No Mookie, But the Dookie

I had a busy day yesterday with putting out fires at work so I wasn't sure what I wanted to do last night. After a few trips to various places I made it home and had a dinner of Culver's $1 burger special and some cheese curds because I'm already fat and a little fried food is good for fat people.

At some point I opened up the lap top and fired up a token sng and got my token. I got lucky when I pushed as a short stack with KQ and won vs. the powerful A7 when I hit a Q. I also survived a scary moment when I caught KK on the token bubble and and had to call a big stack raise that put me all-in. his K9 suited caught a 9 and a flush draw on the flop but didn't come home for him to give me the chips I needed to win the token.

Around this time I fired up Razz and was card dead for much of this early. I played 5 hands in the first hour with two of those hands being walks when I had the bring in. Anyway, I chipped up a little and as we got a bit deeper I got involved in a hand that a chaser caught and I was on life support. I chipped back up on a few good hands when my hand of fate killed me when the chip leader called me down and hit runner runner to hit the nut low and bust me short of the money.

After chatting with Surf for a while I made the Dookie my last action of the night. It was turbo HORSE and I was rewarded with a few good hands early. I stayed tight and pushed my edges hard and made it to the final table with a nice stack. I hit a few big hands like a 6 cards flush in Stud and had a couple of big pairs hold up and soon I was the big chip leader. After the bubble broke I got lucky when raised a short stack with a semi solid starting hand and missed the flop but was priced in for the call. He flopped trips but I hit a flush when I got 2 straight diamonds on the turn and the river to get down to three. Bayne was knocked out a little later and I was faced with a big chip lead Omaha hl on the table. I missed on a big hand and lost the lead based on the huge blinds but fought hard and got back to even during Razz and Stud only to lose it all when my JJ behind lost to 7s and 4s. I knew I was behind at 5th street and I put him on his hand but also knew if I paired I'd take it down. I missed and he won the day.

I have a bit of news that I should post tomorrow or later today. It is nothing life changing but more on the fun side. Look for news about The KORD and maybe a little free money thrown in for my readers.

Mookie Night Tonight...Again

Not a lot to say today other than that tonight is Mookie night on Full Tilt. Sign on and play at 9:00 central time to enjoy the donkey madness. Find it under the private tournament tab and use the password "vegas1" to play. Buy-in for the event is $10+1.
You can also play the Dookie at 10:30 which has a $5+.50 buy-in.

I was going to try and play a little last night to grind out a buy-in at $25nl but my eyes kept closing so I thought it better to stay away. So then I went up stairs and tried to go to sleep and I couldn't. This is one of the jetlag issues I've been dealing with for the last couple days. Anyway, I fell alssp around 2:00 am after watching some movie that was a waste of time. I'm hoping to get some sleep tonight but we shall see.

Speedy Enthusiast has her last football cheerleading gig on Saturday. Baseball Enthusiast has no soccer this weekend but still has three games left. Softball Enthusiast has basketball cheerleading tryouts today and has softball both Saturday and Sunday. Just a typical week in the PE household.

It is FTOP Time of Year

FTOPs is here, well in another month and I think I’m going try and get into an event or two this time. The two events, Razz and Horse, I’d like to play are on Thursday nights and so unless I want to take the next day off I won’t be playing them. Below are the events that I may try and play.

Event #2
Thursday, Nov 8th
21:00 ET $300 + $22
Razz $100,000

Event #3
Friday, Nov 9th
21:00 ET $200 + $16
PLH $300,000

Event #9
Tuesday, Nov 13th
21:00 ET $200 + $16
PLO Hi/Lo $150,000

Event #11
Thursday, Nov 15th
21:00 ET $500 + $35
HORSE $250,000

Event #12
Friday, Nov 16th
21:00 ET $200 + $16
LH 6-Max $200,000

If I had my choice of one event then I would play Razz. I’ve had the most consistent success in Razz and thus I think this gives me the best chance of going deep. The price is a little high so I won’t buy-in directly. I’ll take a couple shots at it by playing a few $75 token frenzies and then playing the $75 qualifiers for the Razz event. I think I can play my way into this for under $60 so It would be stupid to buy-in anyway.

The number two event for me will be the PLH event #3. I’ve played some pot limit events and I feel I can do well in this. I also think I can buy into this for a smaller price and take a shot at a bigger pay day.

Number three on the list is PLO h/l or should I say event #9. Tuesdays suck but I like this game and have done ok in it in the past.

The Horse event is #4 but with a $500 buy-in I don’t think I’ll be playing it. If I can get into the first two event for near the minimum then I will take a couple of shots at this.

The limit hold’em event is really something that looks good because it is on a Friday. Limit hold’em tourneys are boring as hell but you can go deep if you stay focused and the donkeys don’t draw out on you real bad.

So that is what I have in store over the next few weeks as well as playing some of my other favorites.

By the way…say congrates to surf who qualified for event #1 for $30 in a re-buy tourney. When he was down to 4 players, he had as many chips as the rest of the layers combined and with 3 players getting a seat., he put pressure on the two middle stacks and made them play against the short stack. Well played man.

That’s it for today. Have a good one.

Jet Lag and Life

It’s Monday and I’m very tired. The long flight back home has caught up to me as I finally fell asleep last/this morning at around 4:00. I thought I would be fine today after a good sleep on Saturday and a long day in the sun watching softball but it didn’t work out that way. I’m hoping to be back to normal in a couple of days.

I missed a lot while I was away. I missed the chance to see a couple soccer games, a few cheerleading events and five softball games. It is disappointing to miss my kids’ stuff because of work but I guess I have to do what I have to do.

I did get to see my daughter play two games yesterday. They won both games vs. a team they had played and beat earlier in the year. They looked even better this time around and SE pitched very well except for one inning where she struggled to throw strikes.

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I know this is a poker blog and that I’ve kind of stepped away from poker for a few days but it is mine so there you go. Anyway, I have a few more videos for you to see.

This first one is of a waterfall near Mt. Fuji. The water comes right out of the rocks as it is spring fed.



This second video is of another waterfall that is probably 50-60 feet high.



This last video if of Yuji drinking some sake. I wish we would have had more video of him because he had me laughing as hard as I’ve ever laughed in my life. It is probably more funny to me than you.



I have to thank John for use of the video.

Home at Last

I'm Home. It is a place that brings comfort to most of us during trying times as well as continued joy when things go well. Walking out of Terminal 5 at ORD and seeing my wife driving around the corner in the van was a moment of joy to me as it signified the end of a long journey that would soon be over. Short 45 minute drive later we were home and I was again sitting in my chair in front of the t.v. waiting for the long day to take over and put me to sleep.

My trip home started around 10:30 Saturday morning in Hachioji, Japan. JG, my traveling companion and I chacked out of the hotel and went out in search of the bus stop that was near our hotel. Nobody actually showed us where it was at but as to educated americans we figured ths would be no problem. We were dropped off right around the corner so the logical spot for pick-up would be the same. It wasn't. I went into the building that 10 months ago was the bus depoit and realized things had changed. I asked a lady at the desk for a bus ticket and she explained through broken english that we had to go across the way to the local bus station.

Our trip to the bus station was easy. We waited for the lights to change so we could cross the street legally and proceeded to the destination. The lady at the information counter was very helpful but had no answers for us. They don't sell tickets for the Narita Airport bus there. We still had an hour before the bus arrived so we had time. We headed back to the hotel. Most of the people at the hotel desk spoke a resemblance of english so we figured this would be our best chance. We explained our problem as best we could and one of the men behind the desk came to our rescue. He scampered around the desk as we follwed along behind with our baggage to the front of the hotel. He pointed in the direction we had just come from and said there was an information sign across the street. We headed back in the direction we had come from and found the sign which was in clearly readable Japanese. OK...what do we do now. We have 45 minutes until the bus arrives. After a short discussion we head back to the bust drop-off area and wait.

We stand there until 12:00 and I take a look at a map that I was given by my boss. It shows two buss spots on the map...the one we are at and another one across the street from our hotel. We decide to go back since this was a drop off spot and we were the only people with bags. As we headed back we made our contingency plans if we missed the bus and proceeded with little faith in our results thus far. We saw a bus stop sign but nothing that suggested that it was the one we wanted. We waited in silence and watched for the bus that would take us to the airport and continue our journey home. That's when an old Japanese guy walks up and says"Narita...Airport bus?". Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee...we found the right place just in time.

The bus trip is long but we got to see thing in the day time and saw much of Tokyo from the freeway point of view. It is a huge city that has no comparison unless you have every driven for 2 hours straight at 60 MPH and had houses in all directions as far as you can see. We had a few hours to kill at the airport and had as close to an American meal as can be had in a far of land.

When we finally got on the plane we went to our seats(we didn't sit together so we could each have a window seat) and I had the fun of sitting next to an older lady who had a bad cold and hacked up a couple of lungs during the flight. Anyway, I actually slept a little on the way home and felt good when we arrived back in Chicago. It was a good trip and I will be going back in January. This is a little video that I'm putting together for work. I actually have a few videos but this is more of a fun video. I have more to add and it needs some more editing but here it is.

Friday Means One More Day

Japanese Italian was good last night. It is different than anything I’d find back at home but it tasted fantastic. I had shrimp and mushroom spaghetti in a marinara sauce with an Asahi beer and as an appetizer we had some pizza. The pizza was the size of a dinner plate and is the typical serving size here. A little bit to small for a fat American like me.

So after dinner I fired up Full Tilt and played a hold’em MTT and a Razz MTT to kill time before I headed to bed. Neither was a big field so my time commitment was small and I was ready to rip. The hold’em tourney was terrible early. I was card dead and I blinded down slowly with a few steals here and there to keep me from dropping to fast. In the 2nd hour I found 88 in middle position and I pushed the limper in front of me in hopes of buying some chips or winning a coin flip. The problem was the cut off calling and the button pushing all-in behinds me. Everyone folded to the button as he flipped over aces. But an 8 hits the flop and I triple up. I held my own from that point on and as we approached the money bubble I had a nice stack and was sitting in 10th place overall. Then the big stack raised from early position. He had been raising a lot and I put him on a weak ace. Normally I might just raise here but I want his chips and a top 5 spot so I push. He calls with his A3o and hits a 3 on the flop. I had a flush draw and a straight draw as well as any of the remaining 3 kings for the win but I missed and went home 2 from the money. I like my play because he is an idiot for calling of 70% of his stack with A3.

Razz was Razz. I stayed alive and moved up and down before taking the chip lead with maybe 12 players left. I was brutalized by a suck out but came back and made it to the final table as one of the short stacks. I stayed patient and focused and battled hard to move up and took the chip lead with 5 players left. The blinds were huge and any hand could bust any one of us. Anyway, I ended the game in 2nd place and another Razz final table.

On Saturday Morning I’ll be playing for a few hours. That will be Friday night for all of you Americans back in the states so look for me on the tables or on the chat box and I’ll tell you about my trip.

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I just got back from dinner and it is 11:00 pm Friday night. We went out for Shabu Shabu and drank Asahi and Sake. I learned about Wabi Sabi, a Japanese tradition when drinking sake and how you ask the person poring your drink to stop filling. I had a great time and called it an early night. I leave Saturday at around 6 pm and get back to Chicago around 3 pm on Saturday. Time travel is great.

Semi-Naked Poker Can Be Hard

Semi-naked poker is leaves you vulnerable…I found this out. I played a HORSE tourney last night and bubbled the final table. I had one hand that made the difference in going deeper and going home. In hold’em I had A8 in the small blind and folded when I was getting something like 5-1 to call. The flop was 8Q8 and I would have won a huge pot and been right at the chip leaders heals.

After HORSE I jumped onto a $25 nl table and stayed about even for a long time. The deck hit me in the face when an opponent raised and I re-raised with my AK to isolate. The flop was KQx and he bet out. I reraised and he re-re-raised me and I called. I don’t think he does this with trips so the possibility is that he holds KQ or a strong K…maybe a draw with AJ or JT. The turn is x and he bets out again for the pot. What do I do here? I push with TPTK like an idiot and he calls with KQ. I spike the ace on the river to suck out huge.

I chipped up some more when I get dealt AA and raise it to .75. A caller comes along and the SB re-raises to$3.50. I want to isolate so I bump it again to $10 because I know this guy will call. The caller folds and the SB bumps it to about $17 or so. At this point I know he’ll call the push and he does with his QQ. After the hand I’m back to my starting stack and pissed. So I’m even in the suck out department and up a few bucks overall. I grinded for a while longer and walked away up about half a buy-in.

I took some video of the ride to the plant today. As we approached the plant and the narrow streets leading to it we hit a bump and I got a blue screen. The file was still there after I rebooted but the file was messed up and I lost the video. I’ll try again tomorrow.

We have a machine technician coming in to show us how to run a new machine we are buying today. After that I have a meeting with some of the quality people on site and then we will go over some printing ideas and methods so we can help some of our customers back home.

I’m not sure what is for dinner tonight but I’m sure it will be great. I’m hoping for some Japanese-Italian. The seafood pizza here was good last time and I think I would like to give it another try.

Two more days and I’m on my way back home.

Gyu-Kaku Rocks

I went for a walk last night after I got back from dinner. I guess the first thing I did was call home and say hi but after that I went out. I found a Pepsi machine or should I say a machine that Pepsi in it. Most of the vending machines here have Coke so I was very happy to find my nectar of the gods.

I went by the hotel I stayed at for one night the last time I was here. They have a Starbucks so I may make a morning walk here to get some over price coffee before I leave. Anyway, I found the train station and walked a big circle and eventually found my way back to the hotel. It was strange walking around and seeing all the stores closed in a big city. The only things open were pachinko shops and an occasional mini-mart. Even the 7-11 closed at 10 o’clock for some reason.

Today I will be taking some video with my webcam to document some processes that we will try to emulate back at my facility. I am very jealous at the amount of room that they have to work with here compared to the cramped location back in Illinois.

So on the way home I may fire up the webcam to document some of the things I’ve seen here in Japan. The traffic is crazy but yet I haven’t seen any cracked up cars. I’m not sure how more kids/people don’t get run over by motorist with people walking on the side of some of the narrowest roads I’ve seen.

I didn’t play poker last night. I wasn’t in the mood to wait for a MTT and playing sngs wasn’t what I wanted to do. Instead I watched a movie and hit the hay a little after midnight.

Today was the best day so far in that I wasn’t tired at any point during work and we got some thing finished up work wise. As for dinner, the usual two people didn’t take us tonight. We had two other guys and we ended up going to a place called Gyu-Kaku. It was by far the best place I’ve eaten while I’ve been here. It is Japanese BBQ and you pick from many things on the menu and cook it up on a grill at the table. I’m not sure what it was we had but it was meat and meat is good. There was different flavorings and and different meats from all areas of the cows as well as some pork products. I could have stayed there for another few hours eating the food…it was that good.

So right now it is 8:10 pm so I’m gonna fire up a HORSE tourney on Full Tilt, get almost naked and play poker for a few hours.

Day 2...Reflections and Sushi

It is Tuesday morning and I’m sitting in the office waiting to start the day. We have a full schedule of stuff to do but we should be out on time today. We left the office at around 6:30 and headed to a traditional Japanese restaurant for dinner. I had grill beef, that was excellent, with mushrooms, potatoes and fried pumpkin. There was also some egg drop like soup that was a little different and messo soup. It was a solid meal but a little light on the beef.

I fired up Full Tilt at around 8:30 which was 6:30 am back home. There wasn’t much to play for tournaments so I fired up a cheap sng to get my fix taken care of. It was actually a pretty good one in that there were 5 players left at the 400/800 level. I eventually made it to the money and ended in 2nd when the blinds were so high that a call with any two cards wasn’t a bad call.

I also played a 90 peep and made it to the 2nd hour with a nice stack and unable to keep my eyes open. I turned the volume way up and put on my head phones so the sound would wake me if it was my turn to act. When we were down to 34 players I look at KK and an idiot was on my right. He limped in and and I made a strange bet of 14 x the BB and old fold except the idiot who calls. The flop is J96 and I push knowing he has little or nothing of this flop and hoping he will call with a piece. He calls with his A6. That’s right…he called with 3rd pair and gets rewarded with a 6 on the turn to knock me out. I made the decision to call it a knight.

I woke up this morning with and called home but got no answer so I checked some e-mail and got ready for the day with some breakfast and a bottle of Pepsi. The sun is still behind the clouds but each day here is another day closer to home.

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All of the guys that work here smoke like crazy and thus my allergies are going nuts. I never had allergies until maybe the last year and I really don’t like it. Anyway, they sit around a table and chain smoke during breaks polluting the air for miles around. Being a man I just sit in this cloud of carcinogenic toxins waiting for the second hand smoke to end my life early, one puff at a time.

It’s basically lunch time but we are waiting for the lunchroom to clear out a bit. The company gives lunch to all of the employees and there is two choices each day. Yesterday I had a Japanese hamburger that had a gravy on it that was outstanding. I also had some rice and messo soup with some random veggies mixed onto the plate. Not a bad lunch and a nice perk for the employees. I’m not sure what we are having today but I’m staying away from the messo soup.

So in another four hours we’ll be leaving for dinner. Tonight is a night of Sushi and so I will eat a lot and feel hungry by the time we get back to the hotel. The sushi here is much better than any that I’ve had in the U.S. and will be accentuated with a cold glass of beer…or two.

Since I’m starting to feel normal again I’ll probably go for a walk. Lord knows I could use the exercise and with no t.v. that I can understand it will give me a chance to do something other than sit in my underwear and play poker. Last time when I was here we didn’t get back until late every night and I stayed in a hotel without internet. Add the fact that nobody spoke English and you have the recipe for boredom. I Probably would have walked around last time but we were in what would be considered rural Japan. So I’ll be walking around looking like a tourist in a Hachioji…a city of about 500,000.

My boss grew up in this town. I drove his high school and and had Dinner right across the street from his childhood home. I don’t know what significance this is other than I may get hammered and stand in the street yelling my boss’s last name in hopes of meeting his parents.

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I had the pleasure of doing some of the work that I expect my employees to do. It isn’t that I didn’t know how to do it but that I was actually doing some finished product. It was easy work but it takes focus and patience (surf…you get it). Anyway, we get to finish the project tomorrow and then maybe spend the afternoon checking out some sights like Mt. Fuji. I have a couple of good picture of Mt. Fuji from my last trip…take a look.


This was a bit of a rambling post but it kind of relates to how I am feeling…a bit out of place and in a state of flux. Day 2 is all but over.

Sushi was good.

Day 1 is Complete

It is Monday afternoon in Japan. I spent way to many hours sitting on a plan watching movies, playing computer games and reading a book that isn’t holding my interest yet. There was a celebrity on board if you could say a sumo wrestler is a celebrity. He actually bought two seats for the flight so that he didn’t smother the person sitting next to him.

I made the trip from the airport to my hotel without any problem. The bus ticket counter was easy to find and I took a small nap on the way to my hotel. I called my wife’s cell on Skype for .021 per minute and talked to her for a bit before going to bed.

I woke at 3:30 this morning well rest and ready to go. I called home and got play-by-play of my daughters game for 2 cents a minute and played poker for a while. I watched surf make a nice run in a couple tourneys and chatted with waffles as he worked on his bankroll management by short buying into some nl cash games. I eventually cleaned up and had breakfast before my ride picked me up and drove me to headquarters. A little before lunch I headed to the plant and spent the day there going over a few things and taking a plant our. I remembered many of the people I saw last time I was here and even knew where to turn many times. I have the memory of an elephant.

It’s now almost 6:00 and we are getting ready to head out for dinner. Not sure what it will be but it really doesn’t matter. I’m hungry and tired and will hit the sack after I call the family at around 7am central time Monday morning…even though my day will be coming to a close. I’m sure I’ll be up by 5am ready to play poker.