bali trip report

Better late than never right?

Well, I got back a week ago, and it was a great trip. I've never really been on a vacation this long with my girlfriend before, so I was a little worried, but it worked out beautifully. We got along really well and she is a great traveller. I've heard horror stories about koreans abroad, and she definitely didn't fall into line with those stereotypes.

We showed up Friday night in Bali at about 11pm. We didn't get to the hard rock hotel until about 1am. Densapar airport was a mess, and it took sooo long to get through all the loopholes.

But whatever, someone from the hotel picked us up at the airport, we got there, checked in, and headed up to our room. We selected this 'honeymoon' package because it was good value, and it was a good decision. They kept doing little romantic things for us all week.

Such as, the bed:

(those are rose pedals btw)

Anyways, we celebrated in honeymoon style, and then went to bed.

We decided on hitting the beach Saturday, because it was forcasted to be the nicest day. Maybe a mistake in retrospect, because I ended up with a sunburned stomach for the rest of the trip. It was annoying at times, but whatever, I manned up.

The beach was cool. We did a bunch of water sports, like water skiing and a form of parasailing (called the flying fish... I dunno how to explain it).

(me rockin' the jetski)

We went back to the hotel and chilled for a bit, but I booked dinner reservations at this famous place where you eat dinner on the beach and watch the sun set over the ocean. The food was really great there and the girlfriend thought it was super romantic. After that we were pretty tired, and had an early day planned for Sunday.

(nice lobster I choose, was awesome)

Sunday we hired a local driver to take us around and show us some stuff. He took us to a bunch of temples, to see this monkey temple and showed us a lot about Balinese people really live. Then we hit up a spa and hooked up some sweet 2hr massages.

A small taste from the trip:

And some pics from that day:

(hindu temple)


(hindus cleansing body and mind)


(me chillin' with my boys)

(Me lettin' my g/f go first over safe bridges)

We didn't get back until 10pm and were pretty spent after that. So we just went for a nice dinner and went to bed.

The next day we did this tour in a landrover to 2 other couples. It was cool. We went up some mountain and ate in the forest restaurant. Food was great, and so was service. The rice terraces were just amazing to see:

The tour wasn't that great overall, but whatever, it had its perks.

The next day we did a bunch of shopping, and then hit up this romantic boat cruise with a sunset dinner. Kind of sucked because it was cloudy and the sunset was nothing special. They did a live cabaret show on the boat which was interesting and entertaining. Ended the night with some live music at the hard rock:

The next day we did some shopping, hit up the beach again, and then just chilled at the pool. Our flight was at midnight that night, so we just waited it out.

Flight was good, and we got home safe.

I feel like I'm missing a day in there or something, but you get the gist. :)

hope u enjoyed the pics!

cheers!

august results

What a month, what a month...
Lots of positives, lots of negatives. I'll just start with the numbers:

Cash Games:
49,947 hands for $826.49 [$10.40/hr]

Tournaments:
19 played for a net of ($562.94)

Pokerstars Bonii:
$3000 milestone bonus

August Net profit: $3263.55
----------------------------------------------
Year to date: $46,125.43

So what can I say about this month?

Well, first -- it's my 2nd worst month money-wise (april was $2002). I could've tacked on another $1500, but I'm saving up my points for the APPT in September. Even still, that wouldn't have made it that great.

But I don't really feel bad about the whole thing. I played well, and just ran terribly. My all-in income ended $1688.84 below expectation, ran my KK into AA waaay too much, and I only had ONE set over set all month. lol

I also went really deep in a few big tournaments, but couldn't win my flips when it counted. A few things go differently, and I could be talking about my best month ever right now. :)

But anyways, despite everything I still managed to come out on top, which is a good feeling.
Plus, I've been on 2 vacations this month and am feeling really good with life.

Anyways, time to look ahead.

September.

BIG month ahead of me. I'll be playing in my first televised tournament, so I'll have to get some practice in. I'm going to play more tournaments online and try to get some live games in as well. I'm expecting first place to pay about $200,000. I could put that to good use.

Goals:
200km on my bike.
75k hands online
Win tournament :)

funny video for no reason:

sick

sorry no update or trip report - I've come down with nasty cough/cold. My g/f is sick too, so it must be something we picked up in Indonesia. I hope it passes soon so I can start hittin the tables hard.

August is going to be an ugly month, I know it. I've been getting shit luck (running abbot $2000 below expectation in all-ins) and getting coolered every which way. I'm down $2k or something for month. Bad timing consdiering how expensive my vacations were. Whatevvver. I'm not even phased. It'll turn, I'm sure of it.

Trip report to come, i swear. Until then, I posted my pics on facebook -- if we're friends there you can check them out.

back

Just got in from Indonesia a few hours ago. Trip was pretty sweet overall.

I'll have a bit of a trip report with pics tommorow if I get the time.

success.... barely

Well, it came down to the last day, but I managed to accomplish both goals I set out for myself a month ago. Most of the details of my challenge are HERE, but I suck and changed a lot of things along the way. So sue me :)

The first goal wasn't tough, but just required me to get into a routine. It also helped that I was losing money, because that always motivates me to put in more hours. 71,593 hands total, and I made a whopping $554.55. I've been on a sick downswing, so that's hurt my numbers. Whatever, it's about more than double that if you count bonuses.

The next goal was a lot tougher. I'll tell you, it's alot easier to play poker hungover than it is to ride an exercise bike. I put in 35km today alone just to reach the goal. I just got out of the shower actually. But it's done, and I can enjoy my vacation looking a little better.

I'm down to 86.8kg and 28.4% bodyfat. That means I've dropped 1.8kg and 1.6% fat. Not bad, but hopefully I can keep up my regimin.

So yeah, I'm off to BALI BABY!! Can't wait, I'm so pumped. I'll be back in a week with some pics. But I'll leave you with these:

The hands:

The bike:

The sickest sunrise I've ever seen:

Alright, I'm out -- See you in a week!

cant post... playing

Playing quite a bit these days, and running pretty BAD. I'm down almost $3,000 for the month which is pretty awesome.

I'll keep you all in suspense abotu whether I'm going make my goals. FWIW, it's been a lot tougher than I thought it would have been.

In between playing, I've become a huge fan of that new show on HBo called 'flight of the conchords'. It's quickly becoming my fave. show on TV right now. It's a comedy about a band from New Zealand trying to make it in the US. They just randomly break out into songs all the time. Check a clip:



I'll check in befor emy trip. GL me.

I'm Mr. Lonely

I have nobody, to stack alone.



(click pic to see chat)

/brag

Haha, I've been playing some of the HU cash tables stars recently introduced and I've had some pretty good success so far. Not bad for a full ring nit.

update: kind of sort of on pace

10 days left.

Right now I'm at :
114/250KM
30/70k hands

So far I'm up $2,250, down 1.5KG and 1.8% body fat.

So ahead of me, I have:
13.6KM/day
4k/day hands


note: I made a small edit to last month's tourny results. I missed a $10 tourny I finsihed 164/1529 for $55.11. Edited numbers now reflect this.

japan trip

I think every time I've traveled a fars way, it's been by plane or car. So this made my last trip to japan a little more interesting.

I set out with my buddy Chris, and we took a bus out to the KTX station. It is a super high speed bullet train, that can pretty much cross Korea in 3hrs. At one point we were traveling about 310km/hr. It was a really comfortable and smooth ride, with lots of nice scenery along the way.

The train took us too Busan, which is the biggest port city in korea. It's really nice there, and the weather was a lot nicer considering it's so much further south. More on Busan later.

From Busan, we took a hydrofoil boat known as a beetle to Fukuoka, Japan. The thing was really cool to look at, I'd never seen anything like it. On top of that, the thing really flew and had beer at duty free prices. :)

Total travel time was about 8hrs I think, and costed $250 for the roundtrip.

I've only been to Japan one other time, and that was in Osaka. I guess I was a little surprised at how nice the weather was. Palm trees everywhere, and apparently a pretty sweet beach that we didn't get a chance to check out. The city was really similar to Osaka, but just a little more chill. We walked around for a while, trying to find a hotel a buddy recommended with no luck. One thing about Japan compared to Korea is the amount of English spoken. In Korea, soooo many people speak English, but Japan is truly a different story. Most people we met had like ZERO english. I guess it didn't help that we had been drinking for the past 8hrs. :)

So whatever, we found a hotel for the night, dropped our bags and hit up a popular bar called sam 'n daves or something.

While trying to find our hotel, we bumped into this plump white girl who was also from Korea on a visa run. She tagged along to the bar, which ended up being PACKED:

So yeah, we just had a drink, ordered up some awesome chicken wings, paid, and then ditched the white girl because we're jerks like that. lol

So we hit the streets trying to find something to do. Nothing really seemed to be happening, and if it was, we couldn't find it. My friend was exhausted and went home, but I stayed out until about 4m just wandering around and meeting random people. I ended up getting completely lost. But I met this really nice girl who spoke no English, and she walked me the 30mins it took to get back. :)

The next morning we got up at about 11am with a plan in mind. My buddy wanted to get some more ink done, and I was considering getting another tattoo too. I wasn't sure, but figured if I got inspired I would do it up. So after a few hours of searching and grabbing brunch, we find a place that was recommended to us and head in.

We end up staying there until about 6pm when Chris' tat is done. During that time I had looked through about 40 tattoo magazines and came up with a theme and some ideas. I left the artist with the idea, and said we would come back tomorrow to see what he came up with.

We then hit up a bar where we knew the owner through a friend in Korea. It was like a punk rock club, and was very cool. Drinks weren't a bad price, and we got treated really well. We drank alot, yadda yadda yadda, and made our way back to our hotel.

The next day was exactly the same as the last, except with me getting tatted instead of Chris.

Took about 5hrs, but it turned out pretty sick.

We ended up at the same club that ngiht because it was close to our hotel, and they had a 2for1 drink special. More yadda, yadda, yadda-ing, and we call it a night really late. oh and I bumped into this guy on the way home:

Our boat back to busan left in the morning at 7:30am, and we woke up at 10am. So much for a wake up call.


So obviously we sleep for another hour, and then head to the boat station.

It ended up not even being a big hassle. We got our time changed, grabbed some food and didn't even have to pay a fee. AND we only had to wait an hour. So by about 5pm, we're through customs safely and back in Korea. I text my girlfriend to let her know I'm in busan and should be home in about 5hours. This was easily the biggest mistake of my trip.

So yeah, like I said earlier, Busan is a port town. This means there are tonnes of foreigners kickin around from all over the world. It was pretty dirty, and dangerous from what some people have said. My girlfriend told me there are tonnes of gangsters there and whatnot. Also, there are tonnes of hookers and other illicit stuff, if you're in to that sort of thing. Anyways, you get my point.

So me and Chris duck into this Philippino bar/restaurant and grab a cheeseburger and a beer. One thing leads to another, and we've lost track of time and missed the last train. Oops. Whatever, we're not in a rush and it's cheap to stay in Busan. So we get drunk and party, but my phone is dead and I can't get hold of my girlfriend. I figure she'll be worried, but how bad could it be? Well, it was.

We got back to our apartments around 4pm the next day or somehting, and I have about 20 text messages that are progressively more scared and worried. I finally get hold of her, and she probably cried for the first 2hours. She had called the police, immigration and just about every office you could think of trying to find me. But they can't give out that information at immigration, so she was left clueless. To make things worse, the immigration guy told her:
"There are two possibilities. #1, he didn't get into Korea and was deported. Or #2, he found out how much fun Busan is, and was having a 'good time'."

LOL, jerk. So yeah, after she stopped worrying and was finally reassured that I was safe, she went off on me about how I was probably cheating and all kinds of other things her imagination could contrive. But whatever, it took a while but i smoothed everything over. Lesson learned.

So that's about it. I'm gonna grind for two more weeks, then I'm off to Bali. Ahh, you've got to love life. :D

july results

I'm back from Japan, after staying a few days longer than expected. Ran into some scheduling problems, but still had tonnes of fun. I'll post a trip report later today. I just want to get my results out of the way in a seperate post.

Cash Games:
77,309 hands for $4,743.46 [$39.57/hr]
Tournaments:
5 played for a net of ($2.89)

Pokerstars Bonii:
$1500 VIP bonus

July Net profit: $6,240.57
----------------------------------------------
Year to date: $42,861.88

I could have hit $10k, but my vacation squashed that. This is because I have a $3k bonus just about to be cleared. oh well, I'll just tack it on to august.

As for my challenge, well --I lost 6 days so that's ~25,000 hands. So yeah, how about 70,000 hands/250km on the bike? The bike goal was going to be easy, so I'm just dropping it so something manageable (12km/day).

I'm sort of disappointed I have to drop the numbers, but hell, traveling is a bigger passion of mine than poker is, so fuckit. Nitpick if you will, but I've got to keep my priorities straight.

WTF?... No seriously... what?

I'm not sure if this is a commercial or a joke? Either way it's terrible.



The funniest/worst part is when Johnny chan says "my full house beats your 3 jacks!!", because....ummm... no it doesn't (The board is JTT99, and Chan tables T9 vs JJ, which makes a beter full house).

As far as my challenge, I might need to cut my hand goal down to 80k, because I forgot I'm going to Japan on sunday. Oops. ANyways, I'll keep you updated.

update

Things are going well in my challenge so far.

I've played about 15k hands already, and the bike's odometer is at 62km. I also dropped a .9KG already.

So, yeah:
15/90
62/300

I'm feeling better already, and I'm settling into a good routine.

Also, today was awesome because the first 2 episodes from the new season of Weeds got leaked a month early. The show is awesome and the season premiere was hilarious. Kevin Nealon is awesome on that show. Check it out if you havn't already. A taste:

Bit of a change

I've had too many people online and off tell me that my weight loss goal is ridiculous. Too many variables to consider, and a lot of the factors will be out of my control.

So I'm switching up my goal to getting my odometer on my bike to 300km instead.
It was 25km yesterday, so that means 275KM before 5pm on the 17th. I guess thats like 11km/day.

I figure this is better, because I could easily manipulate the weight loss one and just starve/dehydrate myself before weigh in. Plus, it could be unhealthy overall. This way, it can't possibly be bad for me.

I'm still going to be concious of what I'm eating, and hopefully a few KGs come off as well.

So to restate:

90k hands
275km on bike

BTW, I'm on a really good pace to knock these both out after day 1 :)

time to get fu#^*@%in motivated

I'm in the midst of a decent sized downswing. I'd guess I'm down like $2,000 - $2,500 this week. It's been getting to me a bit, but I'm fine and the month should still end up being decent I hope.

So yeah, as my title suggests, it's time to get my ass in gear.

2 things.

Play LOTS of hands.
Get in shape.

I said I bought an exercise bike about a month ago. I've put about 25km on it. Lame.
But I think I've realized my problem. I'm a numbers guys, I need results. So I went out and bought a fancy scale that tells me body fat and stuff. So at least now I can set some goals.

I got on the scale this morning, and I'm 88.6kg, with 30% body fat (lol).
My trip to Bali is in less than a month (.

Goal #1 - Lose 4kg and drop down to at least 85.6Kg before I leave (August 17th).*

I have no clue how fast I can drop body fat, so I'll evaluate and set some goals when I return.

Goal # 2 - Play 90k hands before I leave (4k hands/day, pretty much).

Now, it's all fine and dandy to set goals. I've done it before, came up short and had nothing to worry about.

So here's where it gets interesting:

If i DO NOT reach BOTH goals, I will send $50 to the first 20 people who leave a comment (you must have a verifiable blogger account)

Let the comments roll in.

*ediT: I've made some changes to my first goal. See above post, but I'm gonna do 300km on my bike instead.

ship the new camera

I finally bit the bullet and picked up a new camera.


I wasn't really looking for anything too serious, as I don't know much about photography and really have little interest in it.

So I went for something thin, sexy, and simple to use.

I settled on a Sony. The DSC-T100It's pretty hot.

I actually spent like 3k today, but most of it was for my plane tickets. Oh, which reminds me of something I should clarify -- I'm not leaving until next month. I MIGHT however make a short weekend trip to Japan, to visit Fukuoka (I've only been to Osaka).

Poker is going OK. I'm in a bit of break even funk, but the bonuses will help. Still a slim chance at a $10k month.

holla.

Weed Brownies + 200/400NL = ??????

I came across this video today, and it's probably the funniest poker video I've ever seen.

So a few dudes (Krantz, foxwoodfiend and Dean) from my forum get absolutely baked on weed brownies, and decide to play some $200/$400NL (thats a $40,000buyin).

They were playing against perkysmerky, who's a well known high stakes player.

Anyways, here's the hand:

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Hold'em Cash Game - $200/$400 Blinds - 2 Players - (LegoPoker HH Converter)

BB: $47,898.00
pr1nnyraid (SB): $48,598.00

Preflop: pr1nnyraid is dealt 8 6 (2 Players)

pr1nnyraid calls $200.00, BB raises to $1,200.00, pr1nnyraid raises to $4,000.00, BB calls $2,800.00

Flop: ($8000) 3 8 Q (2 Players)

BB checks, pr1nnyraid checks

Turn: ($8000) 8 (2 Players)

BB checks, pr1nnyraid bets $7,000.00, BB raises to $14,000.00, pr1nnyraid raises all-in to $44,598.00, BB calls all-in for $29,898.00

Uncalled bet of $700.00 returned to pr1nnyraid

River: ($95796) 4 (2 Players - 2 All-In)

Pot Size: $95,796.00 ($0.50 Rake)

BB had K Q (two pair, Queens and Eights) and LOST (-$47,898.00)
pr1nnyraid had 8 6 (three of a kind, Eights) and WON ($47,803.00)

And here's the video as it happened:



Dude with the squeeky voice is foxwoodsfiend, and he's saying:
"omghewillneverseethiscoming"
"ifthisgetstoshowdownwewillownhissoulfortherestofhisgoddamnedlife"
"allin, flushdrawsflushdraws"
"thanksforthemoneyperky, thankyousomuch"


Apparently, before the hand went down, Krantz limped without paying attention... he said:
no one was paying any attention and i was high as [censored].
so i limped.
then perky raises and convo goes like this
me: should i repop?
ariel: huh? wtf you limped the button? why?
me: (as i scroll to make it 4k and reraise): why not?

So this video had me pissing myself laughing. But I don't think it's how unorthodoxly it was played. Rather, I think it's the dramatic pause before the river comes down, and then equally how quickly Krantz composed himself after they were done. :)

bali bound

So I got around to booking my trip yesterday. I'll be leaving on the 17th and staying for 5nights. I wish it could be a bit longer, but it's not possible for a couple reasons.

Anyways, we decided to stay at the Hard rock hotel instead, which is around Kuta. They had this 'honeymoon' package which was a really good deal, and included some perks like a romantic dinner, massages, and private cabana by the pool.

We're gonna pimp out in the "Luxury Suite". It's a "Four room luxurious suite featuring a master bedroom and ensuite bathroom, living room complete with home theater system, dining room, kitchenette, additional washroom and walk in wardrobe." Sweet? I think so.

All this talk about travel is getting me excited. Lots of people around here have little trips coming up. Me and my friend Chris were talking about riding the trans-Siberian railroad next summer. If you've never heard of it, it's a railroad that runs from China to London, England.

Pretty cool I think. You can get on and off where ever you want with a one way ticket. I think the trip takes a week, depending on which train you take. So we'll probably take a month and check out most of the stops. All talk right now, but definitely exciting.

And of course I still want to check out Africa. I'm planning on taking 2months off at some point to just explore most of it.

Let me know if you want to tag along! ;)

As an added bonus to this post, here is some hilarious youtube footage:

This is some spoiled rich girl going off on her mom, telling her she hates her right after she bought her a lexus. goddamn.

lol -- song selection is A++++

still here

Yeah, I know... lack of updates. But I'm still kickin'.

I don't really have much going on, I've just been playing a lot. I've managed to get in ~25k hands this week.

I've made some tweaks in my game, and the results have been really good. I think my preflop game has improved significantly.

So things have turned and I'm up about $2,000 for the month so far. I'll also have about $4,500 in bonuses cleared in the next 10 days or so. I'm on a good pace and could easily make this the first $10,000 month of the year.

I could use a good month, as I'm planning a vacation for mid-august. I'm going to check out Bali, Indonesia, with my girlfriend. Should be a great time and super relaxing. It's beautiful there from what I've seen, with lots of interesting things to check out.

I think we're gonna stay at the grand hyatt, just because I ball like that.

I should also probably buy a camera. I wish I could just order one from stars, but they wont ship it to me in Seoul. Anyone have any reccomendations for something nice around $600-$1000?

Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT)

The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) is about to launch its inaugural season, and you better believe that I'm going to be a part of it. Three events have been named so far, and one just so happens to be an hour from my apartment.

The 2nd event will be held in Seoul, at the walker hill casino. It's a nice place to play... I've been two or year times this year.

The buy-in is $2,500, but I'm going to just get sponsored by pokerstars and use my FPPs. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do this, but I've cleared it with support, and I'm a definite go.

The tourney isn't until late September, but I'm already pumped about it. I will probably end up devoting a large chunk of my playing time in September to gear up for the event. So this means playing a bunch of tournaments and what not.

This whole thing has exciting implications for the poker world on a larger scale too. If an interest in poker can be sparked throughout this region, we may see another poker boom of epic proportions. Here's hoping....

In other news, July sucks. I'm down like $1k this month so far. I'm hoping to clear a milestone bonus this month, which will be good for $3000. I'll probably ring up another $1.5k bonus on top of it. 2 if I grind hard enough.

So yeah, I'm not worried yet, the month is young and I'm sure it'll turn around.

oopsie / weekend

First off, I made a pretty significant mistake in my last post and understated my results by about $1200. I had my results filtered to only show certain limits, which omitted the success I've had at some bigger games. Anyhow, the results are now 100% accurate.

My weekend was pretty sweet. I spent friday night with some friends drinking beer, jumping off things and taking pics. Good combo, I know.



That's some serious air.

So after drinking until 6 in the morning, I was up at noon to meet my g/f at SeoulLand amusement park. Oops.

All the rides were pretty tame, but the park was surprisingly empty. NOTHING is ever empty in Korea. So we got a bunch of rides in, but the it was so humid out we called it a day pretty early.
I'm looking forward to playing a lot of poker this month. I'm hoping to log like 100-150k hands. I should also have a cool annoucement in the next week once I have it all sorted out. If you've been on pokerstars in last few days, you'll know what it is. :)

Until then...