What A Year (Part 2)

After returning home from Europe, about 2 weeks later we were flying back there again. This time we were to be based in Skopje, Macedonia for a few weeks to be on the ground for the preparation of MiMa's launch. We spent most of our time in Skopje and got to visit Lake Ochrid and it's neighbouring towns. We did enter Albania for less than 30 minutes as well. Our visit coincided with cherry season and we ate 11kgs of it over the course of our stay. It has been a while that I was in a 9-5 work environment, and I have not worked so hard since I was back in sales in 2001. We enjoyed the trip, but it taught me to be thankful for my nomadic, free-and-easy poker lifestyle. 

Beautiful Lake Ochrid

Cherry lover's paradise

Our first major excursion out of Macedonia was a trip to the southern town of Gevgelija where they had a poker room. It was a terrible Є1/2 game with nits and super short stacks. But at least I got my 25th country on my poker list. The next day we hopped over the border to Thessaloniki, Greece (26th) where I played in a pretty decent tournament. I made day 2 in the main but did not make the money. It was a really short trip and I barely got to see Greece at all, but we did have a really memorable meal together with some colleagues before we left. 

Greek seafood and gyros are pretty good

Macedonia is in the middle of the Balkans. You've got Albania to the West, Kosovo to the North, Bulgaria to the East and Greece to the South. If you have the time, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia are not too far away. But because I had to work on weekdays the only time we can travel was on weekends. Wasn't looking forward to driving half the time on a weekend trip, instead we elected to fly to Budapest, Hungary (27th) for a weekend trip.

Budapest Parliament building at night

Budapest is one beautiful city. Probably one of the most underated European destinations in my opinion. Prices were reasonable, beautiful architecture, complex cultural diversity and history, and pretty good food. I think this was our favourite destination of this adventure. The city is pretty in the day, but at night it lights up wonderfully as well. I loved my trip to Rome, and it was amazing, and you cannot compete with it's history. But if you're not a history buff, and want a European adventure with less crowds, lower prices, think Budapest. I did play poker there and there was a nice poker room with 10+ tables about 15 minutes by train from the city. But after playing a few rounds I realised that the rake was 7% capped at a crazy 100bb. 

Mind you all this and we are still in June. Then before heading home, we stopped by Sofia, Bulgaria (28th) in early July. Sofia had a decent casino with multiple tables and reasonable rake. The city is actually steeped in history and diversity. Somehow we felt the people were not very friendly and are sometimes outright rude. I am not sure if race played a part but even in some relatively touristy places we did not feel welcomed. Maybe not many people spoke English and they have their practices that we did not know, for example at the market, you are not allowed to touch the produce, whereas everywhere else we've been, you can touch and select which ones you want. On our last few days we went on a 5-hour hike to see waterfalls and a lake and it was amazing but super tiring. 

Alexander Nevsky cathedral

Before the end of July we made it to APT Danang, Vietnam. Managed a triple ITM, even chip led main event 1C, but disappointing finishes overall. I was determined to do better and booked to play the full Poker Dream Genting series. Even though it is held in my home country, I have only played one event before this. It started really rough for me, bricking everything for the first 3 days. Finally on my third bullet on the Deepstack I ran deep and finished 3rd. I had a huge flip when it was 3 left with KT vs A8. Would have been very different if I won that. Then I followed that up in my next event finishing also 3rd in the High Roller. To finish 3rd in this star studded final table was a great and humbling experience. I capped the series with nearly a 3rd final table finishing 10th in the HR Mystery Bounty. 

Winning session at cash games in Genting

Visited Danang twice this year (not counting Hoian) 

As great the series was, it was also the same time I lost my job at MiMa. Till today I still don't know what I actually did to deserve it as I devoted my time, energy, blood, sweat and literally tears to this company. At the end I still wish them all the best and would love to see them succeed. Thanks for the opportunity, experience and memories. To be continued in Part 3....