Monday 4 July 2011

New Condo in Bangkok + Looking Forward to WCOOP

It's been over a month since I made the switch from living in hotels, as I have been doing since December 2010, to actually having a place to call home. I got a 1 year lease on a condo in central Bangkok. I took a little video to give you guys a tour of the place:



I had to view a ton of places before I found something I liked. I wanted a place that was close enough to tons of good restaurants and to the BTS sky train station, yet quiet and peaceful enough to relax. I wanted a proper high pressure overhead shower, not those stupid bathtubs with shower attachment. I wanted a north-facing apartment so it doesn't have the sun beating on it the whole day. I wanted a gym and a long swimming pool so that I can start getting some exercise.

Well I eventually got something that ticked all the boxes, so I'm pretty happy.

The condo is brand new, so everything is very modern and clean and shiney! The location is great, right in the heart of Bangkok, very close to the Asoke BTS sky train stop and Sukhumvit MRT underground stop,but just far enough away that it's peaceful and quiet and no stupid suit salesmen, tuk-tuk drivers and massage girls hassling the white people. There's also a free tuk-tuk service that comes with the condo where they will drive you to the nearby locations. So awesome.

Another huge plus is that a 7-Eleven opened up next door to this building. 7-Eleven in Thailand is the stone cold nuts. They sell a great range of products and everything is the same price that it is in a big supermarket.

You can also pay all of your electricity, Internet, mobile phone, etc., etc. bills at 7-Eleven. Since most Thai people don't have a bank account or credit card, the standard way for people to pay their bills is by taking it to 7-Eleven and paying by cash.

I love the 25 Baht (~50 pence / ~80 cents) little fresh microwavable snacks they sell. Things like sweet chicken with black sticky rice, teriyaki burgers, charcol chicken with thai spicy sauce, seaweed chicken rolls, fried bbq chicken with honey, drooooool, they are all delicious. So useful when I'm playing online and feel a little hungry, to just stick one of those in the microwave and omnomnom.

A good tip for anyone that is travelling in Thailand and is sweating their ass off in the 40c heat is to dive into your nearest 7-Eleven. They all ice cold air conditioning!

I was able to arrange to have the Internet set up ready for me moving into my condo, which was a huge bonus. The Internet in Thailand can be sketchy at times, just like the power. It's normally during one of the big thunderstorms that it cuts out for a minute. So, I hacked my T-mobile USB modem to take a local SIM card, which I pay 129 Baht (about $4USD) per month for 100MB 3G usage, to use as a backup. Failing that I have a 3rd option, to broadcast a wifi network from my HTC phone which has a SIM card for another Thai network. Making sure that you can finish your hands or tournaments when there is an internet or power outage is crucial for any serious poker player.

I've been able to replace the room service that I got used to when living in hotels with ChefsXP which is a delivery service in Bangkok where they bring you food from any of the good restaurants (about 80 to chose from) on a motorbike super fast for zero markup. I love it! Unfortunately all the restaurants close around 10:30pm, but there is 24 hour McDonalds and Subway and both deliver.

I got my tourist visa extended to 90 days recently so don't have to step foot out of the country until August 1st. I'm thinking about going to Macau for a couple of nights and playing some small donkaments at PokerStars Macau around that time. Seems a better idea that flying out and back into Bangkok on the same day just for the sake of getting my passport stamped.

Later in August, between the 22nd and 28th, is the PokerStars APPT Queenstown Snowfest in New Zealand. After learning to snowboard last year then failing to make it to EPT Snowfest in Austria, I'd sure like to attend this.

Queenstown is really tricky and very expensive to get to from Bangkok, it would be quicker, easier and cheaper for me to fly back to Scotland, but hopefully I can figure something out.

I'm committed to playing 1 more PokerStars tour event of a decent size before November and this looks like it will be my best option.

Right after Snowfest is the World Championship of Online Poker, better known as the WCOOP, on PokerStars.

So I will be spending the first 3 weeks of September playing in and no doubt hosting a bunch of these events. Please can I improve upon the 0 for 17 performance in this years f*&%ing SCOOP? I sure hope so. My ambitions at the start of this year included winning a WCOOP bracelet. Right now I'll be happy for one semi decent score!

Theres a whole load of Omahahaha games scheduled that I can't wait to play. I've already marked out the events that I will play for sure, then work in some more events around these.

05 September (Monday)
11:00 ET - WCOOP-04: $320 PL Omaha
07 September (Wednesday)
06:00 ET - WCOOP-10: $265 PL Omaha (Knockout)
08 September (Thursday)
06:00 ET - WCOOP-13: $215 PL Omaha H/L (6-Max, 1R1A)
09 September (Friday)
11:00 ET - WCOOP-16: $215 PL Omaha (6-Max)
12 September (Monday)
17:00 ET - WCOOP-25: $215 PL Omaha (Turbo, 1R1A)

14 September (Wednesday)
06:00 ET - WCOOP-29: $265 NL Omaha H/L (Knockout)

15 September (Thursday)
11:00 ET - WCOOP-33: $320 PL Omaha (6-Max, 1R1A)

16 September (Friday)
14:00 ET - WCOOP-36: $530 FL Omaha H/L

21 September (Wednesday)
14:00 ET - WCOOP-51: $320 PL Omaha H/L

22 September (Thursday)
14:00 ET - WCOOP-54: $2,100 PL Omaha (6-Max)

23 September (Friday)
17:00 ET - WCOOP-57: $215 NL Omaha H/L (10-Min Levels)

24 September (Saturday)
10:00 ET - WCOOP-58: $530 PL Omaha (Heads-Up)


Thanks to Jared Tendler who sent me a copy of his new book, that he authored along side Barry Carter titled 'The Mental Game of Poker'. This is some great reading for anyone that wants to get their head right for playing poker professionally. I wish I wasn't such a slow reader so that I'd have gotten through more of the book by now, but what I have read so far has been very eye opening and helpful. I will let you guys know my thoughts about the book in more detail once I've read the whole thing.

8 comments:

  1. New place mate. Queenstown is superb btw and New Zealand in general is just awesome. If you go there you could prolly squeeze a 3-4 wk trip of both island and see what most of NZ has to offer. You should get the Grey Hound bus which will sort you out with some gd deals although they will put you up in dooms which i know prolly aint your thing. Brilliant experience thou and you should do it imo. gl fish. I'll be back in Thai myself in under 2 months!

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  2. Amatay- Buses? Dorms? Come on son, get the fuck outta here with that bullshit.

    I'm only going for the week for the poker and snowboarding, then back to the grind. I dont have a whole moth to piss about travelling from place to place unfortuantely

    Sounds like I'll be busy with WCOOP when you're in Thailand. Well for the first 3 weeks of sept anyways.

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  3. Ha, you're still a bender then? lol @ you grinding. I think you play less poker than me don't ya fish, if thats even possible? How much are those mugs at Stars bankrolling for your WCOOP. At least it can't be as bad as your recent attempt at the SCOOP. gl anyways, hopefully you can get some deep runs going :) x x

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  4. Queenstown for APPT and stay for the Rugby World Cup after! Dunno how you can't!

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  5. I don't like Rugby, it's up there with Cricket in the category of 'English Sports I Don't Give A Fuck About'

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  6. Hi, just curious how much baht is that condo cost? Thinking of travelling and trying to get as much info as I can.

    Thanks alot :)

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  7. First of all nice blog! Will definitely add it to my reader!

    Googled images for Jared Tendlers book The Mental Game of Poker and found the one you have used in this blog post. Thought I would use it in a blog post on my Swedish website http://www.pokerskull.com where one of the bloggers wrote about the book. Just let me know if it's not ok with you. Will link the pic to your blog...

    Thanks!

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