Japan is tight passive.

Tokyo rocks! I had never been to Japan before and I recommend it to anyone. The office is situated in a Rappongi which is the late night part of town. There are bars and clubs everywhere, even the restaurants are open until 5am. Nothing beats Sushi at 8am. They party hard, they get drunk, scream out bad 'engrish' karaoke, fall asleep at the bar yet there is not one sign of any trouble. They seem to avoid all confrontation. The Japanese have so much respect for each other. Everything is met with a nod of the head, a slight bow or a full bow where their head almost touches their knees. The lower they go, the more respect they are showing.

Its easy to see why Poker will probably never become popular here. As i said the typical Japanese person has been brought up avoiding confrontations. They dont like to gamble, I dont believe there are any casinos in Tokyo. Its all about tradition, working hard, control and respect.

If Japan were a poker player I believe they would play very few hands. They would fold to any aggression.

In poker terms Japan is tight passive.


But I love this place...


I have not much to say on the poker news. I have been playing on an old account at FTP. I have taken these past 2 weeks to play Omaha High. I bought a great book on Omaha High and have started to put that into practice. Jeff Hwang is the author and this book shows me an insight to the game that I just wasnt thinking about. Its easy to say 'all four cards should work together' but its another thing to show how to look for 13 card wraps, redraws to the nuts and freerolling. This book is the Harrington on Holdem bible of Omaha Hi. Get it and get in on the game while its still full of bad players.... ahem like me.

Being on a laptop without my pokertracker/pahud 2 screen setup I decided to play a few tournaments alongside my Omaha Hi games. I had a nice little result in one of the low buyins..




2nd place for $354. Its not the money that makes me smile its getting to the final table and playing well. I could not fault my game last night which is unusual as my tournament game has sucked ass recently. I recently read Hoyazo's blog about his run in the 50-50 tournaments and he quotes

"So much of mtt's is about mental state. Being mentally prepared to actually wait for the good cards and the playable situations. Being emotionally able to recover quickly from the inevitable bad beats you will take over a several-hour affair. Being in the right mental state to make the 8th laydown over 2 hours when you've repeatedly been caught stealing. It is a delicate balance of playing consistently within these correct states of mind, combined with a fair amount of luck just to really spice things up, that it takes to make a deep run in a big mtt like these 5050 tournaments are every night."

This to me really tripped a switch in my head. My cash game has been about loosening up, raising KQo early, reraising with 33 in position etc, making moves that in a low buy in multi table tournament (MTT) just doesnt work over the long run early in tournaments. Being mentally prepared for the good cards is so true. Be patient let the situations come to you early and loosen up as you go deeper. Keep an eye on your M and dont let yourself drop down to a low stack. Steal a few times, spot the aggressive players and trap them good. Patience is key.

Im back to my cash games at AP next week. My 5,000 hands per month is two weeks behind now so will get cracking on that. My bankroll on AP is as it was 2 posts below, just short of $2500. Looking in the distance now at my next benchmark $4000.

Ryverrat