was easier to say this than explain I have one online class left. BIG MISTAKE).
Rachel: We searched your car and found a text book in your grey bin. What do you need a text book for if you've graduated?
Me: Ummmm...uh...I'm taking an online class. Technically I'm ABOUT to graduate.
Rachel: Oh, so you're moving to Canada to make a living, no reason to return to the US (other than my gym membership Rach! C'mon!), and you're a liar! Do you really think I'm gonna let you into Canada?
Me: ...I hope so.

After about 2 1/2 hours of this we finally convince Rachel that we're worthy of Canada.

In the end I thanked her for letting us in and she gave me a smile as if to say "you're lucky I'm not a COMPLETE bitch or I'd send your happy ass back across the border. I'm pretty sure we were getting in all along and she just wanted to light a fire under our asses for kicks. She wasn't so bad. Nick's still convinced she's the anti-christ.

So long gay boys!

Apparently, some people find what I'm doing interesting, so they've suggested that I start blogging about it.

What am I doing exactly? For anyone who doesn't know, I've been playing online poker as my primary source of income for almost 2 years now. On April 15th, 2011 the US Department of Justice decided to shutdown online poker within the United States. The largest online poker sites were shutdown to American players and I could no longer make money playing online poker in the land of the free :(

So what do I do? Get a real job working 9-5 making ~$45,000 per year?

NO WAY JOSE!!! I put all my stuff in a big-ass truck and hightail it to Whistler, BC baby!!!

Beautiful, amazing, incredible, EXPENSIVE Whistler. For those who don't know, Whistler is similar to Aspen in the United States.

So, here's the plan: pack, drive 49 hours to Whistler with my friend Nick (also an online poker pro), see America by truck, arrive in Whistler and set up a bank account, set up a phone, find a place to live, open online poker accounts at European websites, continue to make a living, learn to downhill mountain bike (Whistler is considered THE BEST place in the world for downhill mountain biking), snowboard, meet new people, live an amazing life!

I'm so lucky to have this opportunity and I'm gonna try my best to keep you guys posted.

So in the words of Mr. Chow, "so long gay boys!" I'm going to Canada.