Life is good :)

Found this gem yesterday, thought it's one of the most hilarious things I've seen this year and finally not another stupid fake prank video.

"The gunfighter":

The Gunfighter from Eric Kissack on Vimeo.

0 votes

Introduction to Spin&Go tournaments(skip that if you know how they work)
When Spin&Go tournaments were introduced there was an enormous migration of recreational players from normal Sit&go tournaments to Spin&go format - it's a perfect format to attract that kind of players.
If you don't know how they work - each tournament is 3-max, winner-take-all, hyper turbo Sit&go with a random prize pool. Buy-ins range from $1 to $60, and each tournament has a randomly drawn prize pool that will award between two and 3,000 times your buy-in. The highest multiplies are obviously super rare (1 of 100,000 for the 3,000xbuy-in, even the 240x multiplier have a chance of just 5 out of 100,000).

The games are insanely fast, give a thrill of emotion through the random prize pool and that's what recreational players were looking for. Jackpot was hit by PokerStars.

The migration of fish
With the introduction of Spin&Go most of the recreational players moved to the format - nobody who plays for fun cares if the rake is a bit higher.
However, that had serious impact: killed some of the less popular formats (and made the most popular WAY less profitable) for regular players.

Of course, there was a ton of complaining due to two facts:
1. Spin&Go were considered unbeatable and unprofitable by almost every reg in the world
2. They were heavily marketed by PokerStars

Math behind Spin&Go'es
The rake is as following:

7% exact at the 1$ Spin&Go
6% for $3 and $7 Spin&Go
5% for $15, $30 and $60 buy-in

However, this accounts for the overall numbers and an INSANELY long-term play. Yes, you will be paying 5% rake at $60 Sping&Go, but 70,518 of 100,000 tournamnets will have $120 prize pool, which is literally one buy-in gone in the space.

What does that mean in reality?
Top payout levels (which are obviously the best, no need for explanation) are going to happen around 1 in 1000 games (0.1%). But also, in that 0.1%, due to payout structures, the total of 4.2% of all the money in the structure is distributed here. The absolute highest level is as following: 0.005% chance to hit it, while 2.1% of the money is distributed here. See where the problem lies? The rake doesn't seem INSANELY high, but the variance is - you can go for YEARS without hitting (yet alone winning) the highest multiplier game and that effectively increases how much you have to win regularly to even make money.

So, if you think you can get at least 5% ROI, then I guess you could expect results. However, if you are a marginal winner you can go for a year or longer and not make money if you don't hit the highest rolls on the prize pools.

Bighusla and his prop-bet
While every reg though spins are not beatable, there was one that took a prop-bet and showed some new light on the facts.
Bighusla started the propbet with the intention to (1) play 5,000 $30 Spin and Go's in a month, and (2) maintain a chip expected value ("cEV") of 8.5%. In the end he played 5,054 spin&go'es and ended up with a cEV of 8.8% (profit of almost $11,000).

His graph:


That got regs interested in the format.

The transition to Spin&Go
Let's be clear here: the format has INSANE variance and if you would like to play it professionally - expect to put an enormous amount of volume into the game. However, with all the rake calculations, one thing wasn't accounted for: the fish in the sea.
Basically, the games are hilariously easy, to the point where professional Hyper HU sng players are comparing them to post-Moneymaker level of cash games.

There are also players who are showing quite good results:
Image 1 (click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

Image 2 (click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

Image 3(click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

Image 4(click on the spoiler tag) :
+ Show Spoiler +

So, are the games beatable or not? For the moment, I would say yes, as shown by multiple sources all over the web.

However, I would say it's still too early to make decisive calls - the format is so young and the professionals are switching to play it as we speak. Like I said, it was considered for the format to be not-profitable for regulars in long-term and that view changed just recently. It might turn out that in 6 months the level of the games will rise so drastically they will no longer be any good (or will be marginally profitable) for long-term grinders and will serve the main purpose they were designed for.

I'm curious to see your point of view - I'm pretty sure there are some players learning the format with the intentions of making bank.

0 votes

Comments (9)

You can see this all around: poker players throwing money away at often ridiculous stuff, buying the most expensive and luxury things that they often get bored with within days. But even high stakes grinders often don't care or simply underestimate effects of having a proper poker grinding setup. No, I'm not talking only about buying a fast desktop computer and 2* 30"Dell Monitor that covers playing on 40 titled tables at once; I will try to talk about this as well, but first I would like to focus on something that's been bothering myself lately: a comfortable chair.

It might sound ridiculous, but I would argue this is one of the most important parts of every poker setup, especially for players that tend to spend 8-10 hours, or even more, per day in front of their computer. A good chair will make not only your posture correct ( which will result in less health problems in few years ), relief back pain during long session, but will simply make you win more - the more comfortable you are, the longer you can sustain focus and play your "A" game. It's as simple as that.

There is quite a big choice of good ergonomic chairs on the market, and as I spent 3 full days riding around and trying various chairs to have a good comparison, I will try to give my own opinion on the most worthwhile ones.

Order of reviews is random, I will give a summary at the end. I'm going to skip on all 'presidential leather' chairs, as those are not adjustable and there is about a million of them available - if you want one like those, just go and test them yourself!

1) Herman Miller - Aeron


The Aeron chair is long in the tooth as office chairs go, having been introduced to the market way back in 1994, and is a signature "dot.com" chair that revolutionized market for office chairs, by being a first company to use a mesh instead of classical materials. It's also available in million configurations, you can choose base color, mechanism and back spine color ( black/white ) and seat material coor.

Long story short, this is an extremely comfortable chair that comes in 3 sizes ( A,B,C ) that should fit pretty much everyone. There are ton of versions of the chair, with standard black or aluminum polished base ( it's for looks only, costs are significantly higher for the aluminum option ), different back support options ( lumbar or posture fit, with the second one being better and more expensive ).

Mesh material was a spot on hit - it's not only comfortable to sit at, but provides a good air conditioning, which helps a lot, especially during summer. The chair doesn't offer a head support, but that's Herman Millers policy, as none of their chair have that option. I'm not a huge fan of it, so it wasn't a problem for me.
Whole chair is TOP A quality, design is slick and nice, but that's obviously my personal opinion.

Biggest downside? Cost obviously, in Europe this chair retails at $1500 in the best setup, and around $1200 for the basic one. In USA it goes for around $720 for a new basic setup ( black base, lumbar option, fully adjustable ) and around ~$1000 for the fully loaded option.

The chair also comes with a 12 yeas warranty on mechanism + 3 year on gas cylinder + 5 year on material. However, if you materials wears out after warranty period, it's possible to replace parts like seat pane, or back, without replacing whole chair, at lower cost.

Worth a note: If you would want to buy it, make sure you ask if it's fully adjustable option, and not just up/down and lay back model. Also, even this comes with a 12 year warranty, it covers only ORIGINAL BUYER, which means if you bought this second hand you are not eligible for warranty, even if the chair is week old.

More information about Aeron chair: http://www.hermanmiller.com/Products/Aeron-Chairs

2) Herman Miller - Embody


This is quite a new model ( 2006 ) from Herman Miller that's supposed to be successor of Aeron.

The prize is WAY higher, especially in Europe. In USA this chair retails at around $1090 for the basic option ( worse material, standard black base ) and around $1390 for the fully loaded one ( aluminum base, better material ). However, in Europe I was quoted at $1300 for the basic option ( inc VAT ), and around $1800 ( yes, 1800 ) for the fully loaded option. There is also one size option only, but it's supposed to fit 98% of people. It's also available in million configurations, you can choose base color, mechanism and back spine color ( black/white ) and seat material coor.

Herman Millers policy regarding 12 year warranty and second hand products applies here as well.

Let's talk about Embody then: it looks fuc%@*ng amazing. Seriously, this thing looks huge, and looks like a bionic spine. This is obviously a personal opinion, but I loved it, it looks exclusive and doesn't really make your home office/poker setup feel like a call center setup with 100 people around in their cubicles.

The most important part obviously, is the back panel. Herman Miller claims at their site that "a matrix of pixels creates dynamic seat-and-back surfaces that automatically conform to your every movement and distribute your weight evenly." They also say it will even help your heart rate and other insane stuff, which is hugely exaggerating, but one thing is sure here: this thing 'moves' with you. If you try to turn your body by a small margin, while still putting pressure on the back, it will adjust, thanks to the multiple panels on the chair.

Arm rests also have more configuration option then Aeron ( you can adjust how close to body you want them ), however the back support is less configurable, as the back curve is pre-set and can only be configured by setting a proper level of tension. You can also adjust the depth of the seat.

So how does it feel? Do you know those hard-foam pillows that are supposed to adjust to your body? I have one of those ( from Ikea, paid like 15$ for it ) and I cant imagine sleeping on a standard pillow now. I mentioned it simply since Embody is close to that, basically the mechanism covers your whole back when you sit in it, which could make it comparable to an expensive suit tailored exactly for your body, even there are less adjustable options the on Aeron. I sat in it completely straight, close to standing posture ( which is supposed to be perfect for your health ), and I simply didn't feel the chair at all. It didn't change after half an hour, if the effect stays same for 10 hours straight, this has to be one of the most amazing things ever designed.

This is unfortunately a clear winner for me from all ~30 chairs I sat in, if not the cost I would be buying this in a heartbeat. However, this thing IS EXPENSIVE, so let's take a look at other alternatives.

More info about Embody: http://www.hermanmiller.com/Products/Embody-Chairs

3) Humanscale Freedom Chair


Prize level here is comparable to basic Aeron option, it costs around 750-800$, pretty hard to get in Europe, no problem in USA. Happily, I have a friend who owns it, so I had an opportunity to test ride it.

Standard material, no mesh, which I now consider a worse option, but I'm pretty sure some people will favor it hugely over mesh. The chair itself is supposed to adjust itself to your body ( hence the Freedom name ), and it does the job pretty well. As opposed to previous two chairs, it does have a head rest, which will make quite a lot of people consider it over chairs without head-rest.

My personal opinion: I didn't like it. I prefer to set the chair as I want it, I didn't like the headrest and used material.

More information about the chair: http://www.humanscale.com/products/pr...fm?group=FreedomTaskChairWithHeadrest

4) Eurotech Ergohuman


This costs around $550 ( cost is pretty much the same in USA/EU) for a brand new chair ( $750 for the version 2 with improved tilt mechanism that makes your whole chair lean back instead of just back panel ), and provides higher number of adjustments then any other chair out here I think. Material used is mesh, same one as in Aeron, but it's also possible to get a leather one for a few bucks more. You can adjust almost everything here, and even arm rests have 4 adjustment options ( height, direction, how far they are in front/back, and how close/far away from body ).

The base is aluminum, which makes it looks quite exclusive and nice ( especially you don't have to pay extra for it, as opposed to other brands ), and it comes with a headrest that you can take off if you don't like it - a huge plus.

Verdict? I liked it a lot... but! There is a major con, that I hated and made me not buy it. Some people will say it's funny but.. the arm rests don't have an option to block them ( only height regulation is block-able, 3 other option use pure physical force to adjust ), which makes them loose a little ( maybe half a centimeter each way, not much ) and that really irritated me. Basically if you try to shake them, you can do that freely in every direction, and it made me feel like I'm paying quite some money for something that's about to fall apart ( well , in EU you get 5 year warranty, but regardless it was irritating ).

In the end, I think the quality of the product should be way better for the prize.

More info about Ergohuman: http://ergohuman.com/products/Ergohum...h-Headrest-and-Leather-and-Mesh-.html

5) Ikea - Markus chair


This is a low budget option, this chair costs ~$200 and comes from one of the biggest worldwide furniture shops, Ikea.

There is not much to say about it besides it's a very solid, comfortable chair.

Obviously it doesnt offer as many adjustable options as more expensive chairs, as you can adjust height,tilt function and that's about it. It also has a built-in lumbar support which provides extra relief and support for your back, very comparable to basic Aeron lumbar support, however this one is not adjustable as opposed to Aeron. The headrest is also really nice in my opinion, as it doesn't "force" it's use, as opposed to Ergohuman or Steelcase chairs, where it sticks way forward.

The chair is a hybrid made from mesh ( back support ) and leather ( head rest and seat ). Worst thing? Arm rests are not adjustable at all, and they were way too low for me, meaning my hands were floating in the air. Best thing? It's probably the best chair you can get for 200$.

More info about Markus chair: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00103102/

Few other chairs I didn't look at ( or didn't have option to test them ) and might be worth considering:
-Humanscale Liberty Chair, comparable to Freedoman, but little different ( mesh back ), I had no access to it
-Other Eurotech chairs: Ergohuman is the only one available world-wide, and the rest is just slightly cheaper, so it's not really worth considering them at the moment.
-Other Herman Miller chairs ( I tested them, but they were not that good to pay over 1k in Europe for them, so not really worth a mention, maybe Mirra is worth consideration, but back is made from a soft-plastic a-like which I hated )
-Random leather chairs, as mentioned in the begging.
-Amazing and stunning FitBall Chair, check spoiler tag:
+ Show Spoiler +

L O L.

My personal summary:
1) Best comfort and overall feeling: Herman Miller Embody, nothing comes even close when it comes to comfort for me. As I said previously, if this chair didn't cost ~$2k in Poland, I would already have it. This prize is ridiculous for a chair, and I find it irrational that the cost is double of what it costs in USA.
2) Best price/quality and comfort - USA: Aeron, as you can get a fully loaded version ( fully adjustabe, posture fit kit, but with black base ) for 738$ now with sale on HermanMiller's site ( till December 12th 2011). Consider this a 12 year investment, and this turns out to be a great value.
3) Best price/quality and comfort - Europe: Really hard to say. If not the fact that Herman Millers chair cost TWICE as much as in USA ( yes, twice ), they would be a clear winner here. However, I would say Ergohuman is a pretty good choice here, as for $500 you can get a really nice mesh chair with ton of configuration options.
4) Low budget : Ikea Markus, all day long. To be honest if the arm rests fit you without problem, I think I would get this over Ergohuman, as it costs 1/3 of the prize and looks nicer in your house/apartment environment. I liked it a lot.

Last, but most important advice: you should NEVER, EVER buy a chair without an option to sit in it first. If you are in USA it's no problem as most of companies offer a 30 day return policy, in Europe it's way more problematic.

All opinions in this blog are my personal, so please don't blame me if you order something without testing it first and don't like it.
Just to make it easier to compare I am 178cm / 75kg.

0 votes

Comments (33)

...which is actually a good thing for me

First of all, thanks a lot to everyone who voted for me in the kitesurfing contest.

back to poker, it all started in the last year of my high school, and it all goes back to my knee injury that made me unable to walk for almost 2 months straight. Since that was right before my final maturity exams that were to decided if Im going to get to good college, I had more then enough time to waste beside studying. Low on cash, never worked, I decided to drop my professional wc3 career as a pro player ( I was privately sponsored by german brach of Razer, so it was decent money for me at that age ) when I found out about newly launched www.tlpoker.pl and poker itself.

Having a solid gaming background as mentioned, I got my first 50$ from no deposit promo at partypoker from tlpoker and started playing. Two weeks passed and my hard grinder bankroll from 50$ was up to 80$, when I lost all my profit wihin 2h and decided to shortstack nl100 for half a buy-in. There, 15 minutes have passed and it was first time I busto'ed.

I knew there was a lot of money in poker at that point, so I went throu every educational material I could find at that time, then registered for second $50 no deposit on my brothers data and it went all easy from there.

My first month ever playing poker ( that was at PokerStars, stayed there up to nl100 ) went really decent, I still have the graph:


I was moving fast, from the $50 I got I was shooting nl50 with 30 buy-ins 1,5 month later. I was putting insane volume for me, as being in my A form from playing a ton of video games + still training table tennis 4-5 times a week I was in a good physical condition. It was all adding up and improving my play.

At this point I was jumping around rooms ( FTP, PS, Party ), until I decided to settle back on PartyPoker, grinded and here came my first problem, when moving on up to nl400 less then a year after I started. I found it was the biggest jump in the skill level out of all the stakes I've passed so far, and within some bad luck I was shooting at nl400 around 5 times, even trying once at PokerStars ( thank God I played before pokertableratings era ), but it finally went throu.
At this point I was already working as a newsposter for tlpoker.pl and making spare money to pay for my college tuition, so I didint have to cash out anything and was pretty free of being results oriented.

Then I stayed at nl400 for the majority of my poker career, playing a ton ( I reduced to 4-6 tables from 14 I was playing normally ) and winning for almost 4BB/100 lifetime at the stakes. I moved to nl600, but stayed there really short, and then shooted nl1000 at different poker room ( 1,5 year after I got my initial $50 ) which went really well:


I was pretty happy, since when I started my plan was to get to nl1,000 so I felt the mission was completed, I started playing less since I lost some motivation and kept on mixing nl400-nl600-nl1000 tables with decent results.

Of course I also had worse months, weeks and days ( my worst day being at - $12,000 , best at around +$8,500 ), but who likes to mention those ;D As I said, the most problematic was moving up to nl400, as I had ton of problems with it.

At this point I was getting really tired ( I was playing a ton in the week, drinking a lot in the weekends and still being single ), and here came the perfect timing to get a break from poker after all this time: I had to undergo a knee surgery ( ACL reconstruction + menicus removal ) and I met my girlfriend ( which Im still with after all this time ).
Old photo, from new year even 2009 I think




At this point I stopped playing around December 2009, and pretty much never got back into poker seriously.

That was due to few problems, first of all I had more then enough cash to supply myself and all my needs at this point ( so I felt no need to play poker ), I was enjoying life a ton without the stress of bad beats, minus the fact that for the 2-3 months after the surgery I had problems with leg to the point I was taking insanely heavy painkillers after the blood flooding to my leg. I went throu lot of pain and it was all fine, up until June where I damaged my menicus again ,leaving me for another surgery. Zero poker for almost 8 months (besides coaching some people), I didint even play a single hand .

After the break in July I also started a small poker challenge ( trying to get back into poker + put some value into tlpoker.pl to get visitors ) called $100->$10,000 in 4 months ( it was from July to end of the year ), following Bankroll management.
This is how it started:



In the meantime I also luckboxed a live tournament entry ( $330 entry, I won it in a $8 satellite ), then came second ( live players are really terrible, I was destroying the final table as I pleased ) for ~$4,000 + another $1,500 entry to super EPT satellite, however I came ~20th out of 75 players with 12 seats to EPT.

Anyway, I failed the challenge by a short margin ( I managed to get up to ~$8,400 ), since I had to stop playing in December ( another knee surgery 6.12.2009 ) due to being on heavy painkillers and not being in mood to play at all. At this point I was already working as a general manager for TLPoker.pl, taking over the previous guy and advancing first from local newposter, then to general newsposter for network and to running tlpoker. All was going awesome, what can I say, if not counting my health problems.

Mid February this year I got promoted by Meat and Nazgul to pretty much taking care of lp.net network, but I already mentioned that in the entry where I wrote report from LiquidPoker Admin meet-up earlier this year ( link here: Liquid Snow 2011 ) ).

This gets to last month, where everything in my life was going better then I could have expected - I was doing a lot of training so I wont have any problems with my leg again ( ~800km on bike in June ), I was in a good financial condition, passed all my exams for the year going to the last year in the uni as well, finally had the opportunity to ski and try kitesurfing ( which I love as much as skiing ).

I also started playing back poker, since without having to worry about cash at all I could take the sport up again, as I think the games are not that much harder , you just have to exploit your opponents in another way. Everyone got hand histories now, everyone has HUD, if you know how to exploit their thinking looking at your own stats, then its not that much harder then it was 3-4 years ago.

Yeah, the learning curve is much faster for new players now, but its same for us, old players - games are dynamic enough so that even constant winners for last 5 years have to adapt every year. Also, I love the fact that there is a ton of mindless grinding players that do exactly what Krantz or anyone else told them to do while watching their poker videos, but they dont understand WHY.

Games are way more aggressive as well, so even if you play awesome now, it just takes slower to climb up, since variances dumbs down the edge of good players a lot in my opinion.

Anyway, I decided that playing 6 max again isn't that much fun, plus I would like to have more time freedom then bumhunting tables and staying for longer sessions, since my own play depends HEAVILY on game flow dynamics. Hence, I decided to start over and learn heads-up

Why? Cash and competition mostly, as mentioned I'm REALLY ok with my $ atm, but getting my own house or flat at some point would be nice and I wont lie, I pretty much wasted all the money I made from playing 2 years ago.

So far I've played around 10k hands in last 2 weeks with decent results, minus one session where I gave away almost entire profit from the rest of my game :D I decided to start really low, at nl50 with just 2 tables, since the game is really different, however as Im already grasping first concepts I think Im going to deposit and just start at nl100 and go easily from there. Im sitting down against weak regs, rather then bumhunting, which makes me learn faster, while still making profit.

And there it comes, last week I had a small accident again, and Im still waiting for results of my knees MRI. I already know I didint tore off my ACL implants ( that would be horrific and devastating for me ), neither my menicus is destroyed, so even if it ends up being a surgery, it will only be a minor one.
All cool but the god damn knee brace which I need for water sports and skiing costs ~$1,500 ( custom made, I can get cheaper one for 1,1k$ but I think there is no point saving $ here if it's for few years, especially considering level of my problems ), which is pretty much what I had prepared for my kiteboard + kite :D I will manage anyway, but I dont like bad surprises like that.

What now? Well, I will play again, so expect to see me at tables, Im also putting a ton of time to this site, and I hope you guys can see already some small improvements from the start of the year.

Originally I thought it's quite bad I stopped playing and now I dropped so low, but after looking at everything, how it turned out and how its looking for the future - Im happy. I only wish I wasnt so dumb and spent so much money on stupid crap :D but bah, you only live once.

See you around

1 votes

Comments (25)

I guess its about time I write a blog entry at liquidpoker.net

It would be nice to start with basic info: who am I? I guess a lot of people will just recognize my name from the forum, especially Im way more active lately at lp.net, but still

Im an ex high stakes player ( I guess I could write a little detailed story in the next blog posts ) that risen from 50$ no deposit bonus to nl1000 in 1,5 year, and then dropped poker completely.
That brings us to the second part: I've been working for lp.net for quite some time already ( over 3,5 years ), first being a newsposter on tlpoker.pl, then running the site in general.
From March I am officially working as a manager for liquidpoker.net I hope the site will feel more active with every month, and we will be able to provide you guys with more and more quality material.

But back to blog! Ladies and Gentleman, today I present you: LiquidSnow 2011 trip report!

Under this secret code-name is nothing more then an awesome trip, where part of the liquidpoker.net staff was invited. We decided to meet-up in French Alps for skiing to get along together, and actually know who you are working with

Our house was located in the city Les Menuires, in the area of Les 3 Valles ( 3 Valleys ), which is the biggest skiing/snowboarding resort in the world.
There was quite a few people expected to come, so we rented a 14 person house with 7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms over 3 floors ( plus sauna, giant kitchen and some other cool stuff ). In the end it was only 4 of us, and since the house was prepaid, we didn't change the location. Lets be honest, there was no way to whine about the conditions of stay, it was just way too good

Who attended ( I will use nicknames instead of names later on, so you can recognize us easier later on the forum ):
Liquid`Meat ( Joy )
Raidern ( Antoniel )
Pindarots ( Jeroen )
me/Defrag ( Sebastian )

Few photos from the mentioned house:


Raidern arrived in Europe way earlier ( he's from Brasil ), and traveled to France together with Meat and Pindarots, since they both are from Netherlands. They picked me up on the way to Les Menuires from Lyon airport and lp.net team was complete . After quite a smooth ride we arrived at our place a little after 18:00 on Saturday, done some shopping, ate something, unpacked and done formal stuff ( got ski-passes, paid for house etc. ) and then we hit the beds being so tired ( especially Meat and Pindarots, who were driving for whole day ).

I'm not gonna describe every day in detail since our schedule looked pretty familiar:
~8:00 get up/ eat
~8:45 pack up, hit the slopes :D
~16-17:30 get back to home, hit sauna, eat something, play some games together , get some drinks etc and hit the bed

For first three days it was quite cloudy and the snow was raining pretty heavily, so it was quite hard to ride, especially after 15:00 since there was a lot of moguls and the visibility was sometimes worse then 3 meters ( which forced us few times to ski right next to the poles showing end of slopes ).

Skiing was going quite well for the first two days: Raidern took some lessons on the first or second day, since he never skied before in his life ( he never actually saw real snow in his life before ;D ), Pindarots skis really well, Meat snowboards very good as well, and Im not gonna judge my own skill, thou I was expecting it to be way worse after a 3 year break due to torn Menicus and ACL's on my left knee which resulted in 3 surgeries in the last 2 years :D




Unfortunately, Pindarots had a really nasty accident on the third day I think: in the begging of the day ( we were hitting the slopes as early as they opened,so they were really icy ) he crashed, looked really badly, we took quite a short break, then he skied down ( from the top, so like a 20-30 minute of skiing ) and took a break for the rest of the day. Why did I point out that he still went down? Because when he later visited the doctor it turned out that his whole muscle was torn! Talk about high pain tolerance. Really unlucky, since he was grounded for the rest of the trip.

For the second part of the trip we had pretty much perfect weather condition ( almost zero snowing during ski time and perfect visibility with really nice sun ), and we moved to the better area of Les 3 Valles as well, which was Val Thorens. Val Thorens is just 10 minutes away by car from Les Menuires, we had ski passes for the whole area so we didn't have to pay extra, and the made conditions were sooooooooo much better. In the end, we stayed there till the end of our trip

We were also switching sun screens like crazy, going from 10 to 20, then to 30 or even higher, and still getting faces burned pretty badly. Just look at the photo:


( left to right: Liquid`Meat, Pindarots, Defrag, Raidern )

Second photo, where it shows better how badly my face was burned in the spoiler tag:
+ Show Spoiler +

My very own first crash came on the third day, in familiar fashion to Pindarots, where I started to carve and one of the skis slid down on ice before catching the edge. I fell right on my chest and face, leaning my head backwards, which made my chest absorb majority of impact before hitting the ice with my chin. Feeling of not being able to breath for at least 15-20s wasn't the best, but I think its way better then broke nose. In the end, I was quite lucky.




Raidern was hitting easier slopes for majority of time, Pindarots had to stay at home due to his accident, so me and Meat tried to hit as many slopes and glaciers as possible. It was fun, but during the week we were there I doubt we managed to visit even half of the available slopes. Maybe we can try out the rest next year


Food at slopes was JESUS_CHRIST_SO_EXPENSIVE ( quite good thou ), and for evening we split the trip eating half time out/half time we made something ourselves. I can only give out one major advice: never eat in Mexican restaurant in this area. Only one of us had decent meal there, and let say rest of us thought food was quite... bad :D Some vodka with whiskey back in the house doused the bad taste thou!

During last day we also ordered some Raclette for evening from the house owner, I must admit I ordered a set for my own home few days ago. It was damn delicious.

We also had some fun when going back. I had flight back to Warsaw from Lyon around 13:00, we left around 9:00 ( it was a ~2:30h drive ) with plenty of spare time, and when going still in the mountains we smelled burning rubber... since we were passing some small town we just thought it wasnt our car, but after it continued we decided to stop. It turned out we had some problems with breaks in the car ( quite dangerous in the mountains, huh? ), Meat actually knows how to deal with his car so after taking off the tire and few fast calls we were back on track! We made it right on scheduled time to the airport, however my plane was delayed for over 1:30h.
And I must say, this was only once in my life when I was scared during the flight, lol. I fly quite a lot, and I find it really comfortable, there is not much difference between a bus and plane for me when it comes to worrying about crashes. However, the plane was delayed a ton ( never saw that happen on non-cheap airlines ), they changed the crew right when we were boarding, and when I sat down, a middle-aged guy in suit sits right next to me, pulls out a leather case and starts chewing his finger nails while reading a manual entitled "How to react in cases of plane failure". Him having a official airlines logo on the bag didint help either. When taking off plane was bumpy as hell, I was scared as f%*@. But hey, at least it was fun.


What about the LiquidPoker crew? Seriously, I cant say a bad word about anyone present ( shame on people that didint attend thou! ) even if I wanted. It was an awesome trip, and I hope there will be a repeat of this next year, hopefully with more people attending.






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Photos after clicking on spoiler tag :+ Show Spoiler +

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1 votes

Comments (13)

If you are coming from USA to EPT Warsaw ( 20th October ) then I have an offer for you! Make 200-300$ without risk! ;o

Im looking for someone who can invest exactly $2050 and have a credit card that has his billing adress registered to his USA adress, due to security reasons:

We ship all orders to the billing address on the credit card. We will honor your request to ship to another address. In order to ship to an alternate address, you need to contact your issuing bank, and have then add the shipping address as your alternate address. This is to protect the cardholder of unauthorized credit card transactions.

I am looking for someone who can buy a watch from a reputable e-seller for me and bring it to EPT Warsaw, where I will pick it up and pay in either hard cash ( euro, $, pln for the tournament, ur pick ) or make a PokerStars transfer when picking it up.

Basically, if u are coming to Poland for EPT Warsaw, u can get a free 200-300$ ( taxes dependant ), risk free.
If you are worried about any risk, I can get ultimate vouchers from this site, who simply guarantee 100% no risk.

Site you would have to order from:
http://www.watchmaxx.com/

Before questions start:
Im doing this because same watch that costs $2k in USA costs $4,3k in Poland.
Yes, I cross-posted this at 2p2 as well, since they have some players that regularly come to EPT's.

If I dont find anyone, then I will just spend more money, but I would prefer to save some cash and let somebody earn some as well.

Anybody interested, pm me please.

0 votes

Comments (4)

It's basically same watch, but different dial colors.

#1





#2




I would be taking #1 on rubber strap as well, same as on #2.


Poll: And the winner is:
(Vote): Silver dial, #1
(Vote): Black dial, #2

Help appreciated :D

0 votes

Comments (25)

What title says.

Respected people ( and by respected I mean RESPECTED especially with the scamming shit going on ;p ) or people that I know in real life from EPT Warsaw / San Remo / Monte Carlo = I can send first.

Other way I can get people vouch for me, we can send in smaller parts, but Im not sending first.

pm or MSN.

EDIT: DONE

0 votes

Comments (4)