Live play

I haven't been playing live recently. The last time was several weeks ago when I went to Duke on a Friday night since I had not been there in a long time. I wrote a fair bit about that night in the long post that got disappeared.

So, let me explain... no, there is no time. Let me sum up.

I played two tourneys that night, taking first place and second place respectively. Felt pretty damn good, particularly since I busted out J.O., the owner and probably best player in the joint, in both games. I played pretty well and admittedly got lucky many times. J.O. even complimented me on improvements in my game recently, which stroked my ego, too.

Since we can't gamble for money in Japan, I won from both games about 16 tokens, each of which can be redeemed for 500yen of food and drinks at the bar. So about $70 worth of winnings. Not bad at all! I still have 6000yen worth at home, and I have this Friday free, so will be heading back for another shot at the poker game and to spend some of these tokens.

I haven't been to the Ueno poker room recently, but the 2006 Japan Poker Championship is coming up in a few weeks. I found that my previous win of one of the Everest Cup games (the one that netted me my iPod nano) qualifies me to play, so what the hell, I will go and give it a shot. The 10,000yen buyin is pretty steep, especially considering that my chances of winning are pretty damn low. But Linda Johnson and two other writers and players from Card Player are coming out to participate, so it's worth it just for the experience.