Over the next couple of weeks, I start to find my footing a bit in terms of establishing a routine. This was always the long-term plan in ejector-seating out of Montreal; get away from some of the bad habits, throw myself into a challenging situation, and dial in on making a living streaming, a creative outlet in my writing, a viable future in my start-up plans, and splash in a little adventure and romance along the way.
The Greek and I are on decent terms, but still taking a little time to cool off. I think Drizzy and The Prof are a little upset that they might be in hot water at their favorite strip joint, and it makes sense to both of us that we don’t have to spend every second together; that’s sorta how you end up driving each other crazy.
I’ll try to split up the following stories a bit here; if a topic doesn’t interest you, you can just skip past it:
FISHOP (restaurant):
K-dawg is pretty busy wrapping up buyouts for his late fathers company, and travelling all over the place. We’ve talked a lot about some big sends together, but in the short term, we’re content to link up for some short drinks / some dinners. One such dinner deserves a shoutout; the god tier restaurant, Fishop.
It’s kinda a stupid name, in English at least, for a restaurant, but holy fuck is it my favorite restaurant here of all time. We go together and go absolutely ham. Towering platter of Mediterranean seafood, shrimp, a couple of raw fish dishes, fish soup, salad, bottle of white wine, and for some reason frog legs. Frog legs are a little creepy, they look like miniature little human skeleton legs, with remarkably defined feet and individual toe bones, but taste pretty much like chicken wings. The whole thing runs us a grand total of 70 Euros. Absolute insanity. The seafood is market fresh and mind-blowing, but of all the dishes, what gets me the most, is the simple green salad.
It’s literally just some kind of lettuce, a couple of olives sprinkled in there, and a couple of lemon wedges. Very lightly dressed, some combination of olive oil and lemon juice, but they must marinate it or something, because the flavor just pops in your mouth. It’s so light, so refreshing, almost like a glass of water, tiniest hint of tanginess, and it’s just hands down one of the best salads I’ve ever had in my entire life. I swear to god I’m going to ask them the next time how to make it, I don’t think I can live without that recipe. It makes no sense how fucking amazing it is.
Yeah, will definitely be going back to this restaurant a lot; service is impeccable, waiter has a regal, deep voice with an almost British accent, hitting you with a “so what will we be doing today, Gentleman?”, and it’s just an awesome experience through and through. Market fresh, palette cleansing, fine dining, where you end up full, and you don’t walk out of the restaurant feeling like you got pegged and had your wallet stolen. Fishop!
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The Poker Files:
I’ve made the controversial decision to take another stab at reinvigorating my non-existent poker career. The problem is that at least 2/3 of the major casinos don’t have a poker room. I did in fact make my way back to the first one with a passport at some point, and picked up a couple hundred Euros at the blackjack tables (was card-counting for fun, but realistically, in such a short session, the win is almost entirely luck based). This emboldens me to try and find a good spot to play some cards.
After drinks with K-dawg ends early on my first Friday in Albania out in Blloku, I pull up google maps and search for a poker room. A particular poker club pops right up, and it’s also in Blloku, only a few streets away. Walk around where the entrance is supposed to be, and can’t find it for a minute or two. Finally I notice this grey steel door leading down into a basement, and realize that if I want to play cards, this is where I have to go.
I haven’t fully educated myself on how poker operates in Albania; I think it’s a bit of a legal grey zone. Probably the casinos need a special license to operate it, but it’s a bit weird that both the ones I’ve been to just don’t have proper poker tables. This spot is a bit of a vibe, almost like Teddy KGB’s set up in Rounders.
I enter through the street-level steel gate and descend some stairs until I arrive at a second, closed, locked door. There’s a camera outside the door where they note my arrival, and I wait no more than a couple of seconds before it swings open and a big, burly, Albanian bouncer opens the door and beckons me to come inside.
Now, I have about 300 Euros on me. It might seem like absolute madness to some of you that I feel almost zero danger here, but the fact is, the danger is baked into the experience a bit. It’s thrill-seeking, but not done in complete ignorance. I’ve played in plenty of underground games of poker before, and for the most part, as long as you’re respectful and play by the rules, nothing bad is going to happen to you. At worst, they cheat and you lose what you came with, or maybe, you win too much, and you risk getting robbed.
But at the end of the day, the organizers of these games have a lot at stake to run a clean, safe game. They’re on the map, they’ve invested into the setup, and they can rake it for tremendous profit without doing anything nefarious. This revenue stream relies on them providing an environment where players can gamble fairly and safely, an environment of trust.
Of course there will be exceptions to the rule, or cases where some people decide to act completely irrationally, but as long as there’s a much higher incentive for the parties involved to engage in fair behavior than there is to fuck you over, there’s much less danger than there would appear to be to a common observer. At least, that’s my rationale for ripping in through the doors ready to play some cards. The eight or nine beers I’ve had also provide some liquid courage, and you know I fuckin’ love the rush.
It’s a pretty cool setup. Once you walk through the second door, there’s a lounge area with some tables and flat screens, where people can watch sports. There’s a bar, a section in the back with what appear to be computers (potentially allowing customers to place sports bets play online slots), and then the main floor, where they have 4 casino-quality poker tables fully felted up in red and full of players.
The host of the room is a relatively young dude, full of swag and energy, and The Host just strikes me as a chill beauty who enjoys being here. He’s friendly, speaks a decent amount of English, and we chat a bit. Have joked with him several times about hitting the town together for drinks to drop some wheels, but he hasn’t bitten yet. To be fair I still don’t remember his fuckin’ name.
Pretty decent setup in general. Apparently, they have a tournament freeroll every day around 6pm, the only games they spread are 1-2 No-Limit Holdem, and you can buy in for 50 Euros+. Didn’t ask what the max is, because I won’t ever be carrying in more than 300, or loading more than 200, but they are operating on a super chill 5% rake (house takes 5% from every pot. Compared to say, Montreal taking 10%, this is a fucking steal). The rake itself is most likely uncapped, but that really only comes into play when stacks start to get deep, and like I mentioned earlier, I never intend to stick around here for long with a deep stack.
The rules are to my liking. House also spots every player one free drink per visit. So I grab my free beer, rack up 200 in chips, and take a seat at one of the tables. Some of the players look a little bit intimidating, burly dudes right off the set of Taken, but there are plenty of nerdier poker types as well. If these boys can survive a game here, so can I.
I kick off the game pretty chill and play tight. One of the things I notice is that a TON of players are short-stacking. 200 is a standard 100 Big Blind buy-in for a 1-2 Blind No limit game (the 2 forced bets that the first 2 players have to put in); a lot of people are chilling here on the min-buy, which is 50. This is often super unprofitable, but in a 5% rake game, with enough bad players, it’s possible to find the right spots to be plus EV.
I adopt the rather boring strategy I’ll be using for this and most of my future sessions while short stacks are in play; limping in for blinds with speculative hands in late position, limping my monsters in early position hoping for a raise so I can 3-bet jam after some awful calls and punish the limpers, raising my monsters in late position, and forcing myself to fold everything else… which is surprisingly hard to do given how many drinks I’ve had.
But, the strategy is working pretty well. I’m trading some pots here and there, but slowly climbing up. Force some folds, pick up a dudes 50 with a limp – raise – ship with pocket Jacks, and life is pretty good. Unfortunately my luck doesn’t hold forever. I drop 80 in a pot where I’m outkicked with trip 10’s, and I drop another 70 with my limp-raise-ship with my Ace King against an Ace Jack preflop… sad days.
On the bright side, I’ve had another six beers and paid with chips. We’re also all chain-smoking cigarettes like this is the world’s greatest home game. Sitting at around 140, I end up flopping the nut straight with my 4-6s on a 3-5-7 board. Put in a small flop bet and pick up one call (small-ball is printing for me, lots of these guys will commit to 15 bucks with bottom pair, it’s pure value town). Turn is a King, with 2 diamonds on the board, and I get about half of my starting stack in on the turn, picking up a remaining call. River’s a black 9. I throw a small 35 river bet out there, and buddy instantly jams on me for my remaining 35. Fuck.
Don’t have to be a prophet to know what he’s holding. But for a nearly 300 pot I can’t really fold for 35 with what is now the second nuts. Call, exasperated, and he turns over 6-8 for the nut straight. Ouchie. RIP 200. Fuckin bad beat making it all feel just like Poker Stars.
At this point, I’ve been playing for several hours without any real issues. One dude has been pretty salty with me, complaining to me, “you’re so lucky, we aren’t all rich like you”, which was a little concerning, but very funny, as I assured him that I was probably the most broke person in the room. The term “Chino” was being thrown around a fair bit as well, but I don’t think it had anything to do with me being Chinese. There was also a general lack of English at the table, although I was occasionally swapping small talk in English with a few of the lads.
I was more or less ready to pick up and go, but, they were breaking 2 of the tables and needed a few brave souls to head to the main game with a 100 min-buy. As a currently losing player, and now about 12 beers deep, plus an obvious Asian tourist in the room amidst a group of mostly regs, the host offered to spot me 50 if I’d buy in another 50 for 100 total at the main game. Fuck, who am I to turn down free money? The beats in the side game were a little bit sus, but I had my eye on the dealer pretty closely, and had little reason so far to figure anything shady was going on.
Head over to the main game and I’m properly trashed. Make a few more friends at the table, I’m playing a bit looser and more aggressive now, kind of just content to mix it up a bit with the beers flowing freely and the house money that I’m expected to be a bit of a donkey with. A few of the players enjoy my banter, and we get along well, but I’m reprimanded a few times by the dealer not “to talk too much”; poker is a game they prefer to play mostly in silence here, apparently, or maybe this many beers deep I’m running my mouth too much and fuckin’ annoying.
I run up to about 250, fade back to 80 or 90, and then eventually get bored and try to rip pocket 4-s in as a 3-bet into an early small open and try to punish multiple limpers who’ve called with trash for 10. Initial raiser tanks, and then calls me with 7-7 (probably assuming he’s often flipping against 2 over cards most of the time, and dead some of the time vs an overpair), while the rest of the table folds. Unfortunately he’s the one with the overpair here and has my 4’s crushed, and my first session ends down 250. Ouchie, that’s a lot of streaming hours.
With that said, I did put away about 12 beers there, had a great time for a few hours, and got the lay of the land. I didn’t get stabbed, robbed, or lynched either; gotta chalk that part up in the win column. I would go back several times over the next couple of weeks, and am currently sitting on a nice little profit of 3 or 4 hundred euros. For the most part, I’ve just been rolling in, min buying for 50, waiting for good spots to jam, playing a bit more normally if I win the flip, and then making sure to get out before my stack reaches 500 Euros.
One other funny aside. In my second session, I was chilling at the main game, and our table hit the bad beat! Now, before you get too excited, bad beat here consists of 2 cards playing for both players, with one player losing with Queens Full or better (In comparison, in Montreal, you need to lose with Aces full of Jacks, or better). Since there are far less tables and it’s much easier to hit the Bad Beat Jackpot, the jackpot was only up to about 1200 (in Montreal or Vegas some bad beats can often exceed 1M).
But that would still be a really decent score here considering the general short stack buy-ins. Never hit a bad beat in all my years of playing poker. Unfortunately, the rules are different here. On most poker sites / in casinos, the loser of the hand takes 50%, the winner takes 25%, and the rest of the table splits 25%. Probably would have been 70 or 80 Euros for me, which is at least a min buy-in and a half. Plus I’d get to say I won a bad beat live for the rest of my life.
Unfortunately, because the pots are so much smaller here, and because the rules to hit one are much easier, there’s literally no split. Loser takes 100%. I was really excited to have finally hit a bad beat live, but I guess I’m going to have to wait a while longer.
If there’s a lot of interest in poker stories, feel free to let me know in the comments; I can go into some more details after. For now though, just know this is a really cool spot to have in the rotation. There are some strong players, some weak players, and far less danger than I thought there could be. Just a bunch of dudes hacking darts and playing cards, probably hiding from their wives.
There WAS one night with a bunch of super loud Israeli’s, just absolutely shitfaced and donking their chips off, which I thought was a bit crazy considering current geopolitical climate, and the large population of Muslims that inhabit Albania, but tbh there was zero drama. Probably a combination of the people here being super chill, and then the fact the Israeli’s were just giving their money away; hard to get mad at drunk idiots at the table when they are handing freebies out to everyone. Poker culture trumps geopolitics, confirmed!
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Romantic Forays:
C and I have been officially friends through the first week. Her decision, not mine. Issues with my drinking, issues with long distance, etc, etc. We have no idea if she’s going to visit or not, though there are obviously some hopes that there are. She was waffling on a potential visit in week 1 or 2, but had warned me not to bank on it, and I had full permission to take a gander at some of the local talent. Queue me firing up the ole dating apps one last time.
Spike a bunch of matches actually, maybe it’s that I’m exotic here as just about the only Asian in town, and the inexorable creep of Japanese and Korean subculture into Europe is giving the yellow boys a boost, or maybe it’s the draw of a Canadian passport (holy fuck, what a passport it is though).
Either way, the apps are actually fun again. I’m chatting to a few matches pretty casually. My intentions are a mixed bag, I’m still thinking about C a lot and hoping she’ll make it out, and I’m not in a huge rush to complicate things, but I’m on my adventure arc, and it can’t hurt to at the very least, have an excuse to check out some of the cheap restaurants with a fun dinner date or two.
By the end of the first week, with no plans with C forthcoming, I pull the trigger and set up a casual Sunday dinner date. I would never commit to a first app dinner-date back in Montreal, simply because it feels a bit fucking stupid to drop 100 bucks on a crappy dinner or 150 bucks on a nice one for someone you might never see again. I’m much more of a drinks and activities guy; I know that if I’m running some mini golf or bowling, then no matter what happens on the date, I’m going to have fun. And really that’s how it should be; fun should be the priority. Love will happen when it happens, let’s make dating fuckin fun again.
But here, I actually want to go to some of these restaurants. I’m super interested in sampling the local cuisine, and even though I don’t mind sending to a resto solo, and I do have a few friends to hit up as needed, I find the idea of spending a night over some wine and food with an attractive local and some conversation pretty appealing. I’ve always been interested in people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and stories to tell, and this just feels like a fun way to do it with a huge potential upside.
So, I steer clear of some of the obvious Russian gold-diggers. “I don’t believe in 50-50”. I mean fuck, neither do I for a first date, but when you combo that with “generosity” as their first preferred trait in a man… shit, at least they’re clear about what they want. To be honest some of them are probably hot enough to warrant it, and maybe even hot enough for me to consider it… but let’s be real, it’s not a super attractive trait, and realistically, I don’t have a lot of gold to dig right now. Maybe one of these days I’ll have to set up a honey-pot, rent a really nice place for one night, and ask K-dawg to lend me the Range Rover. Scam the scammers baby!
I’ve been having a really nice chat on Bumble with this one Albanian lady, Techie. She’s 30, works as a dev tester at a tech company, dark brown hair, dark eyes, great smile, and just seems like one of the most calm, stable people in the world. She’s also easy to talk to, chats flowing easily, and it’s a pretty obvious decision to start with her.
After a bit of waffling over the venue, we settle on a seafood restaurant I haven’t been to before. I’m notoriously ten minutes late for these kinds of things, which is something I definitely need to work on, but she ends up being ten later to my ten. Works for me, haven’t committed any social faux pas’, and gives me a chance to warm up with a beerski and peruse the menu a bit. She pulls up, looks great, warm smile, and we settle into a very relaxed dinner.
Conversation is all over the place, but flowing super well. I’m a bit too honest, and do mentioned the whole C situation, but she doesn’t seem overly perturbed; she’s looking for something long term, and wants to take things reallllly slow; it’s more of an icebreaker / meet n greet than the breakneck speed of Montreal dating, and the change of pace is refreshing.
Wrap dinner with a conversation about religion, the origin of life and the universe, and some other high brow stuff; her English is great, the food is decent (and cheap! I’m always down to pay first date, and entire meal + glasses of wine only runs me 30 Euros), and it’s just been a massively pleasant experience.
We exchange a friendly hug at the end, with some intentions of perhaps linking up again if the whole C situation falls through. I do feel a little bit of guilt, but at the same time, C + I have both been above board with each other and I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. I think my playboy days are well behind me; I’m definitely looking to date with intention, and will almost certainly be a “one woman at a time” kinda guy for the rest of my life. I mean fuck, one can be exhausting enough; not sure how some of the Arab / Indian lads manage multiple wives, pretty much guaranteed to have a couple of them pissed off at you at any one time… sounds like a real fucking headache.
C does actually manage to find some time Wednesday of week 3 to come visit. I had informed her about the date prior to the visit, and she took it super maturely, definitely impressive. Was a blast to have her out here and introduce her to some of my friends (The Greek, K-Dawg, N-Kelly, etc.).
Couple of decent anecdotes from that visit. I was originally going to pick her up from the airport, but her flight somehow arrives early, and she ends up just hopping in a cab to my apartment. Feel a little bad about that since I want to make her feel special like she did for me in Paris, but it’s an early-morning flight, and all things considered, I count myself lucky to be up at all by the time she lands.
It takes her all of five minutes to decide that The Greek + I’s apartment is uninhabitable by her standards. By my standards the place is quite clean, but the smell is a little unpleasant (Greek’s athlete’s foot plus the fact some of our toilet paper is ending up in a bin in the bathroom as opposed to being flushed), and she is reallly not a fan of the toilet + shower wombo combo.
She ends up booking a place nearby for 3 nights at 30 Euros a night, and I help her carry her suitcase up the stairs to get her settled in. She has gotten in on a Wednesday and will be bouncing Saturday to make a friend’s bday party back in Paris. Crazy how much jet-setting you can do in Europe with flights being cheap as hell.
I end up staying over at her place the next 3 nights, which is fairly cozy and romantic, and we do a combination of some cooking (well, I do the cooking, and she eats; way more fun cooking for more than 1, and she loves what I throw together, so it works out great) and eating out at a few resto’s.
Couple of small excursions. She does a walking tour that I skip, because I’m obviously an expert on the city already after being here a week and a half, and we end up visiting an underground nuclear bunker (Bunkart) which has been converted into an exhibit detailing the early military history, communist era, and subsequent dictatorship. I enjoy it a lot more than I thought I would (fuck, I really am getting old and cultured) and am grateful to have a lady around to drag me out to some of the stuff I might not actually go do by myself.
All in all we have a blast, with only a few hiccups. We meet up for some early drinks one night with K-dawg, Bo-bo, and N-Kelly (burly buddy of K-dawg, pure Albanian legend who apparently works for the UN or something). Night is going great, but at some point, C’s mood completely shifts; she goes from being full of energy to super tired and a little down. It’s not entirely unexpected though, or the first time it’s happened so far, and we have gotten pretty decent at handling it. She offers to head back to the apt solo and let me spend some time with my friends, but she’s only here for 3 days and she’s obviously my main priority for the night. So I walk her back and we end up having a lovely evening.
C is also expressing a lot of interest in picking up chess, which I absolutely fucking love. We spend a nice afternoon in the sun at a cafe, chess board out, and play a few slow games. She’s insistent that I don’t take it easy on her, so I oblige her and kick her ass a few times, but we go over each game and she shows a noticeable improvement. Love to see where this is heading. Queen’s Gambit arc? Definitely a smartie-pants, though I can foresee some issues due to her lack of pattern / spacial awareness (not unlike my mom, who cannot for the life of her figure out how to make a tile in Blokus fit onto the board, despite being quite intelligent herself), some occasional memory issues, and a fierce stubbornness in refusing to take my advice as infallible. Look forward to reporting more on the C chess arc.
For our last night, I make a bit of a blunder. Take her out to a seafood restaurant, but she’s stated she isn’t that hungry, and when she says that, she fuckin’ means it. On top of that, I order a bottle of white wine right at the restaurant counter, forgetting that she doesn’t really drink wine at all (a French woman, that doesn’t drink wine, what a fuckin’ world we live in!).
I’ve already paid up front and everything (it’s a combo market / restaurant, so I made my selections in advance), and even though I let them know she doesn’t eat a lot of seafood (I order a small seafood platter with mostly fish dishes, which she does eat), I don’t think she enjoys any of the food that comes out at all (other than the bread or salad).
I also have to scramble to downgrade the bottle of wine I paid for to a 500ml carafe and a bottle of water for C. C is pretty insistent that I only have a single glass, but I let her know that I’m grabbing dinner for both of us and I’ll be having 2/4 glasses of wine that I’ve already paid for, with my seafood, thank ya very much. I’m pretty matter of fact about it, and not overly blunt, but she has this idea in her head that I’m an alcoholic and is worried about me… I notice a couple of tears trickling out of her eyes, and end up popping around to her side of the table to console her. I agree not to drink the whole thing, and we take the remaining wine in a to-go bottle.
Fackin eh boys.
Restaurant fiasco aside, it’s our last night, and it doesn’t take long for her mood to bounce back. We amble back to the apartment pretty amicably, have a fantastic last night together… and then we’re up in the morning bright and early Saturday. I What’s App my favorite cab driver, William, and I drop her off at the airport. Hack a dart with William on the drive back (he appears in another story shortly) and take the moment to reflect on the trip.
It was super nice, and we have some plans to potentially link up in Italy the following week for a wedding… but as always, we’ll have to see how it pans out.
Brando's Rambles 
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