How I defeated jet lag in 24 hours

I just got back from Southeast Asia (Thailand, Hong Kong) and landed in Canada (Vancouver) last Thursday. Typically when making this east-west trip, I suffer from at least 4-6 days of jet lag, but this time, I basically got over it in 24 hours.

It was thanks to the advice given to me by researcher Ian Dunican ( @sleep4perform on Twitter) who was kind enough to give me a free analysis and sleep prescription.

My flight was less than ideal. I woke up at 7am Hong Kong time for a 10am departure in Hong Kong. I flew for the first part of my connection from Hong Kong to Tokyo, where I had a 3-hour layover. The Tokyo flight departed at 6:43pm and would eventually arrive in Vancouver at 10:30am local. That's 2:30am at my point of origin, so that's a rough one - I'd be arriving in the morning, at what would be a couple hours past my bedtime in Hong Kong.

On the flights I consumed no caffeine and very little food. I slept at much as possible on the plane using eye shades and headphones and probably got about 4-5 hours of total sleep between the two flights.

Upon arrival in Vancouver I had some coffee and walked around. We opened all the windows in the apartment to let in as much sunlight as possible. At around 4pm I succumbed to a 30-minute nap, but forced myself to wake up after it. I struggled until about 7pm when I went down to the gym for an hour of cardio and 20 minutes of sauna.

After exercise, I took a 5-minute ice-cold Canadian shower (my own idea, not Ian's) and ate dinner. I tried to stay up until 10pm, but could only make it until 9pm.

I'd hoped to sleep in late, but my body woke me up at 5am, but not bad considering that's 9pm Hong Kong, right when my body would be starting to get tired.

On day 2, I went back off the caffeine. I did some light morning exercise (low-intensity kickboxing and BJJ session at the gym), came home, ate breakfast, and promptly passed out for two 90-minute naps. I was pretty worried that this would affect my sleep at night, but it didn't. At 7pm I did a moderate-intensity kickboxing class, came home, had dinner, and slept all the way to 9:30am, granted, with some wakeups in the middle of the night.

Mission accomplished! Thanks to Ian for the free analysis; I recommend you follow him on Twitter if you're at all interested in sleep and performance.

Manila observations, weight-cut, and 24 hours to the fight

(Preamble: If you only came here to get info on how to watch the fight, scroll to the bottom of this post.)

I have been in Manila a little over 24 hours now, and I will be fighting in a little over 24 hours as well. It's the first time in about five years since I've been here. The last time I was here, I made the final table of the APPT event, so I saw nothing other than the hotel and the casino. The time before, I stayed at the house of a jiujitsu friend, and we shuttled back and forth between the competition and his family's mansion. So suffice it to say I'm not really knowledgeable about the city, nor am I now.

Brief (tourist) Manila observations

Phuket Top Team training, take 2

I've been in Phuket since last Thursday, once again training at Phuket Top Team. Since the last time I was here, they have even further improved the training schedule. This is what Monday and Tuesday look like; every other day except Sunday (when they close) looks pretty much the same.

I really like that I can get up at dawn (6:30am here), go train Muay Thai, be done by 9, get breakfast and nap, get some sun by the pool, then do another afternoon session. The best part is the flexibility; if I feel like doing Muay Thai in the evening I can do that, or I can do MMA, or wrestling, or no-gi grappling. As you can see, the day finishes very early (one of the unfortunate things about MMA gyms in most big cities is that the classes go very late because people come in after work). When I was training for my fight in Vancouver, I often didn't get out of the gym until almost 11pm, which really messed with my sleep.

PTT has grown since I was last here 11 months ago. The instructor-to-student ratio is still pretty good so I still get a decent amount of personal attention, and now there are more sparring partners as well. So the growth has actually been a good thing. They have also added MMA wrestling which is great, because my wrestling is still fairly terrible. The wrestling is headed by Andrew Leone who was a decorated collegiate wrestler and also a 125-pounder! Before I came, I was excited to train with a guy who is at the elite status of my weight class (he holds an MMA win over a guy who is now in the UFC). I haven't gotten the chance to actually roll or spar with Andrew yet but I've enjoyed taking his wrestling class.

So I am definitely enjoying this trip a lot more than last time. Last January, I had a good time but I lamented the poor internet (which meant I couldn't get any work done), the lack of social interaction, and I also got sick/injured a couple times which further perpetuated my boredom. I think this time I'm coping a lot better: I'm more physically fit and I've also learned a lot about hacking my body to improve recovery, so I can spend more time in the gym productively without overtraining. I'm using a heart rate variability monitor and my scores are better than they have ever been, even better than during my last fight camp. My digestive system is handling the food a lot better, and I'm a nice crispy shade of golden brown. Between training, eating, sleeping and getting massages, I only have about 5 hours a day of downtime, which I can use to catch up on various things. (The internet is also somewhat less terrible where I'm staying this time, though still not great.)

It really is fighter paradise here. I feel like this is possibly the place where I would really be able to optimize everything and fulfill my potential as a fighter. If I had absolutely nothing else on the go, I might consider being here very long term (like 3-6 months or even more), but alas I'm only here until Thursday. The only thing that would get to me about staying here would be not having any of my friends around. The fellow fight tourists seem cool and all, but the friendships you build are necessarily ephemeral. And it's fairly unlikely I would ever have a girlfriend here - most of the foreign girls don't stay very long, and while Thai girls are attractive and nice, I think there's far too much of a cultural barrier to find an ideal companion for me here.

But in terms of being able to optimize and tailor my own training with no real limitations, and stay healthy, this would be a great spot. And while I have some projects planned back on the other side of the Pacific, you shouldn't be terribly shocked if you end up reading about some sort of semi-long-term relocation to Phuket.

the scary drive - Vancouver to Portland to Reno to Vegas

I've driven from Vancouver to Las Vegas seven times in my life, five of those for the WSOP. The most direct (and easy) route is the one pictured below, although a couple of times I've visited friends in southern California, so I've gone south down the I-5, then driven north to Vegas along the I-15.

This time, however, I was invited to stay with friends in Portland (and Portland is a great city I'm always happy to spend time in), so my trip looked a little different:

It's actually a fairly similar length, but the drive is much more treacherous.  I suppose I should have done my homework on this, but this drive takes me through a part of Cascade Mountains where the elevation is over 5000 feet and I was hit by sub-zero temperatures, snow, and winding, icy roads. Keep in mind that I drive a Porsche Boxster with racing tires, which is not exactly ideal. Most of the cars that were driving along with me were SUVs and light trucks, many of them with ski racks. It was very very scary. I spun the tires exactly once on an uphill, and it was at that point that I decided to go into old-lady driving mode and hope for the best. At one point I pulled over at a gas station to call a friend and have him check the weather and elevation going forward. Luckily at that point I had gotten the worst of it already and the rest of the drive was much less dangerous.

I wouldn't have dared taking a picture at the most dangerous parts, but once the traffic cleared up and the road got a little more manageable, I still managed to quickly get this one off.

After traversing the Cascades, one would think that things would be getting a lot less dangerous, but that wouldn't be the case. While driving through northeast California, I started getting some cold/flu symptoms. Now, driving isn't exactly a strenuous physical activity, but I was worried because I was getting very tired and sleepy. I pulled over a couple of times to recover and noticed I was getting the chills. A 10-hour driving day will give my body aches under the best of circumstances, but I was definitely feeling much more achy than usual. I could also tell my mental acuity and physical coordination was off: when I did actually arrive at my stop for the night in Reno, I noticed that I was fumbling objects when I went to pick them up, bumping into things, and just generally out of it.

I left Reno for Las Vegas early Saturday morning, but a little over an hour into my drive I pulled into a Walmart parking lot and slept in my car for an hour. Feeling sick, I didn't really feel like coffee, but the nap helped a bit and I continued onwards. I would end up stopping on nearly an hourly basis, including a second nap at a rest stop about four hours outside of Vegas. I now had a new problem that concerned me: my vision was getting blurry. I have laser-corrected and thus pretty much perfect vision, but my eyes were really fatigued. Signs that I would easily be able to read normally at 400 metres were unreadable to me at 100 metres. Especially when I shifted my eyes to look at something else (the rear-view mirror, for example) then went back to look at the road, my vision would become totally blurry.  I would often see cars off in the distance to find that there was in fact, no car; that what I was seeing was just a signpost or something. The road from Reno to Las Vegas is pretty much all monotonous desert and that didn't help things. It was very scary to be driving along at 75mph in such a compromised physical state. I think I will definitely look harder for a co-pilot on the trip back to Vancouver.

The good news is that I've finally made it safely to Las Vegas. Still running a slight fever, still not feeling great, but hopefully good enough to play the $1500 tomorrow. That first event is always awesome and it would suck to miss it.

Good luck, everyone!

Cebu is Ce-bomb!

(You have no idea how long I spent internally debating what Cebu-related pun I would use for the title.)

Well, Cebu was fantastic. For years I had asked my friends who regularly play the Asian circuit what their favourite destination was, and usually the answer was Cebu. I wasn't able to make Season 2 or Season 3's editions, so I was excited to get to go this year.

Poker-wise, there was certainly nothing to write home about. I played two events and a total of 7 hours. I was comfortable and felt I played well in the main event, but I was a spaz and paid the price in the 6-max. I'm now 0-for-6 in 2012 in terms of tournament cashes.

But what a phenomenal destination. I actually spent only 3.5 days in Cebu and I definitely wish it had been more. I saved a bit of money by choosing to forego the Shangri-La Resort, where PokerStars put its qualifiers up, in favour of a 3-star room which ran me about $70 US (and where friends rented out the penthouse suite for only about $40 more). I have somewhat mixed feelings about this because while my hotel was good (and had massages on the 2nd floor for $3/hour), the Shangri-La is amazing. It's a gorgeous resort with lots of free activities and the service seems good as well. For those who have been to the PCA, I think the Shangri-La is everything that the Atlantis in the Bahamas should be, but isn't. The Atlantis has more attractions but the service is atrocious and everything is massively expensive. In Cebu, I found the service and atmosphere everywhere to be excellent.

At the resort, we did some free kayaking, I worked out a bit at the gym (also free), and rented some jetskis (not free, but not that expensive either). The jetskiing in particular was tremendously fun. I'd never ridden on one before, and was really surprised how fast they go. In fact, they go so fast and I wandered so far out that I lost track of where I was and had to ask some fisherman for directions back to the Shangri-La. All in all, I spent about 5 hours in the sun on Saturday and even got a little bit of sunburn for the first time in about 15 years.

And the food. Oh, the food. The Philippines is really not known as a culinary paradise, but man do these people know how to roast a pig. There was roast suckling pig at the Stars party and I had it on numerous occasions, but my favourite was a local place called Zubuchon, which served up this amazingness:

One blog writes: "Zubuchon’s pigs are not from commercial piggeries but are hand-picked from pigs raised in the backyards of certain individuals. They do not use MSG or commercial mixes for flavor. Instead, they use organic ingredients, including olive oil, local sea salt, home-grown lemongrass, peppers, green onions, and other herbs and spices."

Sign me the hell up.

Aside from the poker, beach and the food, there was also a street festival in progress that took place on the street directly in front of our hotel. I mean, really, really directly:

That's my hotel, and that's the party. Here's another shot:

Like Mardi Gras, without the nudity

It speaks to how busy I was eating that I didn't really investigate this street festival at all, but it seems like it would have been fun. I know it definitely made getting a cab a bit tricky.

All in all, Cebu was a great trip. It's not somewhere I'd want to spend a really long period of time, but it's such a great short getaway from Hong Kong and I'd love to do it again. If I were taking someone I were trying to impress, I'd consider staying at the Shangri-La and laze around the beach, but staying at any of the hotels nearby which are a third of the price (not just rooms, but food/massage/activities) and a 10-minute cab ride away are also viable options. Can't wait to go back!

Fighting in Korea tomorrow!

Small-town Korean love motels are a lot nicer than you would think. While the hallways are so impossibly dark that you can barely find your room, once you do find it, you'll find your $40 US has afforded you a decent-sized and well-appointed room with a big flat-screen TV, water cooler, heated wooden floors, and even some personal hygiene products for your use. And even a personal computer, which I'm using to write you on (after figuring out that I need to copy/paste URLs from Word to get them to show up in English in Internet Explorer).

Makeup stand with shaving cream, lotions, hair product, perfumes and colognes, so you can get back to your significant other without leaving a trace of evidence!

The only downside is that there are no windows to the outside world, but that's because you wouldn't want any, if you are patronizing this hotel for its intended use. But all things considered, I would definitely take this $40/night room over a lot of similarly priced hotels and extended stays in Las Vegas. By a landslide.

Why do I know so much about Korean love motels, you might ask? Sorry, I'm not here to provide any details on a sordid affair with a mistress or an orgy with scores of prostitutes. My purpose is no less animalistic, though. I'm here to get in a fight.

Taking a step back a bit: As I wrote before, I came to Korea to play in the APPT Seoul. I knew we were going to play 8 levels and had to get rid of at least half the field. If I was part of that half, I was going to participate in the Road FC Southern League qualifying event. I have to admit it was very tough to play my A-game after all. I certainly wasn't too spewy, but I definitely got it in a few spots where I suspected my opponents were probably a little stronger than they normally would be in that spot. Overall my money mostly went in when I was behind. But I certainly didn't punt and I'm at least happy for that.

Having said that, I'm pretty thrilled to be fighting in what is now about 18 hours' time. But it wasn't all giddy excitement. Up until yesterday, I was still feeling pretty stressed and apprehensive about it. Having a fight is a stressful situation under any circumstances. You're cutting weight, which is miserable. And you're trying to stay in a good mental state, wanting to stay cool, relaxed and focused, and thinking about the game plan. But after busting out of the tournament and having to face the reality I would be fighting for sure, I was presented with a new set of issues. How was I going to get to this small town of Suncheon, all the way at the opposite end of Korea? Where would I stay once I got there? How would I find the gym? Was there a sauna where I could cut off the last few pounds, and would it be open early enough in the morning to be useful for the 10am weigh-in? I don't speak the language and I don't understand the organization of the event, when I would be fighting or any of the things that would be going on. I would be totally out of my element and that creates a tremendous amount of stress when a fight is involved. I like to know everything that is going on and this simply wasn't going to happen this time out.

All of that was alleviated when David Jung told me he was going with me though, which is awesome of him -- I didn't even ask because I didn't think it would be possible; he simply volunteered himself. My friend Daniel, the guy who actually first got me interested in BJJ, will be coming up from Seoul on Sunday morning to be my cornerman. So still, I'm fighting in a foreign country where I don't speak the language against an unknown opponent with a BJJ blue belt with zero standup as my cornerman! Contrast this with my first ever fight back in September with supportive teammates, experienced coaches, tons of friends and family in attendance, and oh yeah, was held 6 blocks from my apartment,

It got better once I arrived. David and I were greeted by the owner of the gym where the event is being held, and even though he struggles with English, he is clearly a nice, friendly, hospitable guy. He took me up to the gym where the fight will be, allowed me to check my weight on the official scales, try on the gloves, and feel out the cage where the fights will be held.

Where the magic will happen

I checked myself on the scale and I came in at a svelte 62.55 kg (137.6 lbs). Since I actually get a 0.99kg allowance on the official 61kg limit, that means I will likely be on weight simply by going to bed and waking up in the morning. It will be fantastic to do this without sauna time, although in fairness I have had just 300 mL of water all day and won't have any more until tomorrow morning. My dinner tonight will consist of two protein bars, which each just weigh 85 grams but densely pack a solid 296 calories. My mouth is dry, I have a bit of a headache and some light cramps and I'm just generally quite thirsty and hungry. But all in all, this is what the pros would consider "an easy cut". This should give an idea of why weight-cutting is by far the most miserable aspect of fighting.

It's a silly thing, but seeing the gym where the fight will be held is a big thing, psychologically. It just removes so much uncertainty and doubt that isn't rational. Now to me this thing is real, it will happen, and it is something that is familiar to me. Everything is the way it should be.

After leaving the gym, I checked into the love motel. The love motel experience is certainly an awesome thing. The reception desk is basically a window that is almost entirely shaded off, so that you can't see the desk clerk and he can't see you. He gives you the room keys and you give him the money. That's it. The dark hallways I mentioned are that way so that in the event you were to run into someone you know, you wouldn't be able to make out his or her face in the darkness. For obvious reasons, I don't have any pictures to show you.

The tournament organizer -- he asked me to call him "Master PCK", as "PCK" is the name of the gym -- then showed us around for a few blocks of Suncheon. Master PCK took David out to dinner and I politely excused myself (at least, I hope it was polite -- I don't know anything about Korean culture, after all) since I obviously can't eat. I wandered around a bit more but the walking was starting to make my cramping worse, so I decided to head back to the hotel and blog a bit for you all. Hope my dehydrated ramblings still make sense when I read this again tomorrow.

Well, that is all. 3 rounds of 3 minutes. No elbows or knees to the head and no heel hooks. Pretty much exactly Battlefield rules. Same shit, new venue...and that's a good thing!

(And now if you'll excuse me, I think I have to go wash my hands after using this computer.)

A conflict of interests in Seoul

Things were so much easier when I just played poker.

I'm heading out to Seoul on Wednesday afternoon. The original purpose was the APPT Seoul which has a ~US$2700 main and ~US$5400 high-roller event. I'll be playing Day 1A on Thursday, and a big part of me is hoping I don't make it through the day.

The reason is that on Sunday, the day of the APPT final table, there are amateur tryouts (link in Korean) for Road Fighting Championships. I don't quite understand it fully, but from what I gather through a combination of Google Translate and my Korean friends, the winners will get to compete on the "Young Guns" portion of a future Road FC card. Unfortunately, it's in a small city called Suncheon, 4.5 hours by bus (or an hour by plane) away from Seoul. So if I make Day 2, which is played on Saturday, I'm not going to be able to compete in it. Even if I were to bust out early on Saturday it would probably be too much of a scramble and stress to make it there, I think.

I've been training quite hard and I'm in fight shape. I'm planning to compete at 61 kg (134.2 lb) because there is only four hours between the weigh-ins and the fights; there's no way I can get all the way down to 57 kg (125.4 lb) and compete well under those circumstances. I'm a small guy, but I don't lose weight very easily. I've been very strict on the diet for the last month, cooking my meals almost every day, but in truth I am really always quite strict and rarely fall off the wagon (WSOP excluded). Thus my walk-around weight is generally not far from my healthy weight. I'm currently about 64 kg in the morning so it will be an easy cut, even with the potential difficulties of being in a foreign land, trying to find the right food, saunas, and so forth. I might be a bit smaller than my opponent but I'm just fine with that.

Obviously, I've put a lot more thought into the potential fight than the poker. But a part of me wants to do well in the poker, too. It's been six weeks since I played a tournament (the Aussie Millions) and it'll be just my second tournament series of the year and third tournament overall (excluding the Chinese Poker). 2011 sucked poker-wise and I'd like to get off the schneid for 2012. I'll also be representing Hero Poker for the first time in a new market so it would be nice to make a run and get some publicity. Nevertheless, I am totally antsy I am to scrap, and I really won't be particularly upset if someone manages to find set-over-set on me in the first level.

But once I sit down at the table, I have to be a pro. Otherwise it's not worth showing up at all. If I enter a poker tournament, I'm there to win it, or at least maximize my expectation. And I've done this long enough that I know that once the cards are in the air, I'll be a pro and do what I have to do. The way I see it, there are a lot of people out there with straight jobs who would love to skip out of the office to play golf. Well, MMA is my golf and while there's nothing wrong with dedicating yourself to your avocations, you gotta take care of business first.

Lost in all of this is how excited I am to go to Korea! I've never been, and always wanted to go. I missed Season 1's APPT Korea and due to various legal wrangling, they haven't been back until now. Of course, there's so much on my plate for this short trip I don't really know if I'll be able to see or do much of anything at all. Perhaps most disappointing of all is that because I'm in the midst of a weight cut, I won't be able to enjoy much of the food, which is usually my favourite part of seeing any new country.

That is of course, unless I make it through Day 1A and the competition is off. Then I'm going to smash Korean BBQ like there's no tomorrow.

Wish me luck! Good or bad; either way is fine by me. :)

Making a groove out of a rut

I'm in a bit of a rut.

I've had a few minor injuries that have prevented me from training as much I've I'd like to this week, which has in turn pushed me into this minor rut. When I'm training hard, twice a day, I feel great. I feel purpose-driven, I am chock full of good hormones, food tastes great, and I sleep like a baby. When I'm not training, I am stir-crazy, bored, and don't really know what to do with myself. I mostly read books, play video games and mess around a bunch online, all while wishing I were training. This has been one of those weeks.

Fight addiction > gambling addiction

Last week, I was chatting with my cousin Calvin, who is one of the people responsible for getting me into the sport. He is turning 35 in July and has unfortunately had to scale back a lot of his training (especially standup) due to injuries. I mentioned that when I am his age (I'm 31) I might be done with this fighting stuff. In his words, "you won't [be]. Unless you have some medical issue. It's like crack."

I thought that was an overstatement (well, I suppose the crack part actually is), but then I was kept off the mats for a few days and I fell right into this rut. Also, when I have too much time on my hands, I tend to get way too introspective and spend too much time wondering what I'm doing with my life.

I have scarcely played any poker since coming back from the Aussie Millions. I haven't been motivated to grind online cash and I've never been one for online tourneys (and all the good ones start at terrible hours here in Hong Kong anyway). I'm still beating online cash and when I play I still feel like I play well, and I want to stay sharp with the WSOP around the corner, but I often just can't be bothered. I'll play for an hour and be bored out of my mind. It just seems like menial, boring work now. I do still enjoy playing live tournaments. There is that great vibe, there is the thrill of competition, there's the social interaction, and there is a start and a finish. Is it strange that as a young poker player I was a Joey Knish and now, into my thirties, I am more Mike McD?

The Macau Poker Cup is going on this weekend. It's a large-field, medium buy-in (US ~$1100) tournament that's just an hour ferry ride away from me, so it should have been a slam dunk for me. But I skipped it, because the tournament organizers changed the Day 1 start time to 8pm which means play wouldn't wrap up until 4am. In my prime poker days, I wouldn't have batted an eye at that, but lately I have optimized nearly my entire life around my physical health and fitness. In the past that just meant exercise and nutrition being dialed in, but the more I read the more I realize that sleep quality plays a huge role in both health and sports performance. So I skipped a high-ev tournament right in my backyard that many of my friends were attending.

This would be a reasonable thing to do if I were a professional athlete, but as we know, I'm just a scrub. Since Black Friday, I've basically just been spending money and living off of savings and investments. Mostly the former because other than real estate, I don't have much of the latter. Financially, I am still in very good shape, but eventually I will have to do something for money -- and to keep myself sane. There's zero chance I will fight for a living, and even doing something like coaching is a long way off given my current skill level.

Options, options

One possibility I've been considering is getting into the finance world. It's not one that remotely interested me at all when I was a young adult, even as someone who graduated with a business degree and enjoyed the requisite undergrad finance courses. But I've been reading some interesting books and some of it seems kind of fun. Everyone says that being a poker player is great prep for being a trader (and vice versa), and that the markets are just like a big casino. Yet I feel like I would nevertheless be starting at a knowledge deficit. I honestly know so little about this world. I don't know how it is that individual people or even small firms can beat the market when there are these giant firms with their supercomputers and tremendous access to information.

On top of that, I wouldn't know where to begin. I've never been a person who was really capable of learning anything in any sort of traditional path. Despite being a reasonably smart person, I was a below-average elementary and high school student, a so-so university student, and I've definitely improved slower than average at MMA, so typical learning environments clearly aren't my thing. Besides, I've always felt that typical learning begets typical results, and I have no desire for that. Luckily I do have friends who are smart in such things -- my smart friends are the only reason I have ever been successful at poker -- and so I do have a valuable resource if I choose to go down that road.

That's just a sidebar to my life at this time, though. MMA is still my priority, and despite my bitching, I still love the training and the sport. If I can stay healthy, I think I can stay happy.

Coming Up

APPT Seoul March 7-11. This is an exciting one for me for a number of reasons. I've never been to Korea, and I've always wanted to go. That's a big one. But I also found out that there is are MMA tryouts (link in Korean) in Suncheon, Korea, the same day as the APPT final table. The winners get to compete in the "Young Guns" portion of a future Road FC card, which is the biggest MMA promotion in Korea. It wouldn't be ideal from a preparation standpoint, but if I were to bust Day 1A of the APPT main event, I would have enough time to cut weight, take a 4.5 hour bus ride from Seoul to Suncheon and compete in the tryouts.

Alternatively (or additionally), there is also an amateur MMA event in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on March 31. It is "D-class", meaning really watered-down MMA rules, but the idea is that you win your way up to C-class, B-class and A-class where the rules are progressively less restrictive. I wish they had stuff like that in Hong Kong, or even Vancouver, but Taiwan is only a 1.5 hour flight away, so it's not unreasonable.

On the non-poker, non-MMA front, I have a number of friends either visiting or possibly visiting Hong Kong within the next month or so. Having some real-world interaction with people I like always makes me happy, and so even if I am not at the gym twice daily, I should manage to keep the ennui at bay.

a funny hand history / wrapping up in Phuket; Australia soon

So, this was fun:

Starting Game #46658088-2182
gtownhustla22 is the Dealer
Shuffling Cards
TerrenceChan posted Small Blind $2
Albuquerquefreakout posted Big Blind $4
You Were Dealt (Ks,Kd)
ghstface1 folds
Cogitus folds
gtownhustla22 raised to $113 (wtf?)
TerrenceChan is All In
Albuquerquefreakout folds
gtownhustla22 calls $396.39
gtownhustla22 shows (Qd,Qh)
TerrenceChan shows (Ks,Kd)
Dealing Flop (8h,Ac,8d)
Dealing Turn (5c)
Dealing River (Ad)
TerrenceChan wins $794.28 from Pot 1 with : Two Pair Aces and Kings
--------------------------------------
Starting Game #46658088-2183
TerrenceChan is the Dealer
Shuffling Cards
Albuquerquefreakout posted Small Blind $2
ghstface1 posted Big Blind $4
gtownhustla22> website is such a jjoike
You Were Dealt (Qh,Th)
Cogitus folds
gtownhustla22> \CHEATING ***** SLANTY EYD ****
gtownhustla22> HONG KONG USELES FU CK
gtownhustla22 folds
TerrenceChan raised to $10.66
Albuquerquefreakout folds
gtownhustla22> did we drop a few bombs on you
ghstface1 folds
TerrenceChan wins $16.66 from Pot 1
TerrenceChan mucks
gtownhustla22> piece of sh it
--------------------------------------
Starting Game #46658088-2184
Albuquerquefreakout is the Dealer
Shuffling Cards
ghstface1 posted Small Blind $2
Cogitus posted Big Blind $4
You Were Dealt (6c,2s)
gtownhustla22 folds
TerrenceChan folds
Albuquerquefreakout folds
TerrenceChan> sorry, no speak english
ghstface1 calls $4
Cogitus checks
Dealing Flop (6h,3h,4d)
ghstface1 checks
Cogitus bets $8
ghstface1 folds
Cogitus wins $15.10 from Pot 1
Cogitus mucks
--------------------------------------
Starting Game #46658088-2185
ghstface1 is the Dealer
Shuffling Cards
Cogitus posted Small Blind $2
BumHunter357 posted Big Blind $4
You Were Dealt (5c,Qh)
gtownhustla22> shu t th e fuc k up u idiot
gtownhustla22 folds
TerrenceChan> only speak us dollar
TerrenceChan folds
Albuquerquefreakout folds
ghstface1 raised to $8
gtownhustla22> only speak my co ck in your girl s as s
Cogitus folds
BumHunter357 folds
ghstface1 wins $14 from Pot 1
gtownhustla22> ****
ghstface1 mucks
--------------------------------------
Starting Game #46658088-2186
Cogitus is the Dealer
Shuffling Cards
gtownhustla22> G O O K
BumHunter357 posted Small Blind $2
gtownhustla22 posted Big Blind $4
You Were Dealt (Qs,9s)
TerrenceChan> sorry no understan, you have more us dollar or no more?
TerrenceChan folds

****

(He would go on to busto his remaining $50 or so shortly after, then quit.)

I've been playing poker for so many years and yet I still never tire of this type of amazing immaturity. Suppose that doesn't make me too much more mature than them.

I have less than 48 hours left in Thailand. It's been fairly good, my standup has improved, my cardio has improved. But the last 10 days were a total write-off. I went to the beach for New Year's Eve on December 30-January 1, and that's when my first symptoms of a mystery illness showed up. On the evening of January 1, I suddenly got really bad chills; bundling up under the covers in a hoodie and sweatpants in 31-degree heat kinda bad. I had the hotel call me a doctor who in all honesty was probably pretty terrible. He diagnosed me with gastroenteritis and prescribed antibiotics. He actually didn't give me the standard spiel about taking the whole course of antibiotics, which I found odd. Anyway, I took the first one without thinking about it, then realized that antibiotics for a stomach flu is a terrible idea and decided not to take any more. I continued on acetaminophen instead.

On January 3, I felt okay enough to train, but hurt my ankle slightly. The next day instead of training I went swimming in the pool. I'm a terrible swimmer (which means I drink a lot of water) and the pool is not well-maintained here, so I suspect that I got sick from the pool water. I had a fever ranging from a mild 38 to a nasty 38.7 at its peak from the 4th-7th. Today, the 10th, was my first day back at training.

It sucks that I've been sick in Thailand twice in my three trips here, because it's such a great place for high-quality training at a very low price. My immune system is very robust when I'm in either Hong Kong or Vancouver but it seems to have trouble keeping up here in Thailand, whether it's from bug bites, pool water, food poisoning, heatstroke, or whatever. The veterans say basically everyone gets sick here, so I guess it's just something you have to deal with.

As somewhat of an aside, a follower on Twitter directed me to this excellent read about training Muay Thai in Thailand. I felt that while the tone of the author was startlingly negative and fatalistic that it still captured a lot of what it's like to be here.

****

So, in a couple days time I'll be back in Hong Kong for a week, then off to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions, one of my favourite poker destinations. After that ... who knows? Maybe I'll even be right back here, punching and kicking stuff under a corrugated roof now shielding against an even hotter southern Thailand sun.

Three days in at Phuket Top Team

I'm three full training days into my retreat here in Phuket, training this time at Phuket Top Team. I've been enjoying it quite a bit. The last time I was here, at Tiger Muay Thai in April was enjoyable, but somehow less so. It wasn't really the training at TMT, which was good, but I think this time I'm just more acclimated to both the training and the lifestyle.

First the lifestyle. I've always been a city boy who loves his big city, first-world distractions. And here it's quiet, the internet is terrible, I know almost no one, the food is pretty much the same every day, and I can't get a decent cup of coffee to save my life. And yet in spite of all that I'm happy here. I wake up and train while in a fasted state, and so I'm pretty much down to eat anything when I'm done. Then I'm tired and it's time for a noon nap. Then it's time for the afternoon training session and the process repeats. I'm in bed well before 11pm and I don't really have time to think about not having my industrialized-world comforts.

As for the training, I think it helps I'm a little more fit than I was last time. When I came to TMT last time, I had been training consistently for a few months in Hong Kong, but certainly not as hard as I was this summer/fall in Vancouver. Maybe it's the pollution or that I get less sleep but I definitely train harder in Vancouver. That fitness level leads to an increased ability for me to do multiple sessions daily without too much fatigue, whereas in April I felt I was truly crawling out of the gym after every session. And I think most of the classes are a 7/10 in terms of difficulty as opposed to a 9/10 where I wouldn't be able to do multiple sessions daily. Doing more sessions also means I sleep more and have less downtime in which to get bored.

I have met a few interesting people while down here. A lot of the long-term students I've met here are actually pretty cool people and not typical bro/meathead fighters at all. I don't know how social I'll be here -- after all, I don't go out and party back home so I'm certainly not going to do it now when I'm wiped from twice-daily training -- but it's nice to at least be able to have a decent conversation over dinner.

Training is definitely good. Muay Thai is great, especially for the 7am class, because so few people show up for it that the trainer/fighter ratio is often close to 1:1. Thus you practically get a private lesson and many rounds of padwork, which is great. They also seem personally invested. I've had the same Thai trainer holding pads and coaching me every day, so he is quickly learning my strengths and weaknesses. Without question this is the biggest advantage of doing this second trip here at Phuket Top Team as opposed to the gargantuan Tiger Muay Thai.

The no-gi/BJJ training situation is a little different. Classes are similarly small; there are a lot of people who are complete newbs but there also appear to be some real studs and pro fighters. I don't think I have a large enough sample size to see what's going on there yet but I haven't encountered anyone like me who is just sort of intermediate level. The instructor is a former instructor of mine from Hong Kong, Silvio Braga, whom I like and have learned a great deal from in the past, so I'm sure I'll end up getting better no matter what the sparring partner situation ends up being. I haven't trained with the MMA instructor yet but I look forward to doing that on Monday or Tuesday.

This feels like kind of a boring blog entry, but that's because to most people this trip would be pretty boring: wake up, train, eat, sleep, wake up, train, eat, sleep. It's not what exciting blogs are made of, but it's keeping me happy. And it had better, because I still have 26 more days of it!

off to train in Phuket

It's been a while since I posted, mostly because not much exciting has happened. I cashed small in the APPT Macau main event but failed to cash in the high roller event, so it was a trip that ended up in the red. Since then I've just been in Hong Kong training BJJ and MMA at my home gym here.

One thing that did transpire was my 31st birthday. As my cousin was quick to point out, that means I'm not just 30, I'm now in my thirties. Coincidentally, I happened to watch the MMA movie "Warrior" on my birthday. The movie contains a scene where the main character, a career journeyman, is told by his trainer, "c'mon, you were barely a .500 fighter when you were on the right side of 30!"

"The right side of 30" clearly implies that I'm now on the wrong side. Ouch. Just like that, I'm officially old? Hey, if Hollywood says it, it must be true. And I suppose there is also that wealth of anecdotal evidence and scientific study that indicates explosiveness, power, and so forth are now on the downswing at my age too.

Nevertheless, I am off to continue my quest for self-improvement in the MMA game by heading off to Phuket, Thailand on Tuesday. Once there, I feel like I'll be able to isolate myself and do nothing but train for a month, ideally working my way up to twice-daily, 6-day-per-week training, as a pro would.

It will be an interesting experience for me. Obviously I have already once set aside a long block where I did essentially nothing but train (the 8 weeks leading up to my fight) but this will be different as I will have no real support network and no tangible goal at the end. This time, the goal is the process itself. If an appropriate MMA or Muay Thai fight does come up during my time there, I will happily take it, but I won't put pressure on myself to do it. I'm fine waiting until spring time in Vancouver to fight again.

People frequently ask how much longer I plan to do the MMA thing, and I think until I am 35 or so seems quite reasonable. The other thing people ask is what I want to achieve. I'm not a big believer in setting very specific goals myself, but I do want to challenge myself, develop the best possible version of me, and see how far I can get in that time. The ultimate goal is to have no regrets and to never wonder what might have been.

Of course, the UFC did today announce it would be opening the 125-pound weight class starting in March. Which of course makes me think thoughts like, "my walking weight is about 137-140 these days, the division isn't so well-developed, and while I utterly lack experience the one upside is that I haven't taken much damage..." And then I realize there's also the part where I'm a 31-year-old with exactly one fight on his record and who still gets tapped out by blue belts. Well, dare to dream, I suppose.

But ultimately it doesn't really matter. All that matters is a little self-improvement, every day. And for my next little dose of self-improvement, I find myself packing my bags for Phuket.

I think I Cannes: Why the WSOPE is better off on the French Riviera

As I've written in this space previously, I've been excited for the WSOP in Cannes for a while now. The WSOP management team further increased my expectations about a month ago when I received an e-mail out of the blue from Ty Stewart representing the rest of the WSOPE team. It was sent to me "as one of the world’s prominent players" (not sure what qualified me for that distinction) with some additional info and an invitation to e-mail him or the others directly with my WSOPE concerns, and later on even offered shuttle service from Nice to Cannes.

For the most part, they were fairly responsive, but there were a couple snags and a few seemingly missed or ignored e-mails. My biggest complaint was that they didn't confirm either of my e-mails with my arrival flight info, so I had no idea whether or not I should expect pickup upon arrival in Nice. Nice has two arrival terminals and even though I sent an e-mail saying I'd be at Terminal 1, I was later told by Mike Watson that the driver who picked him up was waiting for me at Terminal 2. So the end result was me wandering around Terminal 1 for about 45 minutes before giving up and fading the €90 taxi to Cannes. Now they didn't have to offer shuttle service in the first place, but it turns out I'd have been better off if they didn't; if I hadn't been expecting it at least I could have been prepared and made some kind of arrangement for it. By failing to confirm the e-mail, I missed the shuttle and the people getting picked up at the other terminal had to wait around for someone who never showed up. It's all about managing expectations and I think there was some ball-dropping on this one.

One area in which they were pretty solid was pre-registration. Registering for poker tournaments in European casinos is often a lengthy, highly-tilting process. But wiring and pre-registering for the events I'm playing went pretty smoothly; in fact, it was probably better managed than my annual wire to the WSOP in Las Vegas, and I don't have to carry cash/chips all over town. So props to them on that.

And then there is the move to Cannes itself, which seems to be the topic of much discussion. I count myself in the camp that's solidly in favour. Aside from a day in Nice prior to EPT San Remo, it's my first time in the Cote d'Azur, and I like it here. I'm not really the biggest fan of London either, which I've always found expensive, lacking in quality mid-range priced food, and not terribly interesting. And anyone who had played the WSOPE in the past realized how poorly designed the London casinos are for holding big poker tournaments.

So I was pretty surprised by the tone of this article which came across my Twitter feed and was highly critical of the move to Cannes. Among the reasons cited by the author:

"For Europeans, getting to Cannes and finding somewhere to rest your head is far from easy...For Americans, flying direct from Vegas to Cannes is a non-starter, so the big hitters from America will have to find an alternative route."

I'm not European so perhaps I'm missing something, but I had absolutely no trouble finding accommodation. I sent out 6 e-mails on a furnished apartment rental website and got 6 responses. I'm renting a very nice furnished 2-bedroom apartment just a few minutes from the water for just over €100/night. I'm not sure you can get a cardboard box near the Thames River for that. Instead, I'm writing this post while looking at this view:

And yes, I did complain about spending €90 to get from the airport. But the cabs I've taken from Heathrow to anywhere in London were pretty much the same. In fact, I'm a little scared to know what my cab fare in London would have been had I arrived at 5 PM on Friday night like I did in Nice.

"Secondly, poker in France is now regulated and therefore taxed. That means that 4% of every price pool will go straight to the French Government and in all the players will be losing eight to 10% of the prize pool in deductions, and that’s before you’ve tipped anyone."

The 4% surtax is certainly a very legitimate complaint, so I'll concede that point. However...

The WSOPE was such a special event because of the concentration of superstars, now this move will dilate that two-fold, with more locals and less big names making the journey across the pond.

This one makes me shake my head, especially because I looked up the author and found that he's an accomplished player with a long history of tournament results. I expect these words from some media or a fanboy, but not a poker pro. Presumably someone who has been around the block a few times realizes that when we're talking about southern France and the Mediterranean, "more locals and less [sic] big names" is a good thing?! If my starting table in the €1000 NL was any indication, I think the change in the quality of opposition is well worth fading the extra 4%.

"For the past couple of years London has been the centre of the poker world for a month every Autumn, making it worthwhile for players to travel and play a European series of events like we travel to the WSOP."

This just generally reeks of "I used to have majors just come to my doorstep and now I don't" whining, plain and simple, and if you read the whole article that attitude permeates it. Of course if you're a UK-based player you're going to lament the loss of the largest event on this side of the Atlantic, but unfortunately for you guys, the world doesn't revolve around London. So sad.

"Making the World Series of Europe as special as the actual World Series, and the bracelets as special as those dished out in Vegas, has been the biggest problem for the powers that be since the WSOPE’s inception. Just as it was becoming part of the poker establishment Harrah’s have made this move to France."

I'm sorry, but really, this was "the biggest problem"? Other than media people looking for storylines, and a few prop bettors, I don't really think the majority of poker players care very much about how "special" WSOPE bracelets are. I'm sure that tournament organizers love to have big names, but only inasmuch as big names draw attention and casual players and increase their bottom line. I wonder how they've done? Through two comparable events:

2010 in London:

Event 1: £2,650 Six Handed No Limit Hold'em

Entrants: 244, Total Prize Pool: £610,000

Event 3: £1,075 No Limit Hold'em

Entrants: 582, Total Prize Pool: £582,000

2011 in Cannes:

Event 1: €2,680 Six Handed No-Limit Hold'em
Entrants: 360, Total Prize Pool: €753,600

Event 2: €1,090 No-Limit Hold'em
Entrants: 771, Total Prize Pool: €740,160

Registration for Event 3, the €5,000 PLO, is still open as of this writing. The equivalent event drew 120 players for a £600,000 prize pool last year in London. According to PokerNews, there are currently 164 registered with two hours left in late registration.

And now remember that these results are occurring in what is considered by pretty much everyone to be a disastrous year for the poker economy and it seems like a slam dunk. While I admit to some personal bias against London, the numbers make it pretty clear that Ty Stewart and the WSOPE gang have done the right thing in moving here. Cannes is less expensive (though still plenty expensive), prettier, boasts a superior climate, has great food for all budgets, and there's way more value in the tournament itself. Easy win, n'est-ce pas?

Switzerland 48-hour trip report

On the list of exciting and cosmopolitan European destinations Basel, Switzerland does not usually register among them. Nevertheless, that's where I found myself just a couple days before the first WSOP Europe event in Cannes. I was there to see decorated grappler Ryan Hall, one of the most brilliant minds in jiujitsu. For poker players, I've always thought that if Ryan had dedicated himself to poker instead of grappling, he'd definitely be a winning high-limit pro. Ryan runs a school in Virginia and if not for my well-publicized issues traveling to the U.S. to train MMA, I probably would've already gone down to that gym. But thanks to the wonderful people at Immigration and Naturalization Services, we met on the most neutral of neutral territories, as I tacked on an extra flight from Nice to Basel to my Vancouver-Calgary-Frankfurt-Nice journey.

It was my first time in Switzerland, but if Basel (with 400,000 people, Switzerland's third-largest metropolitan area) is a good representation of at least the German-Swiss portion, it's certainly way different than any other European city I've visited. In preparation for the trip, I had read all the stuff about how the Swiss people take a tremendous amount of pride in things, being renowned for quality, precision, professionalism, and following the rules.

Reading all that stuff makes you aware of cognitive bias and makes you want to be careful that you aren't just seeing things through that lens, but it is quite apparent that this perfectionism and pride permeates their culture. In my first meal in Basel, I ordered sparkling water (in English). When I was given still water by a different waitress and corrected her, I was able to overhear a lengthy conversation in German between three of the wait staff, the topic of which was clearly them explaining to my original waitress which was "still" and which was "sparkling" in English.

And it is true that everything is orderly in Switzerland. I feel like you couldn't get hit by a car in Switzerland if you tried. Cars always stop for pedestrians: sidewalk, traffic light, or otherwise. In one instance, I started to cross the street and a delivery truck failed to see me and thus failed to stop for me. It was not like I was anywhere near the middle of the street when this happened and my safety was not jeopardized in the slightest, but the driver made quite the show of gesticulating an apology.

On the same walk, I noticed a large crowd, 40-50 deep, gather around a police car. I walked over to see what the fuss was about, and it was simply a guy being either detained or fined for drinking in public. The guy was just sitting there, still with the beer in his hand, while the cops wrote up the paperwork, but all around, people were staring and laughing. I guess in a place where no one ever breaks the rules, this was kind of a big deal. I also saw a women's shoe store that had expensive, brand-name leather shoes just sitting out on display, unattended. Switzerland is truly, in many ways, just a society of model behaviour.

Does all of this rigid adherence to rules and good behaviour equate to a lesser joie de vivre? It was unclear to me in the 48 hours I spent in Basel. Certainly the people I met at the jiujitsu seminar were very friendly and welcoming. But one guy I chatted with -- a walking, talking contradiction of half-Brazilian, half-Swiss descent named Marco -- certainly expressed the idea that Switzerland is not the most exciting place for a young, single guy. Although it should be pointed out that Ryan and I agreed that the Swiss girls we saw were extremely attractive, which surprised both of us since Switzerland isn't like a Brazil or Colombia with a reputation for gorgeous women. Luckily I remembered to bring European woman repellent uniform: a stained grey sweater, skater jeans and runners.

Switzerland is also shockingly expensive. Evidently, Basel is cheaper than Zurich, which is scary. Paying 5 Swiss francs ($5.40 US) in the hotel for a 500mL bottled water is one thing, but it's even 3.50 CHF at a news stand out in the sticks. A donair (not a particularly good one) was 12 CHF while the sit-down meal with the aforementioned sparkling water ran me 40 (with no appetizer or dessert). I guess in a place where minimum wage is close to $4000/month, they can handle it. I also feel like really high prices only adds to the mystique of quality and perfection, almost as though the idea implicit in the high prices is simply, "we're going to charge you a lot, but we're going to do it right." But that's probably reading too much into it.

Overall, Switzerland was a very interesting cultural experience. As for the actual purpose of my trip: learning from Ryan was great, and I hope one day to get down to his academy. He was a great teacher; highly eloquent, candid, invested and passionate about his sport. The first thing I did upon getting to the airport in Basel was try to write down everything I'd learned. The irony of this trip to Basel was that I booked the trip to Cannes in the middle of my long fight camp because I felt I needed a reprieve from all the hard training. So, of course, what do I do on this trip as soon as I get 3000 miles from home but train grappling?

Anyway, I'm here in Cannes now at last. We have a great apartment, the weather is beautiful, and so too are the people, the beach, and everything else you expect about the French Riviera. Hopefully I can make some big money to continue to feed my MMA habit! (Oops, gotta go: I have to get ready to train boxing with Elky and his trainer.)