What Happened in March 2021

In late February four women flew into Cambodia via private jet. They were supposed to be quarantined for 14 days but somehow they bribed the guard and escaped. They went around partying and drinking but turns out some if not all of them were Covid-19 positive. Since then they have caused an outbreak of more than 2,000 cases and 9 deaths. I know this number isn't huge compared to other countries, but so far Cambodia has managed to stave off the pandemic. The actions and decisions of four selfish women and a corrupt guard have and will cause much damage to the country and its people. My last poker game happened to be on the 18th of February. 

Since I did not play one hand of poker in the whole of March, I had to do something else to fill my day and also make ends meet. Thankfully I got more and more serious into Cryptocurrency recently. I truly believe right now it is a golden opportunity to make some serious money. Exactly two years ago Bitcoin was less than $4000. Today it is touching distance from $60000. During that time the world was battling COVID-19, most businesses were suffering, people lost jobs, property market tanked, but at the same time the crypto market grew. Whilst a 15x growth in two years is impressive, some Altcoins have higher gains than that in a matter of weeks. If you know where to look, opportunities abound. If you're still not involved in crypto you should be. There are so many reasons everyone should put at least some of their money into crypto. If you want to know more please ask, I would be happy to share with you what I know.

Because of the recent outbreak, I spent most of the month at home only going out to get groceries. I couldn't go out to play football like I used to. Instead I had a lot of time in the kitchen cooking up new recipes. However in order to combat weight gain I have been on a 15-hour intermittent fasting schedule. In spite of the cakes, cookies, biscuits, and meat heavy meals I have actually managed to lose a little weight.

Southern Style drop biscuits with cheese and garlic

Malaysian Bak Kut Teh

Basque Burnt Cheesecake

I do miss poker and hope I can get back to a regular game soon, but with how crypto is going and the outbreak with no end in sight, and I don't enjoy playing online poker, it might be a while before I can call myself a full time poker player. 

Cutthroat Poker Industry?

Of all my blog posts since 2015, this is the one that I might regret writing as some of my friends are still involved in the companies that I am writing about. However the purpose of this blog is to tell the real life journey of an aspiring poker player, trying to make a living however I can, and the experiences I had along the way. I would be a hypocrite if I just shared the warm fuzzy stories and hid the ugly ones. 

I have been an affiliate of many poker companies over the years, including PokerStars, FullTilt, Bet365 and Natural8. I joined Natural8 in 2016. At the height of my involvement I recruited 300+ players. I still remember meeting one of their representatives at a Macau casino to collect their All-in buttons and Dealer buttons which I put to use at two Hong Kong live poker clubs. Me and my friend proudly wore their badge at tournaments and my friend made the final table. Designed and printed business cards that I distributed wherever I played live poker. I even wrote 7 related articles on my blog. (now removed) I got active again recently prior to the WSOP 2019 but I just found out that my affiliate account was deleted in February 2021, even though I was still actively promoting the site. I guess I am upset and hurt by that decision after all my effort. Kudos though to their affiliate staff who wrote me a beautiful email and was very diplomatic in responding to my disappointment. I never made a lot of money from doing it but it was still nice to be able to check my players' progress from time to time and the occasional commission check here and there. To remove me completely like that for me feels really cutthroat. Just a comparison, I joined PokerStrategy.com as an affiliate in 2009, bringing them 1371 players. I logged into my affiliate account before writing this post and my account is still there, everything intact. 

In 2018 Upoker entered the poker industry basically a copy cat of PPPoker but was struggling to gain any traction. They offered me a position as their consultant and thanks to me, I came up with the idea of merging with an established poker union (AU) that was run by my friends. About a month after their agreement was signed, my services was no longer required even though I was promised an account management role. I felt really sore about it because without my ideas and network, they would have disappeared like many poker apps that came and gone. Instead of what Upoker is today and how their business has continued to evolve since. But I comforted myself knowing that my friends are benefiting from that success because of me. 

The last story you guys know very well already so I won't repeat the same details. Basically me and my friend built a poker club from nothing into a successful business. We were in the profits on day 4 of operations and never looked back. At the peak of our success we were raking $70,000-80,000 a month consistently. Not bad for a one-table club. 3 months in my friend was almost forcibly removed from the business. I should have seen it coming as I was too after 9 months. He was smarter than me to sell his shares and got out on his own terms. 

Me taking a nap at the poker club

I don't know if Poker is a more cutthroat business than others but I have not had similar experiences in any other industries. Everyone knows each other in this tight knit community and yet I have heard many stories of betrayal, misunderstandings, hostile takeovers, unsportsmanlike competition. As one guy once said (and I am super paraphrasing here), "in poker, no one remains friends forever, but no one remains enemies forever either". For now I am grateful that these are now in my past and hopefully I won't need to get involved anymore in the future.