What A Year (Part 1)

You can check out the resolutions I made in January HERE. I started the year wanting to play as much poker as possible and also travel to experience playing all around the world and boy did I travel! On most trips I had my partner with me and I am sure 2023 will be hard to top. I am going to split this post into 3 parts as there's so much to share. 

First real experience of Morocco in Rabat

Tangier, Morocco

My least favourite city Casablanca, Morocco

Marrakesh, Morocco

I started my January still with Upoker as their Business Development guy in Morocco (my 21st country I've played poker in) of all places. Rabat, a surprisingly green city for North Africa. Tangier, where I got my Matt Damon / Jason Bourne fix, and some cash game action. Casablanca, my least favourite of the 4. And Marrakesh where I played the WSOP Circuit going 100% ITM rate for my first 3 events but bricked out the rest of the way. Highlight of the trip was meeting Lon McEachern (legendary WSOP commentator). Still on January I rounded up the month with a stop over in Rome, Italy (22nd) before heading home. 

Rome was amazing, I will return for sure

February we flew to Taipei for USOP's inaugural live series tournament. I did bubble the PLO KO with 7 bounties but didn't do well for the series. But there I parted ways with Upoker and joined MiMa Poker as their Business Development Director and later Team Pro representative. I spent a few weeks in March grinding cash games in Manila. Before that I was in Hong Kong and Macau to meet up with some friends and also play poker. 

Taipei, one of my partner's favourite

Hong Kong, gotta love it for it's food

Winning at Wynn, Macau

Manila used to be my go to poker city

April was our first Hanoi stop for 2023. It has become a norm that I would visit Hanoi at least 3 times a year. It is still one of my favourite tournament stops with action packed fields, great food at reasonable prices. I had two final tables finishing 4th in the PLO and 3rd in the Megastack event. Could have finished 2nd or better but couldn't win flips at the end. 

Hanoi's amazing food scene

In May we flew to Munich, Germany (23rd) to meet face to face with my bosses for the first time. It was hard to find a game in Munich. I had to join a Є20 tournament with some locals. Surprisingly I almost cashed as I finished 2 away from the money. I wasn't playing serious and was just jamming light trying to lose so I could go do some sightseeing. 

My favourite memory of Munich was this flight simulator

After a couple days of meetings, we took the train to Brussels, Belgium (24th) where I played some solid cash games there over multiple nights. Beautiful city with a vibrant cash game scene, probably my favorite poker country in Europe so far. From there we traveled to Bruges and was stationed in Namur where I played in the Pokerstars Belgium Challenge. I fell 5 spots away from the main event money. I could have folded my way to the money but I took a spot playing to win but failed. They had lots of cash games going but really tough Euros on most tables. It was also my first scooter experience as my hotel was far from the casino. Imagine me on a scooter at my age, going 25km per hour. Food in Belgium was amazing too, mussels, fries, waffles, chocolate, mmmm. My favourite day there was a day trip we took to Dinant, the birthplace of the saxophone. Gorgeous riverside town with rich history and culture. 

Brussels, Belgium, birthplace of Tin Tin the cartoon

I've always wanted to visit after watching the movie, In Bruges

Namur was a surprisingly fun town

We ended the trip with a rendezvous to Luxembourg. Trust me, I tried to find a poker game, but I couldn't. So far 7 countries in 5 months, most I have not been to before, and my year was just getting starting to get wilder. To be continued in part 2.... 

Luxumbourg, the city and the country