Everest Poker

The JPPA web page has had links up to Everest Poker for a while now, but it wasn't until I saw that Everest Poker was sponsoring a poker tournament for the JPPA, the Everest Poker Cup, that I thought to sign up and give it a try.

The Everest poker client supports something like 16 different languages, including Japanese! This is pretty impressive, and encouraging for Japanese players. Most Japanese study English in school for several years, but the average Japanese person can handle about as much English as the average you or I can handle spanish or french if we studied it a couple years in high school.

It's no fun to run applications regularly that are not in your native language. Having a native Japanese language poker client is a big deal - Japanese who are new to poker and need to get comfortable with the game won't have the added discomfort of an application in another language, scrolling English messages that take an effort to comprehend.

I signed up for Everest, launched the installer, then selected Japanese as the native language. The installation program was all in Japanese after that, and the program itself fired up completely in Japanese. Slick! I jumped in a game and played a few hand - the interface is all right but nothing spectacular. But the client supports Japanese text in the chat windows too, I confirmed. Japanese can chat with each other easily, which is pretty cool. Japanese character sets often don't work well in applications that aren't designed with them in mind.



I noticed in my game there were players from Chile, France, Canada, and eastern Europe, and they all had something other than English selected as their native language. Also impressive. Everest seems to be in a good position to go after international non-English speaking markets... and that's most of the world, isn't it?

I haven't tried it out yet, but apparently there are keyboard shortcuts for common phrases ("nice hand," "hello," "good game," etc.) that will automatically show up in everyone's native language. You may not even realize the guy you're chatting with speaks another language for the first few moments.


I had assumed that the Everest Poker Cup would be an online tournament, kind of like the PokerStars blogger tournament, and the JPPA players would log in to Everest and we would play there. But despite signing up for the tournament on the JPPA page and getting a registration number, I couldn't find the tounament listed in the Everest client. About 30 minutes before the game was set to begin, I called up the JPPA card room, figuring someone would be there, and asked about it. It wasn't an online tournament at all - it was a live game at the JPPA card room in Ueno, just sponsored by Everest!

I flung on pants and rushed outside to catch a cab to the card room. Made it there 10 or 15 minutes late, but they had saved a spot for me and the blinds hadn't hurt me too much yet.

I noticed something different as I sat down. The chips! The chips were all new, and had the Everest logo at the top and "Japan Poker Player's Association" at the bottom. Nice! There were also two large Everest Poker posters up on the walls. And they also kicked in several prizes for the JPPA-Everest Cup, including things like iPods, Playstations, etc. The prize for the tourney I entered was just a deck of Everest Poker playing cards, but presumably some of the other games that have been going on have had the juicier loot.

I got nowhere in the tourney - bled off my chips steadily as I got crap hand after crap hand. The best hand I saw was A-4 suited, which I limped in with just to see a flop with only one of my suit and fold.

But the games are still going, every Friday and every other Saturday, with no entry fees and free prizes put up by Everest. Hard to go wrong with that. These guys are tossing their hat into the Japan poker market and earning some pretty decent goodwill points with the hardcore poker players here. For an investment of a couple thousand dollars worth of poker gear, it could turn out to be a very lucrative gamble.

Blogger Tourney

I'm registered! Checked with support today and they confirmed that I am in. Then I found that it's listed under "Inaugural Poker Stars Blogger Championship," not "PokerStars Blogger Championship" like the web page says...

Apparently I was the only one dense enough to scroll right down to the P's and not see the thing listed in the I's. If I'm this unobservant, I think my chances in the tournament are about the same as a Nathan's hot dog at Coney Island on July 4th with that skinny Japanese guy out to break his record.

Vegas, baby!

Booked my flights for my trip to Vegas in December, and then back to my hometown in the States to see my family for Christmas. I am really looking forward to a week in Las Vegas! I have usually only been there for 3-4 days, so this will be my longest stretch in the city of sin so far. Maybe a week will be too long?

I arrive Dec 17 - it would have been nice to get there a week earlier and made the WPBT Winter tourney, but I guess it's not meant to be. Most folks want their Vegas trips earlier in the month so as not to interfere with their Christmas plans. For me, it's the same trip so I want them to be closer. Oh well! I woulda lasted no more than 25 minutes in that game anyhow.

Maybe no blogger tourney after all?

I keep logging in to PokerStars to see if the Blogger Tourney is showing up in my Private Tourneys tab, but nothing yet. I am starting to feel concerned. I suppose that it could be:

I did something wrong and my entry was not processed

They just haven't got to my blog to check it yet. After all, it sounds like there are hundreds of entries so far.

Or maybe my poor blog just doesn't measure up. I knew I shoulda been posting more often, but you know, moving and a hell couple weeks at the day job kinda made that hard to do.

Oh well. I'll keep checking. I'm using PokerStars to practice Omaha and Hi-Lo games for their super-low stakes anyhow. I was pretty pleased when I made about a $10 profit at the $.02/$04 Omaha tables the other night.

I got a few poker books from Amazon the other day, and I'm nearly finished with Barry Greenstein's Ace On The River. Very enjoyable read, gorgeous photographs. I'm working through the "how do you play this situation?" quizzes at the end slowly, trying to think each one through as best I can. I answered the first four or five very close to BG's recommendations, but sometimes for different reasons. It was still encouraging. I'm not matching up with his plays near so much in the later quizzes, though. I think it must be because:

I did the first quizzes immediately after reading the earlier sections of his book, so I was more in the proper mindframe. The later quizzes I have done later, so I open up the book and do another quiz, so maybe the Poker Brain is not warmed up yet.

Maybe I just suck.

Blogger Tourney

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 1607449

The annoying part is that this tourney will start at about 4am Monday morning, here in Japan. I normally start work at 7:30am, but I imagine I might not have to worry. What the hell, we shall see! Harrington on Holdem is in the mail!

Mariah Carey?!

Found on a link from the CasinoMemo poker blog:

Mariah Carey Wins 300,000yen In Las Vegas Casino

Pop diva Mariah Carey made a big profit to the tune of $27,000 (300,000yen) at a Las Vegas Casino.

Mariah was attending the 33rd birthday party for music producer Jermaine Dupri, at the newly opened Tao Restaurant at the Venetian hotel.

Also attending the party were Dupri girlfriend Janet Jackson, Usher, Nelly, and Paris and Nikki Hilton.

Mariah also played poker in the casino next to the restaurant.

She got lucky, and made a big win of 300,000yen on only the third round.

Mariah said, "I used to play a lot of poker with my sister. But my dress shows off a lot, so I wonder if I might have won because the guys were all distracted."

Okay, now even Mariah Carey is playing poker?

I found this a little strange, so just did a google search and found the original English version of the story at FemaleFirst.co.uk. So I guess it is for real after all. Please note that my quotes of items from Japanese sites are being translated into English by my own lacking skills, so no goddamn complaints that my version of the story, translated from Japaense and then back into English, is a bit different than the original version.

NHK Poker Lecture Series

Bluejay points out in his blog that the NHK Culture Center in Nagoya will be starting a lecture series called "The Enjoyment and Charm of Poker." For 10,000 yen (about, what, $85?), the head of the JPPA will give six 90-minute talks every other Saturday in October, November, and December.

NHK is the Japan Broadcasting System, and is much like PBS in the United States. This is a little weird. Imagine switching your TV to PBS and after The Electric Company finishes up, there's a show on "The Wonderful World of Poker".

This is a lecture series, not a tv show, but still... odd.

Hopefully there will be some interested people and some new Japanese players will get involved with the game.

"Semi-Satellites"

In his blog, Bluejay writes,

Coming to Canada, I found a 'Semi-Satellite', that can earn you entry into a WPT Event. For these satellites, you can enter for only $3 Canadian, and you don't even need any poker skills!

If you're lucky, you can even win more than those that play in the event. If you check out the details here, it should be clear -- so far I've lost around 30,000yen on these! (laugh) Man, I didn't think there'd be something like this...

Japan Content

I have a nagging feeling that this blog has become very boring. There are plenty of other poker bloggers that both write and play poker better than I do, so I won't stand out on that front. About the only thing I can do to keep things interesting is to concentrate on the embryonic poker scene in Japan, which I have drifted away from.

So I will try to keep my musings about my online play and foolish bonus chasing to a minimum, and stick to more original content.

One thing I am considering is to keep an eye on the poker blogs of the Japanese players, and translate them to English. I need more Japanese practice anyhow. Considering that some of the Japanese players have competed and done quite well in the WSOP, and many are damn good players with a better feel for the poker world in Japan, I think there will be some good content to work with. We'll see how it goes.

This Friday is the final event for the Japan Series of Poker, too. I will see if I can make it out to cover the event, take some photos, and talk with some of the players. I probably won't be able to make the whole event, since I'm in the process of packing and cleaning for my move to the new apartment on Sunday, but I will try to make at least the final hours and get a shot of the silver bracelet and the winner and maybe some of the final table action.

Introspection Time

After the Duke tournament finished up, J.O. commented to me, "James, you need to start being able to play bad hands. If you play only good hands, everyone will recognize that and drop out as soon as you play."

Very true. And I knew that, of course. Everyone comments about being able to mix up your play so you'll get action on your good hands, but to be honest I haven't needed to do that online. At least, it's much less of an issue when you're playing on a site with 20,000 players logged in and on tables with 8 people you've never seen before and 1 you have. And many of these players aren't that great, so they are going to be slow to pick up on your play style, if they pick it up at all.

But now that I am playing every week or two with a group of the same 20 or 25 players, many of them pretty darn good, I am getting read much more easily. Time to start figuring out how to vary my game. I have a feeling this will take a while.

It is some small comfort that when I ran the autorating function of PokerTracker last night, it upgraded my icon from "Tight Neutral" to "Tight Agressive Solid (Good Player)". Thanks, pal, I needed that. I guess I have got my aggression up to about where it should be, though I may still be doing the right things at the wrong times, which PT will not be able to pick up on.

When I first looked at PT and loaded my hand histories and looked at the data, I found with chagrin that the hand I most regularly lost money with was... 8-9 offsuit. Yer kidding. I'm not really playing such a lousy hand, am I? Twenty-two times, this thing says?! Am I an idiot? I'm still hoping to find that I was sleepwalking to the computer and playing this crap while unconscious.

Last night I checked and found that my most losing hand was... A-8 suited. My second-most losing hand was... A-5 suited. And my fourth most losing hand was... A-J suited! At least I can see a trend here. I am calling too often with AXs to try to flop the nut flush or nut flush draw, and it's not paying off enough to make it worthwhile. At least this I can deal with.

In case you were wondering, "Hey, what was your third most losing hand?"... it was Q-5 suited. I'll be seeing a doctor about the somnambulism soon, I promise.

Tourney Results

I'll keep this short, since I doubt it's actually all that interesting to anyone other than me and maybe those who were in the game.

Saturday night, we had one last shot at getting into the Vegas Cup game later that evening - a limit holdem tourney started shortly after 7, with the last shot at winning points to be used as chips in the Vegas Cup. A new player, Kuri-san, with no entry into the Vegas Cup swore he would win it so he could compete. J.O., sitting pretty with 150 points from his victories over the last several months, took his spot and noted that he wasn't just going to give up those 30 points for first place to anyone.

They were both right, it turned out. Kuri-san held on to take second place, winning 10 points and entry into the Vegas Cup immediately following. J.O. destroyed all competition and earned himself another 30 points for a dominating 180 chip big-stack advantage.

Me, I lost most of my chips midway into the game when I got dealt TT in early position. I bet, one follower raised, another re-raised, and I called. The flop came something like K-6-Q rainbow, which naturally terrified me. Yet it was checked all around. Turn came an Ace, yet it was checked all around again. The river came a blank, and I began to think I might have lucked out and nobody hit anything. Yeah, I am that stupid. I bet, they both called. One had something like K-J, the other A-Q. Boom.

I only had a few chips left after that fiasco, so when I got K-J clubs a few hands later, I bet them and got a couple callers. The board came 5-5-9 with two clubs, then an 8 of clubs and I could breathe again. River came a ten of clubs but I still held hope that my King would hold up... until the other guy flipped over T-T for the full house.

Here, lemme get out of the way so you guys can spread out a bit. This table's too crowded anyhow.

The Vegas Cup ended up with 12 entrants, including Kuri-san with his fresh ten-point victory. We split into two 6-player tables, then combined back into one table when we had a few bustouts. I was the first to bust out - with only 10 chips and the blinds starting at 1/2, I had very little leeway. Oh, did I mention that I drew J.O. directly to my left? And Marume-san, another very decent player, directly to my right, though he was also relatively short-stacked with only 30 points.

J.O. started things out slowly, as if in no hurry to bust anyone. It didn't help much. I got no good cards and made no moves. As my stack dwindled from the blinds (they come around often on a 6-player table), the best hand I recall seeing was A-4 suited, under the gun. I hestitated, hesitated, then mucked them. I should have taken my shot. Soon after my last chip was put in when the big blind hit me and I had K-3 offsuit. I hit nothing, one of the others hit his 6 or something like that, and I was out.

Marume-san held in there and made it to the final 6 players with about 35 chips, facing JO with his 150, Mari with 120, Saeko with 90, and one other player named Kuroda-san with about 30. Kuroda-busted out first when he bet up his A-10 suited but the board came K-8-5 to pair J.O.'s K-10.

Marume dropped next when his stack began to dwindle and he raised his last 30 chips with A-Jo. Mari called him, and the board came 8-T-8-7-7, missing him completely. It also missed Mari, but she had pocket Jacks from the start and needed no help.

Down to three players, J.O. had around 240 in chips, Mari around 125, and Saeko around 120. Saeko had started with 60 and built up steadily, but was ill with something and looking not too well as the game ground on. Mari also looked tired out, as if she hadn't had enough sleep. J.O. seemed content to play slowly and not press things too much, as if wearing them down over time.

At one point, Mari glanced at her hand from under the gun, shoved them toward the center to fold, paused a moment, then cried "Oh! wait wait wait!" and retrieved them. They hadn't hit the muck, so she peeked at them again, then raised 60. Saeko and J.O. both folded immediately, and she picked up about 25 chips from their blinds. I still wonder what that was all about.

J.O. eventually knocked Saeko out when the board hit no one and his K-8 held up versus her J-3.

Mari held up for a long while, then eventually fell with Q-9 versus J.O.'s K-3. The board nearly filled out a straight for her, but it did not come through and she had to settle for second place.

And so, surprising no one, J.O. captured the Cup and will be enjoying his return to Vegas someday soon. But we're already planning the second Vegas Cup, six months from now, so I plan to do better in the next one.

Short Version

In case anyone was concerned with the outcome... I didn't win. Didn't even come close. It's okay, I can afford my own trip to Vegas. ^^

Full details later. Maybe tomorrow.

Here we go...

In a moment, I am out the door to head to Duke for the Vegas Cup. There's one last qualifier earlier in the evening, which if I took first or second place in would earn me some extra points to play with in the finals. The final will probably be about 20 players, main prize a trip for two to Las Vegas. Barring an win in the early game, I'll have only 10 chips to work with. Many have 40-60. J.O. has 150. I expect that blinds will start at 1 and 2 and go up every 10 or 20 minutes. (It's been 10 minutes in the games so far.)

If anyone out there is reading this, wish me luck, eh?

Not so scary

I tried moving up to $2/$4 limit holdem on PokerRoom.com to help earn Player Points faster. I had a good deal of trepidation, since I thought of $2/$4 as the beginning of Low Limits, as opposed to Micro Limits. I figured people who played $2/4 would be relatively good, a definite step up from the lower limits.

So far I have not found it all that different, which is a pleasant surprise. Last night I confirmed that there are still players at this limit that will occasionally do things to make you go, ".....huh??"

I am dealt Ah-2h in early position, so I decide to limp in and try to see the flop. Several calls, one raise, and three more calls before it gets back to me. Lots of players in the pot so I call the extra bet.

Flop is three more hearts. Woo! Just flopped the nuts! I have the feeling that I'll get plenty of callers, so I bet it. Several callers, then the guy to my right RAISES.

I actually paused here, puzzled. I checked the board. Yes, all hearts. My two cards are hearts. One is an ace. I have the nut flush. No pair on board. And this guy raised me?

I re-raise. One guy in middle position and the guy to my right call. Maybe my pause made me look indecisive, so they figure I am bluffing?

On the turn I check, and the MP guy raises. We end up capping it reraising back and forth, with the guy to my right calling the whole way.

I could swear that I have a big sign around my neck reading, "I have a flush! A big one!" But it's like these guys can't read.

At the river, MP pushes his last $4 in, and we both call. Still no pairs on the board so I am not worried, but damned curious what these guys are playing.

MP guy had 8s-7s, and made his straight when a 6 fell on the turn. Thus the raising war.

Guy to my right had two hearts for the flush... 10 high.

I think I might be all right at this level after all.

Lucky > Good

I made my second Royal Flush last night. At the time, I didn't even notice.

I get dealt As Ks in the small blind at a $1/2$ limit table, and several players limp in so I raise and everyone calls. The flop comes three spades, so I am happy. I pause, as if I am scared of all the spades, then check. Everyone else checks as well. Turn comes a red blank, so I bet, as if I have decided no one has the spades. One guy raises and I reraise, and two players call. Turn comes another spade, this one a queen. Perfect, now guys with even one high spade might take a stab at the pot. I raise, and the two others call. I take down the pot ($13, I think it was) with my ace-high flush.

A moment later, someone comments "NICE!". I'm about to give the standard "ty" when another says, "Whoa, that's the first time I've seen one of those." An ace-high flush? I scroll back the chat a bit and find the line "JamesXXXX has won with a ROYAL STRAIGHT FLUSH".

Come to the think of it, the flop was something like 10-6-J of spades. And that queen at the end, a spade. Huh.

It's nice to make the Royale With Cheese, but it really loses something when you have to have it pointed out to you afterwards.

This was on PokerRoom.com, so I got an email in a few minutes with congratulations and notifying me of a $100 bonus deposited into my account for the Royale. What if I had disabled my chat at the time? I wouldn't have even known about the Royale until I noticed the email much afterward. Holy shit, I made a Royale? WHEN?!?

The $100 was very welcome, though, since I only signed up with PokerRoom a few days ago and have been bleeding cash from the start, much to the enjoyment of the local leech squad. Players on PokerRoom seem noticably better than on Party, but that's going to be true for almost any site. But I was also playing scared, since I had only bought in for a small amount and some early losses had me worried I would bust out before making enough Player Points to get my signup bonuses. With the extra hundred, plus some more that I will dump in there this evening, I should be bolstered enough to feel more comfortable and not play so much like a pussy. This is my theory, anyways.

I just signed up on PokerRoom because I found PokerSource Online, via a mention on the 2+2 Forums. Probably old hat to most poker bloggers, but I liked the idea of an affiliate signup kickback site, and with their September bonus I would earn about $90 in goods for each of the sites I signed up at. I went with PokerRoom first because I liked the idea of a Java-based client so I could fire up poker quickly on my main desktop, a Mac, instead of having to boot up my PC game machine. Unfortunately their policy for earning the PlayerPoints I need to get my signup bonus for PSO and my initial deposit bonus are harder than they look. I need 600 points to clear both, and you get points from raked hands, so it didn't look that bad. But hands with rakes less than $.50 earn no points, and rakes less than $1 earn only half a point. So on the $1/$2 tables, I'm only seeing maybe half the hands earning any points, and most of those only half a point. So that 600points will probably be something more like 1500-2000 hands at that level. Ugh.

I should probably have started with Pacific Poker or AbsolutePoker, since their starting hand requirements look a lot more like Party's and only require 300 or 400 hands. Should be able to clear those much more quickly. If I can manage the $90 PSO bonus for each of those as well, it will be worthwhile. I need to get back to that $1K bankroll goal, and making it the old-fashioned way, by good poker play, just isn't doing it for me.

Poker bonus make me drool. Poker bonus make me fool.

Bubbles

After that quick $100 hit to my bankroll, I decide to try something different, so I joined a $1000 Guaranteed tournament that was starting in 20 minutes. $10+1 buyin, with rebuys and a $1500 add-on at the end of the rebuy period.

I had never played in a rebuy tournament before, so I don't have any real strategy for them. I decided just to try to play fairly tight and not lose my initial funds so it would hopefully not come up. About 60 players joined, and we got underway. I played tight and didn't see much action before the first break - I got no good cards so I mostly stayed out of everyone's way. I won small pots with 88 and 99, but other than those the best cards I saw were unsuited Ace-rag, which I chucked.

At the end of the rebuy period, I had about 900 of my original 1000 chips. The average stack was listed at around 2500, so I took the add-on to bring me up to 2400. Once we got underway, I got a string of good cards. AA, KK, AK, JTs with a good flop, and I bet them aggressively and suddenly I was chip leader of the remaining 40 players with about 19000 chips. It all happened in about 10 minutes of play. At that point I look over the payout structure and see that first place pays $354. Woo! That would go down nicely - pay off my earlier ring game losses and push me over that $1000 mark!

As the new big stack at the table, I began putting pressure on the other players. I would be sure to raise a good amount pre-flop with any reasonable hands, and with some pretty unreasonable ones as well, just to pressure the blinds and limpers. And it worked very well. They gave in to me uncontested time after time, and in the times when they came back at me, I actually had some reasonable cards and stuck to my guns. Bet big again after the flop hit me, and they crumpled. I did my job, calling small-stack all-ins if I had playable cards to try to knock them out. Some I put back in the game, but I eliminated a good number of players too. It feels good to be the big stack.

But it was not to last. I had the dinner I had promised to make for the GF to think about, so I began rushing back and forth between the kitchen and computer room, mashing meatloaf between folding hands. I finally dumped it in the oven and could get back to the game, but it's hard to stay on top. One of the other players at the table had been amassing chips and then busted out a player with a good stack to seize the lead from me. It was still close between the two of us as we hit the second break, two hours of play. The GF came home from work, too, and I had to explain that dinner might be a little late because I was in the middle of a poker tourney and had a good chance to win that $350. She took it as well as could be expected, I guess.

So we fought on, and players dropped... Payout was to 8 players, so once we hit about 15 remaining everyone got really tight and it slowed to a crawl... We were down to 11 players left, and I had lost a fair sized pot to drop me to maybe 4th or 5th in the chip standing. My girlfriend was getting impatient for dinner and calling in, "are you STILL playing that game?" I was tired too - 2.5 hours of play so far with no letup in sight! Then... I was dealt KK. I placed a big bet and the new chipleader called. Flop came A-8-5. Shit... Well... what the hell. I pushed and he insta-called me and flipped over pocket 5s. Boom, all done.

I don't normally play in tournaments, so I felt that I did pretty well. It's still frustrating to be that close to the money and then bust out for making a stupid play mostly because you're tired of playing poker for 2.5 hours already and looking at another 1.5 hours of play after that as well, just to try to make that money, meanwhile dinner is waiting in the oven and your girlfriend pestering you about when we can eat... I guess I was just not ready for that kind of commitment. I think I'll stick to the cash games for a while.

Beats

I thought I'd take a look at Noble Poker, since a lot of bloggers seem to be playing there recently because of the $1 million SNG challenge, and commenting about the soft competition.

I downloaded the software and connected, but stopped short of creating an account. There were only ab out 340 players connected to the site. Checking the low-limit holdem games, there was generally two tables playing - one full, and one half-full. I.e. I had one table to choose from.

Party has spoiled me. What if I don't like the table I get? Either wait for a new one, or change limits. There are more players there during the evening hours in the states, of course, but the hours I can play here are the wee hours of the morning there.

I could use a new bonus to chase, but I like to have more choices than that.

So I find two loose-looking $50 NL tables on Empire. And manage to drop my buy-ins on both of them in about 10 minutes. Ugh.

The first one wasn't so bad. I'm dealt As-5s in middle position. One limper to me, I raise to $1. Player to my left raises to $2.50. Blinds and the limper call, as do I. The flop comes 7s 2s 8h. The blinds check, and the original limper raises about the size of the pot, $13. I have the nut flush draw and I am pretty sure the guy behind me will at least call, so I call.

He doesn't call, he pushes all-in for $58. Before that even sinks in, the big blind pushes his stack in for his last $46. The other two fold, and it's to me. I need another spade to make my ace-high flush, so I put my last $33 in as well. The pot odds were 4 to 1, so I felt it was a good call. Even though no spades fell and the big blind won it with his pocket 8s. Other guy had pocket queens.

I tell myself it was still a good bet and turn to the other table. Soon I am dealt my own pocket 8s in middle position. Everyone folds to me, so I raise to $2. Only the big blind calls, and the flop comes 6 4 8 rainbow. Big blind bets $2. I'm guessing he does not have much, maybe a couple overcards or a high card plus a pair with one of the board cards, so I feel confidently in front with my set. I just call, figuring he'll put me on two overcards that missed and will bet out more strongly on the turn.

The turn comes a Q, and he simply checks it. I bet $4 into the $8 pot, trying to act like a weak player hoping to steal the pot from an even weaker player, and he calls, not letting me get away with it. All according to my evil plan.

The river comes... another 6. And he bets $15, the size of the pot. That 6 must have helped him, so I'm guessing he had a high card with a six, so made trips on the river and now feels strong enough to bet. He could even have Q-6, for a full house with sixes full of queens, and I have that beat with my new eights full of sixes, too. So I push in my remaining $40, hoping it looks like I am trying to scare him off so he'll actually call me.

He does, in fact, call me. And he does, in fact, have two queens, giving him queens full of sixes, and my $50 to boot. Damn.

Before I pushed, I considered that the only thing that would beat me would be QQ, but it was so unlikely... I must remember that big blinds get dealt good cards too.

Looking back, the only point I was ahead was at the flop, where my new set beat his two Queens. If I had bet out more strongly to try to take the pot there, he may have folded. Maybe. Would he really have put me on a set when he had an overpair? I don't know - it gives me something to think about.

I was so close to reaching $1000 in my poker bankroll, too. This dropped me down below $900. Maybe it is time for another bonus to chase.

Belated update

Guess I had better at least get some sort of update out there.

Friday at Duke was fun, but I didn't do particularly well in the games. Friend and coworker J.P. came by after he finished up his shift to check it out. He grew up playing a lot of 5 card draw with his family, he said, and was curious about newer games but not sure how to play them yet. I've been pushing him towards giving holdem a try for no other reason than to have someone around to talk poker with. Reading blogs and doing internet chat with a couple friends in the states who play is fine, but it only goes so far.

When JP showed up around 8pm, it wasn't much of a sight - about 20 people in the bar, but everyone crowded in the corner around the three poker tables, and the rest of the place empty. No one on billiards or darts, so it wasn't very lively. Later on, folks showed up, darts were thrown, cues were hefted, and it got a lot more cheery.

Unfortunately, last Friday was "mixed games" so we were doing the HORSE games. JP had a slight grasp of holdem but didn't want to get into trying the other games -- I was explaining the hi-lo and his eyes glazed over. "I'll just watch."

I'm getting better at these games but still fairly weak. I hung in there quite a while this time, and even won a few big pots, but got scooped twice for big pots by a young lady player named Kuri-chan, who acted like she wasn't too clear on what she was doing, but she knew enough to smack me around with some good hands to grab both the high and low in a hand of omaha and a hand of 7-stud. At least my head doesn't feel as dazed after a few rounds of the mixed games as it did.

I had been talking with one of the other players before the games started, a guy about my age called Marume-san. He mentioned that he got into poker a while back but had been playing various games for a long time. But his favorite game, he confided, was backgammon. "Backgammon is really the game," he stated flatly.

JP is also a backgammon player, and teaches me the game about once a year to try to get me to play. He thrashes me soundly, and I promptly forget the rules again just to spite him. So when Marume-san busted out of the games fairly early, I introduced him to JP and suggested they give backgammon a try. The bar has a cupboard of various board and parlor games, so they dug out a set and gave it a go.

Marume-san's english is pretty spotty, as is JP's Japanese, but their backgammon battle raged as I held the line at the poker table, hoping desparately for the marines, but they must have been searching for some lost white girl in Aruba, because they never showed. Busted (飛んだ), I watched their seventh game, and saw sweat on JP's brow at the backgammon board for the first time in history. "He's good... he's too damn good..." he muttered as he surveyed the board. "I keep laying traps and he keeps not falling into them. He doesn't even seem to notice." Marume-san stoically put JP out of his misery. JP grinned determinedly, already planning the rematch in his head, I think.

The remaining players in the weekly game had condensed down to two of the three tables, so we took the empty one and played some holdem so that JP could give it a try. We weren't playing all that seriously, so there was a lot of limping just to see what the flop would bring. We got a long string of straights and flushes taking the pots, I thinking giving JP the wrong idea of how often those really come up. JP started a long string of bluffs, just to see how far he could take it, but Marume-san clued in pretty quickly and I followed up, calling him to the river several times and watching him turn over crap.

He had a pretty good time, so I think he'll be coming back for more the next time I can make it. Next time maybe he'll get involved in some real holdem, but he had a pretty good introduction.

For my own game, the only notable instance was a quick loss of mine. I had just been moved to J.O.'s table, seated directly to his right as he handled the dealing for that table and a very sizable stack of his own chips. I bet out aggressively with a 5-6 of diamonds, got called by one player with AQo, who caught his A to relieve me of most of my already depleted stack. J.O. looked at me askance, and said, "So you're the kind who'll bet out with that? Okay, I understand you now," and turned back to the cards with a smirk.

Which is what I wanted. The Vegas Cup is coming up on the 17th, and J.O. will be the big stack, and he knows how to use it to play the bully. If I can get caught making plays I don't normally play, in the games for the next few weeks, hopefully he won't have as clear a bead on my play as he thinks he does. I'll throw all of the weekly games until then if it gives me a better shot at the trip to Vegas.

Comment Spam

My god, I barely posted that last item and immediately got two anonymous comments. Wow, that was quick.

Both are (were!) comment spams! I am amazed that they found the new post so quickly, and that whoever is actually aware of my blog to begin with. Deleted them already, but I guess I'm going to have to keep an eye out for them from now on.

I♥CR

Finished up my Empire bonus last night. Got some pretty decent cards for most of the night, and I felt I played well, so I ended feeling pretty good about myself and limit poker.

I ended up ahead about $70 from my play (not including the bonus $50) since starting the bonus-hunt, all on $.50/$1 limit tables. Not bad! That's, what, 28 big blinds per 100 hands? If I could keep that up, as well as moving up in limits, then I could start having those daydreams about giving up the day job.

(That's not going to happen, so you needn't warn me. A cold streak will kick in any day now to remind me why 1 or 2 BB is considered reasonable, and I am pretty pessemistic about what I think will happen to most new professional poker players in a few years.)

I got a string of great cards last night -- aces, kings, big slicks, and high cards in big multiway pots that turned into straights and flushes. I was a giggling, check-raising fool, and loving it.

My favorite hand (if I can recall it correctly) started with QQ in about UTG+1. I raised and about 3 people called. The flop came something like Q-7-3 in mixed suits, so I felt pretty good. I checked, going for the c-r, and got it when the second player after me bet. They all called my check-raise.

The turn came something like an 8, of the fourth suit on the board. I bet this time and two called, one dropped out.

The river came a K. Oooo, can I get away with another check-raise? I paused for a second or two, then checked, like I was worried about the king. Sure enough, the next player also paused, then bet out. The following player folded, and I happily hit my check-raise. The last guy called and I took a pretty reasonable pot. I think he had something like K-10.

Man, that felt good.

My poker bankroll is just short of a thousand bucks now, all profit since I pulled out my buy-in money a long while back. I'll give myself a little party when I clear that milestone.

Tonight, off to the poker bar!

Slogging away

I switched back to .50/$1 limit holdem to try to clear out my measley 500 raked hands for the Empire bonus - I'm still only about 400 hands into it. I haven't been playing much - got a lot of things to clear up before the move to my new apartment!

Limit I have never been very good at. I've never been particularly good at No-Limit either, come to think of it, except for my keen understanding of the Bigger Idiot theory. But I have been starting to feel more comfortable playing limit, as if I am making the right plays even if the cards are not coming my way. Reading Lee Jones a couple times and then letting it sink in has helped. I think I am in my no-reading, play for a while and shake things out phase.

The Red Line in Poker Tracker still bothers me. I'm over $100 in the red for $.50/$1, though I did accumulate much of that when first starting to play and learn. Still, even if I get my game down to where I can win 2 big blinds per hour, that's like 100 hours of play to earn that $100 at this level and get that red to green. That's... crazy. But I do stupid things sometimes. (For 100 hours? Even that is pushing it.)

When the hell did 3rd Edition of Winning Low Limit Holdem come out, anyhow?! And why doesn't Amazon.com carry it? I just bought 2nd edition a couple of months ago, with no idea that there was a 3rd Edition existing or on the way. It is a little frustrating... kinda like when I bought this iBook and then three weeks later Apple did their usual announcement of until-then secret plans for new iBooks and dropped the prices for my model by $500. Thanks guys! At least this time it's only for, what, $20? I am getting off light.

Another Friday night at the Poker Bar is coming up. This time my friend and co-worker JP wants to tag along and watch. JP says he played a lot with his family was growing up and was quite good.... at 5-card draw. I have been trying to suck him into learning holdem for some time now, solely to have someone local to talk poker with, but he has been very resistant. Finally... the water wears down the stone.

Duke, the poker bar, has pretty much replaced my desire to go to the Ueno card room, but the "championship event" of the JSOP is coming up on Friday, Sept 23. If that weren't two days before I am moving! I have been tempted to go in just to observer and play like I am Dr. Pauly in training and live blog it, but now I will be too busy packing to spare the time. Bleah. Oh well, maybe next year.

Another busy weekend

Firday night I visited Duke again for their Friday night poker game - I think I'll be going there regularly from now on.

There were two tournaments that night, and I busted out relatively early in both of them. But I came out well ahead in their simulated "cash game", and that's fine with me.

Most of the regulars from last week showed up - J.O. chatted with me a bit about working in Vegas as a blackjack dealer, then wandered off to greet the others as they showed up. There were a few salarymen there on Friday, shucking off their jackets and loosening their ties to get ready for some poker. A very shapely young lady who was in the game last week beamed at me when she showed up. I had busted her out in the tourney last week with a straight, she reminded me, but she was willing to overlook that and be friends, she confided. I believe her name is Saeko - I will have to be careful to confirm that quickly next time I show up, or it could get... well, I just don't want to ruin my good first impression.

If only I weren't so awful with names. My memory is pretty bad in general, which I am trying to work on, but names, particularly Japanese names, are a tough one. I brought a small notebook with me this week to scribble down hands, but I mostly used it to write down names or handles as I heard them. It's much easier to remember something if i write it down, even if I never look at it the note again.

We started with a limit holdem tourney - I think I was the fourth bustout of about 16 players. I wasn't getting any cards, and frankly wasn't playing the ones I got very well, so my stack shrank pretty quickly. My bustout hand was about the best I had seen - A4d. I limped in from early position, and two others followed. The flop came 2-3-2 with one diamond. I checked, as did the next player, but the third guy bet. I called, other guy folded. Flop was a 4. I checked, other guy bet, I called. River was a 9 of diamonds. I checked, he bet, I called, and he showed pocket 10s to beat my puny 4s.

Stacks were pretty small to start with, so calling all those bets had put me all-in with the river call, and I was done. If I was going to go out with this had, I at least should not have played it so passively. I probably could not have chased the guy off his 10s, but when that 4 hit on the river I should have at least taken a shot at it and put some fear of a straight in him. I was too busy thinking about the real straight I had yet made to think about how I might not even need it to win the pot.

After the bustout, I observed some of the other players for a while until they got down to 10 players and consolidated to one table. Then they started up the "live game", so I sat down for that. Everyone got 60 in chips and played as if it was a cash game, then would track how they stood at the end of the night. They keep track of the stats from week to week, too, and have a small prize every 3 months for the live game leader. (A t-shirt for the bar, I think it is at the moment.) We stuck with limit holdem, which was fine with me.

I did much better in the live game than the tournament. I played relatively tightly, got a few good hands and began to raise and check-raise, and took some good pots. I also took advantage of the fear that some of the others were starting to feel to raise with marginal hands and force some players to fold real hands and took pots that way. It really came together for me in the live game, and I finished up ahead 137, even after taking back my buyin value of 60. Impressed a few of the regulars, too, which I hope I can use in the future.

Then the second tournament, which seemed to be limited to those who had won previous tournaments. And since I had come in second in one of the games the previous Saturday, I got into that game. This time was no-limit holdem, and I got busted out early again, second of about 8 players. Mari went all-in on one of the first few hands with an AQo, but J.O. called with a medium pocket pair, I think it was, which held up to knock her out.

Again I played too passively, and bled my chips away. I had drawn the spot two to the left of J.O., who was playing aggressively and using his table reputation to his best advantage. So the second time he raised and I folded the blinds, he noted, "Come on, guys, you're not going to win that way." Right he was. I only lasted another 10 minutes or so before I felt the blinds coming around to me again and so I raised with something stupid like K8 suited, which itself took about half my chips, and then was re-raised and I called, figuring it was already over for me. Which it was. I paired my low card, I think it was, but was beaten from the flop onwards.

J.O. is clearly the one to beat in this game. He's quite sharp, experienced, and knows how to use his aggression and image to put fear into the other players. I'm going to have to find a way to deal with that and overcome it if I'm going to have any chance in these games in the long run. With the Vegas Cup coming up, I'll probably have only one shot at it so I'm going to have to play well. I have a couple more weeks to come up with a plan.

Busted, I returned for a bit more at the live game table. They had switched to HORSE, which I need more practice in, so I bought back in and had a go. We did a round of 7-Stud Hi-lo and Omaha hi-lo before my lack of clue about what I was doing pissed away the stack of 60 chips I had re-started with, and I decided to call it a night. I had still cleared a +77 profit at the live game table - checking the results page on their web site, this puts me in 5th place out of about 30 players. Not too bad! I would have been in 3rd or so if I had stopped after Holdem when I was at +137.

The rest of the weekend was filled up with a friend's houseparty to eat some damn good homemade curries, then rushing off in the evening to brave the crowds at Koenji for the yearly Awaodori festival. Awaodori is a traditional Japanese dance, originating in Tokushima but in Tokyo, the Koenji area has become very popular for it as well. 77 dance teams participated this year, which is a lot, and with good weather and the festival falling on the weekend this year, the whole area was jam-packed with people. Everyone got into it and had a great time, so we beat the crowds and headed home a bit early. Sunday was mostly taken up by doing the first walk-through and inspection of my new apartment. It's about as nice as I imagined! A couple of the rooms feel a bit more cramped that I had pictured, but the main living and dining area is spacious and gorgeous. It'll be another month before I can move in, but it is a relief to see the thing for real and know it really exists. There's even a nice-looking lounge area on the 19th floor that I can reserve for private events -- a home poker game would get on great in there, but first I need some players.

Celebrity Crap

Getting American TV in Japan used to be a pain, as you can probably guess. In the past few years it's got a lot easier, thanks to TiVo, computer capture cards, and Bit Torrent. Once I clued into this, it became almost easier to watch TV from the States than Japanese TV.

Japanese TV shows all blur together for me. There's an endless succession of comic variety shows, each with 8-25 "talents" on them underneath the main 1 or 2 hosts. I can't keep them separate, so can never remember when a particular one is on, so I can never manage to routinely watch the same show every week.

Once I got into BitTorrent and found a nice site or two for TV torrent files, I started watching a lot of American TV again. It's still a little hard to keep up with what is out there since I can't pick up by osmosis information about what shows are out there and might be worth watching. Even if you don't watch a given show, you probably have some idea about if it's a comedy or drama and maybe who's in it. Overseas, it's harder to pick up on such things, so you don't always know what to look for. "Hey James, have you seen that show Alias?" "No man, never heard of it," so you go and look and find out that whatever it is, it's been running for years now, doing quite well without you.

So a while back somehow I picked up a vibe about some show called Celebrity Poker Showdown. I had seen Rounders some years ago and heard Affleck was into poker as well, so figured it would be interesting to see this show. I downloaded a few episodes and watched and enjoyed, learning what this Texas Holdem game they were playing was in the process.

Point is, this show first clued me in to this poker thing and sparked my interest, causing me to learn how to play and watch a lot of other poker TV shows since then. But I hadn't watched Celebrity Poker Showdown since those first few eps that got me started. So last night I found that a new episode, the first from season 6, was out there so I downloaded and watched it for old times' sake.

Pain.

You probably already know how awful most of these celebrities play on the show, and season 6 is no exception. But at least in previous shows, they had REAL actors, most of them in comedy shows, so you got some amusing banter to keep you entertained. Last night was all stars of Reality TV shows, all of whom I had never even heard of. They could not act. They could not play poker. They could not make a funny comment. Worst of all of them was this "Johnny Fairplay" guy, who called nearly every hand to the river with crap, spouting trash talk that could probably get him arrested in California, then when he was busted out to the Loser's Lounge, kept making cracks about the others' horrendous play until finally Trishelle ("...who?"), supposedly a close friend of his, gave him the cold shoulder and hissed, "Could you please just shut up for a while?"

You could hear the pain in Phil Gordon's voice as he struggled to find something to say about the play that was not insulting to the players. And Dave Foley appeared obviously drunk from the first minute of the show. It was probably the only way he could get through it. And the show is long. I thought they used to be about an hour long, but this show was 90 minutes of agony -- probably 2 hours before they removed the commercials.

If more and more people are getting into poker enough to recognize atrociously bad play like this, aren't Bravo's ratings going to fall as real players turn this off in disgust? I sure hope so.

Mix it up

Poker night on Saturday went very well. I went looking for the darts and billiard bar Duke a bit early, since I didn't know that part of town well. I found it easily enough, and although the joint didn't open for another 30-40 minutes, the owner let me in and we talked for a while.

The bar was about what you would expect - a couple billiards tables, a couple electronic dart boards, an old pinball machine, and.. two poker tables! The owner, who goes by "J.O." was very talkative and friendly - he spent many years in the states, including a 3-4 year stint in Vegas as a blackjack dealer. Now he owns a number of bars, and so I imagine he got his staff and customers started on poker and has been fostering it in his place.

"You've been to the Ueno poker room?" he asked. (His english is excellent.)

"Yeah, a couple of times. But when I found there was another place in Tokyo to play, I wanted to come and check it out. Always looking for more places to play poker."

"Well, other than the Ueno room and here, I don't think there's anywhere else," he stated. I was afraid he was going to say that. The grass roots poker revolution, taking seed in the dart-playing bar-going Japanese population, hasn't really germinated yet. Guess I will have to wait a bit longer.

He explained the rules of the Vegas Cup in a bit more detail to me. They had regular games about once a month, two games each night. The winner of each game would win 30 points for the finals; second place earned 10 points. The first game of each evening was limit holdem. The second game was... not holdem. It looks like earlier in the year they played one other game after the holdem game, but several months ago they switched to "Mixed Games". That would be HORSE.

So players competed once per month, and the first and second place winners from those games collected points for the final. Each point would be used as one chip in the final game, so if you won a lot of the monthly buildup games, you'd have a big chip lead going into the final game. "Oh, one thing you should know," J.O. said with a big grin, "if I win the Cup, I'm going myself. I'm the one putting up the money for it, so I'm allowed to win it."

I laughed. "Fair enough!"

Each of the games that night had a 1500yen entry fee (around $15). In additional to earning points for the Vegas Cup, winners also received "coins", which looked like gaming tokens from an arcade. Each coin was worth 500yen towards food or drink at the bar. Hey, cool, winning items of immediate monetary value! This is a step in the right direction. I believe J.O. said that the top 1/3 of the finishers got a payout of coin.

J.O. is a pretty big guy for a Japanese, cheerful, outgoing, and friendly. He and the staff of the bar all had that quality of quickly putting you at ease that you often find in a good bar. When 7pm arrived, we had about 12 players, many of whom were the staff, or maybe semi-staff. It didn't seem to matter that much, we were ready to play some poker.

I recognized two faces that I had seen from the last time I had been to the Ueno poker room, one woman and one man. They recognized me immediately (the white skin and green eyes give me away) and bobbed their heads in greeting. I introduced myself and they gave their handles - everyone at the Ueno room seems to have a handle they use, which usually matches up with their logon id on the JPPA web site and forums. So they told me their handles and I, true to form, had forgotten them in about ten minutes. (I said I have a horrible memory, didn't I?) But everyone else was a new face. I guess either the Ueno room players didn't know about this game, or didn't frequent it as much as I had assumed they would.

We split up into two tables of about 6 players each, although spots were set aside for known latecomers, and started with limit holdem. J.O. handled the dealing on my table, and it became clear pretty soon he's quite a good player. Most of the others seem to have a healthy dose of fear/respect for him as the resident expert, owner, and likely the one who taught them all how to play.

I got a mock-stern look from him at one point when I raised on the button with him in big blind. "I'll let you get away with it this time," he decided aloud, and mucked. In a later hand, I raised after the flop and he re-raised, then looked at me expectantly. My hand wasn't that good, I decided, and tossed it. "Ah, I see we can be friends," he chortled. I know I check-raised him at least once in the evening, earning a raised eyebrow, but I lost the hand at showdown so he didn't hold it against me.

I played fairly tight - only one hand really stands out. Dealt Ad-5d in early position, I limp in, followed by about 4 others. (We had consolidated to a table of about 8 at that point.) The flop came 2-10-3, rainbow with no diamonds. I only have high card and a straight draw, but I bet it to see where I stand. Two fold, two call. Turn comes a 4, and I make my straight. I check, not wanting to make it too obvious, and the next player raises. Last player calls, and I check my stack, which is already dwindling. Stacks for all the players started at ten 5's and ten 1's, and the blinds started at 1/2 and increased every ten minutes, so it moved pretty quickly. So I re-raised. The raiser called, next player folded.

The river came... a 5. Aw, crap. If this guy has an ace then we'll split it. I only have two chips left and I am pretty confident the other guy will raise, so I checked. He raised for those two chips, I called, and we turned them over. I had my ace to five straight and he had... K-T. He'd made top pair and good kicker early, but I guess he did not feel comfortable enough with it to raise my first bet. Hey, not bad.

I doubled up and left him with a small stack that didn't last long. After that hand, four players had small stacks, I was in second, and a lady named Mari had a slightly larger stack than mine. I won another small pot to put me in the chip lead, then played really tight as the small stacks busted out - Mari got most of their chips to put her just about even with me as it came down to the two of us.

"Once we get to heads-up, we switch to no-limit," J.O. noted. Ah, okay, that's cool, I think, and look down to find in my first hand of heads-up play... A-Q offsuit. I was in the big blind, so Mari went first with a reasonable raise. I doubled the raise, and she said it. "All in." The first hand of heads-up.

I must have paused for tiny moment, but come on, I wasn't going to throw that hand away. "Call." She flips over K-K. Ack. There's a King in the flop and I don't hit anything, so she wins it. We stack up out chips and compare them, and I end up having three more than she does, so I keep my measley 3 chips for the next hand, which doesn't even cover the small blind. I get something like a 10-8o, and she flips over Big Slick offsuit, and so I finished up after only two hands of heads-up.

But I still felt good. Second place earned me 6 coins, or 3000yen (about $30) of food and drink! And if you're going to go down, A-Q versus KK isn't a horrible way to go.

We took a quick break and then started up again for the second game... HORSE. Which I had never played, but as it turns out, most of the players there were really unfamiliar with most of the non-holdem games too. One of the staffers, who dealt for the table that J.O. didn't handle, spent the break explaining what the games were and what a hi-lo split was, and most of the players listened intently. J.O. had already explained it to me a bit while we were waiting for the place to open, so I decided I would at least give it a try.

I'd played a little bit of Omaha and 7 card stud on PokerStars, but had not figured out the hi-lo games, and Razz was completely new to me. Luckily it was pretty new to almost everyone there, though J.O. was completely at home. I won a couple good sized pots, catching the high and low with a good hand and barely following that I was in good shape. But steadily my chip stack dropped and I busted out relatively early with less a bang than a whimper.

Mixing up all the different games made the second tournament a completely different experience. It will be obvious to those who can already play these games, but I really felt like my brain was being stretched in three new directions as I tried to remember the rules and adapt to play these new games. By the time holdem came around each time, I was too dazed and confused to remember how to play it. But stretching the brain is a good thing, and I was very impressed. Once you can get to a point where you can play all these games well enough, you'll have learned a lot of flexibility that should be useful to any of the games. I'm nowhere near that point yet, but it looks like an intriguing path.

So I busted out of the second tourney not even "in the coin", as they had announced when the first tourney had dropped to 4 or 5 players. It was about 10:30pm, so I watched a few more hands, then settled up my bill, using up all the coins I had one to pay for my two drinks and the 1500yen first-time membership fee. The bar was half-full of folks playing billiards, throwing darts, playing pinball, and generally relaxing and generating atmosphere. One or two hot japanese women tossed darts, sadly with male companionship, but still... atmosphere! Gotta enjoy it. So I breathed it all in, then wished everyone a good night and caught a train home to the girlfriend.

Had a great time, and looking forward to going again - probably will this Friday! The Saturday tournaments are over until the Vegas Cup final, I believe, but Friday nights they have weekly games just for "coin", and that's good enough for me.

And the Vegas Cup... I'll be there for that too. My second-place finish won me entry, though I'll be one of the short-stacks with only 10 chips to start. Checking the web page, after I left J.O. won the HORSE tourney and is now sitting pretty with 150 points/chips going into the final. Three folks have 60, including Mari, who sent me packing. One with 40, two with 30, and four others with 10. It will be a longshot, but I'll play my 10 chips, try to double up, and see how far I can get. J.O. will probably be the one on that plane, but he should't buy his tickets yet.

But enough about me...

What's up with poker in Japan?

I finally noticed some of the links on the JPPA Home Page to some of the members' blogs. So I found the blog of "Bluejay" Hiroshi Shimamura. It's all in Japanese, so be warned.

He seems to take his blogging reasonably seriously, and has been experimenting recently with imbedding video and trying some voice blogging. Hmm, wonder if we'll see a podcast from him at some point?

From there I found a link to Tom McEvoy's article in Card Player describing his visit to Japan, and a little of his rationale for choosing Satoh Tamao, former pink power ranger and miniskirt wearing policewoman, to go try her luck at the 2005 WSOP main event.

And I still haven't seen any followup tv show on her Las Vegas trip! I've been taping the weekly show, but it has been pre-empted by baseball games a lot recently. Yesterday they showed an ep but no WSOP story. Bah.

Following a few more links on Bluejay's site, I found something very interesting. A darts and billiards bar here in Tokyo is having weekly poker tournaments on Saturday nights! Details (Japanese again!) are here.

For 13 weeks, they have a series of satellite games to earn spots into the main tournament, which starts September 17. Winner of the main tourney gets... a trip for two to Las Vegas! Hey, hey, now this is a plan I can get into!

My chances of winning the trip are basically nil, but this is exciting for other reasons. Poker tournaments in sports bars sound like they're common in the States now, but certainly not here. Darts caught on as a very popular trend here several years ago. Two years ago it seemed that half the japanese males in their 20s were learning darts and playing seriously whenever they could. Darts bars are still pretty commonplace here, though the mania seems to have dropped off.

If poker finds a home in Japanese darts and billiard bars, and appeals to the same crowd, it could really pick up quickly. That won't change the anti-gambling laws, but it would certainly give me a lot more opportunities to play live, and start shifting public opinion towards legalization.

Of course I'm going to go check it out tomorrow night.

I was wondering why the JSOP event for this weekend didn't start until midnight - probably the main players will be off at this bar tourney and then come back to the card club for the JSOP game. (This week is Omaha-8, I believe.)

Report later.

Sensing Weakness

I don't know how they do it, but Empire Poker just sent out the email for their August reload bonus. I just finished up the casino bonuses a few days ago, dumping the $200 in profit into my poker bankroll, and didn't feel like moving on to another online casino blackjack bonus. Blackjack is fine as a distraction, since it is mindless and mechanical. But mindless and mechanical also gets old fast.

Right on cue, here comes the Empire bonus. As you may recall, the last Empire bonus had me three-tabling, grinding for hours at a time, pulling out my hair to clear that 17x raked hands requirement. "Why the hell am I doing this for a lousy $100?!"

Did I swear "never again!"? I don't recall, but I'm going to break that oath if I did. This time, I'll only go for a $50 reload. At 10x raked hands, that's 500 hands in 10 days to clear. Piece of cake.

Timezones

I've been assuming that one of the best times to log in to Party (and skins) would be in the after-dinner hours in the States, when folks have come home, eaten, maybe had a beer with dinner, watch an ep of World Poker Tour on tv and decide, "hey, let's give this poker thing a try again."

I wish I could be online and available at the proper times to test this theory. Unfortunately, prime-time in the states is noontime here in Japan, and I have a day job. By the time I get home and log in to play, it's somewhere around 1-4am in the States. A friend commented that this might be good because the players on will be getting tired. I dunno, that might be true, but my feeling is that the up all night players are probably more hardcore and know a reasonable amount about how to play. They may be tired, but they're not clueless.

I don't see too many European players - it must the the same problem in reverse. When I'm on in the evenings, it's the middle of their business day and the ones with day jobs can't log in.

Is there a softest time to log in to Party skins? When is it? I need to log in an compare sometime.

Party People

I really thought I would be taking a few days off from poker. Really.

I finished the StarLuck Casino blackjack bonus earlier this morning. Ahead $50 from play, plus another $100 for the bonus. Not bad! And sometimes I am in the mood to do blackjack instead of poker, just because you don't have to think much for blackjack.

But a couple friends of mine from a chat room starting narrating their ongoing games at Party Poker, I figured, what the heck, let's just open it up and watch their games. And man, they had some players at their table doing some stupid crap, and they profited mightily from it.

So as they called it a night and went to bed, I thought, well, a few minutes on the tables shouldn't hurt.

Didn't hurt, indeed. I spent about an hour on the $25 NL tables and made about $75 profit.

One guy annoyed me by making a $.25 bet into a $7 pot after the flop. Gimme a break, I thought, and bet $8 pretty much to annoy him. He called, and called to the river where his... pocket 3s?... did not hold up against my ace that paired on the flop.

Won another nice pot against two other players when I had QJo, and the board came 687-T-9. One guy had 52o. The other had pocket 8s and must have been pissed that his trips got overridden by the board straight. I had actually been betting out to try to scare them off draws - unsuccessfully too, considering the first guy. Looking at it now, I guess I laid a bad beat on the trip-8s guy. Oh well! If he had reraised me, I woulda dropped. His slowplay backfired on him.

Checking out the hand histories now, it looks like pretty foolish play on my part. Gotta watch that.

Blackjack distraction

As if chasing poker bonuses weren't enough for me, I saw references to BonusBug and found out about bonus plans from online casino game sites. Since I used to be a fairly frequent blackjack player, I decided to give this a try for some free money.

After about an hour and a half of play, I'm about halfway through clearing a $100 bonus on StarLuck Casino, and I'm even currently ahead about $30. If I can stay even from here, then it'll be about 3 hours of play to make $130 of bonus money and profit. Not a bad rate for a few hours of near-mindless mouse clicking.

The money will just go back into the poker bankroll, since I don't want to put any "real" money into it after I withdrew it and have been playing with profits. Strange how my brain works sometimes. Doesn't bother me to spend 10 hours grinding through a poker bonus to clear the same amount of money I would make with two hours of "real work". But I've pretty much learned to let my brain have its eccentricities - they're not changing for the likes of me.

Two dollars!

I'll keep this short since it is dull.

Moved the $25 I made from the Party deposit bonus over to PokerStars, and checked out the microlimit games. Played a few minutes of Holdem with the $.02/.04 stakes and surprised myself that I was still folding crap hands when I should instead of going "hey, what the hell, it's only two more cents!"

Also spent a few minutes playing the microlimit 7-stud, and seemed to be doing all right. Made myself a whole twenty cents or so. As I did on holdem, players do actually seem to fold with bad hands, even for such trivial amounts, so it looks to be a good place to practice and learn 7-stud and omaha, and this whole hi-lo thing I keep hearing about.

Some time away from holdem is probably a good thing, too. Don't want to get sick of it or anything (though I can't really see that happening.)

Not sure what my weekend plans will be like - would be nice to get out to the card club again. Then again, checking the schedule, this week is 7 card stud and though I would like the practice and experience, it's 3000yen (around $30) for the tourney and that's a bit more than I want to blow on a game I barely know.

Gotcha

Didn't actually play any poker last night - waiting for a Neteller transfer to clear so I can put it into PokerStars for micro-limit 7-stud and Omaha learning.

Also converted PokerTracker to run with Postgres database instead of an Access file. I have long distrusted Access files, since a software project at Reuters I had to support used them and the software would slow to a crawl, we discovered, once enough articles were saved in it. Naturally we discovered this a month or two into using the product live, and the small local developer we used did the "hey, man, it worked fine when we sold it to you" thing and we had to live with it until we could get another developer to convert the product to a real database.

Converting my PT database took a long time, though, so I broke out Super/System and started reading the 7 Card Stud section. So far there have been a couple important concepts pointed out.

If you have a strong hand and you think someone in a late position will bet, check instead of betting and then make it two bets when it comes back to you, to force middle players to call two bets at once and drop out.

Hey, wow, check-raising. Think I have heard of that one.

If you have a marginal hand but a good card showing, bet into a guy showing more strength on the early streets, and then later on he will check behind you, fearing your represented strength, and you can get free cards to make your draw.

Oh yeah, getting free cards. I think I read something about that somewhere.

I'll make my way through the rest of the section in S/S, but so far I think I'm not going to come across any radically different basic concepts of play, so probably just getting on and playing it for a while will be the quickest way to learn.

Cheap seats

Spending so much time over the last two days churning out low limit holdem hands to clear out that Party Poker bonus (I did it again! What was I thinking? I can't stop myself!) has kind of put me off holdem for a little while. I think it is time to learn some of the other games so the Live game at the JPPA doesn't have to accommodate my pathetic lack of variety.

I've actually played a little 7-stud and Omaha for play money, just to see what it's about, but aside from learning the very, very basics (Oh, you have to play exactly two of the four hole cards! Damn, and I had four to a straight in my hand!) it wasn't very illuminating. Nobody takes play money seriously, so I was just betting and raising with anything just to see the showdown and see who won. And judging by the play I was seeing, I wasn't the only one doing that.

To actually learn how to play, I'm going to have to play for money. But considering I haven't even become any good at holdem yet, I don't want to drop too much money at this.

I noticed at PokerStars that they had some extremely low limit holdem tables... like $.05/$.10. That's pretty goddamn cheap! And I remember reading or hearing somewhere (it might have been on Card Club, come to think of it) that despite the nickel and dime nature of some games, people can play them quite seriously, trying to win that 75 cents in the pot. This sounds perfect to me. Time to break out Super/System for the 7 Card Stud section and... Hmm, I don't have anything on Omaha. I guess I'll save that for a bit later.

Lemme know if you have any suggestions.

The JPPA card room

Here's a couple quick photos I snapped of the Tokyo card room.

The building is a small non-descript office building. There's a ramen shop on the first floor, which I think a few of the players used when they ducked out for their dinner break.








There's no sign out front - the sign by the stairwell door for the 3rd Floor just shows "JPPA, Royal Direct, Ltd." They're not exactly advertising themselves.




Standing in the middle of the room, I took these facing the front and rear of the room. Five card tables in this space, and 46 players this weekend - it was pretty crowded! The air conditioning seemed to be straining, but maybe they just didn't have it set high enough for the number of people who came.

These photos are from late in the evening when many had gone home or off to get a late dinner before the midnight game. So there were quite a few more people than this.

Wish I had got a shot of the bracelet, but I did not think to. Maybe next time.

Poker-heavy weekend

Which makes it a pretty good weekend, I think.

Saturday I finally got out to see Star Wars Episode 3. Yes, yes, I know it has been out for months and months in most parts of the world other than Japan, but it only opened here about a month ago. And my girlfriend had not seen any of the SW films, much to my shock. So I had to get her caught up on them first.

She really liked Ep 3. I thought it was pretty good for the first hour or hour and a half. But then it hit the point where I pretty much knew everything else that was going to happen in the film, and I just had to sit there and watch it. It was well done, but still... at least in Ep 2 there were some surprises.

My GF really liked it, and it got her in the mood to re-watch eps 4-6. Which was perfect, since it allowed me to skip out and head to the Japan Poker Player's Association in the evening for some cards! This was the second time I have been out there, and I was looking forward to getting some live poker in, even if it was just for chips, not for real money.

The JPPA has recently begun the JSOP, the Japan Series of Poker. For the next couple months, they'll be playing a series of tournaments every Saturday. Winners of each tournament earn points for their position, and at the end of the series they'll crown a winner and award the trophy, a JSOP champion silver bracelet! (Damn, I forgot to ask to see it and get a photo of it!) I have no hope of winning it, but I thought it would be fun to get into at least one of the tournament games and see how it was.

My previous visit was on a Friday night, and only about 6 people attended. I was expecting more this time, and I got it - a total of 46 people signed up for the NL Holdem tournament on Saturday! The JPPA card room is long and narrow, with a tiny bathroom and kitchen area in the back. It must be an old Japanese-style office for a small company that they refitted. But they fit five card tables in there, as well as a small drink bar, tv with playstation (mostly playing Japanese subtitled travel shows about the attractions of Las Vegas, taped off of the Discovery channel on Japanese cable), and a cash register area. Yeah, it's not free - you have to pay a fee to play in the tournaments, and many of them have rebuys for additional amounts of real yen. Saturday's tourney was a whopping 3500yen, although I got 2000yen knocked off by cashing in my winning vouchers from the last time I played there.

Wait, you may be saying, you're paying $35 of real money to play in a holdem tournament with play money and no prizes, except a bracelet for the winner a couple months down the road? Isn't that, like, stupid?

Okay, well, fair enough, but when you live in a country where the only legal way to play poker for money is... let's see... leave it and fly somewhere else, well, if you have a hankering to play something other than online poker, this is about your only opportunity. (Or start up a home game. I'm thinking about that.)

And there is a real appeal to playing live. I like playing online, but live play is just so much more... sensual is the only word that comes to mind. Holding real chips, shuffling them, stacking them, tossing them in, raking that pot in. Shielding your cards to take that peek at them, then either flicking them into the muck or planting that chip on them to guard them until you need them. And of course, seeing your opponent and trying to figure out what he is thinking.

I suck at that, by the way. And I don't think it is because of the "inscrutable Japanese" idea, either. But I'm not going to get any better at it online.

I heard my first Japanese nickname for two cards this time, too! As one of the guys flipped over his K-Q at showdown, he commented "Keihin Kyuukou!" (I think he won the pot with it, but I don't recall.) The Keihin Kyuukou is a train line, specifically the express (kyuukou) on the Keihin Touhoku line. It is very often abbreviated in spoken Japanese to "Kei-kyuu", which pretty much anyone who lives in the greater Tokyo area will recognize. Kei-kyuu... pronounced like "kay cue"... i.e. K-Q.

It's not going to win any awards for wit, but I broke into a big grin on hearing it. A real Tokyo touch on poker. I'm hoping to hear more as we go along, and as (hopefully) poker gets more popular here.

As for my play in the tournament, let's just say that I won't be depriving any deserving Japanese players out of that coveted silver JSOP bracelet this year. I tried to play tight, but I did play more passively than I should have, feeling fairly out of place in a big tournament where everyone seemed to know each other except... hey, what's that white guy doing here? I probably made some of the others uneasy as well, since I wasn't as familiar with live play as they were, and they didn't know how much Japanese I could handle, so they were pretty quiet to me. (My Japanese is good for a somewhat normal conversational level, but frequently breaks down when you get into more specialized topics.)

The first few rounds were played as Limit holdem, so no all-ins or big bets. I don't think anyone was knocked out during these rounds, but I'm guessing it did wear down some of the weaker players and put better players in a good spot once the no-limit rounds started.

I played as best I could, but things did not go so well for me. Shortly into NL play, I got dealt QQ in early position and raised to 4BB, 500 in chips. Two callers, and the flop came A-4-K with me first to act. I figured I was probably beat, but better bet to see where I stood, so I bet another 500. The other two called again. Turn was another K. I checked, the next player bet out 2000, and we folded to him.

A bit later I find KK in middle position, with one limper before me. I toss in a 500 chip, intending to raise, but the dealer notes quietly that as he explained at the beginning, placing a single chip into the pot without stating that it is a raise will be interpreted as a call. I even understood that when he explained it, yet made the mistake! Me: "Ah! Right! Ah... well." One other late position caller, which was "Ungar", who I played in my previous visit. I don't even remember what the flop was, but it was all low cards. I bet out another 500 and Ungar and the other player quickly folded. "You had to have kings or aces," Ungar noted, smirking. Well... yeah.

My stack dwindled and the blinds increased, as they always do. We hit the first rounds where they added an ante as well as the blinds, and I knew my time was short. I found pocket 4s in fairly early position, limped in, and a later player raised 2000 more. One player called behind him. Looking back, this should have been a big honking clue, but I figured this was my only shot anyhow. I only had about 2200 left, so I went all-in. Both players called the slight raise. Details get hazy at that point, but the board came out miscellaneously with nothing looking particularly scary. The other two players just checked through it, I believe. At the showdown, my 4s stomped by the raiser's KK. Even the other caller's 88 had me beat. The board had hit none of us, so the Kings took and I was out in 38th place of 46. Not my finest hour.

Once we hit about 10 players out (it only took another 15 minutes or so, as the eliminations were starting in earnest), they started up a Second Chance tournament for an additional 1200y. I bought in - what the hell, should I go home and play online instead? Not likely. Results were much the same - I was worn down and bled my chips away and was knocked out with something not impressive enough even for me to remember in 6th or 7th place of the 10. I console myself that one of the guys at our table was wearing the 2005 WSOP jersey... was it Hiroshi Shimamura, the head of the JPPA and who placed 6th of 224 players in the $5000 Omaha Hi-Lo event?

Let's say that yes, it must have been him. Let me cling to my little illusions to comfort me against the cold fearful truths of the universe.

As more players were knocked out of the main event, they started up Third Chance and Fourth Chance tournaments for the now-freed players, but I felt like I had had enough of tournament play for a bit. They had a "Live Game" table starting, which was basically a ring game with fixed limits, so I figured that for 500yen I would give that a try as well. As I sat down and received my stack they explained that they usually rotated the games they played at the Live table - holdem, omaha, 7-stud, with hi-lo and without. "Oh... I only know holdem..."

"Ah, that's all right. We'll just stick to holdem, then."

Nobody seemed to mind, but it did make me feel like, man, I should at least learn the basics of the other games so I can play them, even poorly. Next time I will be ready.

I played the live game for about an hour and finished up with exactly a full rack, what I started with. For me, for that day, I count it as victory. Especially considering that the dealer was even removing chips from the pot as a simulated rake! I'm not quite sure what that's about, but I guess it does a good job of preparing folks for playing in a game in Vegas.

As several of the live game players decided to call it quits at around 11pm and go get some ramen noodles, I figured that was enough poker for me that day. From 6pm to 11pm - not too bad. I felt like I had made the most of my trip and could go home satisfied. They pointed out that I could stick around for the Midnight Tournament they would be starting soon, but man... Adding in the cost of a cab ride home after missing the last train and I'd be up to spending a fair-sized sum on my play-money poker experience.

So I came home with a smile on my face. I had not done well as a player, but I had really missed the live poker experience and I got my fill of it on Saturday.

Sunday I ended up playing a lot of low-limit holdem on Party Poker as I found out about the August reload bonus. I dumped my $350 standby money in to get a $70 bonus to clear with 490 hands. I three-tabled for a few hours to knock out about half of those, and finished the rest off today after work. The GF is off at a drinking outing for work until late, so I could do my poker thing all evening with no guilt!

All that work, though, and I still lose $35 to make a $70 bonus. No way this math works out. Didn't I swear off this bonus stuff? I mean it this time!

In defense of technology

Sometimes it is great to live in the 21st century.

The last few days I've been listening to the audio commentary broadcast of the WSOP final table that Card Player magazine webcasted. The content is great - I never thought I'd so much enjoy hearing Phil Hellmuth speak, but he makes a damn good commentator-host. And they've swapped in so many other great pros so far - Daniel N, Jennifer H, Eric Lindgren, Greg Raymer, Jesus... Not to mention that it is great to hear the full hand-by-hand discussion of the full final table. You won't get this on ESPN!

I've been listening to this on my iPod on the train to work in the mornings, and today going to and from the Tokyo card club, and it is a great way to spend train time. At first it doesn't seem to be so different than listening to a taped sporting even on your walkman on the way to work, but when I think about it, it is really a great time to be able to do this.

1. This type of content would never be broadcast on the radio. Poker is pretty big now, but would they really take up 14 hours of radio airtime to broadcast a full commentary on the main event final table? Radio can't/won't do that, but webcasting will.

2. Even if it were radio broadcast, I'd need to be in range of the broadcasting station to get to hear it. I don't live in Las Vegas, I live in Tokyo! But I'm still able to listen to this show because it's broadcast on a worldwide data network.

3. Even if I could get the radio show, it would be a pain to save the show to listen to it later. Who makes 14-hour audio tapes? And even if they did, wouldn't the audio suck? To tape this show, you'd need to swap tapes every few hours.

4. Playback would be a pain. Would you carry around 14 one-hour audio tapes to listen to this whole beast? With my ipod, I can fit this stuff on there no problem, and still have plenty of room for other stuff.

5. What if you missed the broadcast? Maybe you got the time and date wrong, or you're working or whatever and can't hang by the radio to tape this stuff. But even after the fact, you can find the audio on file-sharing networks and download it to catch up. Brilliant.

Not so bad

I'll keep the computer crap brief, I promise.

I went up to Akihabara after work and bought a new Celeron to replace my current cpu, which I suspected was going flakey on me from overheating. Tokyo gets so goddamn hot and humid in the summer. It's almost too much for a Colorado boy like me to take. The air conditioner in my den/computer room is essentially busted and I haven't bothered to have it fixed, so it can get pretty warm in there.

I bought the wrong Celeron model. They apparently don't even sell the pentium-4 or celeron cpus that my motherboard supports anymore. Sheesh, it's only about two years old.

But after futzing with it yesterday and today, the computer is acting a lot more normally. I'm back to feeling I can trust it not to spontaneously reboot on me in the middle of a monster hand, so I will let it go for a while and hope it doesn't freak out on me again.

I'm finishing up reading Small Stakes Hold'em, but I feel like I only really got a grasp on 5% of the concepts in there. I'm going to have to go away from it for a while and digest it, practice and play, then read it again, try to grasp another 10%, and repeat several more times. Once I finish SSHE, I'll either go back to reread the limit section of Super/System, or shift to a non-poker book (gasp!) for a bit.

Still, I did play for a while this evening (had to test out my PC, of course!) and it seemed to be helping a bit. Post-flop on hands that weren't obvious winners, I felt more comfortable judging what my chances of winning were, betting out to protect my hand, and staying in large pots where I felt I probably was beat but the size of the pot justified a call. I won a couple of pots that way that I would have just given up on before. Surprising what cards other people will play - I may have been giving the other players too much benefit of the doubt.

I only ended up maybe around $10 today, though, so haven't quite got into the green in the $1/2 6-max category yet. Maybe tomorrow? Here's hoping.

Bad Luck

Not at the tables, though. I came home and played about 40 minutes on the $1/$2 6-max limit table and made a bit over $20 profit, which I was happy enough with. Another $20 and I'll be green with that game.

But my pc reset once while I was playing. I had already folded the hand so I was able to wait until my pc booted up again, log back in, and no hard done, but it bothered me. Recently it has been rebooting like this every now and then - I figured it was getting a bit too hot, since it does get pretty damn hot in Tokyo during the summer.

So I played a little more, made my $20, and closed my table. Playing around with my machine more, it's resetting more often, usually when I have quite a few programs running and loading the system down. Ran a comprehensive memory check program with no errors, so I suspect either my cpu or motherboard is giving errors. Probably it got too hot at some point and something is beginning to fail because of it.

I'm buying an apartment in two months, man, I don't want to be shelling out for a new pc right now. I can replace the cpu with a Celeron for 9800yen or so, which is not too bad. But if the motherboard is the problem, it will be more expensive, since I have one of the small form factor Shuttle cases, so I'd need to replace the whole enclosure.

I can still play poker in the meantime - my machine seems to be all right under lighter loads, so a single table open seems to be fine. PokerTracker and GameTime+ running as well might give it problems but I don't know yet. If the machine gave up the ghost entirely, I could even play from my powermac under the VirtualPC machine - it's not the fastest, but it runs the Empire Poker client software well enough. (Poker Tracker chokes and dies in emulation with the size of my current database, though.)

But it is annoying.

Some obvious crap

Haven't posted anything for the last couple of days - haven't really had anything to contribute. I'll keep this entry short, since it won't have any insight that you won't have already had yourself or seen elsewhere.

Rake - I finally noticed the "Total Rake" column in Poker Tracker. My total is $407. Four hundred bucks?! When the hell did that happen? I mean, sure, I realize that a quarter here, a dollar there, all adds up, but I hadn't noticed it as it was happening. Considering that my profit for all levels has been about $450 total so far, does that mean that I would have had $850 profit if not for rake? That's crazy talk! Suddenly I see why the rakeback affiliate programs are popular. (I should check how PT figures that value - if that's the amount taken as rake for all the hands I have played, even pots I have not won, then that would shock me less.)

I have been cautiously trying to get a handle on limit play, with only limited success so far. I had a couple of mildly successful sessions on the $1/$2 6-player limit table over the weekend, but still having trouble with the 10 player tables. With all those players, especially on Party/Empire, someone is always playing some crazy hand and draws out to beat me, it feels like. Play seems more reasonable on the 6-player tables: you can actually scare the other players off their draws a reasonable amount of the time. I think part of the reason for that is that there are fewer people to keep track of, so they can actually remember that everytime you've raised and shown the cards you've had good ones. Maybe it's just too hard for them to keep that in their heads with 9 other people at the table instead of 5 others.

I re-read Lee Jones and am now working on Small Stakes Hold'em, which I had started before but put down for some fiction reading when I hit a "too much poker" point. I am pretty sure I can get my 6-player limit holdem rating into the green, but the 10-player games are going to be hard until I can learn how to deal with them. Maybe I should just abandon them and work on the games that have been profitable for me, but I don't like to concede defeat like that.

In local news, the Japan Poker Players Association has started their Japan Series of Poker! From 7/30 to 9/23, they're running a series of tournaments: limit and no limit holdem, some with rebuys, 7-card stud, limit and pot-limit omaha, and others that I have even less of a clue about. I believe winners of each tourney gain points for the series, and the overall winner at the end of the series wins a JSOP silver bracelet. Also there are 30,000 yen (around $300) travel coupons awarded to the best all around player and the main event winner. Not bad!

And yet I did not go to the 6-max NL Holdem with Rebuy game on Saturday, 7/30? 6-Max! That's even, like, my game as far as I can tell! What was my problem? Unfortunately, the girlfriend has not been feeling well and was thinking of going to the doctor to get checked out on Saturday, so I figured I should not duck out to go play poker. She is kind of dubious about this whole poker thing to begin with, particularly going someplace to play live, since most gambling in Japan has overt or covert ties to the yakuza. Last time I had to promise to be careful not to be stabbed and robbed when checking out the JPPA, and not to bring any credit cards or large amounts of cash or anything worth stealing.

Next week is another NL holdem tourney, so I will try to attend that one. Since the Saturday events are supposed to be better attended than the Friday night games, I expect there'll be a couple tables of 10 players each. Ugh. Well, what the hell. I still have my free-entry coupons from last time.