Signals In the Fog

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2011-07-01T11:54:00.001+09:00

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Ten Years

2008-03-29T17:45:00.002+09:00

From an article on Sheldon Adelson in the LV Review Journal:

"Our view is that many Asian markets are underpenetrated, but there really isn't nothing on the front burner," [Macquarie Capital gaming analyst] Simkins said. "We've been hearing about Japan for what, 10 years? There has been discussion about South Korea and increased chatter coming from Vietnam, but these things have a long gestation period."

Yeah, tell me about it. Still no other news. Maybe Japan will allow casinos before I die, maybe not.

Sega Network Casino Club

2008-03-13T20:55:00.005+09:00

It was a couple of weeks ago at this point, but I needed a weekend poker fix so I warned my wife I'd be gone Sunday afternoon and evening and tried to sign up for the Sunday afternoon games at Bar Jack in Shibuya. Unfortunately I hadn't counted on the game being as popular as it has become. It was Saturday morning when I tried to reserve a spot, but all 30 seats had been taken. Yikes.

Instead I decided to visit at least one of the computerized options in Shibuya. I wrote a long time back about the PokerPro table they installed at the Sega Gigo game center on their top, casino-gaming floor. They were location testing it then and I had assumed when it was taken out that we would not see it again, but apparently I was wrong. From what I have read on the web, it's back and they apparently do some type of regular tournaments on it. Interesting. I still need to try that again.

But I also wanted to try out one of the new Sega Casino Net game consoles they now have installed in their game centers. Players can log in and play casino games against the house, or other players connected to Sega's nationwide network. Celica-san noted in her blog a while back that they had started a version of 7 Card Stud which had some funky rules, but was interesting for the novelty if nothing else. But more recently they released Version 2 of the game system and network, and added Texas Holdem as an available game.

I found that one of the other game centers in Shibuya was listed on their web page as running a location-test of the new game system, so I paid them a visit. In the basement floor with all the other medal games (slots, video poker, high-tech Sigma Derby type horse racing simulations, etc.) I found four of the consoles, sitting unoccupied early Sunday afternoon. I spent 2000 yen (about $20) to buy about 250 of the metal tokens used in the gaming machines, including the poker consoles. Get lucky on the slots or poker and you can win a lot of tokens... but they can't be cashed out or changed for anything. They do have an automated token bank system, where you can register your fingerprint and a PIN number and then store your remaining medals for withdrawl again the next time you visit.

I also splurged 300yen for the personal Players Card which you can register on the Sega gaming system with your name and appearance, and which stores your playing statistics so all that data will appear the next time you log in. I selected a White Boy character, and was pleasantly surprised when I started playing that my character would verbalize "Raise!" or "Call!" or "Fold!" in decent English pronunciation. There was a Black Dude you can select as well, and the rest were Japanese characters who spoke with Japanese accents.

So... to the tables! The game offered Holdem tournaments, which I did not try, and cash games. So I tried the beginner-level cash games, with a 30-credit ante. Each token you fed into the machine earned you 7 credits, so there was a LOT of feeding tokens into the machine. I fed in enough tokens to get 120 credits or so and sat down at the virtual table.

The first thing it did was access the Sega network to look for other players from the four corners of Japan who were there to play Holdem. A few seconds later it reported back that it couldn't find anyone, so started up my table with two CPU opponents. Huh.

The ante was 30 credits, presumably for each player, yet the pot started out at 45. Yikes, hell of a rake here. Each player receives their two cards. First to act can check, bet 10, bet 20, or bet the max of 30. 30 credits is the most that can be bet any round, so if anyone bets the max of 30 the other players can't reraise, they can only call. If someone bets 10, the next player can raise to a total of 30 but no more. The original player can then call for 20 more.

Another wrinkle - the first player to act can check, but if he does the second player cannot. He must raise or fold. This is pretty damn frustrating, since you end up betting crap you'd rather just check with. On the other hand, if you are first to act with a good hand you can just check, secure that you can ALWAYS check-raise.

So the first round of betting finishes, and the flop is dealt, and there is another round of betting with the same funky rules as the first. Then the remaining two cards are dealt to the board together. Nope, no betting round after the turn, you go straight to the river. Then one more betting round... again with a max bet of 30 credits total!

I wasn't clear on what this would do to your playing strategy, but with three players and small bets I was rarely folding and as I continued to play, "rarely" turned to "never". I suspect the action in the game is not completely random. Straight and flush draws at the flop almost always came in on the river. Top pair top kicker or two pair would win only rarely, it seemed. Yes folks, let me be the first to say it...

Sega online poker is rigged.

As I played, one or two human players connected, but it wasn't really any different than playing against the CPU players. You called anything to see the flop. If you have a big draw you bet big. If you have a big pair or two pair, you bet with a fatalistic air, pretty sure you will never see those credits again. If you have absolute crap, you call, because apparently someone somewhere thinks it is a more interesting game if absolute crap wins almost as often as the made hands and draws.

I played for an hour and a half or so, getting the hang of how the game seemed to need to be played, and then feeding in the tokens one after the other. Towards the end I realized I might have just been on a slot machine. There was no sense of poker play, no feel that you needed to play skillfully to do well. Instead, you plug your money in and see if you win. It was a definite disappointment.

I had rebought for another 2000yen when my first credits ran out, but got to a break-even rhythm on the thing towards the end. I had also stepped away for a while to play on a different medal game, one of the ones with the moving trays stacked with tokens on the bottom that you try to drop new tokens onto in a way that pushed more of them off the trays and down into your hopper. I'm actually pretty good at these things now, so I turned my 200 tokens into about 500 or so before returning to the poker machine. It helps that the tokens are worthless so game center operators can set the payouts to be very generous.

I deposited my 400-ish remaining tokens into the automated bank, but I am not sure when or if I will be back to pull them out and try again. I still need to try the tournaments, I suppose, and maybe the gameplay is different in some of the higher-stakes games, but I am not terribly fired up to find out

Japan Casino Update

2007-09-27T17:47:00.000+09:00

Time to clean out some of the links that have been piling up about casino gambling in Japan.

Casino Shares Spike on False Japan Rumor

Shares of Las Vegas Sands and Wynn shoot up on a rumor that Japan is about to legalize casino gambling. No one seems to know where the rumor comes from. In the end, it sounds like someone on an LVS conference call mentioned the then-upcoming Japanese election as possible progress on the casino gaming front in Japan. Except he got the date of the election wrong - July 24 instead of July 29. So on the 24th, it looks like someone spread a rumor about legalizing gambling to push up stock prices. Nice.

Wynn, Okada Pact May Thrive When Japan Allows Casinos

Steve Wynn turned to (Aruze Corp. Chairman) Kazuo Okada when the gambling magnate needed cash to fund his namesake Las Vegas casino in 2000. Now, Okada could be the ace up Wynn's sleeve in the Japanese businessman's home market.
...
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal Democratic Party lost control of the country's upper house in an election on July 29. That could slow down the passage of legislation because of political uncertainly, the 64-year-old Okada said. The LDP and its coalition partner still control the more-powerful lower house with a two-thirds majority and can override the upper house in cases of disagreement.

Not only did they get the date of the election wrong, they also messed up on which way it would go. The Democratic Party of Japan grabbed a lot of seats and wrecked the LDP majority of the upper house. The casino gambling proposition isn't strictly an LDP project as far as I know, but the unexpected DPJ win does throw a lot of uncertainty into things. They were hoping to pass this legislation by July 2008 - now the last I heard they're hoping maybe by the end of 2008.

Goddamn, all I want is casinos in Japan. Do I really have to start paying attention to Japanese politics just to get it?

Wynn, Aruze to Push Japan Casino Potential at Seminar

Wynn Resorts Ltd. and Aruze Corp. will promote the potential of casinos in Japan at a Sept. 11 seminar, as the companies seek to open the gambling market of the world's second-biggest economy.

Ronald Kramer, president of the Las Vegas-based casino company founded by billionaire Steve Wynn, will speak at the Tokyo seminar with Aruze Chief Executive Officer Kunihiko Yogo, according to a statement faxed from Tokyo-based Aruze to Bloomberg News.

I assume this seminar happened but so far I haven't seen any news about it. Maybe there wasn't anything newsworthy about it? I'll try to find out.

The last I heard was that if the legislation passes we may see casinos here open in 2012. But if the legislation isn't pushed through soon, I could see that being pushed back a year or two. Crap, I could be retired by the time they open up Wynn Japan.

I gotta get to Seoul one of these days. Walker Hill ain't exactly the Venetian, but it's a lot closer than Vegas.

Loser or Outsider?

2007-09-26T21:05:00.000+09:00

Call me Ponyboy, but maybe I'm not as much of a loser as I thought.

The Loser's Cup was a great success. With a good chunk of the regular players off in Tinian, there was concern that we would not gather enough players to hold a reasonably-sized tournament. I wasn't planning on going, actually, but Dosa-ken worked his nanpa (pick-up) magic on me and lured me in. We actually had about 35 players attend, which is a pretty decent turnout.

As planned, the levels were long at 25 minutes -- our normal Friday night games are usually 10 minute levels, or sometimes 7 minutes. And with deep stacks of 5000 chips, there was a lot of play. We started at 5:30pm and I don't think the first bustout was for at least an hour, if not an hour and a half.

I did pretty well, taking third place. I made the final table with fewer chips than I would have liked, after pushing with JJ and getting called by a smaller stack's AQ. Flop was safe but a Q came on the turn and I lost about half or 2/3 of my stack, and had to rebuild. Still, I had a great time and felt I played well, so what more can you ask for?

I also scored some coin, worth a few thousand yen of credit at the bar, and 10 more Vegas Cup points, pushing me to 20 points this season. Wow! 5 more points than last season! I might last all of 30 minutes at the Vegas Cup final. I only had 39 points at the start when I won the Vegas Cup a year ago, but I doubt I will get so lucky a second time. (I will try, of course.)

Everyone had such a good time there was immediately talk of doing it again, so Psyka-san has scheduled the next event, now rechristened the "Outsider's Cup". We'll be playing on Saturday, November 10, from 1:30pm this time. Levels are still 25 minutes but this time the starting stacks will be 7500 chips, again starting at 25/50 blinds. Wow, even more deep stack play.

If you're interested in a deep-stack no limit holdem tournament, come on down. You don't even have to be a loser this time. We promise not to bust you quickly.

Let's play, losers!

2007-09-07T20:46:00.000+09:00

I haven't had much time to play poker recently, even online poker, because of the new mouth to feed in the family. But I'm headed out to Duke tomorrow night for the "EJPC Loser's Cup!"

If you've been following along, you may have noticed that Everest Poker ran the Everest Poker Japan Cup, collecting 30 Japanese over the last few months to fly out to Tinian for a free poker tournament with a $20,000 prize. The winners fly out tomorrow morning for sun, scuba, gamble, and poker.

We losers.... don't.

This rubbed some of us pathetic failures the wrong way, so Psyka-san spearheaded a Loser's Tournament for those of us left behind. Tomorrow night at Duke, starting from 5:30pm, we battle it out to determine the king of the losers. The head failure. The least deficient. The almost-good-enough (but not quite).

You there, are you a loser? Sure you are, you don't have your bags packed for sunny Tinian, do you? I didn't think so. Come on out to Duke tomorrow night and prove it. Unlike most of the weekly tournaments, we're playing with deep stacks of 5000 chips and 25 minute levels, so there will be a lot of play.

If you're interested in attending, let me know or show up at Duke by 5pm or so to be certain of getting signed up in time.

There's even a second-chance tournament tomorrow night at 9:30 as well, just in case you... you know, demonstrate your not-winning abilities by that time in the main event.

Maybe you're not a loser and you have better things to do. But I don't believe you.

Japan Poker League - Pokerstars

2007-07-28T21:43:00.000+09:00

The Japan Poker League is now running a free online tournament at Pokerstars every Sunday night at 9pm JST. Winners of the online tournaments earn points in the Japan Poker League.

I just looked it up on Pokerstars - the description in the tournament lobby reads, "This series is an eight-month competition where players with the most points compete for a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure package."

Which is true, but not the whole story. The online tournaments are one way to win points. The other way is to win points in the near-daily live games around Tokyo. Every 6 weeks or so is a new "heat" where the leaders have a playoff game to win more points, and at the end of the 8-month season the point leaders will have a final playoff game for the PCA package.

I've seen some referrals to my web page from folks looking for "japan poker league pokerstars password". If you're not in Japan, don't bother - even if you get into the game, you'll win points you can't use for a tournament you can't attend to try to win a PCA package they won't award to a non-Japan Poker League player. Which would include airline tickets from Japan, which would not be much good to you anyhow.

If you are in Japan and are interested, visit the Japan Poker League's home page, where they describe (in Japanese) the tournament series, the live game schedules, and how to apply to get the online password for the Pokerstars games.

If you're in Japan and interested but can't read Japanese, leave me a comment and I should be able to check on the exact process and help get you going.

It doesn't get old

2007-07-28T21:14:00.001+09:00

I need to go visit Akihabara again on a Sunday with nice weather. Maybe this girl will be there again.

Okay, okay, there's no real point to this post other than a little cheesecake shot. That and to get me posting again. So hopefully it will work.

How to get to Duke

2007-06-29T11:40:00.000+09:00

Here's a link to a Google Map showing how to get to Duke.

I'll be playing there tonight, as it happens.

Quick directions - go to Bakurocho station on the JR lines. Also Bakurocho-yama station on the Toei Shinjuku subway line and Higashi-Nihonbashi station on the Toei Asakusa line all connect at that station.

Go to exit A2. Exit and turn right down that side street. Pass a Daily Yamazaki convenience store on the left side, then the next building on the left will have a stairway down to the B1 floor with signs up for Duke and the other restaurants in the building. Down the stairs, turn left, the door to Duke is right in front of you.

Everest Poker Japan Cup

2007-06-26T21:45:00.000+09:00

Okay, what's been up with Tokyo poker recently?

I haven't been out to the JPPA for a while, so I am not up to date on their events. I have to get to out some of their games again and show my face, let them know I'm alive, and see what they're up to.

Over the last couple of months, Everest Poker (which I have written about before) has been running the Everest Poker Japan Cup. This is a series of live and online tournaments for players who live in Japan. The winner of each tournament wins a trip to the Tinian Dynasty Resort and Casino and entry there into a $20,000 prize pool live poker tournament in early September.

In all, 30 players will win seats into the tournament, so it's been nothing to shake a stick at. Although Everest is an online site, of course, they have also been supportive of live poker venues in Japan. They've sponsored the Everest Cup games at the JPPA on Friday nights for what seems like years now (I still use the ipod nano I won in one of the Everest Cup games daily, though its battery is getting worn down and not holding as much of a charge as it used to). And this time around they are working with the JPEA to hold their live tournaments in several pubs in Tokyo and Osaka.

Of those 30 seats, 15 are given out to winners of the live tournaments, which began in late April. There have been two or three tournaments each month, spread around the different poker venues, and they will continue through September. The tournaments are free, though the venues may charge a player's fee for the user of their space, which is usually 1000yen or so. The first tournament kicked off at Duke, which was overflowing with excited Japanese poker players trying to cinch their spot in Tinian right out of the gate. I saw a lot of players I had never seen before - I don't know if they are primarily online players who came out to play live for the extra shots at winning a seat, or if they just play at other locations around town.

J.O. brought his A-game and took down that first tournament, and so now he kicks back and relaxes, smoking his cuban cigars, as everyone else scratches and claws to win one of the steadily dwindling seats remaining.

Ten seats are also given out to winners of online tournaments, which take place about twice per month. These tournaments are only open to Japan residents, but we always seem to get someone from Germany who comes into the observer chat to ask what the tournament is and if he can join. I usually end up as translator. ^^ I don't speak German, of course, but the guy can usually speak and understand English better than Japanese.

Also, players who participate in the live tournaments also get invitations to an online Second Chance tournament, about once per month, giving out another 5 seats. These have had smaller fields, like 40 or 50 players from the last one I was in, but they're still tough.

Anyone picked up on the fact I haven't won a spot yet?

I've been able to play in the first four or so live tournaments, but after that it's become harder. Now they are restricting entry into the EPJC tournaments to those players who have taken 1st or 2nd in one of the regular tournament games at that venue - so to play in the monthly EPJC game at Corner Pocket, let's say, you have to have one at least one of the weekly or so games at Corner Pocket that month. It's a shrewd move, since it encourages the players to come regularly instead of just once per month for the EPJC game. Unfortunately I haven't been able to attend the games regularly, so haven't won a spot in the EPJC games. Most of the remaining EPJC live tournaments are on Saturdays and Sundays, and I have non-poker commitments on the weekends so can't attend.

Still, I can't complain too much, since it's basically a $20,000 freeroll for poker players in Japan, including foreign players. I'd love to win a seat, since I think it will be a blast to head en masse to Tinian with a bunch of the other Japanese poker players and lie on the beach, eat too much, drink too much, and maybe even have a poker tournament in there. But if I can't win a spot, I might just tag along for the fun of it.

Time for an update

2007-06-25T17:43:00.000+09:00

Casino gambling in Japan is still making progress towards legalization.
Here's the first article I saw that stated it clearly.

Hell, let me quote the entire article:

Japan to legalise casino industry - 29/05/07

The Japanese government plans to legalise casino gambling next year and is currently drafting the legislation. Seiko Noda of the ruling Liberal Democratic said that they hoped to pass the bill by the end of the next ordinary Diet session in June 2008.

The party is hoping that casinos will boost tourism, as it has in Macau, and increase tax revenues.

That's what I wanted to hear!

Several other articles I have seen have also stated essentially the same thing. I wonder why it will apparently take up to a year to draft and then pass the legislation - it strikes me like a husband making plans for a getaway trip with his buddies and not telling his wife about it until the last minute, "waiting for the right time". The wife in this case is probably both the Japanese public, whose reaction to this announcement will be hard to predict, and the pachinko industry, which should be easier. Smaller-scale pachinko operators will probably hate the idea, since it threatens to steal their customers. The equipment companies can probably re-tool to service the slots and other gambling machines in the casinos, and so could see it as a new opportunity to make a pile of money.

I will be curious to see if they adapt any of the medal games you see in Japanese game centers to straight gambling machines for currency in the casinos. Some are straight slot machines, others are maddeningly addictive coin-launching, spinning, shooting devices with Rube Goldberg spinning wheels and contraptions that can suck you in for hours at a time. I'd think these would be pretty easy to port over, though they might have to tweak the payouts a bit, since I think many medal games are set to pay out liberally, since even if you win more medals than you put in, you can't use them for anything but... more medal games.

One reason for the legislation taking so long to draft is probably location of the casinos. Last I heard they were planning to limit the casinos to up to three main locations, and several areas have pushed for them, including Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, and Miyazaki-ken. The government will probably have to consider carefully where to permit the new casinos, considering they plan to use them to increase tourism, jobs, and revenue, but also have to be careful of increased crime and violence in those areas.

If they open the new casinos in Okinawa instead of Tokyo, I'll shoot myself. Who the hell wants to fly all the way down there to go gamble? Might as well just fly to Seoul at that point - closer, cheaper, and better food. (No, I don't like goya.) Obviously I'm hoping for something near Tokyo. The Odaiba area would be perfect, in my humble opinion.

More details about the plan are available at this article:

In particular, casinos are seen as a way to revitalise local economies, which have not enjoyed the economic recovery seen recently in large urban centres. Leading casino operators, including Las Vegas Sands and Genting of Malaysia, had told the LDP there was "tremendous potential, because Japan could attract interest from north China and Russia, where there has been huge [economic] growth", she said.

"There is definitely enough demand for casinos," says Aaron Fisher, analyst at CLSA in Tokyo. Tokyo, in particular, has a large population within a two-hour radius earning a lot of money. "Definitely the returns [could be] huge," he says.

Unfortunately this sounds like they are thinking of opening these casinos outside the Tokyo area to try to spread the wealth around. Ugh. Two hours by bullet train covers a lot of area, and bullet train tickets add up. When I was snowboarding, train tickets to get up to Niigata or Nagano could run 10,000-20,000yen for a round trip. Arriving at the casino already stuck for $100 will make it hard to show a profit.

Still. Cheaper than Vegas.

More good signs

2007-04-23T19:28:00.000+09:00

Found another couple of encouraging news articles recently on Japan opening up to casino gambling. Here's an AFP Article I found in a couple of places, but this seems to be the last place that has it still up.

The world's top casino operators are jockeying for a take in a vast but untapped market as Japan moves closer to an overhaul of its strict gambling laws to lure rich Asian tourists and boost its economy.

Japan would be a latecomer to a gambling boom across the region, which is looking to Las Vegas-style super casinos to entice more tourists, with two huge complexes springing up in Singapore to take on the Chinese enclave of Macau.

...

Almost half of the lower house of parliament -- including some opposition lawmakers -- supports the general idea of legalising casinos, said Toru Mihara, adviser to the LDP's casino study group.

"If we can create legal structures within one or two years to come, maybe in 2012 casinos in Japan will start to operate," he told AFP in an interview.

2012? That's five years from now! I mean, I'll take it, but I was hoping for something sooner. Can't you guys, you know, pass the law and then set up some converted warehouse casino for us degenerate gamblers for a year or two while they build the Wynn Tokyo? We're not that picky.

This article, however, paints a brighter picture.

Driven by fiercer regulation and a consumer credit crunch that has directly hit pachinko’s heaviest players, key segments of the industry are expected to contract by as much as 50 per cent over the next two years. Industry experts forecast that about a third of Japan’s 15,000 pachinko parlours — deafeningly loud, smoke-filled caverns where customers lose themselves for hours — may close.

But the imminent pachinko crisis will “vastly accelerate” plans by the Japanese Government to legalise casinos, one of the industry’s leading figures told The Times. To compete with Macau and other Asian cities where casino gaming is set for astronomic growth, Tokyo and other big Japanese cities may have their first Las Vegas-style casinos within three years.

Three years! Now we're talking!

I don't play pachinko, I don't get pachinko, so I don't know the market. But I doubt that hard core pachinko players are just going to up and quit the game because some of the big jackpot machines are outlawed. Likewise, pachinko operators and game manufacturers aren't going to just go, "oh well, guess we can't make those machines anymore. We'll go back to the old lower-payout machines and lose our customers." People can be very creative when they're trying to find a new way to separate you from your money. I don't know what they'll do, but I'm sure they'll do something to keep pachinko players relatively happy and spending their idle hours firing ball bearings up and watching them drop, hoping to make some money off of it.

The guy who made the quote is the head of Aruze, and a partner with Steve Wynn, so he stands to make a ton of money opening a casino here and filling it with his gambling machines. So he's not the most unbiased observer of the market. But I'll still be happy to see him right.

Japan Casinos (Revisited)

2007-04-14T17:40:00.000+09:00

Nearly a year ago, I posted about the Japanese government investigating opening casino-style gambling in Japan. What's up with that?

Hell if I know. I haven't heard squat.

The investigatory committee came back and presented their report which apparently said about what everyone knew it would. Casino gambling would bring in a lot of visitors and tax dollars, and also help supporting businesses. But there were concerns about rises in crime in those areas, as well as possible involvement of organized crime groups.

Since then? Nothing.

Well, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the Japanese government to make a quick decision. On this issue or any issue. There could also be serious opposition to casino gambling behind the scenes by those companies that could stand to lose business to casino gambling - pachinko parlors and race tracks. I don't know about the tracks, but everyone assumes the pachinko business is controlled by the yakuza, so they might not be too keen on seeing casinos opened up if they can't get a share.

I just hope that eventually (sooner would be better than later), someone will decide to actually press the issue forward. Maybe after the Macau casinos continue to rake in money hand over fist. Maybe after the Chinese government reports on the extra billions of dollars they've added to their budgets from the casinos. Eventually will someone look at this and say, "Hey... we should get in on this."

The casino companies are also continuing to lobby, hoping to expand even further into Asia. Japan has a strong economy and they can spend money with the best of them when they get in the mood. Macau is still a bit too far away for all but the most serious of gamblers - at that distance, you might as well spend an extra couple hours on the plane and just head to Vegas.

Las Vegas Sands is lobbying to open casinos in Japan, I found in this article.

Las Vegas Sands is lobbying to introduce casinos in Japan and is mulling a development along the Mediterranean Sea, he says. ``I'd like to do another Las Vegas in Europe,'' he says, adding that it needs to be in a warm climate. ``We'll look aggressively for opportunities.''

"He" is Sheldon Adelson, and if he's successful in getting Japan to open up to casino gambling, he'll be my new best friend. I'd love to visit the Venetian in Tokyo. I wonder if my point card would work?

The MGM would also not want to be left out, according to this article. (Unfortunately it's not dated and it could be pretty old.)

According the MGM, they are not looking to stop at just two casino projects, especially if Japan passes its pro-gambling legislation. The revenue which Macau generated from its casinos already surpassed that of Las Vegas and it is turning to the most desirable place in the world for building a casino.

What about Steve Wynn? If Sheldon's trying to get into Japan, I'd have thought he'd be jostling with him for the chance to get in there first. It doesn't seem so in this article.

Wynn also noted that he and Japanese gaming device maker Kazuo Okada had agreed that neither would sell his shares without written consent from the other, and that each would have the first right to buy shares if the other wants to sell.

Each owns about 24 percent of Wynn Resorts shares, and each will make about $147 million from a special $6 per share distribution the company announced last week.

I expect Wynn to use the distribution to increase his stake in the company and take the combined Wynn-Okada ownership stake above 50 percent.

Wynn also said he had recently been approached by Australian publishing and gaming executive James Packer about possible Asian development opportunities. When I asked Wynn whether those opportunities might be in Japan, Wynn had a ready answer.

"No, I already have the best possible partner in Japan," he said, referring, of course, to Okada.

Actually, on rereading that, it reads like Wynn would of course stick with his current partners in Japan for any new casino deals, instead of taking on a new partner from Australia. Makes sense.

Anyhow, I just hope they get on with it. Let the casino companies in and start building up Odaiba to be the Macau of Japan, or else decide that they're going to stick with the current anti-gambling stance. At least then I could relax about it. This waiting is killing me.

The Japan Poker League

2007-04-10T20:05:00.000+09:00

Tokyo-ites now have a new place to play poker. Quite a few, in fact!

Recently a new group called the Japan Poker League has begun a series of public poker games, running in bars and clubs all over Tokyo. All the main areas are covered - Shibuya, Shinjuku, Roppongi, Ginza, even one joint up in Saitama and two down in Kanagawa.

Suddenly there's a huge number of games to play in. Looking at the April schedule, there are 3 or 4 games planned each week for the rest of the month. The May schedule doesn't seem to be fixed yet, but I expect it will be similar.

I believe the group is related to the JPPA - the web site seems to be running on similar software and there were several familiar faces from the JPPA at the JPL game I attended, including some of the dealers.

The League games also run on a point system. Winners of each game accrue points based on the number of entrants. A full league's season is broken down into several "heats" of about 1.5 months each. At the end of each heat is a Championship game, where each point earned is worth one starting chip. So frequent winning players will begin with larger stacks than occasional players.

At the end of the year is a final Playoff game, scheduled for Nov 25. Again, points gathered during the season will be converted to chips to be used in the final playoff tournament. The grand prize for the winner is, last I heard, a travel and entry package into the PokerStars Carribbean Adventure. Not bad at all!

I went to check it out last Tuesday night. The Tuesday game was running in a bar in the dodgy Kabukicho area of Shinjuku, at an Irish bar called Pub Angel. I hurried there after work and barely made the 7pm start time. The bar was somewhat long and narrow, and two poker tables were wedged into one end. I paid my 2000yen entry fee, which included a free drink coupon, filled out the JPL registration form, and squeezed my way in. 17 players had signed up, so the two tables were pretty tight.

I recognized Shin-san, to my right, from the JPPA games, and saw a few other JPPA regulars as well. But many of the other players were new to me. Most were young, appearing about college-student age or recent graduates. This is a good sign - if poker takes hold with younger players who bring their friends in, it could really take off here. There were also several native English speakers there, who may also have been students themselves.

The games are set up to run quickly, since they need to finish in a couple hours. Blinds increased every ten minutes or so. Players could also rebuy for an additional 1000yen up to level 6 if they lost all their chips.

Frankly, I don't like the structure. Like a super-turbo tournament, everyone almost immediately became a small stack. With easy rebuys for the first hour too, it very quickly became a game of pushing in with marginal hands, calling with marginal hands, and rebuying if you busted. There was no post-flop play that I can recall after about the first 15 minutes. But since they appear to be targeting new players and beginners, this does keep the game simpler and perhaps more fun for those new to the game.

Given the crap-shoot nature of the game, players will have to attend often and regularly to try to accumulate their points for the main prize. At 2000yen (plus rebuys) a game, it could get expensive.

Links to the participating bars and clubs are included on the JPL web page. Here is a sample:

Pub Angel - Shinjuku
CoZmo's Cafe & Bar - Shibuya
Public House Briongloid - Yotsuya
Dogenzaka Cafe Lagoon - Shibuya
Lounge PHI - Ginza
alife - Roppongi
JB's Bar - Jinbocho
Cafe & Dining Bar BRIDGE - Iidabashi
Ale House - Ikebukuro
Diego Cafe - Shibuya

The schedule for each venue does not appear to be fixed. Check the JPL web page for a schedule of upcoming games and venues.

On The Rise

2007-04-09T19:23:00.000+09:00

There was an amusing thread on the 2+2 forums a while back about prospects for poker's growth in Asia. There were some interesting comments about how likely it was for poker to catch on in Japan and other asian countries. One that stood out to me was a guy who wrote, "Whoa, you don't want Japanese guys to get into poker. Remember how you thought you were hot shit at Tekken until you went up against that 12 year old Japanese kid? Haven't you seen how the Japanese players have kicked butt at every online game they've got involved in? And you want them to take up poker? No thanks!"

He might have been overstating things. But I was pretty sure we'd see some strong Japanese players appear on the scene if the game started to get a following.

Maybe like Masa-san, Masaaki Kagawa, who bought into that $100,000 tourney at the Aussie Millions, fought it out with 17 high-stakes players like Negreanu, Ivey, and Lindgren, and took 3rd? Masa also hit several of the recent European Poker Tour events in Germany, making the money in at least one event and getting some attention, along with JPPA head Hiroshi Shimamura, from Pokerstars' tournament coverage.

Masa's getting tv time now - he might be Japan's first poker celebrity.

Today the excited news came around that another Japanese player, Moto-san, just took first place in the $1500 NLHE event at the Five Diamond at the Bellagio. Motoyuki Mabuchi scores for $274,950 with this win. Whoa.

(Unfortunately, as a foreigner Moto-san will probably see about half of that amount withheld for taxes by the Bellagio and the IRS. Hopefully he'll get a good chunk of that back but who knows how much paperwork he'll have to suffer through.)

I'm not sure if I've ever played with Moto-san at Duke or the JPPA. I'm pretty sure I have never played with Masa-san. He plays very high stakes, and I don't think the public for-points games at the JPPA would do it for him.

Still, it's a thrill to see some Japanese players making some big wins and gathering attention. There'll be a core of Japanese players at the WSOP this year, and more next year. The next Japanese player that ESPN features won't be an aging idol girl, barely knowing how to play, who got in as a publicity stunt.

Bazookas

2007-04-06T10:06:00.000+09:00

Japanese convenience stores are great. Often you'll find things for sale there that you would never have expected.

The other night on the way home from work, I stopped by the Circle-K. In their tiny section of plastic models, most of which are priced around 300yen for impulse purchases, they had a 1/6 scale series of bazookas.

The series name is "Bazooka Meikan", where meikan translates to something like "directory". Maybe "catalog" would work too.

Me, I'd probably name the series "Great Bazookas Of History". But they didn't call me back for that series-naming job.

I bought one. I had to! It was only 500yen!

I got the M136 AT-4. Apparently it's an American model in use since 1985. I have to take their word for it, since I'm not up on my knowledge of world bazookas. Looks pretty cool, though. Going to take it to work today.

Monthly Update

2007-04-01T20:51:00.000+09:00

My god, I made no posts in March? That's pretty sad.

Unfortunately I think updates will continue to be sparse. I'll try to flesh out some more details about the live public games in Tokyo as I get more time and information about them.

It's not going to be an easy task, though, since I've been finding out that there are more and more places holding tournaments in Tokyo, mostly bars and clubs. Both the JPPA and JPEA have apparently been talking and spreading poker interest, and there are games springing up all over the place, it seems. I really should have been paying more attention and talking more with some of the regulars to keep on top of these things.

It's a good sign, and very encouraging since I was really hoping that poker would take hold and build up a following in Japan. It's still very much in early days, but it does seem like the seed has budded and is sending out some tentative roots.

My personal life is busy and will be getting busier. I've also started a diet and workout program recently, and have begun studyin some books on stock trading and technical analysis, and plan to learn and study more about the stock markets in hopes of making some real money with it someday. As with poker, I have no plans to quit my day job anytime soon, but it would be nice to have an alternative to office life and working for the Man. Now I find I have another dozen or more live games going on in Tokyo, which I need to go check out for my Live Public Poker Games in Tokyo master list project I foolishly started. What's going to give?

Online poker, that's what. I cashed out my accounts. If I feel the irresistible urge to play, there's always play money. I told myself that if (when!) I make my weight and body fat goals, I'll reward myself by giving me an online bankroll again. Although phrased like that, it sounds more like rescinding a punishment. Whatever - stick or carrot, works for me.

Part of it is because I felt online poker sucking up free time, and because it's so easy to play it would expand to fill up whatever time gaps I had. But I sit and stare at a computer screen enough hours of my day already. Better to do something else, anything else with that time. Like hit the gym, or study market forces, or even read non-poker books.

The other part of it was because I was playing like crap and losing my money with stupid calls. I was in a rut online, and needed to do something to get out. So I quit.

I still love the live play, though, so at least once a week I want to get out and visit a live game somewhere in Tokyo. Maybe I'll ride my bike to each location and get some exercise in the process, even. Slowly I'll work on my Master List and get some good poker practice in as well.

No WSOP for me this year. Too much going on and I've been to Vegas too many times already. But next year I am all over it!

More to come. But don't hold your breath.

The Japan Poker Enterprise Association

2007-02-07T20:48:00.000+09:00

The JPEA is a collection of several bars and clubs in the Tokyo area that are all running regular poker games on set nights. All games accrue points for the winners in a common league, culminating in the twice-yearly Vegas Cup tournament.

The JPEA is headed by "J.O.", whose true name is Takuo Serita. Which came as a surprise to me - I figured it must be short for Junnosuke Okada or something like that. I'd never heard his true name, though, since he's universally known by these familiar initials.

J.O. spent some time in the States and his English is excellent. He also worked as a dealer in Vegas and brought back an interest in poker when he returned to Japan. He owns two of the bars in the association - one called Corner Pocket, and my familar hangout Duke.

Both are bars and have the friendly atmosphere and gear for standard bar sports - billiard tables, dart machines, and pinball and foosball tables. J.O. also runs a business selling darts equipment and machines, and there are some serious darts players that visit Duke regularly.

Poker, however, has steadily grown in popularity and Friday nights are dominated by poker at Duke. J.O. has spread his knowledge and enthusiasm for the game to his patrons, and commands respect and a bit of fear as the local poker authority and expert. But most games are run with short rounds and quickly increasing blinds, favoring quick play and risk-taking, so while J.O. wins his share of the weekly games, on a given night anyone has a shot at the title.

Many of the regulars are long-time, experienced poker players, but the bar atmosphere also seems to encourage new players to join and begin learning the game. Many players seem to be office workers who have picked up the game from friends and coworkers who come to the weekly tournaments after work. Maybe this also explains the high ratio of female players - many nights approach a fifty-fifty split of players.

All of the JPEA locations have a regular weekly tournament night. Duke's is Friday night, Corner Pocket is Wednesday, Pleasure (in Roppongi) is Sunday, and Bar Jack (in Shibuya) is Tuesday. Duke, Corner Pocket, and Pleasure also have one extra game per month, Vegas Cup night, which earns extra points for the winner towards the Vegas Cup.

Based on the number of players in the game, the payout for the regular games is in the form of coins or coupons that are good for food and drink credit at the hosting bar. A regular game with around 25 players will usually pay out the top 4 or 5 places with these credit coupons. First place will often earn 3000 or 4000yen of credit, enough to pay their bar tab for the next tournament or two.

Players also accumulate points in the weekly and monthly games for the Vegas Cup tournament, held twice per year. Winning the weekly tournaments earns 5 points to the winner. The monthly Vegas Cup games earn more points -- two points per player in the tournament for the winner, and one point per player for second place. So if 30 players enter the tournament, the winner will earn 60 points, and the runner-up will earn 30 points.

Twice a year is the final Vegas Cup playoff game. Each point earned that "season" is cashed in for a chip in the final game. Occasional players who won a single weekly tournament then start with a tiny stack of five chips. Regular players and winners may have several hundred!

Winning the final Vegas Cup playoff earns the winner a trip for two to Las Vegas, typically covering airfare and several days stay at a mid-range hotel (e.g. Luxor or somewhere similar). Not bad at all! Second place earns a more budget-priced trip for two to Korea. (Hey, they have casinos there too!)

Duke's weekly Friday games normally consist of a limit holdem tournament beginning at 7:30pm, and a limit mixed game tournament at 9:30pm. The mixed game is usually T.T.O.S. - two rounds of Texas Holdem, one round of Omaha hi-lo, and one round of Stud Eight or Better. Games are structured to finish in about two hours each, so blinds increase quickly. Both games switch to no-limit holdem when they reach the final table, which speeds eliminations.

Duke's monthly Vegas Cup game runs on the fourth Saturday of the month. The first tournament is again limit holdem, beginning at 7pm. The second tournament is a full HORSE rotation game beginning at 9pm. (Yeah, let's play Razz, baby!)

Duke also replaces the second tournament on the last Friday of the month with a freeroll no-limit holdem tournament open to all players who have taken first or second place in any of the weekly tournaments that month.

Duke's games have a 500yen buyin, with no rebuys available. The bar also charges a 700yen fee to cover the dealers who run the games. These game fees at all of the JPEA locations are added to your bar bill and so are usually charged separately from the tournament buyin, so be aware of the fees or you may get a surprise at the end of the night when it's time to settle your bill. (Credit coupons can also not usually be used to cover the game charges.)

More details about the other locations will be added later.

The Japan Poker Player's Association

2007-02-07T20:43:00.000+09:00

The Japan Poker Player's Association is headed by Hiroshi Shimamura, who also answers to his handle "Bluejay" and writes a blog describing his poker happenings, his play in the WSOP and other poker tournaments, and other events. Bluejay is friends with many in the poker industry, including Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher of Card Player Magazine, who make yearly trips to the JPPA to compete in the Japan Poker Cup, a local tournament. Professional player Tony G is also a friend of the JPPA and has been known to drop in unexpectedly for a game.

The JPPA's card room is near Okachimachi station, between Akihabara and Ueno on the Yamanote train line. (Click here for a map, care of Google Maps Japan.) It's a long but somewhat narrow room, fitting up to five poker tables. Poker photos, posters, and articles from Japanese newspapers and magazines adorn the walls. A large TV and entertainment center at one end often plays ESPN episodes of the World Series of Poker or other tv shows, or doubles as a tournament timer display during the larger tournaments. A soft drink machine provides free refreshment for players, and chilled beers and snacks are freely available for a few hundred yen more.

Several members act as regular dealers for the games, and some of them have attended professional dealers school here in Japan, I believe. They are quick, competent, and friendly, and keep the games running smoothly. They also carefully track the games as each player is eliminated, posting results on the JPPA's web page and calculating point totals and bounties.

Most of the players have a regular handle that they use in both the games and on the JPPA website. To be honest, I know most players by their handle only. Almost all of the players are solid poker players, competent and with a love for the game.

The JPPA runs mostly tournaments, though usually a live game will open up after enough players are knocked out of a tournament to start a table. The live games are not played for cash - you can buy a rack of chips for 500yen, then the number of chips you have at the end of the evening is marked and carries over to following weeks. Big live-game winners at the end of a season can win some sort of prize, though I will have to update the details later.

The current games that the JPPA runs are:

Monday: Live Day -- no tournaments, all live games. Generally limit and no-limit holdem, though it depends on what people feel like playing. Starts from 6pm, buy-in is 500yen for a rack of 100 chips.

Tuesday: STEPS tournament. NL holdem, starts at 7pm. 1000 yen buyin for 2000 chips, with two rebuys possible for players who bust in the first 6 rounds. Winners accumulate points towards the World Poker Japan tournament at twice the standard rate.

Wednesday: Ocean's Gaming Cup. NL holdem, starts at 7pm. 1500yen buyin, winner receives a choice of a 2GB Apple ipod nano, or a Nintendo DS Lite. Sponsored by Ocean's Gaming, so players must sign up for an account with Ocean's Gaming to participate.

Thursay: PokerStars Carribean Adventure. NL holdem, starts at 7pm. 1500yen buyin, winners earn points towards a Nov 23, 2007 playoff game. The top 70 point winners may enter the playoff game, and the winner receives an entry package for the PokerStars Carribean Adventure tournament in the Bahamas, including airfare, hotel, and an entry into the main event. Players must sign up for PokerStars to participate.

Friday: Everest Cup tournament. NL Holdem, starts at 7pm. 1000yen buyin. Winner receives choice of a 4GB Apple ipod nano, or a Sony PSP. Sponsored by Everest Poker, so players must sign up for an account with Everest to participate.

Saturday: Saturday schedules vary, but generally follow the below pattern:

1st and 3rd Saturday of the month: Straddle Cup games. Winners earn points towards a yearly Straddle Cup playoff game, which 16 players can compete in. The winner of the playoff game receives either a paid entry into a $1500 WSOP event, or a $1500 travel package. Second place wins a 30,000yen travel package.

Starting at 1pm is a Straddle Cup Mini game, which has a 1500yen buyin. This game is limit holdem on the first Saturday, and on the third Saturday is a different game every month (Omaha, Razz, Stud Hi-Lo, Pot Limit Crazy Pineapple, etc.)

At 5:30pm is the Straddle Cup Main Event, a NL Holdem tournament with a 2500 yen buyin.

2nd and 4th Saturday of the month: HOPS and JUMPS tournaments. Similar to the STEPS tournaments, these games earn winners points towards the World Poker Japan tournament. HOPS games are cheaper games with a 1500yen buyin. Usually there is a 7 Stud game at 6pm and an Omaha Hi-Lo game at 8:30pm. HOPS games earn winners points at the standard rate. JUMPS games begin at 2pm, and are limit holdem with a 5000yen buyin and 40 minute levels. Because of the bigger buyin and longer rounds, JUMPS tournaments earn points for the winners at 4 times the standard rate.

Sundays: Usually there are no games on Sundays, but there are exceptions. Sometimes there are additional Straddle Cup games on Sundays, either quarterly finals games or bounties games for extra points.

The weekday games are fairly regular, but the Saturday games are harder to keep track of. Checking the schedule on the JPPA web page regularly is the best way to keep track of which weekend games are coming up.

The HOPS, STEPS, and JUMPS tournaments earn winner points to the yearly World Poker Japan tournament. Any player with at least 60 points earned during the year can enter the playoff tournaments - more points also earn players more chips to play with. The winner of the tournament receives a $10,000 entry into the World Series of Poker Main Event or a World Poker Tour $10,000 event.

Public Poker Games in Tokyo

2007-02-07T19:47:00.000+09:00

There are an increasing number of public poker games in Tokyo. Gambling is illegal in Japan, however, so public poker games cannot be for money. Instead, most games are for points that can be collected for prizes, or for credit coupons at the pub holding the game.

These games are run by Japanese groups, and are attended mostly by Japanese players (with the occasional foreigner). Foreigners who would like to participate should be prepared for mostly Japanese language when joining and playing the games, although most Japanese will try to accomodate an English speaker as best they can according to their own English abilities.

There are probably a number of regular home games played in the English-speaking community in Tokyo. Unfortunately I don't have any information to pass on about those games.

There are two main groups in Tokyo (that I know of) that host poker games open to the public. The first is the Japan Poker Player's Association, currently based at a dedicated card room near the Ueno district of Tokyo. The second is the Japan Poker Enterprise Association, a group of pubs and restaurants that hold tournaments in a common league.

A new group called the Japan Poker League has also started holding tournaments in bars and clubs across Tokyo.

Click here for the entry on the Japan Poker Player's Association.

Click here for the entry on the Japan Poker Enterprise Association.

Click here for the entry on the Japan Poker League.

Oh, hey there!

2007-02-06T20:12:00.000+09:00

How you been? Long time, eh?

Oh yeah, I went to Vegas! Yeah, it was pretty cool.

The Vegas Cup win ended up paying for most, but not all, of the trip. I had to cover around $300 of the balance, but still, I had my flight and ten days hotel paid for. Strip hotels were showing as crazy expensive the first night I was planning to stay -- $400 for weekend nights at the Luxor? Are you kidding me? So I stayed at the Orleans, since I was renting a car anyhow. Turns out it was because I was arriving on the Saturday of the long Martin Luther King day weekend.

The flight was... trying. I guess I've been lucky so far, since despite all the horror stories I have heard I have never been sat next to a family with a screaming kid. Until now. The kid must have been around three, wouldn't sit still, screamed his brains out when he didn't get what he wanted, climbed all over his parents (and me a couple of times) and didn't sleep more than 30 minutes during the 10 hour overnight flight. Good god. They had seated me in Economy Plus although I had regular tickets. I think it must have been an unspoken apology for seating me next to the terror. My noise-cancelling headphones worked out pretty well, though, plugging my ears and shutting out a lot of his bawling along with the engine noise, so I was actually able to watch the movies and doze off.

The Orleans was nice, very spacious. I thought about trying The $20 Trick on check-in and bribe the front desk person for an upgrade, but decided against it since they'd probably not want to tie up one of their suites for ten full days for a mere $20. The standard room was plenty nice for the likes of me - wireless internet and a relaxing area with a sofa, easy chair, and coffee table, even.

I got a rental car since I had to make it out to the training center for my class, and it makes a huge difference in Vegas if you're there for more than a weekend. It was also so damn comforting to have a care and just drive. It didn't matter where, it was relaxing just to drive around and see the strip malls in the outlying areas. America. I don't miss it as such, but it is warm and familiar to come back to now and then. My first meal in Vegas was at In-N-Out Burger. Oh yeah, baby! I'm back! I had a number 1. Damn straight with onions!

I meant to try out Fatburger this trip, after hearing folks rave about it, but never got to it. The only one I know is on the Strip, and since I had a car I was not walking the Strip at all, so me and Fatburger were never at the right place at the right time.

My training class went... well enough. Class started at 8:00am, so I didn't stay out late gambling on school nights. Well... maybe once or twice. But with lingering jetlag, too little sleep, and after-lunch drowsiness, it was damn hard to stay awake in my class in the afternoon. So after the first day or two I kept my nights dull and picked up a sampling of energy drinks at Albertsons that I would crack open after lunch. I started taking a 30 minute nap in my car during lunch, which helped my focus a lot.

There were only five other students in my class - three worked for an IT firm that supports the gaming industry. Two worked for the department of defense. Vegas IT support in microcosm?

I ate my lunches at fast food joints that don't exist in Tokyo. Quizno's (they have some here, actually, but they are getting harder and harder to find), Carl's Jr. (I had to order the Western Double Bacon Cheeseburger; I think I'm still digesting it), Arby's, and Taco Bell (I had some crunchy semi-pizza thing I had never heard of before).

Yep, I was in Vegas, with top-class restaurants on every corner, and I was happiest at the fast food joints. Sue me.

I did have the Spicy Santa Fe Rolls at the Grand Lux Cafe in Venetian, that Chise and I fell in love with. Yeah, it's an appetizer, but they're damn good and enough to fill you up if you don't have an American-sized stomach.

My room at the Orleans had a decent view of the strip, but the night view was often washed out by the glare from the spotlights shining up on the building from below. They also drew the eye downward, directly to Seamless, the gentleman's club right across the street. Seamless. What kind of a name for a strip club is "Seamless"? What does it mean? Do the women have no ass-cracks or something? Or worse, no... no, don't say it! Don't think it! I kept picturing blank, smooth women like mannequins. Ug! No, I didn't go inside, who wants to go to a strip club full of mannequins?

Whoops

2007-01-09T10:30:00.000+09:00

You know what happens when you make a blog post about how you're running good, and feel like you're playing well?

That's right, you know.

Current online poker bankroll: $1577.36

I figured I'd hit a correction soon. I was running lucky before and starting to play a bit more on autopilot, probably reinforcing bad habits. Just as well, I will pull back and review, reread my books, and get ready for live poker in Vegas from Saturday.

I watched The Cincinnati Kid again over the weekend. The story is a lot more interesting now than it was when I first saw it when getting into poker 1.5 years ago.

Also rereading The Theory of Poker again, too. Also a lot of items are making more sense. Many of the examples from Stud and Razz I had skipped over the first time or two, but now that I am a bit more familiar with the games now, I am reading them closely and making sure I follow what he is saying. Not sure if it has affected my game yet, but it shouldn't hurt.

Cardrunners

2007-01-07T20:07:00.000+09:00

It must have been the mixed games on Friday night - today I felt like playing some cards, but not really so much holdem. I'm not cut out to be a professional poker player - many times I don't feel much like playing, and if I play anyhow (for lack of anything better to do, or to work towards clearing a bonus, etc.) I play very poorly and lose money doing stupid shit I know enough not to do.

So I have my goal to earn enough for a new laptop, but while I'd love to get it quickly, I'm not going to hurry myself. The longer it takes, the cheaper the thing will get, anyhow.

So I fired up Full Tilt and tried one of the new Mixed Game cash tables. Lowest limit was .25/.50, which was perfect. I just wanted to have a good time and get my fix. Played for about an hour and made $2. I had a ball. I just wish I had more opportunities to play Razz live.

I mentioned Cardrunners before - I signed up with them about a month ago. I felt my game was stale and not going anywhere. I decided I needed to try something different to give myself a kick in the ass. Cardrunners sounded interesting - I figured that I had enough books, but some people would learn better from videos, and I might be one of those people. So I gave it a try.

It has been a real eye-opener. So many books I have read have emphasized the importance of position. "Position, position, position." "No other factor in NL Holdem is as important as position." That kind of thing. I must have read similar statements in a dozen different places, and I thought I understood it.

I hadn't.

Granted, the players in the videos tend towards the Loose Agressive type of player, but I was still shocked at some of the hands they played in position, and how easily they managed it. It didn't always work out for them, but the vast majority of their hands they were in full control of the action.

So I have been trying to apply what I've been seeing, and so far it has worked out very well. I've only played about 2500 hands or so since I signed up, but I'm showing a win rate of about 10 big bets per 100 hands, which is pretty reasonable. More importantly, my decisions come so much easier. If I'm in there with a marginal hand, I have position on my opponents 95% of the time. If I'm out of position, I usually have a strong hand to begin with and don't have to worry as much about where I stand.

And it is fun to play as a LAG, after playing so long as a somewhat weak-tight TAG. It's been a kick in the pants, all right, and I'm looking at the game a lot differently now. In this respect, Cardrunners has been worth every penny. And if I can earn enough for a new notebook from it, even better.

Duke - 5 Jan 2007

2007-01-06T17:19:00.000+09:00

I went to Duke last night for their first post-New Year's games. Since I'll be heading to Vegas soon I could use a bit more live practice. I thought Mike would be coming but his schedule didn't work out. Really gotta bring him around to the joint sometime.

I fiddled around outside the building for a bit with my mobile phone, trying to get the built-in GPS to give me or mail me the latitude and longitude of Duke's location for the "Pub Poker Games In Tokyo" information page I am planning. No dice, apparently the function on my new(ish) phone now requires a monthly subscription. Bastards, the GPS on my previous phone was free. Oh well, I'll dig the location up with Google Maps or something.

I showed up 30 minutes early for the 7:30 start of the first game, so ordered a Guinness and exchanged the traditional new year greetings with the other early arrivals. Shiono-san and Celica-san were swapping information about casinos in Seoul, since Shiono is planning a trip there next week. I asked about poker rooms, since I heard there wasn't much poker there yet, and Celica assured me there were rooms open there now, but the limits are pretty high, like the rooms in Tinian and the Phillipines. It sounds like $10/$20 is the most likely limit you'll find. Holy crap. Think I need a bigger bankroll and more confidence before I'll be playing in these asian casino poker games.

I busted out early from the first tournament, limit holdem. Played poorly with mediocre cards and a lot of missed flops. Ugh. My limit game needs a lot of work. (Like my no-limit game doesn't?) Played some chinese poker until the second game began at 9:30pm - this time mixed games, TTOS. Texas Holdem, Texas Holdem, Omaha hi-lo, and Seven-card Stud. Sometimes we'll have a proper HORSE game, but I think those tend to be on the once-monthly Saturday games. A shame, because the world needs more Razz.

I really like the mixed game nights now, although they made my head hurt the first few times. Now it's refreshing to switch to a new game and have to shift gears. Lately I seem to accumulate chips in Stud, probably because almost everyone is very hesitant in the Stud round. With fairly low chip stacks compared to the blinds, losing one hand of Stud can cripple you. I felt this pain early on when I raised with a pair of tens, one exposed, and got called by Min-san with a King showing. I thought he might just have high cards at that point, no pair. I fired on most of the later streets and he kept calling, as I received two fives and he two queens. My resolve that my two-pair was good faltered at the end, and I checked. He bet out, and I knew he had suckered me and had the King down. I paid the last bet to see it. Nice play.

I struggled on with my few remaining chips, and started to rally. I thought I was finished when we got to Omaha-hi and I got a free flop from the BB with 2-3-4-6, three hearts. The flop came A-2-7 rainbow, and I had to stare at it for a minute to confirm I had a made nut low. But there were a lot of limpers into the hand and somewhere in my poker travels I learned how much it sucks to be quartered, especially when you really thought you had a lock on half the pot. I checked and Saitoh-san, a previous Vegas Cup winner, bet. It was folded around to me. I called to the river, internally chanting "please don't get quartered, please don't get quartered," and heaved a sigh of relief as Saitoh-san flipped over a slightly worse low. He'd paired a medium card to take the high, so we split it and I could breathe again.

It came round to stud again, and I got into a hand with Psyka-san, who is a very good holdem player but doesn't seem to like Stud much. I don't remember the details, but I think I had a wired pair that made trips somewhere around fifth street. Blinds had been increasing all this time so Psyka called his last few chips with something like two pair, well concealed. Ouch. With his stack, though, I was back in the running.

When we got down to the final table, it switched to NL Holdem. This arrangement may piss players and viewers off at the World Series HORSE event, but it works well when you have to finish your small tournament in 2.5 hours so players can make the last train home. M's are small all around, so the remaining players take their shots and flame out quickly. I pushed all-in from early-mid position and J.O. called me with a slightly smaller stack, declaring with a smile he wanted to bust me. The smile disappeared as I flipped over my AK, and he showed his AQ. Mine held up, and it looks like our good-natured gunning for each other will continue.

I got down to heads-up with Saitoh-san, and hit a couple of lucky cards to stay in the game when I really should have been gone. Back and forth, back and forth, and I had a slight chip advantage into the last hand. In the small blind, I called with J-6, I think it was, and Saitoh-san pushed his remaining few chips. I knew he had a better hand, probably a king or ace, but it was only two more chips to play and I figured my cards would be live. He flipped over something like A-5. Yep, at least I called it right. The first card of the flop was my 6, and the third was a jack. He missed an unlikely flush at the end and I took the game. Whew!

Saitoh-san is a good player... hell, all these guys are good players. If I had to look around the bar to spot the sucker, I probably wouldn't be able to find one, and we know what that means. But I get lucky sometimes, and any win still feels good.

Tonight was the regular weekly game, so my first place finish earns me 5 points towards the season 4 Vegas Cup. Saitoh-san is already at 135 points, and eight or ten others are over a hundred. Somebody cue up the Rocky Balboa music for me? Thanks.

Winnings

2007-01-04T22:00:00.000+09:00

Stuff I have won or paid for from poker winnings:

Nintendo DS - around 20,000yen ($168)
iPod nano 4g - around 25,000yen ($210)
Dyson vacuum - 35,000yen ($294) [Costs more than this, but this is the amount of poker money I used for it]
Trip to Vegas - around $1700

Add in my current bankroll, and it starts to look like some real winnings. Unfortunately, only the Nintendo and Dyson are really covered by my online bankroll. The iPod and Vegas trip I won in the local pub games, which have entry fees I pay for out of pocket. Over the span of the last 1.5 years, those fees probably add up to about the value of what I won.

Still... looks good on paper, though!

The Prize

2007-01-04T21:12:00.000+09:00

Okay, this is what I'm after. A new iBook... whoops, sorry! MacBook. That's going to take some getting used to. Currently the slightly faster model is a 2ghz Intel Core 2 Duo chip, which would make the thing a bit faster and more powerful than my current desktop.

Do you remember when laptops all cost around $3000? I do. Everything today seems cheap by comparison. Speaking of price...

I'll need to bump the memory up slightly to 2gigs, and the hard drive up to 120 gigs, to give enough resources to run Parallels on the thing and have a simultaneous Windows session running on the thing. This works wonderfully for me on my desktop machine, and this laptop will actually have a faster cpu so should have even less of a problem. Of course, if they came out with a Mac version of PokerTracker, maybe I wouldn't have to go to such lengths. Oh, and PokerAce HUD. And a Mac client for PokerStars. (Which they say will never happen.) And PokerPatterns would be nice. And a way to view the Windows-based DRM-protected videos from Cardrunners.

I said I would stop with the whining, right? Okay, all done.

Prices are pretty damn close between the US and Japanese Apple Store web sites, with the current exchange rate at something close to 119 yen/dollar. It's worth paying an extra $60 for a Japanese version to get the Japanese keyboard and to be able to get it serviced locally if something goes wrong.

Current online poker bankroll: $1657.91

If (when!) I get this up to $2000, I'll start looking at pulling out a grand for the new toy and pay for the balance with "real" money. Macworld is coming, which may bring lowered prices or new models. And if I continue to run well, I may press on until I can pay for the whole thing with poker money. I don't see myself as that patient, but I guess stranger things have happened.

Goals

2007-01-02T23:05:00.000+09:00

A year ago I figured I would work on limit holdem and build up my skills and bankroll to be playing regularly in the $2/$4 games online. It hasn't turned out that way at all.

Somewhere along the line I switched to no-limit and have had better results and enjoyed myself more. I can see the merits of getting better at limit, but no-limit is the current low-hanging fruit.

I'm still playing low limits though, so I have to work at improving my skills and moving up. In the shorter term, though, I've been longing for a new Mac notebook for a while. My current iBook is about 4-5 years old and starting to feel its age. It still works, though, for most things I do on a notebook, so I haven't been able to justify spending the money for a new one. I mean, yeah, the battery is old and getting to where it can't keep a charge anymore, and the power adapter cord is frayed at the connector and I've patched it up with electrical tape twice now to keep a good connection, but otherwise it's fine. Not cherry, you know, because I did manage to bust the LCD screen that time when I propped it up on a window ledge and then caught the power cable when vaccuuming and yanked it down, crashing the display into the corner of my kotatsu. Replacing the screen would have cost me about 90,000yen, but I found someone selling a replacement screen on Yahoo auctions (much more popular than eBay here) for 30,000yen, so I took a chance and cracked the thing open and replaced it myself. Never having worked on laptops before, it was a nightmare of figuring how to take the thing apart and keeping track of 17 different tiny screws and still having two left over when I got the thing back together. But it worked! And still does.

I was going somewhere with this, I know I was.

Right, the point was, it still works fine so replacing it is a luxury. But I'm liking the idea of funding small luxuries with poker winnings, so I get to buy something I otherwise would not have, and have motivation to keep playing and improving to win more. The Nintendo DS Lite I bought for C was with poker money. So was about half of the cash for the Dyson vacuum cleaner we bought for Christmas. (It was her idea, I swear.)

So my next goal is to build my bankroll to where I can pull out $1000 to dedicate to a new iBook without decimating it, then cover the rest from "real" money. Depending on how things go, maybe I'll keep going and pay for the whole thing with poker money. That would be nice, but maybe too optomistic.

The new iBook would run Windows, too, so I could play on PokerStars with it. That would be "paying for itself" on a new, subtle level.

Anyhow, let's see how this first goal goes and I'll set a new one after that.

Right.

2007-01-02T23:00:00.000+09:00

Enough of that whiny crap.

I think a good first step will be a decent listing of the various pub-style poker games in Tokyo, with maps and other details. Should be useful content for someone who is actually looking for poker games in Japan.

Planning to go visit Duke on Friday for their weekly games, so I'll take a couple photos and write up how to get there, what games they play, etc. Hopefully I can fill out the list of other public games in Tokyo and keep a reference link to it on my main page.

Lemon juice

2007-01-01T22:17:00.000+09:00

You know what is frustrating?

Writing about poker, Japan, and poker in Japan (granted, infrequently at times), then one day deciding to do a Google search for "japan poker blog" and not finding any links to your blog in the first 50 pages of results. Although I did find this link to Tokyo fashion picks for winter coats in the results.

I had slightly better results when searching for "tokyo poker blog". There was a link to me on page 25. Maybe if I work on my blog a bit more I can make it up higher in the rankings than this article on women being groped on the trains here.

Yeah, it does kind of sting.

Vegas trip

2007-01-01T07:11:00.000+09:00

Short version: I'll be in Vegas from January 13 to 23. Yeah baby!

God, I am looking forward to this trip to Las Vegas.

Marisuke had warned me that the travel agency got the best prices around two months before a planned trip, so with a bit less than a month before my planned departure date, it could get expensive.

That sat like a cold rock in my stomach for a day or so while I tried to get the time off sorted. If it were so expensive that I'd have to drop a thousand or two of my own dollars in addition to what the Vegas Cup winnings covered, I couldn't justify the trip. I'd have to cancel again, and that would really push me over the edge into the "I hate my job, I hate my life" zone I've been skirting.

But when I called the travel agency, they quoted me a very reasonable price for the airline flight, about 69,000yen round trip on United. Aside: hey, you remember when the price quote for an airline flight was the total price and you didn't have to add in $200 of extra taxes and fuel fees? Ah, those were simpler times.

Still, it was not the 200,000yen last minute fare price I was dreading. Finally I was catching a break. One time, come on, one time!

I don't know what's going on in Vegas on Jan 13-14, but hotel rates on the Strip for those nights are crazy. $400 to stay at the Luxor on Jan 13? No thanks! I'm renting a car so I went with The Orleans instead, off the strip and a lot cheaper.

The full schedule and price came from the travel agency by registered mail two days later. It will be close, but I think my Vegas Cup winning should cover it completely. Yes!

My company is also going to cover the cost of my training class there, which wasn't a sure thing. I even got a 20% discount on the cost of the class when I called the training center to book, which may be a standard discount that everyone gets but it still felt nice. I must have been a good boy this year, because things are actually working out.

Damn, hope I didn't jinx things by saying that.

How was Vegas?

2006-11-19T22:24:00.000+09:00

Vegas... that's right, I was supposed to go to Vegas.

Let's not dwell too much on it, but we didn't go. Combination of being swamped at work and a pretty spectacular breakdown of relations with the travel agency handling things. I won't write about it, because it's Christmas and that would be against the spirit of things.

Instead it looks like I'll be going in mid-January. Even better, I'm going to mix in a technical traning class while I'm there, so it will be a long trip, maybe 10 days. Most technical training classes here are in Japanese, which makes things more difficult for me. My Japanese is all right for daily use but I struggle with more complex conversations. Technical Japanese isn't usually a problem, since so much of it is often imported English terms. So if you don't know the Japanese word, you say the English word as if you've spelled it out in Japanese katakana, and 90% of the time a Japanese person will understand you.

Still, it adds a layer of difficulty to a training situation, and I tend to get tired out and start getting drowsy in the afternoons if it's all Japanese. So I prefer to take classes in English so I have a better chance of staying alert and not missing any material.

And yes, it is an excuse to spend more time in Vegas when I have the chance. I'm not stupid. I don't get out to Vegas near as much as I would like, so I'll use whatever excuses I can scrape up.

So, if all goes well, my previous Vegas Cup win should pay for my flight and hopefully most of my hotel expenses. My company has agreed to pay for the training class, so I'll only need to cover my other expenses, like a mobile phone, rental car, meals, and, oh, maybe some gambling!

It's for work, baby, really!

Let's play Razz!

2006-11-13T14:39:00.000+09:00

I don't remember exactly why, but I got a hankering to play Razz online recently. The mixed games at Duke include Razz so I wanted to get a better grasp of the game, at least the basics. So I reviewed the rules, and tried the smallest level tables on Full Tilt to give it a try, which are $.25/.50.

Good god. And I thought I didn't know how to play the game. The guys on these tables are awful. Amazingly bad. "Are you clear on what game we're playing?"-level bad.

Maybe this should be expected at this level - I'm just shocked that after an hour of play the basics of this game are not obvious to everyone there. On fifth street I can see what the best possible hand you could have would be, and if I can beat that hand, I'll just keep betting. Is that clear? Why do you keep calling me? I mean, don't stop with the calling, god forbid, but just... why?

It's a little ego boost. I can happily quadruple my $5 buyin and feel pretty smug, despite it being only $20. Was this what it was like for serious holdem players when the whole poker boom thing began? Musta felt GOOD.

Forgetting something?

2006-11-12T21:04:00.000+09:00

Oh yeah, I was in the middle of a story, wasn't I? If anyone was actually reading this blog, other than to search for more Akihabara girl pics, they might be peeved that I'd been leading up to the Vegas Cup and then not bothered to write about what actually happened for more than a week.

I got a bit of a shock when I showed up to Duke for the Vegas Cup, since even an hour before the final was about to start, there were already 20 or so people there, and all the preparation for the game was ready. Six tables were set up - it was going to be a big game. They had chip stacks ready for all the players at a small table set aside for the signup desk. I wandered over and spied my small stack of 38, counted out and set by my name written on the sheet of paper underneath. All the stacks were there, ready for their owners, lined in up in order. Kuroda-san's stack rested in front, a reminder he was in great shape from the start.

As more people showed up, it was clear this was going to be a special event. Players were dressed up sharp, and had brought their sunglasses. Most Japanese players don't bother with sunglasses unless they're joking around or (apparently) playing in a serious game. I hadn't seen so many Japanese players with their sunglasses ready... well... ever. Stakes were high, and it was obvious they were there to take things seriously.

Well, fairly seriously. Maro-san, who I think mostly plays at Pleasure, showed up in a bright red suit, sandy blond wig, and mirror sunglasses, looking like a cross between a pickup artist punk or a semi-yakuza you'd take care not to bump into walking down the seedy streets of Kabukicho.

I began to feel seriously underdressed in my faded shortsleeve buttondown and jeans, and badly in need of a haircut.

Many were taking photos, and I tried to keep a low profile. But there were a couple young ladies with a video camera, taking shots of the gathering crowd of poker players in the bar, and doing short interviews with some of the players. I gathered that they were taking photos and video for the Poker Navi web site. The way they threw occasional glances in my direction, I could tell what they were thinking.

No, not that. They were thinking, "Hey, there's a gaijin here. Is he a poker player? We should get an interview with the foreign player."

I really needed a haircut.

They caught me eventually and I reluctantly agreed to a short interview. I described a little about how I got interested in poker from downloading a few tv shows from the internet, then found Duke in my search for places to play in Tokyo. They asked what I considered my strong points in poker. I answered that it was probably my native English ability, that there was a lot of good books on poker that I could read easily, giving me access to a lot of tactics and strategy that Japanese players would either not have or would have to read in a second language. If Harrington on Holdem were available in Japanese, I would be in a lot more trouble in the local games, I'm sure of it.

We cut the interview short, since my Japanese is pretty crappy for public speaking. I doubt they actually put it up anywhere. Thank god.

7:30 approached. A quick speech thanking everyone for playing, and they described the prize, the trip for two to Las Vegas. Everyone knew this damn well, but it gave us a little reminder that we were here for the Big Game. A man from the HIS Travel Agency showed everyone the travel certificate for the trip, arranged through his agency, and congratulated in advance whoever would win it. And with that, we took our seats and had at it.

Many of the weekly tournaments at Duke start as Limit Holdem for the first several levels, then switch to No Limit afterwards. The final game was set up the same way, but were limit for the first 4 levels, and the levels were 15 minutes instead of the 10 minute levels in the weekly games, which are geared to finish up in two hours or so.

Table draw had not put any of the big stacks at my starting table, which was nice, but not so important in limit. I played mostly tight, not taking any real chances. I scored one pot, but generally stayed out of things and my stack slowly ground down. My starting stack of 38 had dropped to about 30 when we finished up the limit levels, and switched to no limit.

J.O. and Kuroda-san were moved to my table right about the time we switched to no-limit. This was not good, since they were big stacks and dangerous players. Kuroda-san still had his 300-ish stack, and J.O. had 150 to start and still had about that amount. Wonderful.

I was down to about 25 chips when I found black aces UTG. Since I was short and the blinds were approaching, I pushed and hoped it would look like a desperation move. It worked, I got one caller with A-J and my aces held - I doubled up.

The next hand I got Q-10 clubs in the BB. Kuroda-san and I think one other player had limped in, so I raised 3x experimentally. The first player folded, and Kuroda-san grimaced and thought for a few seconds before he showed an Ace and mucked, noting he was worried about his kicker. Interesting.

The next hand, I had red aces.

One early-mid player raised, I believe, and Kuroda-san called, so there was a reasonable pot when it got to me. I was still somewhat shortstacked, even after the double-up, so I thought for a second and pushed. I was hoping it would look like an attempt to steal the pot and I would get called by at least one of them.

It worked. Both of them called, figuring I was making a play, and again my aces held up to take the pot, this time tripling me up. Now up at around 130 chips, I was in the game. And even better, I had put the fear of god into my table. Every time I raised after that I could see on their faces, "Good god, does he have aces AGAIN?" My earlier tightness had paid off, since now they figured I was only raising with premium hands.

Of course, from that point on I wasn't. I think I played the situation pretty well from that point on. If I saw weakness, I raised. I sized my bets as I had read in Pressure Poker and No Limit Holdem: Theory and Practice, so they saw not only the size of my bet, but the amount I had behind that they knew they'd be facing after. And it worked. I put the pressure on, and my stack grew.

Player moves were frequent, as players busted and they kept the tables as balanced as possible. We compressed down to four tables... then three... then two. And I was still in it. We made the final table. I don't remember all the players, but they were all sharp, smart, and dangerous. Blinds had continued to rise, and none of us were as far ahead as we would have liked. But Kuroda-san was still in it, with a good stack of chips. Bushi, a player I know from the JPPA games, was there as well and I wasn't too happy about it. I've never seen him look flustered or uncertain of how to proceed. A strong, cool, and confident player whose handle is Psyka was there - I think he plays mostly at Bar Jack in Shibuya, so he wasn't familiar with me and hadn't witnessed my aces. This wasn't going to be easy.

I wish I could remember more hands, but I wouldn't have remembered them the day after, much less now, several weeks later. Let's just say I continued to play my A-game, choosing my spots and putting the pressure on, and it worked. Bushi fell with a look of bemused exasperation, and then Psyka, shaking his head. Kuroda-san's chip lead dwindled as we all had to mix it up, and suddenly he was out. I don't even remember how it happened, but he just hadn't seem to be catching any breaks, winning any pots, and Shiono-san and I would end up with a slightly better paired card then his at showdown.

And then it was heads-up, me and Shiono-san. I had the chip lead but I knew it wasn't going to be easy to finish him off, and there was nothing certain about it.

I suddenly remembered when I had played in the first Vegas Cup, with only 5 or 10 points to begin with, taking my long shot. I remember discussing with my friend J.P. ahead of the game that I would feel a bit weird if I won, since it seemed like really a Japanese player should win. After all, it's harder for them to get to Vegas than Americans, and I'd been there many, many times when I lived in the SF Bay area. Maybe, if it came down to where I could win the game, I should throw it and let a Japanese player win, I suggested.

J.P. gave me a "you're being stupid" grin and said, "What the hell is that? If you get a chance to win, you should take it."

In the first Vegas Cup, I got knocked out pretty early and it was no issue, but now I remembered it. Heads-up at the final table, coming from a big chip disadvantage, I knew I'd be happy with my performance even if I got knocked out in second. Should I throw it? Let Shiono-san win? I considered it.

And rejected it immediately. That's not poker. You take the chances you are given and you make the most of them. You don't softplay your opponents. That's the game, and if I could win it, I was going to win it and not worry about if it was just or fair.

So I played my ass off. I pressed when I thought I had an edge, and the chips flowed back and forth between Shiono-san and me. He took the lead at least once, and I thought I would have to take my gracious defeat after all. But I fought back, got a few hands, and regained the lead.

It was a long heads up match. I don't even remember the hand I won with. I think it was 6-9 offsuit, and I hit the six on the flop.

Things got a little lightheaded and blurry after that. Shiono-san was a hell of a sport and congratulated me sincerely. I didn't know what to say to everyone's congratulations - mostly I smiled embarassedly and thanked them and said I never thought I'd be able to win it.

After the game, one of the players Kopa pointed out the sweat stains under the arms of my shirt when I was done. Good god, I had really been playing my ass off.

I had to give a little acceptance speech in front of the 60-70 people in the room afterwards, which I fumbled through in my normal crappy Japanese. I don't know how I came across. Was I magnanimous in my victory, or was I just coming across as an ass? I couldn't even consider it until much later, and I still have no idea.

There were more photos and videos taken of the winners, some of which are up over at the Poker Navi site. I cringe when I see the photos (it should be obvious which one is me) and I can't bring myself to watch the movies. A haircut would have helped, but it wouldn't disguise how much of a goofball I really am. Ah well. This goofball has a free trip for two to Vegas - what do you have?

What the river?

2006-11-02T17:42:00.000+09:00

My last visit to the JPPA room was about 3 weeks ago, Friday night. The next evening was the final for the Vegas Cup series, over at Duke, so I wanted a bit of last minute practice. I had gone by Duke the week before for one of the last Vegas Cup qualifying games to earn some more points to start with, but had been knocked out in both tournaments near the bubble and got nothing. I still had a measley 38 points from my earlier wins at Pleasure. Checking the web page, the point leader was still Kuroda-san, with 300+ points. I'd be going in to the final with a short stack - not quite chip-and-chair, since a few folks had only 5 or 10 points from a single win somewhere along the line. But still not much room to manuever.

So a nice relaxing Everest Cup game at the JPPA room was in order. Besides, if I managed to win it I could get another ipod nano, one to give to the girlfriend to help encourage her that my evenings out playing poker, returning late at night smelling of beer and cigarrettes, had some sort of upside for her.

We had 32 players, and I held on to take 4th place. No hands memorable enough to last three weeks in my sieve-like memory, but I wasn't getting much in terms of hands and had to struggle to stay in the game for most of the evening. I was pleased I lasted as long as I did.

Since I made it deep into the game, there wasn't much time left afterwards for playing in the live games, but I sat in for a few rounds. It was a dealer's choice game, and as I sat down one of the guys chose "nines-wild pot-limit Omaha hi-lo". Sick, stupid game. A round of that was enough. Next, the guy to my right chose... Fuck the River!

I had introduced Fuck The River to the JPPA a couple months ago out of curiosity, during the dealers-choice live game. I had never played it, and neither had they, though they liked the sound of the name. I chose pot-limit at random and it stuck. We had a ball. Japanese speakers can have a hard time with the F sound in "fuck", so there were a lot of delighted and outraged cries of "huck!" or "huck za ribaa!!" as those last three cards came down. Shin was playing and seemed intrigued at the wrinkle and suggested we do a FTR tournament some night. That hasn't happened yet (that I know of) but I sure hope I'm around for it.

(Limit FTR would probably be a lot more "reasonable". Pot-limit gets pretty crazy.)

We only had time for a round and a half of FTR (of course I also chose FTR when it got to my choice!) before we disbanded and headed home. Good times.

I woke up at my normal 6:30am the next morning, as I usually do. C elected to sleep in, as she usually does. So I figured I needed a bit more practice for the Vegas Cup later that day. I fired up an 18-player SNG on FullTilt, and doodled around in that for an hour and some. I won it. I was more surprised than pleased, though the $72 boost to my pitiful bankroll was welcome. But somehow unsatisfying, since there had been no feeling of effort involved. I had got okay but not great cards, got lucky once or twice, and made the obvious actions.

"Maybe I'm just getting better at this game?" I considered. "Nah."

Decided this was enough poker until the evening. At lunch, I reminded C of my plans for the evening. "Tonight is the Vegas Cup - I don't have many chips but will go give it a shot."

"How many do you start with?"

"38. Most have 50 or 60 - the leader has about 300."

"Heee... Do you think you can win?"

I shrugged. "Probably not. I'll try anyhow."

She gave me the standard "ganbatte ne," (do your best). C likes Vegas about as much as I do, but she's a slots, shows, dining, and blackjack girl. Poker has never appealed to her, except for the video kind. But I like it, so she puts up with my little hobby, even if it puts me in front of my computer in the evenings instead of on the couch with her in front of the tv. Occasionally I bring home a new ipod or win $400 in a Caesar's tournament or something that suggests it's not a complete waste of time, too. So if I want to spend my Saturday night out at a bar trying to win a trip for two to Vegas, she's willing to let me go take a shot at it.

If I really wanted to impress her, I'd buy her a Dyson vacuum cleaner with poker winnings. I balk at the idea, though, because deep down I would feel like a sexist shmuck for buying her something to do the housework with. But she really wants one. I swear!

Games in Tokyo

2006-11-02T16:08:00.000+09:00

I can only get out for live poker play irregularly. If I were single and had a job with reliable business hours, I'd probably be playing every Friday or Saturday, and maybe one of the weeknights as well.

In writing up a summary of games in town for a new poker player in Tokyo (if you're reading, hi Nick!), I realized we now have a game going somewhere in Tokyo every day of the week. It feels like a milestone. 15 million people in this town and we now have enough who like poker to have a game going somewhere on any given night.

I ought to seek out and sample homegames. There must be some. My building has a pretty nice lounge that could host a good sized home game if it came to that. But then I'd need a few things - like chips, cards, felt, players, and a regular schedule. I'll think about it.

Sex

2006-10-25T17:02:00.000+09:00

Checking my stats for this page to see who visits, I find that most of the hits are coming from Google searches for this photo, which I linked to in a description of a trip to Akihabara one Sunday.

I guess if I ever need more hits on my blog, I know the way to go.

Pleasure

2006-10-25T15:33:00.000+09:00

I've mentioned before that there are a few different places to play poker in Tokyo. The first choice is the Japan Poker Player's Association's card room in Ueno. The second choice is actually a growing group of bars and clubs that are offering poker games, grouped under the Japan Poker Enterprise Association.

First in the JPEA was Duke, the "poker bar" in my mind for over a year now. The owner, J.O. owns another joint called Corner Pocket, which is also a member. The JPEA seems to be approaching other bars, clubs, and establishments that have an interest in starting poker games and tournaments, then giving them help in planning and running the games and getting things going smoothly. They have also expanded the Vegas Cup competition out of Duke to bring in players from the other venues. Each joint runs their own poker games, with the winners each week earning points for the Vegas Cup. Every six months, the Vegas Cup playoffs pit all the winners against each other in one tournament, with each point they earned that season being converted to a tournament chip. So the more games you win in the season, the more chips you start with at the final.

I wrote about Bar Jack, a new spot in Shibuya that started regular poker games and joined the JPEA. Mike and I visited there and played once, and it seems like a nice enough spot, though a bit hard to find if you're not sure what you're looking for. (Which is true for a lot of places in Shibuya.) Many of the players then were regulars from Duke who were coming over, like me, to check out the newest spot to play poker in Tokyo. Shibuya is a younger, hipper part of town (if an old fart like me can say so). Getting young Japanese interested in poker could really drive acceptance and knowledge of the game - if young Japanese guys got drawn to poker the way they were drawn to darts a while back, the game could explode here.

I'm not sure how the games at Bar Jack have been doing, and if they've attracted a Shibuya crowd and got new people interested or not. I should go back and check.

Several weeks ago I noticed a new spot listed on the JPEA site, this time in Roppongi. Roppongi is a section of town that has catered to nightlife for a long time now, with lots of bars, clubs, discos, and hook-up spots. Every foreigner guy I know has gone through a Roppongi period, where they spend every Friday night hitting their favorite clubs and trying to find as many Japanese girls looking for white boyfriends as possible. It's almost required. You move to Tokyo, and one of the first things your new friends will say to you is, "Man, we gotta hit Roppongi this weekend... have you been to Gaspanic yet? NO?! Oh man, we gotta go!"

Roppongi has bordered on "sleazy" for a decade or more, but the new Roppongi Hills development of higher-class shopping, apartments, and office complexes has brought some respectability back to the area. A lot of foreign investment firms also have offices in Roppongi. So there are a lot of foreigners coming through Roppongi -- some have suits and expense accounts, some have crewcuts and the swagger of military on leave, some just have the gleam in their eye of english conversation teachers looking for a good time cheap.

So of course it was a great idea to get a poker game going in the area. I had to check it out.

The place is called Pleasure, and most nights it's an upscale club for business types to blow extra cash at buying drinks for stunning Japanese hostesses and exhaling the sweet smelling smoke of a few choice cuban cigars. And then on Sundays, they break out the poker tables.

I came by on a Sunday afternoon, finding the spot easily enough. I had a strange feeling I had been there before, probably because there used to be an Australian-themed bar called Quest in the same building (or maybe the one next to it) that I visited once or twice during my own Roppongi Period. Before that, the place used to be an Indian restaurant that had a pretty decent lunch menu. Clubs don't often last too long in Roppongi. They fall out of popularity and are shut down, shuffled around, and reopened with another name or another theme. I couldn't tell if this was the same spot I had had a curry buffet lunch 6 years previous or not.

The players were mostly unfamiliar to me, all Japanese. J.O. came by and chatted a bit, and his cuban cigar smelled heavenly. Almost made me regret being a non-smoker. We had about 20 players in all, and ran two tournaments, both limit holdem until it reached heads-up, where it switched to no-limit. I played conservatively, as solid as I could, and took second place in both games. Some of the players were pretty new and were too passive, calling with obviously crap hands. I played tight and pushed my good hands and got paid off. Sadly, I couldn't finish off my two oppenents heads-up for the wins - had one of them on the ropes but took a bad beat that reversed our positions and I went out shortly afterwards.

Still, two second places in one night earned me 38 points towards the Vegas cup, and a lot of respect from the new players. There was only a couple more weeks until the Vegas Cup final, and 38 points was not much - the leader, Kuroda-san, had around 300 points from his wins over the previous 6 months. But 38 points in one day was not bad, and even with a short stack I still had a shot at the Vegas Cup. First prize was a trip for two to Vegas. Woo. I need a vacation.

Playing catch up

2006-10-25T14:44:00.000+09:00

I've fallen behind, not blogging much in the last couple weeks. And considering there have been a few events that I really ought to talk about, I'm going to have to scurry to post some updates and try to get back on track.

Missing it?

2006-10-17T22:42:00.000+09:00

I logged into Party this evening, to make sure I still could, and to see what it looks like now.

It's not a dessicated, crusty shell of its former self, if that's what you were thinking. From here, it looks pretty much the same. The Monster promo is gone. They have a link to a partypoker.tv web site that doesn't work, but will supposedly carry poker tv shows.

There are still a lot of players at tables. I couldn't really tell if there were fewer than normal. Still, I joined a table for a few orbits and it was a bit weird to see that everyone else was from Germany (mostly), the UK, and Hong Kong.

Don't ask me if all the fish are gone. I'm still there, aren't I?

Where to begin...

2006-10-17T21:19:00.000+09:00

I haven't been updating. Bleah, bad me.

Let's start with a quick link - I found an interesting article on Oliver Tse's blog. Actually, it's so short I'll quote it, but Oliver seems to collect a lot of inside information about the casino and poker businesses, so his blog should reveal a lot of insight to those with an interest, so go check it out.

LAS VEGAS -- Harrah's Entertainment is looking to hire a Mandarin Chinese-speaking MBA with 3 to 4 years of experience negotiating deals with the mainland Chinese government to fill a newly-created Director of Development position in its new Hong Kong office.

Harrah's is also looking for 2 additional MBA's, one Japanese and/or Korean speaking to be based in Japan or South Korea, and one Thai and Mandarin Chinese-speaking to be based in Thailand or Singapore.

These new Directors of Development will be responsible for negotiating casino and hotel resort development deals for Harrah's with governments in Asia.

He also links to the Harrah's web page describing the job positions. You know, this could be a cool job for someone with interest and experience in the gambling industry, an MBA (to begin with), fluent Japanese and/or Korean, and a pioneering attitude. I hope they find the guy and he does a good job, 'cause I'd love to go to a Harrah's casino either here or in Seoul.

I have to figure that Seoul is much more likely to bear fruit for Harrah's in the short term. Gambling is still illegal in Japan and though there have been talks and discussions about legalizing casinos in certain locations here, I've heard nothing definite so far. Seoul, however, has half a dozen legal casinos and the number seems to be growing. Some or all of them are restricted to non-Korean citizens, a la Monaco. But if they make a tidy profit from the foreigner tourists, they must might decide to throw open the doors and let the natives play too and fill the government tax coffers.

I hear they even have poker there. Probably only occasional tournaments, since I doubt they have enough players to keep a dedicated table going.

Seoul is so close to Japan that a weekend jaunt there would be like a Vegas visit from San Francisco. Heady stuff for a guy like me, especially since flights, accommodations, and food can be damn cheap. I've only visited once, but spent about $300 for round trip airfare and 3 nights hotel. My group of Japanese friends and I ate like Korean kings, gorging ourselves with grilled meats, kimchee, flowing rivers of veggies and beer, lots of beer. We would get the bill and work it out, and it always cost us about $15 a person. Or less. God damn. Living in Tokyo, that's jaw-dropping.

I do, however, like the implication that Harrah's is positioning themselves to be ready if Japan does open up and allow some casino gambling here. I love Las Vegas and will continue to visit once or twice a year, I'm sure, but if they open Caesar's Palace Tokyo, suddenly my weekends are booked for the rest of the decade.

Edit: Shit, I had this post in draft mode this whole time? Man I suck.

The biggest site you never heard of

2006-09-28T14:55:00.001+09:00

I posted a long while back about Everest Poker, a poker site that took aim directly at poker players globally, providing native-language client software in something like 20 different languages, including most of the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, and a bunch more I forget. I also liked that they mapped common chat phrases ("Nice hand", "Thank you", "Good game", etc) to function keys that would display in the language of the client software. So a Japanese player will see the comment in Japanese, and his response to the Frenchman who sent it will appear to him in French. Great idea. (Too bad their client software is unpleasant to look at and difficult to follow the action.)

With the World Poker Tour set to start airing in "Asia" (Singapore and Macau), hopefully we'll start to see Chinese players get interested in the game. This could be huge - I hope Everest is ready to go after that market, as I'm sure there will be some Chinese companies that fire up online poker rooms if it takes off.

I get emails from Everest to their players in Japan, letting everyone know about upcoming tournaments, Japan-only games, and freerolls for their Japanese customers. I haven't logged in in ages, so last week I reinstalled the software and fired it up to join the Wednesday night Japan-only tourney.

It was six players. Including me.

Okay, so Japan hasn't exactly bought into the whole poker boom thing.

I was distracted and played like shit, too, so was knocked out in fourth from our little Japanese STT. So I browsed the cash game tables. I was surprised to see quite a lot of games running, mostly filled with European players, with a smattering of asians, South Americans, and Africans. Nice. Everest seems to be doing well enough.

I checked on PokerSiteScout and found Everest listed in 8th place for number of cash game players, right between UltimateBet and Bodog. Not bad at all.

Then I saw the note:

Special Note: Everest Poker does not accept customers from the United States

That's right! I hadn't seen a single US player in my browsing. These guys are based in Canada and seem to be going along with US law as best they can by not accepting US players. And they still have more poker players than Bodog.

Much as I hate the idea, if the US does kill off online poker for their citizens, the game will survive. The rest of the world will still keep playing, even without the yankee masses. We'll miss you guys, but we'll get by.

Poker Break

2006-09-22T18:31:00.000+09:00

When I got back from Vegas, I didn't play any poker for about two weeks. At first I was just busy getting my sleep schedule back to normal, catching up at work, and spending time with my girlfriend, who hadn't appreciated my running off to Vegas without her, but was a pretty good sport about it, considering. (Any time I am away she complains she can't get to sleep without my snoring. Then she's tired all day at work and it's my fault. Of course, when we started going out my snoring kept her awake. She kept earplugs by the bed. Then she was tired all day at work and it was my fault.)

I had played a lot of poker on my trip, too, and was ready for a break. The nightly tournament at Caesars that I took fifth in had also shown me players that take the game seriously (still having a good time), who knew the odds, who always considered their position, the players behind them and their stacks, who could read hands, and who had being steadily progressing for (I assume) years.

Impressive. Sobering.

I got back and found I did not have much desire to play. Instead I went back to reading my books and thinking about the game. I jumped back and forth between doubleas' Pressure Pokerand Sklansky's new No Limit Hold'em - Theory and Practice. I paid more attention in podcasts during the hand-of-the-day discussions and pros' analysis of their play and others' . Eventually I began playing again, mostly at the JPPA games in Ueno. It hasn't been a big difference, but it's there.

It's going to be a lot of work, and a long process, but someday I plan to be one of those guys.

Mobile Chocolate

2006-09-22T13:45:00.000+09:00

Saw a new candy bar for sale at the convenience store... Crunchy, right?

No... wait a sec... it's not Crunchy, it's Crunky.

"Walking Bar"... so it's autonomously mobile?

It was all right but nothing special. Contains both almonds and macadamia nuts.

Vegas... I remember Vegas...

2006-09-21T21:34:00.000+09:00

If I was going to describe my Vegas trip, I really should have done it immediately afterwards - my head is like a sieve. Most poker players probably hold secret fantasies about someday becoming world class players, rich and famous. Or at least rich. I gave up that secret dream almost immediately, probably on hearing the first interview with a pro on a poker podcast. As soon as they asked the player about some critical hand they played the day before. Or the tournament before. Or a tournament six months ago. It hardly matters - the interview always goes like,

Interviewer: So, you took a big pot from Scotty Nguyen at the Borgota tournament last month that propelled you to the final table. Tell us a bit about that hand.

Pro: You must mean the one with the queens.

I: Exactly.

P: RIght. Well, Scotty had been pressuring the three other small stacks at our table, and had built his stack up to about 120,000. He raises second to act to 20,000, with the blinds at 1000-2000, so it's folded around to me with pocket queens. I call and the blinds fold. The flop comes A 5 3 with two spades, and I have the queen of spades and the queen of diamonds. So Scotty bets out 16000, so I raised it to 35000...

You get the idea. The thing is, if I was the pro and someone asked me one of those questions, it would be more like this:

I: So, you took a big pot from Scotty Nguyen at the Borgota tournament last month that propelled you to the final table. Tell us a bit about that hand.

Me: Uh, which hand do you mean?

I: You had pocket queens... and?

Me: Oh, um, yeah, I had pocket queens and I sucked Scotty in. He was trying a move with nothing, and was pretty pissed I called him down.

I: What did he have?

Me: Oh, I don't remember. Six trey? Something like that.

I: Suited?

Me: Um... I don't think so.

I: What were the blinds at?

Me: Oh, I don't know... it was sometime in the afternoon of the second day. 400-800 maybe?

I: How much did he bet out?

Me: I really don't remember. Is it on PokerPages? Check on there.

Daniel Negreanu I am not.

Back from the dead

2006-09-21T18:54:00.000+09:00

My blog has laid here empty for a while, like a homeless guy sprawled on the park bench you see every time you walk past, uncertain if he's asleep or maybe dead, so you hurry past. I'll try to update at least once in a while with bits of Japan-related content, mostly poker stuff.

Vegas was wonderful and relaxing. Until now, when I have Vegased for a week, by the end of it I am tired of the gambling, the bright lights, the fictionality of it all, and happy to move on.

This time I enjoyed every day and would happily have stuck around for another week (or more) if I could have. The difference must have been the rental car. I was free to leave the strip, to drive out to WalMart and buy bluejeans for $20, huge tubs of multivitamins, NyQuil, antiperspirant bars, and other toiletries that are hard to get here in Japan. I listened to DJs banter to each other on the car radio as I drove around and found the In-and-Out Burger by the UNLV campus. I pulled in for a Double Double, fries and chocolate shake, eavesdropping on the college kids at the table next to me talking about comic book movies. Then I took surface streets out to the Red Rocks casino instead of the highway, getting caught in early evening traffic and seeing a lot of neighborhood strip malls and corner banks. I wandered the casino for a bit and then paid a mere $8 to see Superman Returns at the cineplex.

It was a dose of daily Americana and easy automotive freedom I hadn't had in ages, and it soothed me. I don't think I even gambled that day, other than 20 minutes of cheap video poker before the movie. With a car, I would probably not get tired of Vegas for a long, long time.

Huh?

2006-08-03T08:04:00.000+09:00

Where am I? What language is that? I thought I was in Tokyo!

Ah yes, I forgot. In Japan, writing on the sides of boats and sometimes automobiles is often written from the front of the vehicle to the back. Writing on the lefthand side would be normal, as would the front and back. But it does screw up the righthand side.

5位 - Fifth Place

2006-07-11T21:54:00.000+09:00

シーザーズの毎日23時のトーナメントに出ました。バイインとアッドオンは＄７０、115人が参加した。僕は5位で飛び出て、＄４０３をもらいました。良い経験だったけど、僕がただラッキーだったのでそこまで進んだ。最後の25人ぐらいは凄い上手で、プレーを見たり、考え方を聞いたりして勉強になりました。

これからポーカーをまた勉強して、今日のような良いプレヤーになりたい。頑張ります。

Just a short update -- I entered the nightly 11pm tournament at the Caesars poker room, at the encouragement of Celica-san and Kazu-san from the JPPA. Kazu-san and several other Japanese players entered, but I managed to last until 5th place out of 115 entries, and took home a $403 prize. The buyin and addon was $70, so this was a good return.

When we got down to about 25 people, pretty much everyone else was a lot better than me, and were very advanced in their thinking and strategy. I was a short stack from about the time when we got down to 40-50 people, but I managed to hold on and get lucky and double-up when I needed to to stay in the game. I won a lot of races, or I would have been out a lot earlier.

It was a great experience, and very enlightening to see these good players and watch how they made their decisions, see the reads on their opponents, and listen to their conversations and thinking processes. I can tell I need a lot of practice, study, and thought, but I am planning to keep at in and become a better player, and maybe come back next year to actually play in the WSOP.

And the money didn't hurt either.

Almost there

2006-07-05T11:40:00.000+09:00

Only a few more days until I leave for Vegas. I am excited and nervous to be meeting so many great poker bloggers and players. Surely I'll get along with someone.

I found a bounty for myself in the blogger tourney, even. I was hoping to find some cds or something from the Japanese band that Dr. Pauly wrote lyrics for - get him to autograph it and I'd earn quite a few suck-up points. Unfortunately my online searches didn't turn up much. I'll continue to keep my eyes open, but it's not going to happen by Friday.

Instead I got something that's related to Japan and poker players, likely of tickling the fancy of a good percent of those who'll be busting me out. I'm tempted to open it up myself and quality control check it, but naw, I will restrain myself.

Japanese players have been doing pretty well in the WSOP so far. Bluejay is keeping a blog for their performances in a special section on the JPPA web page. So far the three players have cashed for a bit less than $30,000. Not bad at all. One of the guys, with the handle of Zico, is a sharp-looking young Japanese guy in the playboy suit, tinted glasses, moussed hair and plenty of silver. I'd expect to see him either in a host club (not that I go to such places) or in Shibuya, macking on possibly underage schoolgirls. Instead he's looking cool at the WSOP and taking down almost-five figure paydays. Hopefully we'll see him on ESPN.

Bluejay himself hasn't cashed yet, and seems to be very annoyed at the fact. He went deep in one of the Omaha events last year, finishing 12th, as I recall, but busted out of the recent Omaha event early.

And me? I'm not playing in the WSOP. Don't be silly.

Pachislots

2006-07-02T12:18:00.000+09:00

A few weeks ago I came across this article about Japan as a gambling market, particularly online. There are some interesting points in it, definitely food for thought.

With the most slot-machine-like gaming devices of any country in the world, Japan is a huge and growing market. Brian Gordon, a partner in the Las Vegas-based financial consulting company Applied Analysis, said Japan has to be seen as a huge opportunity if only because of the size of the market and turnover in slotlike gaming devices.

Already, there are 5 million devices in Japan, compared with 830 000 in the United States, 240 000 in Russia and 200 000 in Australia, a recent Deutsche Bank study of Japan found.

That certainly catches my attention. Five million slot machines. More than five times the number in the United States.

Of course, they're talking about "slotlike gaming devices", which are both straight slot machines (which payout in gaming tokens, not cash), and pachi-slot machines, which are pachinko machines with a video display in the center than plays a video slot machine. Do well with the pachinko play and you kick off spins of the video slot machine for bonus payouts of pachinko balls.

A lot of current pachinko machines, maybe more than half, are pachi-slot machines. There are also a lot of straight slot machines too - usually the first floor of a typical parlor is pachinko and pachi-slot machines, and the second floor (often smaller than the first floor) is slot machines and other medal games. Often they'll have a section for the computerized horse racing games.

Most pachinko parlors open at 10am or so. Walk by them at 9:30am, and you will see a line of people waiting to get in. The one in the same building as my gym sets out rows of folding chairs in front of the main entrance so folks can sit and wait more comfortably for opening time. I've often seen 40 or 50 people are patiently sitting, reading sports and horse-racing newspapers, waiting for the doors to open so they can get inside and get at those pachinko machines.

Recently they released a new themed pachinko machine based on "Winter Sonata", a wildly popular Korean tv drama, especially among middle aged Japanese women. The machines had a video screen and apparently doing well would kick off video segments of key scenes from the show. Opening day for these machines was all over most tv news shows that evening. Lines for the machines were an hour or more long. Most of those waiting were middle aged Japanese women. (This show ran and finished something like five years ago.)

Okay, okay, so Japanese love their pachinko. And their pachi-slots. Does that mean they'll become serious slot machine players for real money? It wouldn't surprise me.

What if the casinos cut out the middleman and set up pachinko and pachislot machines that pay out directly in cash? Would that fly? I don't know - many Japanese say they play pachinko for relaxation and stress relief. Their neighborhood parlor is fine for that - would they travel across town to play for cash at a casino? I am skeptical.

Pachinko parlors are also noisy and chaotic in a different way than the noisy chaos of a casino. The atmospheres may not mix well.

Still, lots of Japanese play the gaming-token-only slot machines and medal games, and they'd probably transition over well to slots for cash.

In addition to the potential in the existing market, moves are afoot in Japan to legalise Las Vegas-style casino gambling.

Given strong operator interest in Asian gaming, Falcone said the opening of Japan should seriously interest U.S. operators, including Harrah's Entertainment, MGM Mirage, Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd.

That would be nice. I wonder if my MGM Player's card will work at MGM Tokyo?

Freeroll Tournament

2006-06-30T19:44:00.000+09:00

Last night on Stars, I decided I ought to try a tournament, if nothing else to confirm that I suck at them. Also to get a little practice at larger-field tournaments before heading out to Vegas next week. (Oh my god, that's next week!)

I was looking for a 100 or so player tournament, but a freeroll tournament was starting up in 20 minutes, so I signed up. Hey, free practice, right? No cash prize pool - the top 27 places received free entry into another tournament several days from now, that one with a $1000 prize pool.

There were 3600 people in. Not quite what I was looking for, but did I mention "free"?

I decided to look at it as an endurance test, since my usual problem in big tournaments is getting bored and then doing something stupid. A huge field would be good for that.

I don't think I fully anticipated how the "free" part would really work into it. Players started going all-in nearly immediately, trying for a quick doubleup. I stayed out of the way, waiting for good cards and picking up pots when I got them. About 300 players were gone in the first 10 minutes. 600 in the first 20. Holy crap.

I played reasonably well, I thought, picking my spots and betting aggressively. I doubled up a couple times by having a good hand when someone else went all-in with a marginal one. I made the second break, two hours in. We were down to a few hundred players by then, and although they weren't supid, my tablemates didn't strike me as particularly strong.

The problem was, it was after midnight and I was starting to doze off. Part of me wanted to tough it out and see how far I could get. But the prize was entry into a tournament that began at 1am Monday morning and already had 1000 entrants, so would likely be several hours long. Even if I won, I wasn't going to stay up all night before work to play in a huge tourney with a $1000 prize pool.

When we got down to about 150 players left, I decided enough was enough. I had made my point and lasted two hours and beaten out 3500 other players. So I made a very risky semi-bluff, getting called by a better hand... and then sucking out on the poor guy to make my straight and bust him. I had nearly doubled up, and with 100 players left, the "money" was in sight. But I was having trouble keeping my eyes open to see it.

I got moved to another table. If I could stay awake and alive for another 40 minutes or so I would probably make the money, but I was done. Time for a "go out in a blaze of glory" hand. I found AK suited shortly after, raised, got reraised by the table chipleader, rereraised him back, was rerereraised, and I pushed. He called with a trifling AA, and I nearly doubled up the guy, giving him a massive lead over the rest of the table.

I went to bed happy with my play. I had finished in 80th place of 3600, and could have gone further. I knew damn well I was beat when I played that last hand, and would have survived and continued if that's what I was after. And I found that there are a lot of stupid poker players out there, so maybe I don't have to be as worried about big tournaments as I have been.

On the other hand, any blogger game every blogger game I have played in has been Noam Chomsky compared to this Dick and Jane crap.

Do your homework

2006-06-27T22:41:00.000+09:00

Ryan (of Micks Poker Pages up in Misawa) made a couple of comments to my last post with suggestions for improving.

I have to admit, my first reaction was a defensive one. Get PokerTracker and use it to find my leaks and plug them? Oh yeah, like I had not thought of that before!

The nagging feeling that followed was the admission to myself that although I am using PT for tracking and categorizing other players, I haven't been using it at all regularly to review my own play and look for problems.

So tonight after work instead of firing up some actual poker, I just sat down with PT and went through a bunch of hands from my most recent limit holdem sessions. You can probably guess what I found. At one point C stuck her head through the door to my computer room and asked, "Are you all right? What was that noise?"

The noise was a incredulous "huugh?!" from me as I watched a replay of me making a lousy, lousy call to a turn raise where I had no odds to continue, and should have known better. I know better, right? Maybe not.

I went through a slew of hands and found similar mistakes. "Well, yeah," I told myself, "but cut me some slack, I was four-tabling to try to finish up that Party bonus at the time!"

I could slap myself when I tell myself stupid shit like that.

Anyhow, time to suck it up, eat my humble pie, do my homework and review my play after every session.

Thanks Ryan.

Where am I?

2006-06-26T15:55:00.000+09:00

Right now I feel a bit lost as a poker player. The real question is, am I any good or not? I haven't a clue, and with my trip to Vegas for the blogger gathering and WSOP gawking, it's been on my mind a lot. I've been playing for over a year now, shouldn't I be better than this by now?

Taking stock --

Cash games: I can grind a slight but steady profit at $50 buyin NLHE full ring. The few times recently I have tried $100 tables have lost me a good chunk of money and put doubts in my head. I still show a reasonable profit on the $2/$4 Bad Beat Jackpot tables on Party, but my overall stats for limit holdem, even at $1/$2, show me a losing player.

SNGs: My impression is that I have done all right in single-table SNGs. I haven't looked at my stats in PokerTracker to confirm this - I suppose that would be the next step. If I am doing well, I should play more of them and try buying into some larger ones to move up.

Tournaments: Awful. Anything larger than one or two table tournaments I have always busted out well before the money. I don't think I have the patience for it. In the local live tournaments, usually no more than 2-3 tables, I have won a few times. Over the course of a year of play, it's not enough to feel like more than rudimentary play and random chance.

I'm ready to be dead money at the blogger tournament in Vegas. My expectations are way low - if I can outlast, say, 20% of the field I will be happy.

But other games in Vegas have me a bit spooked. One of the JPPA players, who I believe goes by the handle "Shin", chatted with me for a while on Friday night about the WSOP. He's headed out to Vegas about the same period I'll be there, so was checking if I wanted to get into some of the same tournaments as he'd be playing in. One he's looking at is the Orleans Open, though he suggested some other small tournaments as well.

Me: "I don't know.... I don't do very well in tournaments..."

Shin looked momentarily surprised, which gave my ego a brief boost. "You should think about it. The level of players in these tournaments is pretty low. Definitely compared to here," he added, indicating the JPPA.

It was food for thought. Am I really that bad? Some of the players at the JPPA seem to be pretty damn good (though it is hard for me to tell how good), so it's a solid training ground. Maybe Shin is right.

On Friday night, as I mentioned, I made it to 6th place out of 28, hanging in there as a short stack from about 12th place. Not too bad. And a couple weeks ago at Duke I showed up late and played in their TTOS limit mixed game (two rounds of holdem, one round of Omaha-8 and one round of Stud-8) and finished 6th out of 20 players or so. Just out of the "money", so I was bubble boy. Still, not too bad considering that Omaha and Stud are games that I know the rules to and that's about it.

Celica-san was there that Friday night, so we talked for a bit before the TTOS game started up. She asked if I was going to play more of the Saturday "Straddle Cup" games at the JPPA. Me: "I don't know... I haven't been playing very well lately."

She also gave me a look, this time somewhere in between surprise and annoyance at my display of modesty. "You just won that Straddle Cup game, what, two weeks ago?"

Me: "Uh... yeah. I mean, since then, you know?"

Don't always believe the things you tell yourself.

Everest Friday

2006-06-24T21:57:00.000+09:00

After probably a couple months away, I went to the Everest Cup game at JPPA on Friday night.

I'd heard from Bluejay that there were quite a few more foreigners coming out for the Everest games, but I wasn't quite expecting so many. I think about 8 other gaijin (other than myself) came out - all of them fairly young men. All of them seemed to know each other, and from snippets of conversation, it sounded like they mostly lived in gaijin houses, low cost monthly-rental apartments aimed at short-term residents, mostly foreigners. It's a bit like living in the YMCA.

Three or four of them were asian and spoke Japanese quite well, as well as English. A couple of them spoke something that sounded like it might be Danish. One of them had a bit of a Gus Hansen look going on.

Twenty-eight players entered. I lasted pretty long, going out in sixth place. I was reasonably pleased with my play - I don't think I made any glaring errors, which is pretty good for me. The blinds go up pretty quickly in the Everest Cup games, so that they can finish in a few hours on Friday nights, so I made it to the crap-shoot point where any raise I could make was all-in. I won the first one or two, then lost one, crippling me, and went out soon after.

The feel of the game was different with so many young male gaijin players - it was louder, more energetic, with more drinking and English tabletalk. A bit like a frat party.

Most of the Japanese players didn't seem to mind, but I worried. Japanese aren't as familiar with poker as Americans, have no kitchen-table games in their childhood or background poker stories or knowledge in their culture. It's new to them, and there's no guarantee it will catch on here. It helps to have someplace where they can learn and play the game in Japanese, with other Japanese, and not have to worry about dealing with English.

Was it just coincidence that there was only one female player there on Friday? I've been surprised by the number of young Japanese ladies who have taken an interest in the game - in this case, the lack of poker background and stereotypes in Japanese culture works in their favor. But if they're put off by loud Americans, they may not want to play anymore.

Hopefully I am just overreacting. But my first reaction is to skip the Everest games on Friday and just go to the Saturday games at the JPPA, which are more expensive (Everest Cup games are only 500yen). For cheap Friday night games, there's still Duke. And not overrun with gaijin.

Yes, I may well be a hypocrite.

If you prick me...

2006-06-19T19:34:00.000+09:00

I had a bit of minor medical work done the other day, and they needed to take a blood sample ahead of time to ensure there would be no problems with the procedure. (I assume checking for allergies to the anaesthesia, etc.)

The last time I had to give blood for a medical checkup they had to stick me five times before they got enough blood to reluctantly ooze out of my arm for their tests. Aside from being unpleasant, it was embarassing and troubling. If my bloodflow is so sluggish, how the hell am I still alive?

This time as well, they tried first on my right and got a trickle. Then to my left and got nothing. Just nothing. The nurse grimaced and shifted the needle around a couple times trying to hit the vein and failing, which started to get unnerving if not overly painful. Flustered, she took a break and considered her options. My veins are apparently fairly thin and slippery to boot.

Third time was the charm, thankfully.

A bout on Saturday

2006-06-06T14:48:00.000+09:00

I shuffled around my work schedule and decided to head up to the JPPA for the Saturday evening game. I'm still not too clear on the ramifications of the point-system games they have on Saturdays, but my 25 point win from before puts me in a pretty good position right out of the gate. The real question is, how long is the race?

I tried something different and rode my bike up to Ueno - this took longer than I expected, nearly an hour, and I arrived about 30 minutes after the game began. I could have made it in 20 minutes, but I gave myself some cooldown time before I went in - the last thing most of these guys would want is a gaijin sitting next to them still radiating heat and sweat. Besides, Phil Hellmuth does it and I model my life after that guy.

As I walked in, four full tables were going, 36 entrants this week! Busy day, compared to only 14 players last week for the limit-only tournament. I took another couple minutes to visit the cramped washroom in the back and splash some cool water on my face. I didn't feel stinky.

I had been blinded down a bit but nothing major. The first hand after I sit down, I am dealt pocket queens. We're still in the limit rounds, so I raise and get two callers. An ace and a queen flop, and they must have had an ace each, since I bet to the river and they kept after me, only to muck when they saw my trip queens. Nice. If we'd been in the no-limit rounds, I probably would have busted one or both of them on my first hand. Maybe the poker gods are giving me another subtle hint about limit versus no-limit?

I didn't last very long this week, got knocked out about 24th of 36. Blinds went up pretty quickly and although everyone had similar stack sizes at our table for quite a while, when the antes kicked in I saw my M drop from a workable 9 to a scary 4 in a single "dong" from the level timer. I had to move fast, but got nothing worth playing for a couple orbits and was running out of chances. Finally I got AK of clubs and pushed, and got one caller with AT of diamonds. A King came and I doubled up, but double short stack was still pretty short. The next hand I got pocket fives, now under the gun. I considered... a 3x raise would be about 1800 chips, and I only had about 2300 at the time. Push again? Would I be more likely to get a caller if I pushed, since they may put me on a steal. I fiddled with my chips and decided on only a raise of 1200, giving me half my stack left. My fiddling was not lost on Doyle, who saw right through me and put me all-in. I called, and this time he had Big Slick. He hit and I was done.

Maybe it was a bad decision to min-raise like that, but Doyle would have called my 3.5x all-in anyhow. A worse mistake was the fiddling while trying to decide how much to bet - I broadcast that I wanted to play but had a hand I wanted to be able to get away from. I gotta watch out for that.

I sat down at the live game afterwards, but was immediately bewildered. They were playing a stud hi-lo variant, but I couldn't follow their description of the rules so I just sat out and watched to try to figure it out. Each player was dealt three cards down, discarded one, and exposed one so they had one card hidden, one exposed. Three rounds of dealing an up-card to each followed by betting (pot-limit!). Then, I believe, you had the option of discarding your fourth up-card for a replacement. Then one more down card, and bet. Then, at the very end, there was some system of palming zero, one, or two chips to determine if you wanted to play your hand, then everyone exposed their chips and if there was no showdown, the players took their bets back. I was pretty lost.

Kugatsu-san eventually took down the tournament, which was nice to see. Kugatsu is another strong, dominating player. He's a bit older than I, thin, glasses, and a somehow laid back and intense simultaneously. I've seen him raise to take down pots six times in a row at the beginning of a tournament, before someone finally played back at him. If he raises, you take it seriously - even if he's shortstacked, you fear what he can do to you.

Oddly, he complains that he rarely wins these tournaments, often getting to the bubble but not to the final tables. I have wondered how that could be, because he would scare the hell out of me if I were sitting across from him in the WSOP, but it was nice to see him take down a solid win this week.

Afterwards, we headed out to an iizakaya for a bit of late night food, drink, and conversation. Celica-san congratulated me about my win from last week, so I asked her about the point system. She explained that anyone who made 60 points during the year qualified for the WSOP (or WPT) seat tournament at the end of the year. This year's winner, awk (a very strong, regular JPPA player) apparently chose a WPT seat over the main event because he didn't want to take a full two weeks off work to attend. Pretty smart.

Second and third place also get an entry to one of the smaller buyin WSOP events. Otonn took third this year, I heard, so he's headed out to the WSOP for the $1500 NL Holdem event on July 18-19. Which kinda sucks because I'll only be in Vegas until the 14th.

Celica-san is also attending the WSOP Ladies' event, I believe, so I'll have another Japanese player to cheer for. I'd love to see her (or Saeko or Mari from Duke) bust Shannon Elizabeth's ass. They'd probably ask me later, "Who was that woman, anyhow?"

That would be sweet.

Over our late dinner it came out that the weird live game that evening was a followup to the weird live game at the Friday night Everest Cup. That night, they explained, they were playing Omaha hi-lo, but with nines wild. There was still some discussion about how to break ties in that game, by rating a hand using the 9 as wild as "impure", so that a "pure" hand would beat an identical "impure" hand. Sheesh. I'll let them work out the details - I'm not ready for a funky variant yet.

Afterwards, I rode home through deserted post-midnight Tokyo streets. The wide, well-lit streets of Ginza were empty except for late-night workers cleaning windows and doing photo shoots, and the occasional homeless person setting up camp in cardboard boxes in a handy alcove. Nightshift cops loitering in a kouban waved me down and hassled me a while about not having a light on my bike, despite my bright safety yellow sports windbreaker and the everpresent city street lighting. After they checked my foreigner registration card and confirmed that I had a proper visa and job, they grumblingly let me off with a warning. Whiteface in Tokyo - don't leave home without it.

Note to self

2006-06-01T18:04:00.000+09:00

If you have arranged a week-long trip to Las Vegas and your girlfriend has decided not to go because she can't get the time off of work and is afraid that US Immigrations will harrass her more and more each time she shows up, do not casually mention it to her when you get your plane tickets, make your hotel reservation, etc.

Yes, I really was that insensitive.

I couldn't help myself. The plane ticket was considerably more expensive than I was expecting. And there was the refuelling fee, and a new one I don't remember seeing before -- a United States Entry Fee. Shit, they charge me $70 just to enter the country now? This xenophobia thing is starting to bother me. (Do the Canadians get hit up for this too?)

Poker Day

2006-05-28T10:31:00.000+09:00

Long day yesterday. Got up early to see C off as she rushed off to catch a 7am flight to Okinawa for a friend's wedding. Then I figured I'd just play a few hands online before heading off to the gym.

Does it ever work out that way? I tore myself away about 3 hours later. I wasn't even winning, just holding my own. Still playing mostly on the Bad Beat Jackpot tables on Party -- for a guy who says he doesn't like limit holdem, I sure seem to be playing a lot of it.

Gym, lunch, and then off to the JPPA room in Ueno. With the girlfriend off until Sunday evening, it was time to get in as many hands as possible. The 2pm game in Ueno was Holdem, but the 7pm game showed as 7-Card-Stud and Omaha Hi-Lo. Since the Saturday games are more expensive than the Everest Cup games on Fridays, I decided to play the 2pm holdem game and then head over to Duke in the evening for the fourth-Saturday-of-the-month games.

The crowd was light for a Saturday, only 14 players for the 2pm game. Maybe it was because of the price -- 5000yen! The Everest Cup games are only 500yen now, last I checked. Of course, Everest Cup sponsors the Friday games, wheras the Saturday games are all played for points in the WPJ series (presumably "World Poker Japan"). Winner earn points for placing in the weekly games, then at the end of the year, the player with the most points wins...

An entry to the WSOP main event, or an entry to a WPT $10,000 event. Whoa. This also explains why the Saturday games are more expensive.

This Saturday's tournament was... limit holdem.

Many of the Saturday games are NL, or limit for the first few levels and then switching to NL as the number of players dwindle. However, the fourth Saturday of the month is their limit-only tournament, with long levels. Since this is supposed to favor the skilled players, the tournament fee is higher than usual and the point values for the winners are quadrupled.

The game started out easy -- we all had deep stacks, and the blinds only increased every 30 minutes, so it was going to be a long battle. Towards the beginning, most pots had 4-5 callers and few raisers, and I found myself falling into the pattern of calling with a bunch of marginal hands. This paid off once or twice as I drew out an unlikely straight, but eventually I realized that if I was playing like this online, I would call myself an idiot and force myself back into a raise or fold mentality. It's easier in a live game to go with the flow and start passively calling, so I gave myself a stern talking to, warned that I'd be keeping a watchful eye on my shoddy play, and told myself I better shape up and play a better game, pronto.

I did tighten up and become more aggressive with the hands I had, and it paid off. I used my above-average stack to put pressure on the smaller stack players, and the friendly family game started getting a lot more serious as players got knocked out.

After a couple hours, we compressed down to a single table, and shuffled positions around. I checked everyone's chip count and I was in pretty good shape. One of the other players on my original table, a young lady named Kikuchi-san (going on the name she wrote on her drink glass to identify it) had a good stack as well, but several of the remaining players were struggling to stay in the game. I was still expecting to finish up in time to head over to Duke, so resolved to keep the pressure up and raise any pot I was getting involved with. Unfortunately, I found Kikuchi-san in the pot with me quite a few times, and we mostly shuffled chips back and forth between us for a while, occasionally sucking in blind money from the other players but not accomplishing much to thin the field.

6pm. I'm still in it, with a very healthy stack, and about 6 players left. I begin to think I might be here longer than I planned. Kikuchi-san's stack has been slowly shrinking after her early and mid-game successes. She seemed to be calling into pots too often, getting involved with marginal hands with slim chances of winning, yet not putting any pressure back on other players so they would fear getting involved with her. As we dropped to five players, she said her goodbyes and left - other plans. Her stack remained and we blinded it off. Celica-san, whose stack was dwindling, struggled to stay in the game because she "didn't want to lose to someone who wasn't even here," but didn't quite make it. I'm in the lead and still putting on pressure. Partly because I figured that was the correct thing to do, and partly because, dammit, look at the time! How long have we been here?!

7pm. Sida-san has fallen, and it's down to three humans (me, Doyle, and Otonn) and Kikuchi's zombie stack, now only a few chips. I comment that the only two tournaments I've won here, I was up against Otonn heads-up at the end. He and Doyle both seem a bit surprised to hear it. Otonn makes it to final tables a lot more than I do, so perhaps he's forgotten. The first time was the first night I walked through the door of the JPPA one Friday evening and introduced myself. We had only about 8 players that night, and for all I know Otonn took it easy on me as the new guy. The second time was about 6 months ago at one of the Everest Cup Friday night games, where I won my iPod nano. I had just finished reading Harrington on Holdem Vol 1 and felt enlightened. The stars aligned. I sat across from Otonn, huge stacks of chips in front of both of us, and managed to take it. I was more surprised than anyone.

Otonn had a bit of a dark look in his eyes as he considered my comment. "I'm not planning on making it three."

7:20pm. My lead has shrunk as I have bled chips off to Doyle and Otonn, and it's getting closer to even between the three of us. Have I been too aggressive? Doyle seems to have got a read on my preflop raises, meant to keep the pressure up, and is playing back at me selectively to see when I will lay down. I back off a bit, trying to figure out what I should figure are good cards to hold three-handed near the end of a tournament.

Queen Five offsuit. Doyle is on my left, Otonn on my right. I raise it up, and Doyle calls, Otonn folds. The flop comes with a queen and two other small cards. I bet, Doyle smooth calls. Turn is another small card. I bet, Doyle raises. Is he playing back at me, or did it help him? Either way, I still think my queens are good, so I reraise, and he calmly calls. The River is a five. I bet and he calls again, and I show my rivered two pair. He had Ace-Queen and was reeling me in - instead I cripple him and he goes out shortly afterwards.

7:30pm. Heads up with Otonn. He holds about 1/4 of the chips and is not going easy. All I know about heads-up play, and it's not much, is for no limit. But I think back to the articles I have read about the Andy Beal versus the Corporation games, which were heads up limit holdem. "Aggression is absolutely the key in heads up limit. If you have an edge, you push it." It's about all I have to go on, so I run with it. Otonn seems frustrated, as if he can't tell what my raises mean. I see him disgustedly throw away hands after raises, seeming to suspect he's got a good hand but not able to tell anymore. My plan works against me more than once, as we go to war on another queen high flop, bets and raises down to the river. I flip over my queen seven and he drags in the pot with his queen nine to take the lead.

7:40pm. I'm trying to check the time on the wall clock, but the glare of the ceiling lamp off its face blocks it out, so I pull out my mobile phone and flip it open to check the clock display. Doyle (now the dealer) and Otonn both freeze. Too late do I remember the rule against using your mobile phone at the table - no calls, no emails, no SMS. Flipping it open to check something on it may be enough to kill my hand. "Oh shit, I'm sorry, is it all right? I couldn't see the clock." Doyle hesitates a moment, then decides that since my cards are still untouched and unseen in front of me, we can continue. Abashed, I put the phone away and check. KJ offsuit. The flop comes with two Jacks and I drag down a big pot with it, feeling kind of like a shit. Otonn continues to brood and says nothing.

8:00pm. Otonn's down to his last chips, as my aggression strategy seems to have paid off. I'm in betting and raising with any king, any ace, and any pair, and if I hit a pair on the flop I am betting it to the end. More often than not the right cards have come for me. Finally, he's down to putting his last chips in for the big blind, and he flips over his 9-3 off. I had something like K-7, and the board brings two more 7s and a couple deuces for a totally unnecessary full house. Otonn shakes my hand, good sport to the end, and I discover that he's either left-handed or was once a boy scout.

Six hours of limit poker and I am wasted. All thoughts of heading to Duke are long, long gone. The remaining players at the other table applaud and I am too tired to know how to respond. I bob my head. Doyle notes with a smile that the six points for the win are quadrupled, so I just won 24 points towards the 2007 WSOP main event.

Me: "...is that a lot?" I've never had these point things before.

Doyle laughs.

I take the piss I've been holding for the last hour, make my goodbyes and head home. It's still early and I have a rare bachelor weekend with the girlfriend out of town, yet I go straight home, heat up a convenience store bento for dinner and zonk out in front of the TV to get around to watching my download of Sin City. My brain still feels packed in cotton. I wonder what it would be like to play in the main event... 12 hours a day. Then 12 hours the day after that. Then 12 hours the day after that.

I guess I'll worry about that if the time comes. The current point standings put me in fifth place, but next year's WSOP is a long way off and I'd need to play pretty much every week just to have a shot at it.

That's time and money better spent in other ways. But I'm still proud of this win. The real question is, will Otonn ever speak to me again?

Movies

2006-05-26T13:17:00.000+09:00

One thing that sucks about living in Japan as a foreigner is waiting for movies. It's getting a bit better, but generally movies come out in Japan about 6 months after the rest of the world.

I'm a bit... extreme about being spoiler-averse. If there's a movie I know I want to see sometime, I don't want to know ANYTHING more about than I already do. So I'm one of those guys you may very occasionally see plugging his ears and closing his eyes while a movie trailer is playing. (I can usually avoid the chanting of "la la la! I am not listening!" unless the theatre has THX and the volume on the trailer is so loud that I can still hear the dialog.)

It was pretty hard to avoid talk of Star Wars ep1 or ep2 for six months until they finally fucking opened it over here. At least with Lord Of the Rings I already knew what was going to happens so I didn't have to worry about spoilers. ("Worldwide simultaneous release" my ASS!)

Sometimes they do occasionally have movies that come out simultaneously, or close to it. Often I find that movies by Sony Pictures are released here very promptly. (Imagine that. A Japanese company had to buy a frigging studio to get them to release movies here on time. Ah well, at least we got Spiderman here a bit before the rest of the world.)

Don't believe me?

How about, oh, Mission Impossible III?

(Ukraine gets it two months before us. Someone explain that one to me.)

X-Men III?

September 9?! The entire rest of the world gets it on May 25 or so, except for South Korea, who gets it June 15, but we get to wait until September?

The real reason new video games and systems always get released in Japan first before the rest of the world is because you've pissed us off for making us wait for movies. Suffer, bastards.

Ready for Action

2006-05-22T14:33:00.000+09:00

Charged up my IC card at the convenience store during lunch. The sensor made a tinkly magical sound as it electronically dumped 10,000yen of credit onto my mobile phone. I could do without the sound of Tinker Bell happily flitting around my phone as I buy my canned cafe latte, but otherwise I feel like a real twenty-first century digital boy.

Sometimes it goes right

2006-05-22T12:37:00.000+09:00

After my "man, I suck" realizations, I considered that I seem to do all right in cheap Sit and Go tournaments. Probably because my tournament play is okay in small doses, before I get bored and distracted enough to do something stupid.

I should check my PokerTracker stats to confirm this, but so far the Tournament section of PokerTracker is unknown territory to me. Uh oh, will I have to actually RTFM?

So I tried a couple of $5 SNGs on Full Tilt to test my hypothesis that I might not suck at them. I distractedly played in one while on one or two $50NL tables, folding all but the best hands and playing those straightforwardly. One moment I looked down and I was in third. I'm not quite sure how it happened. I was the short stack and made a play and missed shortly after, but at least I made the money. Too bad I don't remember it.

I tried another yesterday, and finished second. Again, I didn't try anything fancy, just waited for good cards and played aggressively when I got them. I was also in a two-table SNG at the same time so was again distracted, but the two games kept me busy and prevented boredom. The single table game played out much the same down to four players, where I found myself with a reasonable stack, tied for second. We fought on the bubble for a long time, partly because the table's big stack wasn't (IMHO) putting enough pressure on the fourth place short stack to knock him out. So I took up the slack, and kept raising his blinds and stole a fair amount off of him until he started pushing back.

Eventually we knocked him out and the next player, and I found myself heads up with the chipleader. We fought back and forth for what must have been 30-40 minutes, chips flowing between us as I took the lead and relinquished it more than once. We seemed about evenly matched, and the cards and suckouts favored us both pretty equally. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, and the other guy seemed to be having a good time too. We started chatting about headsup play and the 18K tournament he was in at the same time, and when eventually he caught me with a King high to his Ace, paired it and busted me out, we complimented each other on a game well played.

Games like that are a pleasure to play. I should try the SNG thing more often, especially if I'm often in the money.

Edit: Oh yeah, for full disclosure I should state that I busted out early (relatively speaking) of the two-table SNG. It was nearly an hour into the game, I was fighting on the bubble on the one-table and basically decided it wasn't worth my attention, so did something stupid and got knocked out.

Yes, that probably summarizes my problem right there.

Mobile Suica

2006-05-22T11:38:00.000+09:00

I finally got the Mobile Suica function activated on my new mobile phone. This is the feature I was talking about to use the IC chip in the phone act as a prepaid card for all of the Japan Railway trains in eastern Japan. (I'm actually not sure if it works in western Japan - the two branches of JR seem to operate semi-independently but they both have similar IC card systems that may well be interoperable.)

It took longer than I thought, because they only accept the JR-based "View" card brand of credit cards for charging of the IC chip, so I had to apply and wait for one.

But on Saturday I plugged all the info in, charged it with 10,000yen from the card (which will appear on my next credit card bill), and boom, I was ready to go. Tried it yesterday and it worked like a charm. Waved my mobile phone over the turnstile sensor, and the LED on the outside of the phone lit up blue, the gates opened, and the turnstyle display showed 200yen deducted and 9,800yen remaining. Cool!

Next up is charging the other IC electronic-money applet in the phone, which will let me use my phone to pay for small purchases in convenience stores and other locations. Kind of silly, maybe, but it will cut down on the amount of small change I need to carry around.

Quick Update

2006-05-17T18:56:00.000+09:00

Been busy lately with the day job - just got moved to a team leader type of position and a lot of work dropped on me. After a long, pleasant year of 8 hour days being the rule with only an occasional exception, it was initially pretty hard to adjust back to overtime every day and weekend work, but it's coming back to me now. As a contractor, I'm still paid by the hour from this big bank I work at, so I'm now getting a good chunk of overtime pay, too, so in the end I'll get stack of money to go spend foolishly on something. I'm thinking of a new computer update, geek that I am.

I may get an Intel-based Mac Mini (come payday) -- it should be a good speedup over my current 1.6ghz G5, and I can run my PC stuff in a virtual machine from Parallels, which by all accounts runs Windows on an Intel Mac with only a slight performance hit. I'm no gamer anymore so this should be plenty, and it'll be smaller, quieter, and probably faster than my current setup.

On poker, lately I have come to a realization. I suck. Part of it was hanging out for a few days on the IRC channel where many WPBT types hang out and chat while playing. These guys play tournaments, and they play them well. I play tournaments only once in a great while, and I bust out way out of the money every time, usually because of a string of donkey plays on my part.

Realization #1 : "I suck at tournaments."

(I confirmed this by playing in the Wil Wheaton Dot Net tournament for the first time ever since they moved to Tuesday nights. Since Tuesday night in California is Wednesday morning here, I can't play because of the day job. But during Golden Week I had Wednesday off, so I played and donkeyed out pretty damn early. Something like 93 out of 120-something participating.)

But that's okay because online I play cash games almost exclusively. Only $50NL tables right now, granted, but I have been grinding out a fairly steady profit on those for weeks. So I figure, yeah, I should jump up to the $100NL tables and see how that goes. Way back when, I was doing $100NL on Party and cleaned up.

So I jumped up a level and got bitchslapped. Retreated to $50NL to regroup. Tried again, and got a sock shoved in my mouth and took it up the ass during shower time.

Realization #2: "I suck at cash games, other than those so low limit only idiots lose money at them."

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time and energy right now to spend studying, reviewing my game, and trying to learn how to not be a fucking idiot. So until things calm down at work, I'll stay at the kiddie table, grinding it out at the $50NL and the $2/$4 Bad Beat Jackpot tables at Party.

Have fun, you guys.

Rie takes second!

2006-05-07T21:43:00.000+09:00

I went to the JPPA room on Saturday evening for the weekly Straddle Cup, which I may write up more about later. But later in the evening, some exciting news came around. One of the JPPA regulars, Rie-san, was in Las Vegas in one of the WSOP Circuit events at Caesars, and had posted on her blog that she had made the final table! She was in second place, just $200 behind none other than Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi.

I brought up PokerWire to try to find out more details, but they didn't seem to have any results from Caesar's yet. So today I checked on Poker Pages, and found this results page - she had entered the $2000 NL Holdem event, with 145 players. Earlier this afternoon, only Jeff Killian's 9th place finish was listed, so the match appeared to be ongoing.

An hour or so ago I refreshed the page, and found that she had taken second place, under Kia Mohajeri. She outlasted the Grinder, who finished in fourth. RIe-san will be bringing home $56,260 for her finish.

Way to go, Rie! Amazing!

WPBT

2006-05-07T15:54:00.000+09:00

It took several days to convince myself that I really, really wanted to go out to Las Vegas again in early July to catch the World Poker Blogger Tour, be there to support Saeko-san and any other Japanese players who are entering the earlier WSOP events, and generally get some more Vegas time in.

The biggest hurdle was getting over the guilt about spending money and vacation time to go out to Las Vegas again when I was just there in December. Sure, it's fine for those of you who live in the States but when I have to fly a third of the way around the entire goddamn world, I have to fight that nagging voice in my head about if it makes sense. The scary part is when the nagging voice insinuates that if I'm so willing to spend my time, vacation, and money to fly off to Vegas instead of relax on the beach in the sun of Koh Samui, I must have some sort of gambling problem.

My dad has been a regular smoker since well before I was born. I respect the hell out of my father - extremely intelligent (he was a rocket scientist [no shit] for aerospace companies his entire life), ex-marine, very reasoned, fit, and self-disciplined. But I remember many times when I was growing up he would try to force himself to quit, either cold turkey or to wean himself off a little at a time. For a while he switched to pipe smoking, which I gather isn't as amazingly bad for you as cigarettes, and which smells a lot less disgusting to boot. He never managed to give them up. He's addicted to this day.

The thing that really sits like a cold stone in the pit of my stomach is the thought that my father, pretty much my hero growing up, strong, smart, disciplined -- he fought against his addiction to tobacco, and he lost. Tobacco controls him, and until they eventually kill him, he spends some part of his life not doing what he wants, but what they want.

I have fun in Vegas, and I enjoy low-stakes gambling, poker and other games as well. But I never want to find my life being controlled by gambling.

So after a lot of questioning myself and justifying my motivations, I realized I really wanted to go out not for the gambling, but to be there for the experience, to meet Cinci Sean and Brent Stacks from the Lord Admiral podcast, to hang out (hopefully) with some of the bloggers whose amazing work I read and appreciate every day, and to see my friends and the people I play poker with every week or two out there in the goddamn World Series of Poker. It would almost be worth it if I didn't have any chance to play anything myself.

Of course, as long as I'm out in Vegas, I'm going to play. Let's be reasonable.

I still need to run this by my manager at work and confirm the time off - if there are no concerns, then making the travel arrangements should be straightforward. I'm actually thinking of renting a car and maybe getting out of town for a bit, to go see the stars in the clear desert air. And I could visit some of the outlying casinos, and even save some money by staying at a non-strip hotel. If all works well, I'm hoping to rent one of the Honda hybrids - there's a firm in LV that handles environmental-friendly car rentals, and I'd love to try one of those guys out. Hell, gas might be up to $4 a gallon in the States by then.

Ouch

2006-05-04T10:32:00.000+09:00

The sounds of Tekken 5 drew me to the living room earlier this morning. C had fired up the new Playstation 2 and was giving it a go.

I only bought the thing last weekend, after C had declared it was cloudy out and looked like rain and she didn't feel like leaving the house and hey, weren't you going to buy a game system? What's the status on that?

So we left the house (I kept my mouth shut about it to her) and headed to Bic Camera in Yuurakucho. The real question was what games to buy. C is not a gamer and had no idea what kind of games she would like. I decided to stick to the cheap games for 2000yen or so to start, and see what clicked. We bought Densha De Go! 3 (the train conductor simulation game that was massively popular a few years ago), Tekken 5 (for me, I wanted a fighting game), and a game C heard was good from a coworker, called Momotaro Dentetsu. We picked up volume 12 (?!!) which suggests the game has been doing well for itself.

We both tired of the train game almost immediately. And then we both got hooked on Momotaro Densetsu for hours. It's a simple game where players ride around Japan in their steam trains, trying to make it to the goal areas first and buying local goods and businesses along the way to make a profit later. There are a lot of twists and turns and special events, and it seems a bit like a mix between Monopoly and Life. Very funny and addicting.

But now C is getting interested in Tekken, which I didn't see coming. I probably should have, considering that when playing the latest Dragonball Z game at her family's place with her nephews, she wanted to give it a try and sat in for a few rounds. She quickly managed to figure out Goku and smack me silly, cackling "hee hee hee!" theatrically. Getting your ass beat down by your girlfriend who doesn't play video games is a real blow to the male geek ego. Luckily I told myself that Goku is pretty much the most powerful character in the game and I was playing some random shmoe so the odds were stacked in her favor. I keep telling myself that and somehow I can sleep at night.

She has only dabbled in Tekken so far, so I still have the advantage on her there. But the day may come when we find out who is the master of the Iron Fist Tournament in our household, and I'm beginning to think it may not be me.

My thumb hurts, too.

The perfect gift

2006-05-01T21:44:00.000+09:00

So, like a clueless geek son, I haven't got many ideas for an upcoming Mother's Day gift. So of course I open up Amazon and go to the gift center guides for "Mom".

I was surprised at the fourth item recommended. Moms today are more handy than I remember.

Card Protectors

2006-04-28T15:50:00.000+09:00

Sato-san has linked on his blog to some pretty nice-looking card protectors. Some of these are quite nice.

I like this one for J-A, the "Jack-ass". I hadn't heard that one before.

Japan Casinos

2006-04-28T15:20:00.000+09:00

(Legal ones, that is.)

Bluejay links on his blog to this article (in Japanese) about the governmental task force that was set up to examine allowing legal casinos to open in Japan.

On the 27th, they released an interim findings report. It sounds like it says what everyone expected - that casinos could bring in significant tourist and tax revenues, creation of new jobs, and restoration of sightseeing in some areas. It recommends strict regulation and supervision.

It sounds like casinos will need to have services that will benefit from the tourism, such as restaurants and hotels. But they have also proposed that ATM machines not be allowed on casino premises, or even in the immediate surroundings.

Bluejay sounds disappointed that the government is planning to treat its citizens like children and protect them from losing too much money at once. I don't think it would bother me too much, actually - as long as there is a casino to visit, I can manage to bring enough money with me. It'll be a hard provision to enforce, too, since convenience stores are on every corner in Japan and they all have ATMs nowadays.

More than ATMs, I would worry about the money lending services. There are a lot of companies here where you can go into an ATM-like booth and apply for an immediate cash loan. The rates are horrible, too -- 25% interest and up. There are a lot of these businesses here (Citigroup owns two, though just recently combined them) and they must be laking a lot of money. Usary laws must be different here.

WPBT and Japanese Players

2006-04-28T11:03:00.000+09:00

I noticed a post on the BBS section of Duke's web site that one of their regulars, Saeko-san, is heading to the WSOP to compete in the Ladies event. A few others are planning to go at the same time and they're checking who else may want to come along.

The plan is to attend from July 7 to July 11 or so. And I notice that the WPBT Summer Classic is also scheduled for July 8.

God I would love to be there for that. I'm a lousy poker player, but it would be great to see the WSOP, support the Japanese players, and meet all the bloggers I've read for the last year.

Tonight I may go out to Duke or the JPPA. I want to find out who from Japan is going - if enough locals are going around that time, I might be able to talk myself into attending.

Akihabara

2006-04-27T14:19:00.000+09:00

My friend J.P. and I went out to Akihabara on Sunday for an increasingly rare day of geekness. Both of us made crochety grumblings about how the place has changed from when we got here eight years ago. Then, it was a dense collection of backstreet shops you searched for cheap pc parts to build your new machine with. You'd spend all afternoon pushing through crowds of intense Japanese computer geeks, and not see a single female. I think most girls were afraid of the place, since they'd just find several thousand Japanese tech geeks' eyes on them constantly.

It's different now. The computer stuff is still there, but they've stirred in anime, comics, games, airsoft, and other geeky hobbies in there. There's also a lot of cosplay going on, with all the maid cafes opening up. Yes, maid cafes. There are a lot of them. The gothic-lolita maid outfit is practically the official uniform of Akiba now.

On Sundays they close off the main street so it's easier for pedestrians. We were wandering, not really looking for anything in particular, when we saw this huge mob of people. (Camera phone photos, so they're a bit pixelly.) Everyone had their cameras out, or camera-phones, holding them up to get a shot over the heads of everyone else.

There are a lot of girls in costume in Akiba now, handing out flyers to get people to the newest maid cafe or other store. But even so, this size of a crowd around one was impressive. We pushed in and got a look.

It was this girl. There was actually another girl as well, but I couldn't get a look at her at the time. We got this photo 45 minutes later after the original crowd broke up and she resurfaced elsewhere. She was giving out flyers not for a cosplay cafe or anything like that, but a modelling service. You hire her, she dresses up as you choose, and you get to take photos of her. Yeah. Don't ask me for details, I did not ask.

A bit later we spotted this girl. I immediately noticed the trump symbols on the frill of her dress and wondered excitedly if it might be a poker-themed cosplay cafe. It would be heaven! J.P. crushed my little dream by saying, "Ah, that's cute, an Alice In Wonderland costume!" Blue and white dress, suits of cards... ah. Yeah. I guess that would be more likely.

A shame, though, because I would have been a regular customer.

Tinian

2006-04-23T11:56:00.000+09:00

I saved my trip to Tinian to visit the Tinian Dynasty resort and casino to Sunday, since the weather looked to be perfect on Saturday and there was talk of rain on Sunday. So gorgeous-weather Saturday became Beach Day, and possibly-rainy-and-cloudy Sunday became Casino day.

We found that there were only two ferries between Saipan and Tinian daily. If I took the ferry both ways, I would either have about 3 hours or 23 hours at the casino before the return ferry. So instead I sprung the extra $40 or so for the return airplane flight, which returned in the early evening.

C was initially interested in coming, but decided to pass in favor of going to a spa for most of the day. It sounded pretty good, actually - sauna, jacuzzi, massage, etc, but I had my gambling quest.

The ferry took about an hour. The windows on the lower passenger deck had not been washed in several weeks and were so coated in detriment from dried seawater that I could barely see out. So I listened to my ipod, watched the vague blueness and greenness through the greyed windows, and dozed.

Tinian looked much like Saipan, but fewer buildings. It looked like a couple dozen people lived on the island... somewhere. Aside from the casino, standing out starkly from the surrounding greenery. Our tour guide showed us quickly around the hotel and shops area, pointing out the pool and buffet and giving us $10 in matchplay coupons. The lobby was airy and spacious, circled in relaxing chairs and sofas... many taken by Chinese-looking tourists who had kicked off their shoes, dumped their bags by the side and dozed off for a couple hours while waiting for their tour bus to arrive.

The casino wasn't huge, but was big enough. There were several rows of slot machines, ranging from nickels to dollars, most of them off to one side of the large room. A bar sat in the center, next to a railed-off area for three or so poker tables, and three or so tables for some card game I had never seen but that the Chinese tourists seemed happy with. But the poker tables... were empty! No players, no dealers!

I found a poster up that read something like, "Texas Holdem! It's that game you've seen on tv, the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker! Come try it out on Friday and Saturday nights in our new poker tournaments!"

Okay, so Sunday was apparently not the best day for the casino trip after all. But I'm not a good tournament player anyhow and was hoping for a cash game, so it wasn't a crushing disappointment.

There were a few blackjack tables, a roulette table, and a few more table games like "Pacific Poker" (whatever that is) and baccarat. There was also a large raised area with one of the large-screen horse racing games you often find in Japanese game centers. A big screen tv displays the (computer generated) horses and you can sit at one of the terminals and wager. The computer horses race, and you collect your winnings.

I started with some slots, and was struck by how quiet the place was. There were very, very few customers, and I was the only one on a slot machine, so there was no din of beeping music, slot machines, and ching-ching-ching-ching of coins cashing out. It was a little unnerving, and I felt like I was doing something I should not be, and making a racket with it in the process.

I lost $20 and decided to get some lunch at the buffet. Which was... meh. It reminded me a lot of a $6.99 chinese lunch buffet someplace in Palo Alto, California. Unremarkable generic asian food, salad, breads, and desserts parked out on steam trays and unmanned. No prime rib here. I had no idea where the next closest place to eat was - probably a 20 minute cab ride to wherever "downtown" was, which might not be any better.

I returned to the casino and sat down to give blackjack a try. My first surprise was that the dealer was only dealt one card face-up, no hole card. The hole card was only dealt at the end after all players had finished. If the dealer had an ace showing, you could still place insurance but you had to wait until all play was over to find out if the dealer hit a ten. But if the dealer hit a blackjack, she would take only your original bet and return any double-down bets to you. I don't remember if I saw someone split with an dealer ace showing, so don't know how that was handled. Gameplay was the same as I was used to, otherwise.

Second surprise was ordering a Corona, then the waitress saying, "That will be $5, sir."

Third surprise was tossing in a red-chip tip for the dealer at the end of her deal, and seeing her eyes widen and the corners of her mouth turn up, as if to say, "wow, really?" She then pulled up the plastic blocker for the drop box slot and sharply rapped "shave and a haircut" against it with the chip before dropping it and thanking me. The sound was loud and carried through the quiet casino, and several folks looked up. I took inventory of the room and guessed that half were Japanese, half Chinese, and none of them very familiar with the custom of tipping. I kept up the occasional dollar tipping now and then and they kept rapping it out to the whole joint. Cheapest way to feel like a big spender I have found.

I played BJ for an hour or two, and was about even when I reckoned I had an hour of play left. Coming all the way out here to find this casino and then break even seemed pretty pointless, so I started upping my bets so that I would either bust out or show a worthy profit. Cards fell my way and I finished ahead about $200, paying for my trip out here and most of C's time at the spa.

The bus rode a dozen of us Japanese tourists out to the airport, where we rode in six-person Pipers back to Saipan. It was about a ten minute flight, making the hour on the ferry seem pretty pointless. As soon as we got to a reasonable altitude, we looked ahead and Saipan was right there. A stone's throw away. Just over the pond.

As I got off the bus from the airport at my hotel, the bus driver said, "Happy Easter."

Easter... I had forgotten. I had just spent most of my Easter Sunday in a casino, gambling at slots and blackjack. I hope that God is as forgiving as they say.

Saipan

2006-04-22T07:50:00.000+09:00

After a busy week, last weekend's jaunt to Saipan begins to seem like a long time ago.

Saipan is about a three hour flight from Tokyo, which is long enough to feel like a real trip. But still shorter than visiting Hawaii or Las Vegas; I'm not complaining. I dozed and read Anthony Holden's Big Deal, and my girlfriend C watched the inflight movie, Pride and Prejudice, with a bored-but-nothing-better-to-do air.

We were concerned about going through Immigration in Saipan, since it's a US territory and C has been held up by Immigration officials for 30-45 minutes the last two times we've entered the States. She thinks the issue is that because we separate, me going though the US Citizens line and she through the Visitors line, it looks like she is travelling alone. Luckily this time there were no problems. Of the 500-some people on the flight from Tokyo to Saipan, about 450 were Japanese, 48 Korean, and two white guys, one being me. We gave each other a quick "what are you doing here?" glance on boarding.

I didn't see the other white guy when I got to Saipan. Immigration had 20 lines for Visitors, and one line for Citizens... with no one staffing it. Should I have called ahead to warn them a white guy was coming? I found the Immigration office and the agent on duty opened up the Citizens line and waved me through. The other 20 lines chugged through the hordes of visiting Japanese quickly, and C was processed in a few minutes with no problems.

Saipan has the deep blue sky, bright sun, palm trees and greenery every beach resort should. I was already relaxed. We boarded the charter bus our travel agency arranged, and trundled along the one main road to the main hotels, dropping off groups of Japanese guests. Most of the buildings we passed seemed somewhat beaten down, and the common sight of signs in Chinese as well as English added to the worn-out Chinatown look.

I couldn't help but notice a huge number of signs for game rooms, all proclaiming "POKER". I must have seen 6 or 8 on the bus ride to our hotel. Good lord, Saipan is a hotbed of poker activity! Who knew?!, I mused. Almost all of the poker shops looked even more worn down than their surroundings, though, the kind of dodgy joint you don't feel comfortable walking into with a fist full of money. Later on, I looked at the signs more closely and many promised progressive jackpots and 24-hour play. I didn't visit any of them to confirm, but decided they must be pitching video poker, which made more sense.

Friday and Saturday were the typical beach resort days, and you probably already know how that goes, so I will summarize. There were deep blue skies, puffy clouds, gorgeous sunsets, cool breezes, visits to a nearby beach island with clear, clear turquoise waters, snorkeling, and laying in the sun. I was content, as I was in Maui, just to sit on the beach and read. I finished Big Deal, Wil Wheaton's Dancing Barefoot, and most of his Just A Geek. C didn't bring anything to read, but was perfectly happy to relax on the beach, dozing and looking content.

(C asked what I was reading. I showed her Dancing Barefoot and Just A Geek, and tried to explain who the author was. She doesn't know Star Trek: Next Generation. [She hadn't seen any of the Star Wars films when we met, you may recall! How is that possible? I mean, yeah, she's Japanese but still, this is Star Wars we're talking about, here.] "He was also in Stand By Me," I offer hopefully. She brightens up. "Oh... River Phoenix?" "Uh, no..." I guess I'm going to have to go rent Stand By Me sometime. She did get a kick out of the photo on the back cover of Just A Geek. "Look! He's holding the same beer glass you have, the one with the weird geek joke on it that I don't understand! You both really are geeks!")

Sunday she spent going to a spa, and I made my trip to Tinian to check out the Tinian Dynasty Resort and Casino, which I will leave for a followup post.

Monday we did our souvenir shopping, a bit more laziness on the beach, and headed home. It was hard arriving back into Tokyo, which seemed frigid after the straight 30' C days in the sun. But Saipan is close, pretty cheap to get to, and I'm sure we'll be headed back there soon for an even lazier vacation.

Quick One

2006-04-20T22:20:00.000+09:00

I can't seem to find much time for blog updates lately. I have the time, actually, but I've been spending it playing online and grinding out the last of my Full Tilt bonus. Bad blogger. At least the bonus is cleared now and I made a reasonable profit doing it. I'm doing pretty well at no limit cash games - Harrington on Holdem is my bible.

I got busy last week and didn't get a chance to write up our visit to the new spot in Shibuya doing poker nights, Bar Jack. Maybe Mike will write something up, but my memory is already fading. Short version - it seems like a reasonable bar. We had a reasonable crowd of around 16 or 18 poker players, many of them regulars from Duke. We did two tournaments, one starting at 7pm and a followup at 9pm. I had to miss the first 20 minutes or so of the first one to meet Mike at the station and guide him in. I lasted until the final 8 people or so, then got my dwindling stack in with Kings on a board of all lower cards, but two spades. My challenger was on a spade draw and hit it. Ah well, that's poker.

Mike stuck in there and won it, netting 3000 or 4000 yen worth of coupons for drinks and such at the bar. I joked that he made it look like I had brought in a ringer to the game, since it was his first time attending. He backed off and graciously allowed some of the others to win the second tourney.

The bar seems like a nice enough joint, though a bit hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. There were some beginners there and some non-poker players hanging out, so hopefully it will help bring in some poker awareness to new people in Shibuya.

Podcast Poker Challenge

2006-04-20T08:33:00.000+09:00

I just signed up for the Podcast Poker Challenge, a freeroll tournament on PokerRoom, with players representing their podcast of choice. There hasn't been a lot of talk about this one, so if you see this notice and listen to podcasts, go check it out.

In a point bordering on blasphemy, the Lord Admiral Card Club podcast was not invited or included at the start! Luckily some folks informed Cinci Sean and he got the podcast listed in time for player registrations under the Lord Admiral banner. (I just did so.) I am a dedicated listener to the Ante Up and Five Hundy By Midnight podcasts, but when it comes to poker and podcasts, I gotta align myself with the one and only Lord Admiral.

JFC

2006-04-19T16:43:00.000+09:00

Bluejay hints on his blog that Johnny Fucking Chan might be coming to visit Tokyo here one of these days. That would be pretty damn cool.

Driving Practice

2006-04-13T10:57:00.000+09:00

Owning your own car in Tokyo falls somewhere between a luxury and an eyebrow-raising absurdity. Cars themselves aren't that expensive, but parking spots run around 20,000-40,000 yen per month in most parts of Tokyo proper. (That's, like, $200-$400 a month, eh.) You can't use them to commute to work, since your daily parking fees would probably run you more than your salary. (Unless you're some bigshot executive who gets a paid spot in the office building's lot.) And Tokyo's mass transit system is extremely comprehensive.

So I've lived in Japan for eight years and my old driver's license from California is long expired. I've never needed a Japanese DL, but once in a while, it would be nice to have. Like if you go on a vacation to a spot outside of Tokyo. But it's not the easiest thing to do.

Brits and Aussies have it easier - they can usually get their current driver's license translated to Japanese, take it to one of the driving test centers, and get it transferred over to a Japanese license with little more fuss than a few hours of paperwork. But for those of us from countries who drive on the right side of the road (unlike Japan), they generally make you take the written and driving exam.

I'm confident behind the wheel, but when the wheel is on the right hand side of the car, suddenly I am out of my element. I drove a bit (sans license) when my GF and I took a trip to Hokkaido and rented a car. I frequently messed up the turn signals and wipers because they're also on the opposite side of the steering column. Driving on the long, straight, low traffic Hokkaido roads and highways was generally no problem, but at least once my old driving habits asserted themselves at the wrong time -- I made a left hand turn out of a gas station into the right-hand lane. I.e. the one with oncoming traffic -- in this case, a semi-tractor trailer heading straight for us. It was several hundred yards away and I quickly adjusted into the correct lane, but it freaked out the girlfriend and gave me something to think about as well.

Obviously, I need some practice driving in the cars and on the roads here before I will be ready to take the exam. I could join one of the driving schools here, but those cost $3000 or $4000 for their one or two-week classes, which is a lot of money and time off from work. I know how to drive, really! I just need to practice these few little specifics.

Tuesday after work, I found a possible cheap way for some basic practice. I went by a game center to kill some time before visiting Bar Jack for the poker game, and spotted...

... this new Driving School game!

It's not terribly exciting, but instead aims to teach presumably grade-school age Japanese kids the basics of driving. Maybe even replacing expensive driving schools? Who knows what Sega is after.

Anyhow, the game is a cheap way for me to get some basic practice in the reversed layout of Japanese cars, and start retraining my habits of what lane to enter when making turns and which hand to use to set the turn signal. It's still weird to change gears with my left hand. I doubt I will be ready for a manual transmission for years.

There's a series of basic driving lessons, starting with very simple tasks on a driving course much like those at the driving schools. If you pass one lesson with a score of 80 or above, you proceed to the next one. If you fail it, you have to pay another 100yen to take it again. You can also get a printed memory card that keeps a record of which lessons you have passed, so when you come back later you can feed your card in and start from the next lesson instead of the beginning.

The controls include pretty much everything from a real car. You even have to fasten your seatbelts, and there's a key ignition to start the thing up. There's no HUD to show your speed, so you have to practice looking down at the dashboard to see your speed, lest you exceed the posted limit and lose points. I'm grateful there's no stereo system in the dash for later lessons to test your ability to pay attention to the road and switch the radio station to J-Wave simultaneously.

I've only done the first two lessons, so I suck. But compared to 300,000yen for driving school, this should be a bargain.

Let's Review

2006-04-07T13:22:00.000+09:00

So, for places to play poker in Tokyo, we now have:

Japan Poker Player's Association -- Ueno Room:

Thursdays - Live Game (simulated cash game). They even simulate a rake by removing some of the play chips from each pot. Kind of shocked me the first time I saw it, but I suppose it trains both the players to know what to expect in a cash game, and the learning dealers so they will know how to calculate and pull the rake for real dealer positions.
Fridays - Everest Cup (NLHE tourneys) [I think the E-Cups have finished, actually, and they'll probably switch back to a JPPA limit or NL holdem tourney on Friday nights. Pity, since the E-Cup games had no entry fee and decent prizes.]
Saturday - Mini Straddle Cup events at 2pm, Main Straddle Cup events at 7pm. I haven't gone to many of the Straddle Cup games, so I am unclear on specifics. I think the Mini game tends to be one type of game each month, rotating, so they include 7-Stud and Omaha games. The Main game I think is always holdem, usually NL. There's a point and bounty system for players, but I don't know the details.

Duke :

Mondays - Live game and/or tournament, aimed at beginners. Very similar to the Friday and Saturday games, but winning does not gain points towards the Vegas Cup.
Fridays - Weekly tournaments. 7:30pm is Limit Holdem, 9:30pm is T.T.O.S (Texas Holdem, Texas Holdem, Omaha, and Stud, all Limit). Winner of each of these tournaments gains 5 points which can be used in the Vegas Cup.
Last Friday of the Month - Monthly tournament. The second weekly tournament is replaced with a NLHE tourney for those that have taken first or second in that month's weekly tourneys. Taking first place in this tourney gains you 10 Vegas Cup points, and second place earns you 5 points.
Fourth Saturday of the Month - Vegas Cup games. 7pm is Limit Holdem, 9pm is H.O.R.S.E. (7-Card Stud, 7-Card Stud Hi/Lo, Hold 'em, Omaha Hi/Lo, and Razz.) Taking first place in either of these games wins you 40 points, and second place wins you 15 points.
Vegas Cup - Every six months or so, Saturday, NLHE. All players who have accumulated points in the games so far can play in the Vegas Cup Final. Each point becomes one chip in the final game, so those who have won consistently since the last Vegas Cup will have larger stacks than those who have just one once or twice. The winner of the Vegas Cup wins a trip to Las Vegas for two, airfare and hotel expenses paid.

Bar Jack:

Tuesday Night game. Details coming soon.

Hopefully I will be adding to this list as new games open up in town.

Another game!

2006-04-07T13:03:00.000+09:00

I just saw on one of the Japanese poker blogger's page that there's a new place to play in town! A bar in Shibuya called "Bar Jack" is now doing poker tournaments every Tuesday night. Maybe next week I can hook up with Mike and go out there to check it out. It looks like a pretty nice place from the photos, and if they can appeal to young, hip Japanese folks (like you find in Shibuya), it will help poker catch on here in Japan.

The bar says they've become a member of the Japan Poker Enterprise Association, which I believe J.O., owner of Duke, started up. So far their web page lists three members, two of which are the bars that J.O. owns. But if a new bar is giving it a try and if it takes off, hopefully we'll see some more places to play spring up.

(Thanks to our friend at "Working at the Net Cafe - Poker Life" for pointing this out to me. If you read this post sometime, introduce youself to me next time we meet so I can find out who you are. ^^;;; )

Poker Champ

2006-04-05T10:24:00.000+09:00

Jesus, would you all please shut up about the Poker Champ thing? Man...

Turn to Hymn 42...

2006-04-05T08:49:00.000+09:00

I'm going to have to compose some songs of praise to the stock market gods if they keep this up. I'm enjoying fantasizing about quitting the day job, but I'm getting a bit scared that after another few months I might actually do it.

My girlfriend's cold has lingered, so I have not gone out for poker (or other reasons, even) over the last couple weekends. I have to watch her to make sure she doesn't get to any of the housework before I can cut her off. She's worn herself out a couple times doing chores, and prolonged her sickness. I think she's finally on an upswing, though, so maybe I can get out to Duke for some poker this weekend.

My playin the low $25 buyin NLHE tables on Full Tilt is going well, earning me back the funds I lost playing limit HE there. This cheers me up somewhat, and reminds me why I switched to NL in the first place. It still galls me that I continue to have these problems with limit HE, though. Do I just suck at this?

When I have a "Do I just suck at this?" week or so, what really cheers me up is to go play on the Bad Beat Jackpot tables on Party. Last night was a perfect example, doubling my $100 buy-in on one of the $2/$4 tables and doing wonders for my mood. If I'm going to play limit, I know the place to play it.

It seems like the best time to play on these tables is when the jackpot is relatively low, paradoxically. When it gets high, many of the tight-aggressive good players seem to show up, figuring that the odds are better. But when it's low, after it's recently been hit, you get the type of players who want that $70,000 jackpot regardess of what the odds are. Those are the kinds of players you want at your tables, calling down to the river with crap.

Another good day!

2006-03-30T08:41:00.000+09:00

No poker yesterday - spent my time being there for my sick GF and watching a lot of Japanese tv with her.

But, I have to repeat:

All hail the stock market gods! Praise them, praise them!

Last night was pretty much a repeat of the night before. Color me pleasantly shocked.

It won't continue (I am pretty sure) but it does help to get a couple of damn nice gains to hold me through the down times and mediocre times.

In poker, we tend to feel the pain of our losses strongly and the joy of our wins not so much. We feel bad more than we feel good. Damn it, especially if we're recreational players, let's make an effort to enjoy our wins! Yes, things may (and will) change; yes, let's not get too uppity; yes, the poker or market gods will smite us again one of these days, but let's thank them when they bless us! Soak in the sun while the weather is good! Rainy season is around the corner!

Today, I am smiling.

A good day.

2006-03-29T09:31:00.000+09:00

All hail the poker gods! Praise them, praise them!

The above statement is a hint that I will be mentioning good (for me) poker results and hoping not to be smited for my hubris.

My cautious return to NLHE has been going well so far. I've ended most sessions slightly ahead, and yesterday evening I managed a big score at a $25 table on Full Tilt. First I lucked out by going all-in with top set, getting called by a made straight, and sucking out for a full house. Embarassing, but I'll take it. Then several hands later, I hit top set again and baited another player all-in with nothing that I recall but two overcards. I won that hand and finished up with $60 profit on my $25 buyin. Whew. This is how I made that thousand bucks before. But can I keep it up?

All hail the stock market gods! Praise them, praise them!

In other news, the stock system that I have been playing with just had a very good day, and I made about $3000 as I slept last night. Woo! Hopefully I'll see a few more days like that one. If it keeps up, maybe I'll be able to quit the day job and stay at home all day playing poker. Without having to count on my highly questionable poker skills. ;)

A few notes

2006-03-29T08:55:00.000+09:00

A couple more quick thoughts about the JPC 2006.

It was actually Jan Fisher who gave me some quick coaching on box shuffling, not Linda Johnson. My bad. She's damn good at it, too. Mary doesn't box, she... strips, I think it's called, so she called over Jan as the boxing expert. Because I was pathetic at stripping, or whatever it was called.

Another note in Jan's favor (after my snarky comments in the last post), is that she noted in her talks how great it was to play with the Japanese players because everyone seems to be having fun and enjoying the game. It's true. The Ueno games (and the Duke games, too) are always a good time because everyone is there because they love the game. No one is making any money off these games. More importantly, no one is losing any money on these games, so we're there just because we enjoy playing and are trying to learn and improve. In this respect, it's probably a good thing that we can't gamble for money. Once folks start losing thousands of yen during the games, we'll probably see the nasty comments, dark faces, and card flinging that other "real" games see.

I see in Bluejay's blog that Linda and Jan have already headed back home, but Mark, the new JPC Champ, is sticking around until Sunday. (Mary too, I assume.) He's going to be attending the Everest Cup game on Friday night, and they're considering going out for hanami (cherry blossom viewing) afterwards. His blog post title is "Poker while flower viewing?", which is an interesting mental picture.

If you're not familiar with hanami, it's very common in Japan when the cherry blossoms bloom for groups of friends or coworkers to go find an open stretch of ground someplace under a blooming tree (which is a challenge in itself sometimes) and bring food and drinks and admire the blossoms. Actually, what it usually turns into is a lot of Japanese salarymen getting totally wasted on beer and rice wine and getting loud an boisterous and maybe even remembering to look up at the tree once in a while. And I don't mean that in a bad way -- it can be great fun. Many of the parks in Tokyo with big stretches of cherry trees get absolutely packed during the bloom times. Some offices will send out their junior workers early in the day with tarps to stake out claims to good spots, then the rest of the office will show up in the evening to booze it up and enjoy themselves. It can be quite a party. Almost every time I have gone, there's usually at least one very plastered businessman who gets really boisterous and in a springtime mood and does a striptease for the merriment of his coworkers. Almost every time. And we're talking going all the way, using just his necktie as an impromptu loin cloth or a plastic drinking cup to hide the naughty bits.

Actually, considering this and the things I have seen under the cherry trees so far, a bunch of Japanese guys drinking and playing poker under the trees and forgetting to look up is not such an interesting mental image after all.

For those of you who can read Japanese, I found that someone has set up an RSS monitor page of most of the Japanese poker blogs, here. There are a lot of them. I read Japanese slowly and with some difficulty so I usually glance over there, but there are some interesting ones in there.

One which I found particularly interesting is ネカフェに出勤　ポーカーライフ ("Working at the Net Cafe - Poker Life"). It's written by a Japanese guy who had been working various parttime kind of jobs and then found his interest in poker could make him a similar wage. He quit his part time jobs and has been making his money from online poker. Not uncommon in the States but it's not common here that I know of! It's funny because he says he's renting a cheap apartment here in Tokyo for 50,000yen or so a month, but he has no internet access there. So instead he spends his days at internet cafes, playing online poker there! Which is not a bad environment, since most cafes have free soft drinks, books and comics, music, playstations and other games, and some even have showers and other living amenities for those stuck out after last-train-time and killing time until morning.

None of this comes for free, though, so he notes that he often spends more on his net cafe time charges than he does on his rent! That's impressive. He's still making enough to pay his living expenses, and is actually looking at moving to New Zealand for a while to do the same there. Hell, he's got the right idea - you can do this anywhere, so why stay in Tokyo? Go see the world!

Okay, yeah, maybe I am a bit envious.

The Night Before

2006-03-27T14:10:00.000+09:00

Friday night I met up with Tokyo's newest (white boy) poker blogger, Mike, to introduce him to the Japan Poker Player's Association poker room in the Ueno area, often referred to as simply "the Ueno Room" by local poker players.

Considering that there aren't any other poker rooms in town, they could probably just call it "The Room" and we would know what they meant.

The only other game in town that I know of is at Duke, a bar in the Nihonbashi area that I have described before. I think of it as "the Poker Bar". My friend J.P. will ask me "Room or Bar?" when I tell him I'm going out to play poker. Hopefully someday he'll have to ask me something a lot more complicated, but for now, that's it.

So anyhow, it was cool to meet up with Mike, who's out here for the Living In Japan adventure. I did the same thing, long time ago, and it made me smile. Somewhere along the line the adventure just became normal life, so it's nice to be reminded of what it was like to wrap things up in your home country, move halfway across the world to someplace bizarrely different in many ways, set up shop in a dingy rat-hole of a temporary apartment, and begin to struggle with the language and finding a place for yourself in a brand new society. Ah, those were the days.

Though several times over the course of the evening, I had to break out the old stand-by, "You know, back when I was a kid..."

as in...

"You know, back when I was a kid, gaijin houses didn't have internet access! I had to buy a converter RJ-11 jack to the headset of my borrowed PHS phone so I could use my laptop's mobile with dialup! Reception at my place was horrible, so I had to set my laptop on my bed and hold the mobile phone up to the window to get a signal, and had to type one-handed until the modem dropped out."

Damn kids today...

Ahem, where was it?

Anyhow, I showed Mike to the Ueno room and explained a bit about the weekly games they run there. It was already getting pretty busy as quite a few folks had shown up for the talks, and Linda and Jan showed up soon and started greeting the players they had met from previous years. I chatted a bit with Mark G's wife Mary, who works as a dealer and was quite friendly and outgoing. Jan also announced to everyone that the doctor who had treated her when she got very ill during last year's JPC, Dr. Yamaguchi, was there that evening and she gave her thanks for saving her life last year.

Bluejay showed up with another foreigner guest, but who was not introduced and who didn't really speak to anyone. I did a double-take - holy smokes, is that Jennifer Harman?! A second later I doubted it - she looked different than J.H. does on tv. I looked closer and started to get uncertain again. How many petite blondes with 1980s Meg Ryan hairstyles are likely to show up with Bluejay to visit his poker room? But no one said anything, no one freaked out, no one introduced themselves to her, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for the talks to start.

The talks by the Card Player guests were very short. They were actually just a few minutes of off-the-cuff remarks, followed by a few questions from the Japanese audience. Linda Johnson did mention in the "Poker and Television" segment that they were starting a International Poker Tour tv show, with a set roster of 60 players visiting various locations worldwide for televised poker tournaments. Apparently Linda, Jan, Mark, and Hiroshi (Bluejay) are four of the players who will be in each of these events.

I whispered to Mike, "You think the tv audience can take another televised poker tour?" When I was back in the States over Christmas holidays, every time I turned on the tv I would find a poker tournament going on. It was pretty cool at first, but I got kind of sick of it after a while.

Mark and Mary spoke about being poker professionals, he as a player and she as a dealer (and player too, of course), which was interesting. Mary noted that she had done some of the dealing for the High Stakes Poker show, so I'll be sure to keep an eye out for her in future eps. Doyle-san asked a question at the end about how well the high-rollers in that game tipped the dealers. She made a non-committal reply, so I interjected another question, "Who got better tips, the dealers or those women you see walking back and forth in the background sometimes?" She laughed and replied, "Oh, those ladies did, by far! Doyle tipped them very well."

Something to consider if you are a hot lady in a slinky dress considering the life of a poker dealer.

Bluejay skipped his talk about "Japanese Players and Overseas Tournaments". Meg-Ryan-Haircut hung out in the back quietly and left soon afterwards.

So the talks ended pretty quickly and they switched to the dealer training portion of the evening. Linda and Mary each took one of the poker tables that were set up, and began going through all the processes of dealing poker, from the scrambles, shuffles, boxing, cutting, dealing, prompting players for their action, counting chips, figuring all-ins and multiple pots, and any other question about dealing that someone had. Quite a few of the players there act as dealers in the games, and some of them are quite good, but others seemed interested in all the techniques of a pro dealer, as if they planned to become dealers themselves. There are dealers schools in Japan, I know, but I am not sure how well attended they are since there's not a lot of demand for dealers here.

Bluejay was handling the translation at Linda's table, I believe, but there wasn't anyone handling Mary's table. Most of the Japanese can follow English to some extent, but not perfectly, so I sucked it up and tried my best as a translator. Everybody followed along, so that much worked out well.

After Mary went through it all, she encouraged some of those interested in dealing to give it a try. One of our regular amateur dealers gave it a go and managed it all pretty smoothly. One of the guys who looked like he was considering becoming a dealer also tried it out, did a reasonable job, and got some good tips from the professional. Then she suggested I give it a try. Uh... I had asked a question earlier on about how difficult it was nowadays to get work as a dealer, but I really had no intention of becoming a dealer myself! She might have got the wrong idea from my question, but I gave it a try anyhow.

Damn, the first time is not easy! The basic shuffle didn't give me problems, but I had never tried boxing and was hopeless at it. Linda came over with some expert coaching, and I improved somewhat, but would still need a huge amount of practice. I flung cards with too much arm movement, which Mary assured me would exhaust me in 30 minutes of real dealing. I got lost trying to follow whose action it was, and when two or three folks went all in and I had to figure the main and side pots, I felt dizzy and my brain was creaking.

It felt a bit like the first time I found myself in a HORSE game and had to learn all these new games quickly and shift from one to the other. My brain felt STRETCHED and my thinking slowed. Nowadays it gives me no problems, so I assume the dealing will eventually go a lot smoother as well.

So we played some loose and silly holdem for an hour or two to give people practice playing and dealing, then finished up and headed home at 11pm. The Card Player folks were still a bit jet-lagged, and everyone wanted to be well rested for the JPC tourney the next day.

Not much real poker for Mike, but maybe next time. Besides, he has internet at his gaijin house, so he can play online. Kids today are spoiled rotten.

JPC2006 -- Not

2006-03-27T13:46:00.000+09:00

After all that build-up, I did not attend the 2006 Japan Poker Championship.

My girlfriend got pretty sick on Friday, with a fever and cough, I discovered when I got home. She had gone to bed early, so I climbed in with her and in the morning asked how she was doing. She still felt pretty awful, obviously, so I decided to skip the tournament and stay home with her.

The decision was pretty easy. I figured myself as dead money in the tournament anyhow, so attending would have left me 10,000yen poorer. It would have been interesting to play with Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Mark Gregovich, but would it have been worth 10,000yen? Not really. (Not to diss the Card Player folks that came out from the States, but sick girlfriend comes first. This is how it should be.)

I checked the JPPA web site, and it looks like Mark Gregovich took first. Linda, Jan, and Mary all placed pretty well, but that foreign devil Mark won it. I have to grind my teeth - I really wanted a Japanese to win it and show that there are some damn good poker players here. One or two comments that Jan made on Friday night kind of stuck in my craw, about how the foreigners couldn't compete in the JPC last year because of her illness, so a Japanese won. But they were back this year to win it. It was spoken mostly in jest, but it still smacked of an arrogance I would have been happy to see thwarted.

It didn't happen, obviously, so maybe they were justified in that confidence. Still... woulda been nice.

I was very surprised to see that the first player out was "kugatsu", a very strong, solid player here who inspires a good deal of fear and respect from the other players at the JPPA. Wish I had around to see what happened - it must have been something like Kings versus Aces in the early hands and it didn't turn out well for him.

Anyhow, my begruding congratulations to Mark G for his victory. I hope they come back next year, 'cause I'll be gunning for them!

SNG

2006-03-24T10:04:00.000+09:00

I did manage to get in a Sit And Go last night, as a bit of practice. I took a $5 SNG on Stars, since I didn't find any $5 games I liked on FTP. (The low limit ones seem to be mostly Turbo games, which is fine some days but not what I am after now.)

The SNG was great fun, and not just because I took first and stroked my fragile ego. Stars SNGs just feel better. Deeper stacks and better players. More interesting situations and real decision making. It feels more like real poker than the crazy push-fests you find on some sites. Kind of like playing in a blogger tourney - it's a tougher game, but it's more fun because people have a better idea what they are doing.

In one of the books I read (I think it was Zen and the Art of Poker), I found something that has been extremely helpful in learning how to observe online players, especially in SNGs. Unfortunately I am too dependent on PokerTracker to do this for me online, and when it comes to live play, I am pretty clueless. The tip is, verbally narrate the game as you play it, as if you're the tv or radio announcer for the game, describing the action to the viewers. This really works for me, although I only do this when I am playing tournaments right after work but before my GF gets home. If she routinely finds me talking, talking, talking to myself while alone in my computer room playing online poker, she might have me committed.

Anyhow, I think I played well in the SNG, encouraging me that I may have a reasonable chance in the JPC game tomorrow. The table was pretty passive at the start, and I found I could limp in with speculative hands and then bet aggressively after the flop and often take the pot regardless of my cards. A couple of players were eliminated, and chip leaders status was passed back and forth many times.

At one point I had taken a substantial chip lead, so I raised 3BB from the CO with 10-3 of diamonds to put some pressure on the blinds. Just the small blind called, with a bit less than half my stack. The flop came J-A-A, two diamonds. SB checked, and I made a half-pot bet to try to see if he had an ace or jack or would give it up immediately. In retrospect, probably a mistake -- should have just taken my free card to try to make my flush. But I felt that if I checked there, he'd bet strongly on the turn and I'd half to fold my hand in fear of either an ace or jack.

So I bet 350, and he immediately raises to 1750, all-in. Whoops. Guess he has an ace or jack.

I was going to fold it, but then stopped to look at my pot odds. Since it was an all-in, I could call and get two more cards to try to complete my flush. I hit the time bank button and grabbed my calculator and odds sheet. There was about 3100 chips in the pot, and I had to call 1400, so I was getting a bit more than 2 to 1 odds. My odds chart showed me with about 1.86 to 1 odds to make my flush with two cards to come, so I was getting the odds. As well, I had the chance to eliminate another player, and I would still have a reasonable stack if I lost, so I made the call.

He flipped over A-8, confirming what I already knew, and I crossed my fingers.

Turn was 5 of hearts. I took a deep breath.

River was 8 of diamonds! Yes!

Oh wait. No. He took the pot with his full house.

So I still need to learn to account for such things. The eight of diamonds was not an actual out for me, so I only had 8 outs instead of 9. According to PT, I checked later, I still had the odds with 8 outs, so I'm still content with my decision.

I hung in there, and it came down to four players, all of us fairly evenly stacked. It went back and forth many times, bet-fold or bet-raise-fold. I was enjoying it - this was good patience training for me, though one of the players, who I had tagged in my mind as a frat boy by his icon for a college sports team and general demeanor, started to complain about how this was boring him.

jrayuofl said, "no battles"
jrayuofl said, "all of u guys have had the same stacks for a while"
jrayuofl said, "bet raise fold"

jrayuofl said, "fk it this blows"

JONROBBY42 said, "you keep folding too pudd"
JONROBBY42 said, "you aint called a hand cause your short and on the bubble"
jrayuofl said, "im not raiseing then folding"

I ignored it and kept playing the same. I wasn't going to do something stupid and get knocked out now. It wasn't that I was on the bubble, it was that losing patience and making a bad move, something I knew in my gut was the wrong play, is a mistake I frequently make that knocks me out of the game right when it starts to look like I could make a decent showing.

JamesAt15 said, "everybody get comfortable"
JamesAt15: folds

JamesAt15 said, "we're gonna be here a while"

Finally, several hands later, I am dealt pocket Jacks on the button. UTG (not frat boy) goes all-in, and I have him barely covered, so I call. The other players stand clear, and he turns over Td-4d. There are two fives on the flop, and I catch a third Jack on the turn for a totally unneccessary full house to break the bubble.

jrayuofl said, "tokyo my ***"
jrayuofl said, "i will destroy u"

Guess he saw my location and doesn't believe where I live.

The next hand, the other non-frat-boy player goes all-in, and I find As-Ks. I call, and he shows A-8 offsuit. I pair my King and send him home too. I am heads up with Frat Boy.

jrayuofl said, "wanted u all night"

This is either somewhat flattering or fairly disturbing. Or both.

Actually I think he had been getting upset by my fairly aggressive play so far, and had sworn revenge. The smack talk began.

jrayuofl said, "lol good try wise guy"

jrayuofl said, "i own you"

jrayuofl said, "you noit"

jrayuofl said, "tilt"

jrayuofl said, "2nd aint bad man"
jrayuofl said, "pays 13 50"

During this time we went back and forth but didn't get into any major pots or hurt each other much, though he was starting to catch up with my stack. I was actually starting to get a bit paranoid, since I was being dealt some pretty good cards while in the big blind but never got any action, as he would fold immediately. J-K. Then pocket queens. Then pocket Kings! Come on, man, call me!

Shit, is my machine hacked? Can he see my cards? I open up Task Manager to look for unfamiliar processes. All looks normal. Behind the Task Manager window I see I have another hand. A-10 of clubs. I call, and Frat Boy jumps all-in. A-10 is not bad headsup, I figure, so I call. He has A-6 offsuit. A ten comes on the flop, and an Ace on the River, and I take first place.

It felt good. I should do this more often.

Traffic

2006-03-24T09:56:00.000+09:00

It's a little disheartening to see that most traffic to my blog comes from random people clicking the "Next Blog" or "Recent Updates" buttons on blogger.com. If only I were more interesting...

Maybe I should just start regularly posting pics of cute Japanese girls.

Tonight!

2006-03-24T09:29:00.000+09:00

I'm off to the JPPA tonight for the Night-Before-The-2006-Japan-Poker-Championship party! I'll also be meeting up with Tokyo's newest poker blogger, since it seems like a good opportunity to introduce him to the thriving (THRIVING!) poker culture here.

Tonight the Card Player guests will give several talks. Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher will be speaking on "Poker and Television", Mark Gregovich will be speaking on "Poker Players", and Bluejay will be speaking with an unnamed foreigner guest on "Japanese players and overseas poker tournaments".

That last one certainly piques my interest. Bluejay seems to know quite a few name poker pros, and has said that some of them have expressed interest in coming to visit Japan. I won't get my hopes up too high, but I am very curious who the secret guest could be.

I told Mike that "a poker game might even break out" after the talks, but I'm not sure how likely that really is. Sounds like we'll have a busy evening already, and Bluejay may have plans to go out with the foreigner guests afterwards. We'll see. I have already warned my GF that I'll be out late, so if plans at the poker room dry up, Roppongi beckons. If Mike hasn't been, someone's gotta take him. It's a moral imperative. He's a foreigner guy in Tokyo... he's gotta go to Roppongi! It's in The Code!

Taxes.

2006-03-24T08:53:00.000+09:00

I was hoping to play a bunch of SNGs and small tourneys this week, but it didn't work out that way. Work and taxes have kept me busy.

Taxes turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought they would be. Up until now my company has done the tax return for me, which sounds like it is very common here in Japan. But since I bought an apartment this year, our company accountant said I'd have to do it myself.

Naturally I put it off... and put it off... and put it off. I dread taxes in general, and particular dread trying to work out how to do the taxes in Japanese. And I dreaded having to call my realtor or the tax offices and struggle with my lacking Japanese to try to find out what I needed and how to get it. And I am a procrastinator to begin with, so the chances of my taking the initiative and getting these done were about the same as Ichiro deciding to give up baseball in favor of coaching the Japanese Olympic women's curling team.

My GF reminded me several times over the last few weeks. I kept saying, "yeah, okay, I will do it," and then putting it off again. Finally, the March 15 deadline loomed up and she turned on Nag Mode. I resented it, of course, but it's what I needed. That's me, Mr. Passive-Aggressive.

We were planning to go to the tax office on the 15th (the deadline day!) and work through it with their tax planners, but the web site showed that they were expecting huge crowds that day. (Imagine that!) My GF called them and they actually said it was okay to come in a few days later. Damn nice of them! So we did.

I was near stunned at how easy it was. We went in to the tax office the day afterwards and went to the Tax Guidance area, and were quickly shown to a table with the relevent documents all spread out and an employee quickly sat down with us to work through it. We had brought the tax documents we thought we needed, but quickly found that we needed more documentation about the apartment purchase. The tax official gave us the list of documents we needed, and maps to the office where I could pick them up. He also went through the statement and worked out all the figures for us, pencilling them in. "All right, now, all you have to do is bring back those two forms, turn this in, and you're done."

This is what I had been dreading?

I had to wait a few more days to get another free morning to hit the real estate registration office, also straightforward. Back to the tax office, where another official quickly checked though all the paperwork, confirmed the figures were all correct, told me to write over them in pen, and then sent me on to turn them in. Took all of 20 minutes. According to the official, I should get my refund (deposited directly into my bank account) in less than a month.

Color me impressed, and very sheepish. I could have done this two months ago, easy.

2006 JPC -- Next weekend!

2006-03-20T11:07:00.000+09:00

My god, the 2006 JPC is this Saturday!

As I wrote before, several writers from Card Player Magazine, all friends of Bluejay, are coming out this week to play in the JPC and give talks and answer questions. Linda Johnson and Jan Fisher, who have come for JPC before, are returning, and this time around Mark Gregorich is attending as well.

Yesterday I logged onto the JPPA web page and registered to play. I won one of the Everest Cup tourneys a few months back (the iPod nano I received for first place almost never leaves my side), so I have the right to play. But the tournament fee is 10,000 yen, or around $85, which is the largest tourney buy-in I'll have ever put up. And I feel very much like dead money. But ah well, maybe I'll get lucky!

All this week I will be re-reading my Harrington volume 1 (and volume 2 if I get to it), and playing SNGs and small tourneys in the evening to try to prepare. I don't think it will make much difference, but it will be better than going in cold.

Friday night the Card Player guys will be doing some talks and Q&A, so I will try to make that session as well. The JPC starts at noon on Saturday, and will probably take most of the day. First place receives the custom 2006 JPC bracelet, and travel coupons worth 50,000yen. (Enough to put a decent dent into your next trip to Vegas.) Second through fifth pay out with travel coupons, down to 10,000yen for fifth. Me, I will be happy if I can outlast half the field.

Dipping my toe into the no-limit waters

2006-03-20T10:55:00.000+09:00

After my last upbeat posting about my new experiences on Full Tilt, I got beaten back down severely. Only the deposit bonus I am working off there is keeping me at about even, and even that is a bittersweet pill because PokerTracker ignores that and still shows my losses. The only way to get rid of those red numbers is to actually win by good play. Sigh.

Frustrated, I have been testing the No-Limit waters again. When I started playing online, I struggled for a couple months with Limit holdem, never really getting a handle on it. Then I tried No-Limit, and enjoyed good success, watching the graph of my bankroll take a sharp turn upward. After several weeks of upward growth, things got a little unclear. I don't remember exactly what happened - I think I started playing more SnGs and tournaments, as well as trying to learn the basics of Omaha and Stud games, and generally lost my focus and let things dissipate.

I'm still struggling with Limit, so maybe it is time to ease back into No Limit for a while again and see if I can still make money at it. Frankly, I don't remember a whole lot about what I was doing the first time around that seemed to be working well for me. I think I was playing very cautiously, giving up hands quickly I was not sure about and then waiting to double up with the nuts. It sounds pretty weak-tight to me now, but hell, it made me a thousand bucks pretty quickly. The thing is, I have a sneaking suspicion now that I might have just got lucky.

This time around I have read Harrington On Holdem, and hopefully have a better idea of how to play. I'm dabbling in the $.05/$.10 tables on Full Tilt now, scraping out a couple bucks profit at a time while I try to decide if I really can play this game again or not. It shouldn't be so different than playing no limit SnGs or tournaments, but somehow it feels different and I am being extremely cautious.

I still have my goals of reaching the 300BB profit level in $1/$2 Limit and $1/$2 Limit 6-Max, but I'm going to put them on the back burner for a few weeks while I give this another try. I can only bang my head against the same wall for so long before I have to go try another wall for comparison.

FTP going well

2006-02-28T12:43:00.000+09:00

I've been playing more on Full Tilt Poker lately, after Party rolled out their new software and I figured I would stay away for a while until they work the bugs out.

I was worried that there would not be enough players, since my normal playing times here end up being about 3-5am Eastern, and there aren't many players logged in at that time.

This has turned out to be true, but hasn't been as bad as I expected. There's usually one or two tables open at $1/$2, where I am playing now, and often there are weak players and not too many Tight Aggressives, so they're fine to play on. Actually, maybe the lower volume of players is helping me because I probably have notes on the players from my data mining, and they don't have other tables they can switch to if they are running badly.

I am actually up about $80 from my $200 deposit, and am also earning a bit of bonus and rakeback money now, too. All praise the poker gods! (Do not smite me, please!)

The sad part is that I can't really use the Mac client, despite my main desktop being a Mac, since I want to use PokerTracker and PokerAce HUD. But I am scheming - maybe I can come up with something.

Still hoping

2006-02-27T09:58:00.000+09:00

I found a reference to this article (on a Chinese news site, oddly enough) about Japan again looking at legalizing casino gambling.

Japan to legalize casino to promote tourism

TOKYO, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Japanese ruling Liberal Democratic Party is to formulate a basic policy around June to legalize casinos in the country with the aim of attracting more foreign tourists, local reports said on Saturday.

A member of a subcommittee on casinos launched under the LDP's special committee on tourism said the party should expedite discussions as Japan should lift its ban on gambling parlors after Singapore did so in April last year and as Thailand is studying to follow suit, Kyodo News said.

According to the subcommittee member, facts prove that casinos are big attractions for foreign tourists in many countries that have legalized them and help to boost the economy and international competition.

Sources disclosed that the subcommittee plans to work out an interim report in late April after discussing what gambling houses should be like if they are to be legalized and what measures should be taken about the Penal Code banning casinos.

Opponents, however, worry about public order in communities hosting such facilities and possible negative influence on young people.

I haven't checked Japanese news sites for the original information yet, but I'll see if it can find it.

I hope they work something out, although from the tone of the article I suspect they may not allow casinos in Tokyo but in some controlled location. As long as I can take a train there, fine with me. Hell, come to think of it, outlying regions might fight for the right to open a casino in their area in order to bring in tourist and tax dollars.

If they start opening casinos here, I'll be on one of the first trains out to visit them. And I'll bet they'll have some nice ones - Japanese can have a lot of spending money for such things if they put their minds to it. Harrah's, Wynn, everyone, get in on this quick!

Update: I found this article on the Goo news page, which says largely the same thing. Feel free to Babelfish it, but as usual for Japanese to English machine translations, it won't make a lot of sense unless you already pretty much know what it is saying.

So the LDP has set a target of this summer for their general plan of rescinding the anti-gambling laws. They have a committee that will meet weekly to discuss the issues and concerns associated with the plan, and they will deliver a report of the findings at the end of April. Although some areas of Japan have been outspoken in calling for a removal of the ban (including Tokyo metropolitan area, Osaka, and Miyazaki prefecture), there are concerns about the idea, particularly with its effect on crime.

The governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, was apparently pushing hard for a casino area in the Odaiba area of Tokyo, then being built up into what was hoped to become a new business, leisure, and entertainment center of Tokyo. Ishihara, you may recall, was the one who wrote "The Japan That Can Say No," and is not afraid to speak his mind, so I'm glad he's on our side for this one.

Geek time - Phone U Want

2006-02-24T14:05:00.000+09:00

(Damn, now I have a Devo song going through my head...)

Let's talk about something non-poker for once, shall we?

Recently I have begun craving a new mobile phone. This is nothing new - I crave a new mobile phone about every six months, and usually treat myself to one about once a year. This is not as crazy as it sounds. Growing up a homebuilt PC geek, I have had an almost overwhelming desire to toss my PC and build a new one every year for most of my adult life. But by converting this upgrade desire to my mobile phone, I save myself money by only spending about $100 a year for a new phone instead of $500-$1000 a year for upgrading my PC.

It's cheaper this way, trust me. Stop looking at me like that.

I've had my current phone for a long time now... gosh, maybe two years! It's ancient! I want a new one, of course, and recently the Mobile Suica campaign has hooked me.

The Suica card was a cool idea to begin with. JR, the Japanese National Railroad system, runs a lot of the trains throughout the nation, commuter trains in the cities and long distance and bullet trains between cities and regions. Probably half of Tokyo rides on a JR train during some point of their morning commute.

When I was first here in Japan as a student, many many years ago, most train lines ran on tickets. You went to the coin-op machine to buy a ticket based on the distance you'd be travelling to your destination. At the turnstyle, a JR attendent, a live human being, would take your ticket and punch it to show you had entered. During morning rush hours, hundreds, thousands of morning commuters flowed through those ticket gates. Those JR staff had MAD ticket-punching skillz! They could field tickets from commuters on either side of them, punch them instantly, and hand them back to the commuter almost as fast as people could push their way through.

When you reached your destination and left, the attendant at the exit gate would take your ticket, check where you got on the train and how much you paid. If the fare you paid didn't cover your distance, they'd stop you and make you pay the difference. Again, these guys were frigging incredible at checking tickets that hurried commuters would toss down in front of them and instantly calculating if they had been shortchanged and forcing the guy to stop and pay more. I remember seeing a tv show once about them, and how they learned to spot tell-tale signs that someone was trying to cheat and pay too little by their eyes and how they walked, so the attendant could spot a likely cheat even before seeing the ticket. How'd you like someone like that at your poker table?

Anyhow, this was not the most efficient of systems. Eventually they replaced it with automatic ticket gates and tickets with magnetic backings that you ran through the machine and it would do the check automatically. This was eventually augmented by a prepaid card system, so you could buy 10,000yen of credit in a card and your train fares were deducted from that as you used it.

Then, a few years ago, they upgraded again to the Suica card. Instead of a prepaid card you had to remove from your wallet or passcase and run through the ticket gate machine, the new cards had an IC chip and used and RFID reader on the gate, so you just had to tap the card on top of the reader and it would recognize it and let you through, deducting the proper amount from your credit. It even worked through your passcase, so you didn't have to pull your card out of the case. Hell, my girlfriend keeps hers in the side pocket of her purse, and can just wave her purse over the reader to get it to process and let her through.

You could also recharge your credit on the card, which was new. Previous cards were for fixed amounts and when they ran out, you had to buy a new card. Now you could dump another 5,000 or 10,000 yen onto the card and keep using it. Even better, many shops and restaurants in or near the stations set up suica readers so you could charge your purchase to your suica card! So if you stop into the convenience store to buy a magazine or soda or pack of gum, just put your card over the reader, BEEP!, and off you go. This was the most useful electronic money rollout I have seen so far.

Okay, fine and good. What's Mobile Suica?

Mobile Suica (so glad you asked), is integrating your Suica card with your mobile phone. They've put the same RFID chips into new models of mobile phones, so you can now use your phone as your train pass! You can also wave your mobile phone over the readers in the convenience stores and buy your miscellany without even pulling out your wallet.

Even better, I believe you can add credit to your Suica account on the phone itself. You can add another 10,000 yen to your Suica just using the Suica application on your phone, and then that 10,000 yen is added to your phone bill at the end of the month.

This is cool stuff. The first few mobile phones from KDDI, my mobile service provider, weren't all that impressive, but the new models are out and there are some nice-looking ones. I'm leaning towards the Casio W41CA, which is slim, nicely designed, big screen, bilingual (i.e. has English menus as well as Japanese), an included 2 megapixel camera, and various other goodies. The new au phones are big on portable music playing as well, so this one has the USB cable to rip your cds to memory, or download songs for playback. I have my iPod nano so I don't really need it, though.

I think I can upgrade to this phone for about 14,000yen. (Maybe $120?) Upgrade prices here depend on how long you have had your current phone. Brand new subscriptions have the handset price heavily subsidized so the prices are kept low. But if you are upgrading from an older phone, you pay more if you haven't had your current handset for long. I think I'm in the 17-24 months category, so I should get a reasonable discount. Unsubsidized I think this phone will run me 30,000-40,000 yen.

Still cheaper than upgrading a PC. And I've been such a good boy lately!

Speaking of Tinian...

2006-02-23T13:36:00.000+09:00

Just saw this post over at the Poker Gazette.

Shinichi is new champion in TDHC's poker tourney

For Yoshimi Shinichi, it was third time's the charm after he bested 52 other players to bring home a solid $7,080 in the Texas Hold 'Em "Island Style" Poker Tournament at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino Sunday night.

The youthful-looking Japanese national emerged as the grand champion after a grueling two-day competition that saw players from Japan, Tinian, Saipan and Guam falling by the wayside one by one, eliminated by their counterparts in a ruthless game of poker one-upmanship.

It was no walk in the park either for Shinichi. Second-place winner Chang du Young of Tinian and third-place winner Yuki Tagawa, the only female finalist, made Shinichi earn his win, giving him no inch in the climb toward Texas Hold 'Em glory.

...

The other players who also made it to the top rankings were Gen Watanabe, who placed fourth, and Terry Fan, who rounded up the final five. Watanabe got $1,770 for his efforts, while Fan recouped and made a tidy profit on his $300 entrance fee (plus $50 commission) by taking home $885.

...

Kiri Jackson, TDHC's casino marketing and promotions assistant, said that, at 53 entrants, this was the biggest Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament they've hosted since they introduced the game in February 2005. She said it was Casino Pit Manager and Poker Tournament Director Tony Jackson who introduced the game at the Dynasty Casino.

"This was our first tournament in 2006 and we will be holding two more like it in the months to come," she said.

This is pretty cool. I guess I can safely assume they have a poker room in Tinian and they have regular players there if they're holding poker tournaments.

I think I must know some of these winners, too - the problem is that I know most players at JPPA by their handle, not their real names. (And I'm pretty poor just remembering the handles!) But I definitely know Gen-san, from fourth place, who also goes by "Poker Samurai". Yuki Tagawa in third place I suspect might be "Celica", since she is a strong player and has mentioned Tinian before. But the "youthful-looking" Yoshimi Shinichi... man, that could be any of a lot of guys there! Otonn, maybe? I'll have to check the JPPA web page when I get home and see if they've posted updates, and congratulate them the next time I seen them.

Saipan

2006-02-23T09:10:00.000+09:00

My girlfriend and I are planning another quick vacation. She and I both have a lot of vacation days this year, but she often has problems taking more than a day or two off at a time. This is pretty common in Japanese offices - most Japanese will take at most one week of vacation at a time. The American two-week vacation is very rare here outside of foreign companies. Someone who took two weeks off in a row would be looked on with some mixture of awe, envy, suspicion, and distrust.

We were thinking of some of the resort areas in Thailand, which seem to have bounced back nicely from the tsunami. But lacking time and funds, we decided to give Saipan a try instead. It's a nice beach resort island, a couple hours by plane from Tokyo, and probably overrun with Japanese tourists looking for a closer beach than Thailand or Hawaii. The photos look nice, though, and I'll be happy just to lie out in the sun on the sand for 4 days and do a bit of snorkeling.

Oh, and did I mention Tinian?

One of the other nearby islands, Tinian, has a large casino resort hotel. It's the closest spot to Japan for legal casino-style gaming, and the name seems well known among the players at the Ueno room. I think they have a poker room but I am not sure.

Of course I am going to go check it out! I mean, the sun goes down and I can't lie out on the beach anymore, can I?

Apparently there are flights from Saipan to Tinian, and also a ferry that takes about 50 minutes. I'm not sure which is the better way to go - it will depend on the schedules for both. Looking on the web, the ferry schedules were cut back to 1 or 2 per day for a while, but may have been increased again. I'm not keen on getting stuck on a different island if I miss the ferry, so I'll have to work it out.

We won't be going until early April, though, so I have time to work it out. I have no idea if they have a poker room there, and no idea of they have any poker players there even if they have one. But I'll be happy with slots, craps, and blackjack even if there is no poker. I guess I am more of a gambler than I like to admit!

Live play

2006-02-23T08:44:00.000+09:00

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

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

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

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

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

Where have I been?

2006-02-22T16:13:00.000+09:00

I haven't been doing much worth blogging about recently. And it was disheartening to have my last big entry deleted because of some blogspot weirdness, so I haven't jumped back into the blogging fray.

Online poker blather: progress towards my goal of beating the $1/$2 limit game for 300BB is going... Well, let me make up a word that is the opposite of "swimmingly". That word is "drowningly".

I am rereading Small Stakes Holdem now, hoping I will find new understanding to help me improve my limit game. Some of the points are making more sense to me now and I am trying to use them to improve. It must just be that I have more experience now - SSHE the first time around confused me and may have hurt more than it helped. Now I am seeing more opportunities for improving even when I can tell I am not holding the best hand.

I just signed up for a rakeback program and switched my Full Tilt account to it, hoping to get some bit of money back for my play. The release of the Mac client for FTP won them a lot of points in my book. And when I only recently realized that PokerTracker can datamine observed tables on FTP, whoa...

The problem is that FTP has a smaller number of players, and I think most of those players are in the States. So when I get home from work and log on to play, it's 2-5am in North America and there are maybe 2 full ring tables on FTP at my limit. Ugh. Although among some of the chatter on 2+2 recently about the Party Poker changes, someone pointed out that fewer players on some of the sites he was playing meant he got to know the regular players and could build a good read on them. That's a nice way to look at it.

Oh for the love of...!!

2006-02-09T14:53:00.000+09:00

Not sure what caused it, but when I went to create a new post, it wasn't listing my previous two posts, although they were displayed on my blog page. The next time I published my blog index... POOF! Gone! Two posts gone! One was a fairly long update about my online and live play, which I am really not going to be able to type up again.

Annoyed.

It can be done.

2006-01-23T10:00:00.000+09:00

Following my last post, I decided to try a smaller tourney. I settled on a 45 player SNG (NL Holdem) on Stars.

Sure enough, I was able to keep my focus up for most of the tourney, taking 4th place before losing my chips with A-4 versus the other guy's A-9. I made the final table, I made the money, and that was good enough for me.

I still need to work on my tournament stamina. After an hour and a half or two hours, I get restless and a bit bored and do stupid things that eventually get me knocked out. Unfortunately, the way to work on this would seem to be to play more tournaments with larger and larger fields until I can play a consistently good game for 3, 4, 5 hours or more.

I dread this. I really do. I'm going to have to do this one step at a time, slowly increasing the size of the fields and the buyin so I can try playing for longer periods of time for possible payoffs that are large enough to actually keep my attention for that time. If I have to play serious poker for 5 hours to make $80, well, it's just not going to appeal to me.

I'm not going to the WSOP anytime soon, so I'll just build up slowly.