No poker yesterday - spent my time being there for my sick GF and watching a lot of Japanese tv with her.
But, I have to repeat:
All hail the stock market gods! Praise them, praise them!
Last night was pretty much a repeat of the night before. Color me pleasantly shocked.
It won't continue (I am pretty sure) but it does help to get a couple of damn nice gains to hold me through the down times and mediocre times.
In poker, we tend to feel the pain of our losses strongly and the joy of our wins not so much. We feel bad more than we feel good. Damn it, especially if we're recreational players, let's make an effort to enjoy our wins! Yes, things may (and will) change; yes, let's not get too uppity; yes, the poker or market gods will smite us again one of these days, but let's thank them when they bless us! Soak in the sun while the weather is good! Rainy season is around the corner!
Today, I am smiling.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
A good day.
All hail the poker gods! Praise them, praise them!
The above statement is a hint that I will be mentioning good (for me) poker results and hoping not to be smited for my hubris.
My cautious return to NLHE has been going well so far. I've ended most sessions slightly ahead, and yesterday evening I managed a big score at a $25 table on Full Tilt. First I lucked out by going all-in with top set, getting called by a made straight, and sucking out for a full house. Embarassing, but I'll take it. Then several hands later, I hit top set again and baited another player all-in with nothing that I recall but two overcards. I won that hand and finished up with $60 profit on my $25 buyin. Whew. This is how I made that thousand bucks before. But can I keep it up?
All hail the stock market gods! Praise them, praise them!
In other news, the stock system that I have been playing with just had a very good day, and I made about $3000 as I slept last night. Woo! Hopefully I'll see a few more days like that one. If it keeps up, maybe I'll be able to quit the day job and stay at home all day playing poker. Without having to count on my highly questionable poker skills. ;)
The above statement is a hint that I will be mentioning good (for me) poker results and hoping not to be smited for my hubris.
My cautious return to NLHE has been going well so far. I've ended most sessions slightly ahead, and yesterday evening I managed a big score at a $25 table on Full Tilt. First I lucked out by going all-in with top set, getting called by a made straight, and sucking out for a full house. Embarassing, but I'll take it. Then several hands later, I hit top set again and baited another player all-in with nothing that I recall but two overcards. I won that hand and finished up with $60 profit on my $25 buyin. Whew. This is how I made that thousand bucks before. But can I keep it up?
All hail the stock market gods! Praise them, praise them!
In other news, the stock system that I have been playing with just had a very good day, and I made about $3000 as I slept last night. Woo! Hopefully I'll see a few more days like that one. If it keeps up, maybe I'll be able to quit the day job and stay at home all day playing poker. Without having to count on my highly questionable poker skills. ;)
A few notes
A couple more quick thoughts about the JPC 2006.
It was actually Jan Fisher who gave me some quick coaching on box shuffling, not Linda Johnson. My bad. She's damn good at it, too. Mary doesn't box, she... strips, I think it's called, so she called over Jan as the boxing expert. Because I was pathetic at stripping, or whatever it was called.
Another note in Jan's favor (after my snarky comments in the last post), is that she noted in her talks how great it was to play with the Japanese players because everyone seems to be having fun and enjoying the game. It's true. The Ueno games (and the Duke games, too) are always a good time because everyone is there because they love the game. No one is making any money off these games. More importantly, no one is losing any money on these games, so we're there just because we enjoy playing and are trying to learn and improve. In this respect, it's probably a good thing that we can't gamble for money. Once folks start losing thousands of yen during the games, we'll probably see the nasty comments, dark faces, and card flinging that other "real" games see.
I see in Bluejay's blog that Linda and Jan have already headed back home, but Mark, the new JPC Champ, is sticking around until Sunday. (Mary too, I assume.) He's going to be attending the Everest Cup game on Friday night, and they're considering going out for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) afterwards. His blog post title is "Poker while flower viewing?", which is an interesting mental picture.
If you're not familiar with hanami, it's very common in Japan when the cherry blossoms bloom for groups of friends or coworkers to go find an open stretch of ground someplace under a blooming tree (which is a challenge in itself sometimes) and bring food and drinks and admire the blossoms. Actually, what it usually turns into is a lot of Japanese salarymen getting totally wasted on beer and rice wine and getting loud an boisterous and maybe even remembering to look up at the tree once in a while. And I don't mean that in a bad way -- it can be great fun. Many of the parks in Tokyo with big stretches of cherry trees get absolutely packed during the bloom times. Some offices will send out their junior workers early in the day with tarps to stake out claims to good spots, then the rest of the office will show up in the evening to booze it up and enjoy themselves. It can be quite a party. Almost every time I have gone, there's usually at least one very plastered businessman who gets really boisterous and in a springtime mood and does a striptease for the merriment of his coworkers. Almost every time. And we're talking going all the way, using just his necktie as an impromptu loin cloth or a plastic drinking cup to hide the naughty bits.
Actually, considering this and the things I have seen under the cherry trees so far, a bunch of Japanese guys drinking and playing poker under the trees and forgetting to look up is not such an interesting mental image after all.
For those of you who can read Japanese, I found that someone has set up an RSS monitor page of most of the Japanese poker blogs, here. There are a lot of them. I read Japanese slowly and with some difficulty so I usually glance over there, but there are some interesting ones in there.
One which I found particularly interesting is ネカフェに出勤 ポーカーライフ ("Working at the Net Cafe - Poker Life"). It's written by a Japanese guy who had been working various parttime kind of jobs and then found his interest in poker could make him a similar wage. He quit his part time jobs and has been making his money from online poker. Not uncommon in the States but it's not common here that I know of! It's funny because he says he's renting a cheap apartment here in Tokyo for 50,000yen or so a month, but he has no internet access there. So instead he spends his days at internet cafes, playing online poker there! Which is not a bad environment, since most cafes have free soft drinks, books and comics, music, playstations and other games, and some even have showers and other living amenities for those stuck out after last-train-time and killing time until morning.
None of this comes for free, though, so he notes that he often spends more on his net cafe time charges than he does on his rent! That's impressive. He's still making enough to pay his living expenses, and is actually looking at moving to New Zealand for a while to do the same there. Hell, he's got the right idea - you can do this anywhere, so why stay in Tokyo? Go see the world!
Okay, yeah, maybe I am a bit envious.
It was actually Jan Fisher who gave me some quick coaching on box shuffling, not Linda Johnson. My bad. She's damn good at it, too. Mary doesn't box, she... strips, I think it's called, so she called over Jan as the boxing expert. Because I was pathetic at stripping, or whatever it was called.
Another note in Jan's favor (after my snarky comments in the last post), is that she noted in her talks how great it was to play with the Japanese players because everyone seems to be having fun and enjoying the game. It's true. The Ueno games (and the Duke games, too) are always a good time because everyone is there because they love the game. No one is making any money off these games. More importantly, no one is losing any money on these games, so we're there just because we enjoy playing and are trying to learn and improve. In this respect, it's probably a good thing that we can't gamble for money. Once folks start losing thousands of yen during the games, we'll probably see the nasty comments, dark faces, and card flinging that other "real" games see.
I see in Bluejay's blog that Linda and Jan have already headed back home, but Mark, the new JPC Champ, is sticking around until Sunday. (Mary too, I assume.) He's going to be attending the Everest Cup game on Friday night, and they're considering going out for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) afterwards. His blog post title is "Poker while flower viewing?", which is an interesting mental picture.
If you're not familiar with hanami, it's very common in Japan when the cherry blossoms bloom for groups of friends or coworkers to go find an open stretch of ground someplace under a blooming tree (which is a challenge in itself sometimes) and bring food and drinks and admire the blossoms. Actually, what it usually turns into is a lot of Japanese salarymen getting totally wasted on beer and rice wine and getting loud an boisterous and maybe even remembering to look up at the tree once in a while. And I don't mean that in a bad way -- it can be great fun. Many of the parks in Tokyo with big stretches of cherry trees get absolutely packed during the bloom times. Some offices will send out their junior workers early in the day with tarps to stake out claims to good spots, then the rest of the office will show up in the evening to booze it up and enjoy themselves. It can be quite a party. Almost every time I have gone, there's usually at least one very plastered businessman who gets really boisterous and in a springtime mood and does a striptease for the merriment of his coworkers. Almost every time. And we're talking going all the way, using just his necktie as an impromptu loin cloth or a plastic drinking cup to hide the naughty bits.
Actually, considering this and the things I have seen under the cherry trees so far, a bunch of Japanese guys drinking and playing poker under the trees and forgetting to look up is not such an interesting mental image after all.
For those of you who can read Japanese, I found that someone has set up an RSS monitor page of most of the Japanese poker blogs, here. There are a lot of them. I read Japanese slowly and with some difficulty so I usually glance over there, but there are some interesting ones in there.
One which I found particularly interesting is ネカフェに出勤 ポーカーライフ ("Working at the Net Cafe - Poker Life"). It's written by a Japanese guy who had been working various parttime kind of jobs and then found his interest in poker could make him a similar wage. He quit his part time jobs and has been making his money from online poker. Not uncommon in the States but it's not common here that I know of! It's funny because he says he's renting a cheap apartment here in Tokyo for 50,000yen or so a month, but he has no internet access there. So instead he spends his days at internet cafes, playing online poker there! Which is not a bad environment, since most cafes have free soft drinks, books and comics, music, playstations and other games, and some even have showers and other living amenities for those stuck out after last-train-time and killing time until morning.
None of this comes for free, though, so he notes that he often spends more on his net cafe time charges than he does on his rent! That's impressive. He's still making enough to pay his living expenses, and is actually looking at moving to New Zealand for a while to do the same there. Hell, he's got the right idea - you can do this anywhere, so why stay in Tokyo? Go see the world!
Okay, yeah, maybe I am a bit envious.
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Night Before
Friday night I met up with Tokyo's newest (white boy) poker blogger, Mike, to introduce him to the Japan Poker Player's Association poker room in the Ueno area, often referred to as simply "the Ueno Room" by local poker players.
Considering that there aren't any other poker rooms in town, they could probably just call it "The Room" and we would know what they meant.
The only other game in town that I know of is at Duke, a bar in the Nihonbashi area that I have described before. I think of it as "the Poker Bar". My friend J.P. will ask me "Room or Bar?" when I tell him I'm going out to play poker. Hopefully someday he'll have to ask me something a lot more complicated, but for now, that's it.
So anyhow, it was cool to meet up with Mike, who's out here for the Living In Japan adventure. I did the same thing, long time ago, and it made me smile. Somewhere along the line the adventure just became normal life, so it's nice to be reminded of what it was like to wrap things up in your home country, move halfway across the world to someplace bizarrely different in many ways, set up shop in a dingy rat-hole of a temporary apartment, and begin to struggle with the language and finding a place for yourself in a brand new society. Ah, those were the days.
Though several times over the course of the evening, I had to break out the old stand-by, "You know, back when I was a kid..."
as in...
"You know, back when I was a kid, gaijin houses didn't have internet access! I had to buy a converter RJ-11 jack to the headset of my borrowed PHS phone so I could use my laptop's mobile with dialup! Reception at my place was horrible, so I had to set my laptop on my bed and hold the mobile phone up to the window to get a signal, and had to type one-handed until the modem dropped out."
Damn kids today...
Ahem, where was it?
Anyhow, I showed Mike to the Ueno room and explained a bit about the weekly games they run there. It was already getting pretty busy as quite a few folks had shown up for the talks, and Linda and Jan showed up soon and started greeting the players they had met from previous years. I chatted a bit with Mark G's wife Mary, who works as a dealer and was quite friendly and outgoing. Jan also announced to everyone that the doctor who had treated her when she got very ill during last year's JPC, Dr. Yamaguchi, was there that evening and she gave her thanks for saving her life last year.
Bluejay showed up with another foreigner guest, but who was not introduced and who didn't really speak to anyone. I did a double-take - holy smokes, is that Jennifer Harman?! A second later I doubted it - she looked different than J.H. does on tv. I looked closer and started to get uncertain again. How many petite blondes with 1980s Meg Ryan hairstyles are likely to show up with Bluejay to visit his poker room? But no one said anything, no one freaked out, no one introduced themselves to her, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for the talks to start.
The talks by the Card Player guests were very short. They were actually just a few minutes of off-the-cuff remarks, followed by a few questions from the Japanese audience. Linda Johnson did mention in the "Poker and Television" segment that they were starting a International Poker Tour tv show, with a set roster of 60 players visiting various locations worldwide for televised poker tournaments. Apparently Linda, Jan, Mark, and Hiroshi (Bluejay) are four of the players who will be in each of these events.
I whispered to Mike, "You think the tv audience can take another televised poker tour?" When I was back in the States over Christmas holidays, every time I turned on the tv I would find a poker tournament going on. It was pretty cool at first, but I got kind of sick of it after a while.
Mark and Mary spoke about being poker professionals, he as a player and she as a dealer (and player too, of course), which was interesting. Mary noted that she had done some of the dealing for the High Stakes Poker show, so I'll be sure to keep an eye out for her in future eps. Doyle-san asked a question at the end about how well the high-rollers in that game tipped the dealers. She made a non-committal reply, so I interjected another question, "Who got better tips, the dealers or those women you see walking back and forth in the background sometimes?" She laughed and replied, "Oh, those ladies did, by far! Doyle tipped them very well."
Something to consider if you are a hot lady in a slinky dress considering the life of a poker dealer.
Bluejay skipped his talk about "Japanese Players and Overseas Tournaments". Meg-Ryan-Haircut hung out in the back quietly and left soon afterwards.
So the talks ended pretty quickly and they switched to the dealer training portion of the evening. Linda and Mary each took one of the poker tables that were set up, and began going through all the processes of dealing poker, from the scrambles, shuffles, boxing, cutting, dealing, prompting players for their action, counting chips, figuring all-ins and multiple pots, and any other question about dealing that someone had. Quite a few of the players there act as dealers in the games, and some of them are quite good, but others seemed interested in all the techniques of a pro dealer, as if they planned to become dealers themselves. There are dealers schools in Japan, I know, but I am not sure how well attended they are since there's not a lot of demand for dealers here.
Bluejay was handling the translation at Linda's table, I believe, but there wasn't anyone handling Mary's table. Most of the Japanese can follow English to some extent, but not perfectly, so I sucked it up and tried my best as a translator. Everybody followed along, so that much worked out well.
After Mary went through it all, she encouraged some of those interested in dealing to give it a try. One of our regular amateur dealers gave it a go and managed it all pretty smoothly. One of the guys who looked like he was considering becoming a dealer also tried it out, did a reasonable job, and got some good tips from the professional. Then she suggested I give it a try. Uh... I had asked a question earlier on about how difficult it was nowadays to get work as a dealer, but I really had no intention of becoming a dealer myself! She might have got the wrong idea from my question, but I gave it a try anyhow.
Damn, the first time is not easy! The basic shuffle didn't give me problems, but I had never tried boxing and was hopeless at it. Linda came over with some expert coaching, and I improved somewhat, but would still need a huge amount of practice. I flung cards with too much arm movement, which Mary assured me would exhaust me in 30 minutes of real dealing. I got lost trying to follow whose action it was, and when two or three folks went all in and I had to figure the main and side pots, I felt dizzy and my brain was creaking.
It felt a bit like the first time I found myself in a HORSE game and had to learn all these new games quickly and shift from one to the other. My brain felt STRETCHED and my thinking slowed. Nowadays it gives me no problems, so I assume the dealing will eventually go a lot smoother as well.
So we played some loose and silly holdem for an hour or two to give people practice playing and dealing, then finished up and headed home at 11pm. The Card Player folks were still a bit jet-lagged, and everyone wanted to be well rested for the JPC tourney the next day.
Not much real poker for Mike, but maybe next time. Besides, he has internet at his gaijin house, so he can play online. Kids today are spoiled rotten.
Considering that there aren't any other poker rooms in town, they could probably just call it "The Room" and we would know what they meant.
The only other game in town that I know of is at Duke, a bar in the Nihonbashi area that I have described before. I think of it as "the Poker Bar". My friend J.P. will ask me "Room or Bar?" when I tell him I'm going out to play poker. Hopefully someday he'll have to ask me something a lot more complicated, but for now, that's it.
So anyhow, it was cool to meet up with Mike, who's out here for the Living In Japan adventure. I did the same thing, long time ago, and it made me smile. Somewhere along the line the adventure just became normal life, so it's nice to be reminded of what it was like to wrap things up in your home country, move halfway across the world to someplace bizarrely different in many ways, set up shop in a dingy rat-hole of a temporary apartment, and begin to struggle with the language and finding a place for yourself in a brand new society. Ah, those were the days.
Though several times over the course of the evening, I had to break out the old stand-by, "You know, back when I was a kid..."
as in...
"You know, back when I was a kid, gaijin houses didn't have internet access! I had to buy a converter RJ-11 jack to the headset of my borrowed PHS phone so I could use my laptop's mobile with dialup! Reception at my place was horrible, so I had to set my laptop on my bed and hold the mobile phone up to the window to get a signal, and had to type one-handed until the modem dropped out."
Damn kids today...
Ahem, where was it?
Anyhow, I showed Mike to the Ueno room and explained a bit about the weekly games they run there. It was already getting pretty busy as quite a few folks had shown up for the talks, and Linda and Jan showed up soon and started greeting the players they had met from previous years. I chatted a bit with Mark G's wife Mary, who works as a dealer and was quite friendly and outgoing. Jan also announced to everyone that the doctor who had treated her when she got very ill during last year's JPC, Dr. Yamaguchi, was there that evening and she gave her thanks for saving her life last year.
Bluejay showed up with another foreigner guest, but who was not introduced and who didn't really speak to anyone. I did a double-take - holy smokes, is that Jennifer Harman?! A second later I doubted it - she looked different than J.H. does on tv. I looked closer and started to get uncertain again. How many petite blondes with 1980s Meg Ryan hairstyles are likely to show up with Bluejay to visit his poker room? But no one said anything, no one freaked out, no one introduced themselves to her, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for the talks to start.
The talks by the Card Player guests were very short. They were actually just a few minutes of off-the-cuff remarks, followed by a few questions from the Japanese audience. Linda Johnson did mention in the "Poker and Television" segment that they were starting a International Poker Tour tv show, with a set roster of 60 players visiting various locations worldwide for televised poker tournaments. Apparently Linda, Jan, Mark, and Hiroshi (Bluejay) are four of the players who will be in each of these events.
I whispered to Mike, "You think the tv audience can take another televised poker tour?" When I was back in the States over Christmas holidays, every time I turned on the tv I would find a poker tournament going on. It was pretty cool at first, but I got kind of sick of it after a while.
Mark and Mary spoke about being poker professionals, he as a player and she as a dealer (and player too, of course), which was interesting. Mary noted that she had done some of the dealing for the High Stakes Poker show, so I'll be sure to keep an eye out for her in future eps. Doyle-san asked a question at the end about how well the high-rollers in that game tipped the dealers. She made a non-committal reply, so I interjected another question, "Who got better tips, the dealers or those women you see walking back and forth in the background sometimes?" She laughed and replied, "Oh, those ladies did, by far! Doyle tipped them very well."
Something to consider if you are a hot lady in a slinky dress considering the life of a poker dealer.
Bluejay skipped his talk about "Japanese Players and Overseas Tournaments". Meg-Ryan-Haircut hung out in the back quietly and left soon afterwards.
So the talks ended pretty quickly and they switched to the dealer training portion of the evening. Linda and Mary each took one of the poker tables that were set up, and began going through all the processes of dealing poker, from the scrambles, shuffles, boxing, cutting, dealing, prompting players for their action, counting chips, figuring all-ins and multiple pots, and any other question about dealing that someone had. Quite a few of the players there act as dealers in the games, and some of them are quite good, but others seemed interested in all the techniques of a pro dealer, as if they planned to become dealers themselves. There are dealers schools in Japan, I know, but I am not sure how well attended they are since there's not a lot of demand for dealers here.
Bluejay was handling the translation at Linda's table, I believe, but there wasn't anyone handling Mary's table. Most of the Japanese can follow English to some extent, but not perfectly, so I sucked it up and tried my best as a translator. Everybody followed along, so that much worked out well.
After Mary went through it all, she encouraged some of those interested in dealing to give it a try. One of our regular amateur dealers gave it a go and managed it all pretty smoothly. One of the guys who looked like he was considering becoming a dealer also tried it out, did a reasonable job, and got some good tips from the professional. Then she suggested I give it a try. Uh... I had asked a question earlier on about how difficult it was nowadays to get work as a dealer, but I really had no intention of becoming a dealer myself! She might have got the wrong idea from my question, but I gave it a try anyhow.
Damn, the first time is not easy! The basic shuffle didn't give me problems, but I had never tried boxing and was hopeless at it. Linda came over with some expert coaching, and I improved somewhat, but would still need a huge amount of practice. I flung cards with too much arm movement, which Mary assured me would exhaust me in 30 minutes of real dealing. I got lost trying to follow whose action it was, and when two or three folks went all in and I had to figure the main and side pots, I felt dizzy and my brain was creaking.
It felt a bit like the first time I found myself in a HORSE game and had to learn all these new games quickly and shift from one to the other. My brain felt STRETCHED and my thinking slowed. Nowadays it gives me no problems, so I assume the dealing will eventually go a lot smoother as well.
So we played some loose and silly holdem for an hour or two to give people practice playing and dealing, then finished up and headed home at 11pm. The Card Player folks were still a bit jet-lagged, and everyone wanted to be well rested for the JPC tourney the next day.
Not much real poker for Mike, but maybe next time. Besides, he has internet at his gaijin house, so he can play online. Kids today are spoiled rotten.
JPC2006 -- Not
After all that build-up, I did not attend the 2006 Japan Poker Championship.
My girlfriend got pretty sick on Friday, with a fever and cough, I discovered when I got home. She had gone to bed early, so I climbed in with her and in the morning asked how she was doing. She still felt pretty awful, obviously, so I decided to skip the tournament and stay home with her.
The decision was pretty easy. I figured myself as dead money in the tournament anyhow, so attending would have left me 10,000yen poorer. It would have been interesting to play with Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Mark Gregovich, but would it have been worth 10,000yen? Not really. (Not to diss the Card Player folks that came out from the States, but sick girlfriend comes first. This is how it should be.)
I checked the JPPA web site, and it looks like Mark Gregovich took first. Linda, Jan, and Mary all placed pretty well, but that foreign devil Mark won it. I have to grind my teeth - I really wanted a Japanese to win it and show that there are some damn good poker players here. One or two comments that Jan made on Friday night kind of stuck in my craw, about how the foreigners couldn't compete in the JPC last year because of her illness, so a Japanese won. But they were back this year to win it. It was spoken mostly in jest, but it still smacked of an arrogance I would have been happy to see thwarted.
It didn't happen, obviously, so maybe they were justified in that confidence. Still... woulda been nice.
I was very surprised to see that the first player out was "kugatsu", a very strong, solid player here who inspires a good deal of fear and respect from the other players at the JPPA. Wish I had around to see what happened - it must have been something like Kings versus Aces in the early hands and it didn't turn out well for him.
Anyhow, my begruding congratulations to Mark G for his victory. I hope they come back next year, 'cause I'll be gunning for them!
My girlfriend got pretty sick on Friday, with a fever and cough, I discovered when I got home. She had gone to bed early, so I climbed in with her and in the morning asked how she was doing. She still felt pretty awful, obviously, so I decided to skip the tournament and stay home with her.
The decision was pretty easy. I figured myself as dead money in the tournament anyhow, so attending would have left me 10,000yen poorer. It would have been interesting to play with Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Mark Gregovich, but would it have been worth 10,000yen? Not really. (Not to diss the Card Player folks that came out from the States, but sick girlfriend comes first. This is how it should be.)
I checked the JPPA web site, and it looks like Mark Gregovich took first. Linda, Jan, and Mary all placed pretty well, but that foreign devil Mark won it. I have to grind my teeth - I really wanted a Japanese to win it and show that there are some damn good poker players here. One or two comments that Jan made on Friday night kind of stuck in my craw, about how the foreigners couldn't compete in the JPC last year because of her illness, so a Japanese won. But they were back this year to win it. It was spoken mostly in jest, but it still smacked of an arrogance I would have been happy to see thwarted.
It didn't happen, obviously, so maybe they were justified in that confidence. Still... woulda been nice.
I was very surprised to see that the first player out was "kugatsu", a very strong, solid player here who inspires a good deal of fear and respect from the other players at the JPPA. Wish I had around to see what happened - it must have been something like Kings versus Aces in the early hands and it didn't turn out well for him.
Anyhow, my begruding congratulations to Mark G for his victory. I hope they come back next year, 'cause I'll be gunning for them!
Friday, March 24, 2006
SNG
I did manage to get in a Sit And Go last night, as a bit of practice. I took a $5 SNG on Stars, since I didn't find any $5 games I liked on FTP. (The low limit ones seem to be mostly Turbo games, which is fine some days but not what I am after now.)
The SNG was great fun, and not just because I took first and stroked my fragile ego. Stars SNGs just feel better. Deeper stacks and better players. More interesting situations and real decision making. It feels more like real poker than the crazy push-fests you find on some sites. Kind of like playing in a blogger tourney - it's a tougher game, but it's more fun because people have a better idea what they are doing.
In one of the books I read (I think it was Zen and the Art of Poker), I found something that has been extremely helpful in learning how to observe online players, especially in SNGs. Unfortunately I am too dependent on PokerTracker to do this for me online, and when it comes to live play, I am pretty clueless. The tip is, verbally narrate the game as you play it, as if you're the tv or radio announcer for the game, describing the action to the viewers. This really works for me, although I only do this when I am playing tournaments right after work but before my GF gets home. If she routinely finds me talking, talking, talking to myself while alone in my computer room playing online poker, she might have me committed.
Anyhow, I think I played well in the SNG, encouraging me that I may have a reasonable chance in the JPC game tomorrow. The table was pretty passive at the start, and I found I could limp in with speculative hands and then bet aggressively after the flop and often take the pot regardless of my cards. A couple of players were eliminated, and chip leaders status was passed back and forth many times.
At one point I had taken a substantial chip lead, so I raised 3BB from the CO with 10-3 of diamonds to put some pressure on the blinds. Just the small blind called, with a bit less than half my stack. The flop came J-A-A, two diamonds. SB checked, and I made a half-pot bet to try to see if he had an ace or jack or would give it up immediately. In retrospect, probably a mistake -- should have just taken my free card to try to make my flush. But I felt that if I checked there, he'd bet strongly on the turn and I'd half to fold my hand in fear of either an ace or jack.
So I bet 350, and he immediately raises to 1750, all-in. Whoops. Guess he has an ace or jack.
I was going to fold it, but then stopped to look at my pot odds. Since it was an all-in, I could call and get two more cards to try to complete my flush. I hit the time bank button and grabbed my calculator and odds sheet. There was about 3100 chips in the pot, and I had to call 1400, so I was getting a bit more than 2 to 1 odds. My odds chart showed me with about 1.86 to 1 odds to make my flush with two cards to come, so I was getting the odds. As well, I had the chance to eliminate another player, and I would still have a reasonable stack if I lost, so I made the call.
He flipped over A-8, confirming what I already knew, and I crossed my fingers.
Turn was 5 of hearts. I took a deep breath.
River was 8 of diamonds! Yes!
Oh wait. No. He took the pot with his full house.
So I still need to learn to account for such things. The eight of diamonds was not an actual out for me, so I only had 8 outs instead of 9. According to PT, I checked later, I still had the odds with 8 outs, so I'm still content with my decision.
I hung in there, and it came down to four players, all of us fairly evenly stacked. It went back and forth many times, bet-fold or bet-raise-fold. I was enjoying it - this was good patience training for me, though one of the players, who I had tagged in my mind as a frat boy by his icon for a college sports team and general demeanor, started to complain about how this was boring him.
I ignored it and kept playing the same. I wasn't going to do something stupid and get knocked out now. It wasn't that I was on the bubble, it was that losing patience and making a bad move, something I knew in my gut was the wrong play, is a mistake I frequently make that knocks me out of the game right when it starts to look like I could make a decent showing.
Finally, several hands later, I am dealt pocket Jacks on the button. UTG (not frat boy) goes all-in, and I have him barely covered, so I call. The other players stand clear, and he turns over Td-4d. There are two fives on the flop, and I catch a third Jack on the turn for a totally unneccessary full house to break the bubble.
Guess he saw my location and doesn't believe where I live.
The next hand, the other non-frat-boy player goes all-in, and I find As-Ks. I call, and he shows A-8 offsuit. I pair my King and send him home too. I am heads up with Frat Boy.
This is either somewhat flattering or fairly disturbing. Or both.
Actually I think he had been getting upset by my fairly aggressive play so far, and had sworn revenge. The smack talk began.
During this time we went back and forth but didn't get into any major pots or hurt each other much, though he was starting to catch up with my stack. I was actually starting to get a bit paranoid, since I was being dealt some pretty good cards while in the big blind but never got any action, as he would fold immediately. J-K. Then pocket queens. Then pocket Kings! Come on, man, call me!
Shit, is my machine hacked? Can he see my cards? I open up Task Manager to look for unfamiliar processes. All looks normal. Behind the Task Manager window I see I have another hand. A-10 of clubs. I call, and Frat Boy jumps all-in. A-10 is not bad headsup, I figure, so I call. He has A-6 offsuit. A ten comes on the flop, and an Ace on the River, and I take first place.
It felt good. I should do this more often.
The SNG was great fun, and not just because I took first and stroked my fragile ego. Stars SNGs just feel better. Deeper stacks and better players. More interesting situations and real decision making. It feels more like real poker than the crazy push-fests you find on some sites. Kind of like playing in a blogger tourney - it's a tougher game, but it's more fun because people have a better idea what they are doing.
In one of the books I read (I think it was Zen and the Art of Poker), I found something that has been extremely helpful in learning how to observe online players, especially in SNGs. Unfortunately I am too dependent on PokerTracker to do this for me online, and when it comes to live play, I am pretty clueless. The tip is, verbally narrate the game as you play it, as if you're the tv or radio announcer for the game, describing the action to the viewers. This really works for me, although I only do this when I am playing tournaments right after work but before my GF gets home. If she routinely finds me talking, talking, talking to myself while alone in my computer room playing online poker, she might have me committed.
Anyhow, I think I played well in the SNG, encouraging me that I may have a reasonable chance in the JPC game tomorrow. The table was pretty passive at the start, and I found I could limp in with speculative hands and then bet aggressively after the flop and often take the pot regardless of my cards. A couple of players were eliminated, and chip leaders status was passed back and forth many times.
At one point I had taken a substantial chip lead, so I raised 3BB from the CO with 10-3 of diamonds to put some pressure on the blinds. Just the small blind called, with a bit less than half my stack. The flop came J-A-A, two diamonds. SB checked, and I made a half-pot bet to try to see if he had an ace or jack or would give it up immediately. In retrospect, probably a mistake -- should have just taken my free card to try to make my flush. But I felt that if I checked there, he'd bet strongly on the turn and I'd half to fold my hand in fear of either an ace or jack.
So I bet 350, and he immediately raises to 1750, all-in. Whoops. Guess he has an ace or jack.
I was going to fold it, but then stopped to look at my pot odds. Since it was an all-in, I could call and get two more cards to try to complete my flush. I hit the time bank button and grabbed my calculator and odds sheet. There was about 3100 chips in the pot, and I had to call 1400, so I was getting a bit more than 2 to 1 odds. My odds chart showed me with about 1.86 to 1 odds to make my flush with two cards to come, so I was getting the odds. As well, I had the chance to eliminate another player, and I would still have a reasonable stack if I lost, so I made the call.
He flipped over A-8, confirming what I already knew, and I crossed my fingers.
Turn was 5 of hearts. I took a deep breath.
River was 8 of diamonds! Yes!
Oh wait. No. He took the pot with his full house.
So I still need to learn to account for such things. The eight of diamonds was not an actual out for me, so I only had 8 outs instead of 9. According to PT, I checked later, I still had the odds with 8 outs, so I'm still content with my decision.
I hung in there, and it came down to four players, all of us fairly evenly stacked. It went back and forth many times, bet-fold or bet-raise-fold. I was enjoying it - this was good patience training for me, though one of the players, who I had tagged in my mind as a frat boy by his icon for a college sports team and general demeanor, started to complain about how this was boring him.
jrayuofl said, "no battles"
jrayuofl said, "all of u guys have had the same stacks for a while"
jrayuofl said, "bet raise fold"
jrayuofl said, "fk it this blows"
JONROBBY42 said, "you keep folding too pudd"
JONROBBY42 said, "you aint called a hand cause your short and on the bubble"
jrayuofl said, "im not raiseing then folding"
I ignored it and kept playing the same. I wasn't going to do something stupid and get knocked out now. It wasn't that I was on the bubble, it was that losing patience and making a bad move, something I knew in my gut was the wrong play, is a mistake I frequently make that knocks me out of the game right when it starts to look like I could make a decent showing.
JamesAt15 said, "everybody get comfortable"
JamesAt15: folds
JamesAt15 said, "we're gonna be here a while"
Finally, several hands later, I am dealt pocket Jacks on the button. UTG (not frat boy) goes all-in, and I have him barely covered, so I call. The other players stand clear, and he turns over Td-4d. There are two fives on the flop, and I catch a third Jack on the turn for a totally unneccessary full house to break the bubble.
jrayuofl said, "tokyo my ***"
jrayuofl said, "i will destroy u"
Guess he saw my location and doesn't believe where I live.
The next hand, the other non-frat-boy player goes all-in, and I find As-Ks. I call, and he shows A-8 offsuit. I pair my King and send him home too. I am heads up with Frat Boy.
jrayuofl said, "wanted u all night"
This is either somewhat flattering or fairly disturbing. Or both.
Actually I think he had been getting upset by my fairly aggressive play so far, and had sworn revenge. The smack talk began.
jrayuofl said, "lol good try wise guy"
jrayuofl said, "i own you"
jrayuofl said, "you noit"
jrayuofl said, "tilt"
jrayuofl said, "2nd aint bad man"
jrayuofl said, "pays 13 50"
During this time we went back and forth but didn't get into any major pots or hurt each other much, though he was starting to catch up with my stack. I was actually starting to get a bit paranoid, since I was being dealt some pretty good cards while in the big blind but never got any action, as he would fold immediately. J-K. Then pocket queens. Then pocket Kings! Come on, man, call me!
Shit, is my machine hacked? Can he see my cards? I open up Task Manager to look for unfamiliar processes. All looks normal. Behind the Task Manager window I see I have another hand. A-10 of clubs. I call, and Frat Boy jumps all-in. A-10 is not bad headsup, I figure, so I call. He has A-6 offsuit. A ten comes on the flop, and an Ace on the River, and I take first place.
It felt good. I should do this more often.
Traffic
It's a little disheartening to see that most traffic to my blog comes from random people clicking the "Next Blog" or "Recent Updates" buttons on blogger.com. If only I were more interesting...
Maybe I should just start regularly posting pics of cute Japanese girls.
Maybe I should just start regularly posting pics of cute Japanese girls.
Tonight!
I'm off to the JPPA tonight for the Night-Before-The-2006-Japan-Poker-Championship party! I'll also be meeting up with Tokyo's newest poker blogger, since it seems like a good opportunity to introduce him to the thriving (THRIVING!) poker culture here.
Tonight the Card Player guests will give several talks. Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher will be speaking on "Poker and Television", Mark Gregovich will be speaking on "Poker Players", and Bluejay will be speaking with an unnamed foreigner guest on "Japanese players and overseas poker tournaments".
That last one certainly piques my interest. Bluejay seems to know quite a few name poker pros, and has said that some of them have expressed interest in coming to visit Japan. I won't get my hopes up too high, but I am very curious who the secret guest could be.
I told Mike that "a poker game might even break out" after the talks, but I'm not sure how likely that really is. Sounds like we'll have a busy evening already, and Bluejay may have plans to go out with the foreigner guests afterwards. We'll see. I have already warned my GF that I'll be out late, so if plans at the poker room dry up, Roppongi beckons. If Mike hasn't been, someone's gotta take him. It's a moral imperative. He's a foreigner guy in Tokyo... he's gotta go to Roppongi! It's in The Code!
Tonight the Card Player guests will give several talks. Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher will be speaking on "Poker and Television", Mark Gregovich will be speaking on "Poker Players", and Bluejay will be speaking with an unnamed foreigner guest on "Japanese players and overseas poker tournaments".
That last one certainly piques my interest. Bluejay seems to know quite a few name poker pros, and has said that some of them have expressed interest in coming to visit Japan. I won't get my hopes up too high, but I am very curious who the secret guest could be.
I told Mike that "a poker game might even break out" after the talks, but I'm not sure how likely that really is. Sounds like we'll have a busy evening already, and Bluejay may have plans to go out with the foreigner guests afterwards. We'll see. I have already warned my GF that I'll be out late, so if plans at the poker room dry up, Roppongi beckons. If Mike hasn't been, someone's gotta take him. It's a moral imperative. He's a foreigner guy in Tokyo... he's gotta go to Roppongi! It's in The Code!
Taxes.
I was hoping to play a bunch of SNGs and small tourneys this week, but it didn't work out that way. Work and taxes have kept me busy.
Taxes turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought they would be. Up until now my company has done the tax return for me, which sounds like it is very common here in Japan. But since I bought an apartment this year, our company accountant said I'd have to do it myself.
Naturally I put it off... and put it off... and put it off. I dread taxes in general, and particular dread trying to work out how to do the taxes in Japanese. And I dreaded having to call my realtor or the tax offices and struggle with my lacking Japanese to try to find out what I needed and how to get it. And I am a procrastinator to begin with, so the chances of my taking the initiative and getting these done were about the same as Ichiro deciding to give up baseball in favor of coaching the Japanese Olympic women's curling team.
My GF reminded me several times over the last few weeks. I kept saying, "yeah, okay, I will do it," and then putting it off again. Finally, the March 15 deadline loomed up and she turned on Nag Mode. I resented it, of course, but it's what I needed. That's me, Mr. Passive-Aggressive.
We were planning to go to the tax office on the 15th (the deadline day!) and work through it with their tax planners, but the web site showed that they were expecting huge crowds that day. (Imagine that!) My GF called them and they actually said it was okay to come in a few days later. Damn nice of them! So we did.
I was near stunned at how easy it was. We went in to the tax office the day afterwards and went to the Tax Guidance area, and were quickly shown to a table with the relevent documents all spread out and an employee quickly sat down with us to work through it. We had brought the tax documents we thought we needed, but quickly found that we needed more documentation about the apartment purchase. The tax official gave us the list of documents we needed, and maps to the office where I could pick them up. He also went through the statement and worked out all the figures for us, pencilling them in. "All right, now, all you have to do is bring back those two forms, turn this in, and you're done."
This is what I had been dreading?
I had to wait a few more days to get another free morning to hit the real estate registration office, also straightforward. Back to the tax office, where another official quickly checked though all the paperwork, confirmed the figures were all correct, told me to write over them in pen, and then sent me on to turn them in. Took all of 20 minutes. According to the official, I should get my refund (deposited directly into my bank account) in less than a month.
Color me impressed, and very sheepish. I could have done this two months ago, easy.
Taxes turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought they would be. Up until now my company has done the tax return for me, which sounds like it is very common here in Japan. But since I bought an apartment this year, our company accountant said I'd have to do it myself.
Naturally I put it off... and put it off... and put it off. I dread taxes in general, and particular dread trying to work out how to do the taxes in Japanese. And I dreaded having to call my realtor or the tax offices and struggle with my lacking Japanese to try to find out what I needed and how to get it. And I am a procrastinator to begin with, so the chances of my taking the initiative and getting these done were about the same as Ichiro deciding to give up baseball in favor of coaching the Japanese Olympic women's curling team.
My GF reminded me several times over the last few weeks. I kept saying, "yeah, okay, I will do it," and then putting it off again. Finally, the March 15 deadline loomed up and she turned on Nag Mode. I resented it, of course, but it's what I needed. That's me, Mr. Passive-Aggressive.
We were planning to go to the tax office on the 15th (the deadline day!) and work through it with their tax planners, but the web site showed that they were expecting huge crowds that day. (Imagine that!) My GF called them and they actually said it was okay to come in a few days later. Damn nice of them! So we did.
I was near stunned at how easy it was. We went in to the tax office the day afterwards and went to the Tax Guidance area, and were quickly shown to a table with the relevent documents all spread out and an employee quickly sat down with us to work through it. We had brought the tax documents we thought we needed, but quickly found that we needed more documentation about the apartment purchase. The tax official gave us the list of documents we needed, and maps to the office where I could pick them up. He also went through the statement and worked out all the figures for us, pencilling them in. "All right, now, all you have to do is bring back those two forms, turn this in, and you're done."
This is what I had been dreading?
I had to wait a few more days to get another free morning to hit the real estate registration office, also straightforward. Back to the tax office, where another official quickly checked though all the paperwork, confirmed the figures were all correct, told me to write over them in pen, and then sent me on to turn them in. Took all of 20 minutes. According to the official, I should get my refund (deposited directly into my bank account) in less than a month.
Color me impressed, and very sheepish. I could have done this two months ago, easy.
Monday, March 20, 2006
2006 JPC -- Next weekend!
My god, the 2006 JPC is this Saturday!
As I wrote before, several writers from Card Player Magazine, all friends of Bluejay, are coming out this week to play in the JPC and give talks and answer questions. Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher, who have come for JPC before, are returning, and this time around Mark Gregorich is attending as well.
Yesterday I logged onto the JPPA web page and registered to play. I won one of the Everest Cup tourneys a few months back (the iPod nano I received for first place almost never leaves my side), so I have the right to play. But the tournament fee is 10,000 yen, or around $85, which is the largest tourney buy-in I'll have ever put up. And I feel very much like dead money. But ah well, maybe I'll get lucky!
All this week I will be re-reading my Harrington volume 1 (and volume 2 if I get to it), and playing SNGs and small tourneys in the evening to try to prepare. I don't think it will make much difference, but it will be better than going in cold.
Friday night the Card Player guys will be doing some talks and Q&A, so I will try to make that session as well. The JPC starts at noon on Saturday, and will probably take most of the day. First place receives the custom 2006 JPC bracelet, and travel coupons worth 50,000yen. (Enough to put a decent dent into your next trip to Vegas.) Second through fifth pay out with travel coupons, down to 10,000yen for fifth. Me, I will be happy if I can outlast half the field.
As I wrote before, several writers from Card Player Magazine, all friends of Bluejay, are coming out this week to play in the JPC and give talks and answer questions. Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher, who have come for JPC before, are returning, and this time around Mark Gregorich is attending as well.
Yesterday I logged onto the JPPA web page and registered to play. I won one of the Everest Cup tourneys a few months back (the iPod nano I received for first place almost never leaves my side), so I have the right to play. But the tournament fee is 10,000 yen, or around $85, which is the largest tourney buy-in I'll have ever put up. And I feel very much like dead money. But ah well, maybe I'll get lucky!
All this week I will be re-reading my Harrington volume 1 (and volume 2 if I get to it), and playing SNGs and small tourneys in the evening to try to prepare. I don't think it will make much difference, but it will be better than going in cold.
Friday night the Card Player guys will be doing some talks and Q&A, so I will try to make that session as well. The JPC starts at noon on Saturday, and will probably take most of the day. First place receives the custom 2006 JPC bracelet, and travel coupons worth 50,000yen. (Enough to put a decent dent into your next trip to Vegas.) Second through fifth pay out with travel coupons, down to 10,000yen for fifth. Me, I will be happy if I can outlast half the field.
Dipping my toe into the no-limit waters
After my last upbeat posting about my new experiences on Full Tilt, I got beaten back down severely. Only the deposit bonus I am working off there is keeping me at about even, and even that is a bittersweet pill because PokerTracker ignores that and still shows my losses. The only way to get rid of those red numbers is to actually win by good play. Sigh.
Frustrated, I have been testing the No-Limit waters again. When I started playing online, I struggled for a couple months with Limit holdem, never really getting a handle on it. Then I tried No-Limit, and enjoyed good success, watching the graph of my bankroll take a sharp turn upward. After several weeks of upward growth, things got a little unclear. I don't remember exactly what happened - I think I started playing more SnGs and tournaments, as well as trying to learn the basics of Omaha and Stud games, and generally lost my focus and let things dissipate.
I'm still struggling with Limit, so maybe it is time to ease back into No Limit for a while again and see if I can still make money at it. Frankly, I don't remember a whole lot about what I was doing the first time around that seemed to be working well for me. I think I was playing very cautiously, giving up hands quickly I was not sure about and then waiting to double up with the nuts. It sounds pretty weak-tight to me now, but hell, it made me a thousand bucks pretty quickly. The thing is, I have a sneaking suspicion now that I might have just got lucky.
This time around I have read Harrington On Holdem, and hopefully have a better idea of how to play. I'm dabbling in the $.05/$.10 tables on Full Tilt now, scraping out a couple bucks profit at a time while I try to decide if I really can play this game again or not. It shouldn't be so different than playing no limit SnGs or tournaments, but somehow it feels different and I am being extremely cautious.
I still have my goals of reaching the 300BB profit level in $1/$2 Limit and $1/$2 Limit 6-Max, but I'm going to put them on the back burner for a few weeks while I give this another try. I can only bang my head against the same wall for so long before I have to go try another wall for comparison.
Frustrated, I have been testing the No-Limit waters again. When I started playing online, I struggled for a couple months with Limit holdem, never really getting a handle on it. Then I tried No-Limit, and enjoyed good success, watching the graph of my bankroll take a sharp turn upward. After several weeks of upward growth, things got a little unclear. I don't remember exactly what happened - I think I started playing more SnGs and tournaments, as well as trying to learn the basics of Omaha and Stud games, and generally lost my focus and let things dissipate.
I'm still struggling with Limit, so maybe it is time to ease back into No Limit for a while again and see if I can still make money at it. Frankly, I don't remember a whole lot about what I was doing the first time around that seemed to be working well for me. I think I was playing very cautiously, giving up hands quickly I was not sure about and then waiting to double up with the nuts. It sounds pretty weak-tight to me now, but hell, it made me a thousand bucks pretty quickly. The thing is, I have a sneaking suspicion now that I might have just got lucky.
This time around I have read Harrington On Holdem, and hopefully have a better idea of how to play. I'm dabbling in the $.05/$.10 tables on Full Tilt now, scraping out a couple bucks profit at a time while I try to decide if I really can play this game again or not. It shouldn't be so different than playing no limit SnGs or tournaments, but somehow it feels different and I am being extremely cautious.
I still have my goals of reaching the 300BB profit level in $1/$2 Limit and $1/$2 Limit 6-Max, but I'm going to put them on the back burner for a few weeks while I give this another try. I can only bang my head against the same wall for so long before I have to go try another wall for comparison.
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