The Philippines

My sister and I were on a flight from Dallas to Tokyo on December 31st when we crossed the international date line, meaning I had no New Years this year. The trip was long but being welcomed by warm Manila air quickly had the flights forgotten.

We spent the first few days in Manila doing all kinds of touristy things. My sister is more of a museum/cathedral person so I got dragged along to those. I did get my fix of fun and games at Star City, which is the amusement park in Manila. Though I'm sure that some rides would not pass US safety inspections, I tried out most of them anyways and I must say they were all pretty fun rides. Then the park instafilled up with people so it became a lot harder to navigate through the crowds and the lines became ridiculously long.

me and a cool guy with an iguana

I tried to win a stuffed animal with a basketball game but I failed miserably. A bunch of people had high hopes as they stared at me while I waited for the game to start, I think they figured since I'm tall and white I'd probably shoot like Dirk Nowitzki. I made a mere 5 shots in 25 seconds and disappointed everyone, though. It's really weird walking around because I notice people look over quickly then look away. Then they'll take a quick glance back like "Is he really that tall?" The funny thing is I'm not even THAT tall by Western standards (1.97m) but over here I am likely the tallest person that several of these people will ever see in their lives. Luckily I don't get offended when people stop and point at me. Sometimes I'll notice them right after they look at me as they turn and whisper in someone's ear, who then awkwardly turns and looks over at me as well. Lately I'll try and make eye contact with that person right as he starts to look over at me, just a fun little game I like doing.

Yesterday we went to Ocean Park, a really cool aquarium type park that they have set up on the harbor. Seeing all those colorful fish reminded me a lot of snorkeling in the Maldives, I definitely want to try and snorkel in Australia. There is also a "fish spa" at Ocean Park, where you let so-called doctor fish nibble away at the dead skin on your feet. The fish apparently have some sort of healing powers and I'm not sure if it was psychological or not but my feet really did feel rejuvenated afterward.

i can't upload the picture i took but it looks just like this

We're spending our last two days in Angat, a province about 1.5 hours outside of Manila. My Dad lives here and I wasn't quite sure what to expect before we arrived. The apartment itself is nice, but their landlord raises roosters for local cockfights, which happens to be a national sport in the Philippines and is also shown on television. I did some reading about it and apparently in the Philippines they attach blades to the legs of the roosters during battle. Anyway, the apartment is surrounded by these roosters, I counted over 30 of them. Contrary to common belief, they cock-a-doodle-doo at all hours of the day, not just at sunrise. As one can imagine, the quality and length of my sleep has not been outstanding.

Overall I'm pretty impressed by the Philippines not only because I'm having a great time, but also because Filippinos are generally such nice people. Manila, like most big cities around the world, has its good districts and bad districts. As a whole the city is relatively dirty, but that is not a very big surprise. Both the Spanish and American influences are very evident, almost everything here is in English. The food is also ridiculously westernized in certain parts of Manila: McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, Taco Bell, KFC, Shakeys, TGIF, etc. It's like I never left Kansas!

We leave on Wednesday to Sydney, then we'll be there for a couple days before making the drive down to Melbourne. Since we're driving down the coast I want to make it a point to go swimming every day. For anyone in Germany reading this, I'll be sure to think of you when I jump in :)

2008: My year in review

Similar to my review of 2007, I figured I'd write up a few sentences about each month of this past year. Enjoy!

January '08: I began the year down under in a trip that was filled with poker and tennis. Andy Black knocked me out of the Main Event with the good old I-have-a-flush-draw-so-I'll-throw-all-money-in-even-if-it-is-4x-the-pot-amount move.

February '08: EPT Dortmund was a two-day tournament for me. I should have gone home right away but instead I stayed and hurricaned off a ton of money playing chinese poker $*%#!! tilt. The rest of the month I go into grindmode and win what I can with an upswing. What would I do without online poker?

March '08: My online results plummet but I am distracted by tons of NCAA basketball on TV. A trip to Vienna turns out to be unsuccessful both in tourneys and cashgames. A great NL 20/40eur game develops around some spewy Russians but I'm unable to capitalize. Little did I know I would be seeing the Russians again a couple weeks later in happier times.

April '08: Two EPTs in San Remo and Monte Carlo both have me finishing out of the money but both were great trips nonetheless. Italy and France in the springtime are phenomenal. I recoup all my March losses online, now I just have to get my live results in order.

May '08: My favorite trip of the year, the PartyPoker Million Cruise. 7 days of touring through Greece/Turkey/Croatia/Italy with great weather and a ton of poker. My Russian friends give me my money back with interest on board in cash games. The Main Event does not go so well but Alex Jung ships the tourney. Chris and I start our 5k challenge.

June '08: Vegas!!! I warm up with a $1500 shorthanded and a $5000 shootout tourney where I end up heads up with Phil Tom, father of AP founder Scott Tom. He tells me he and his son spend a lot of time in Thailand as sex tourists these days (true story). He was unbeatable that day and even went on to win the bracelet (lol donkaments). Then came another $2500 shorthanded and a $5000 shorthanded, which I bubble. Butttttttt Seb manages the win and ships a world championship bracelet! Shortly afterwards Martin Klaeser ships another one! I don't know if we'll be able to top their bracelet party this year, I kinda doubt it.

July '08: I luckbox my way through the Main Event, most notably on Day 3 at the very first hand of the bubble. I get set-over-setted but quickly turn it into a quads-over-full house situation obv. I even get some TV table time though none of it aired on ESPN. Eventually I make my exit in 99th place for around $51k. Picture blogs of Vegas can be seen here and here.

August '08: CelebPoker invite us to London for some go-karting and a Kylie Minogue concert. I got rigged out of the karting but the concert was very entertaining! After getting back to Berlin I lose the 5k challenge to Chris, it's still making me mad writing about it.

September '08: Rake race on BossMedia. After 14 days and 191k hands I win the rake race as expected :) Meanwhile Seb takes down another tournament, this time EPT Barcelona. This calls for an EPT Bracelet party.

October '08: Happy birthday to me! I spend my bday in London after busting from the EPT on Day 1. I then am offline for a whole week while vacationing on the Maldives, a place I will definitely be returning to.

November '08: Some unsuccessful shots prove to be quite expensive and expensive remains the theme of the month. The Deutsche Meisterschaften are a fun getaway but Day 2 is my final station.

December '08: Boring online grinding and the start of my journey around the world begins in Kansas. So far I've hit up Salt Lake City for some skiing which turned out to be a blast (minus my skis going missing on the first day). On Wednesday I'll head towards the Philippines with my sister, prepared for a culture shock.

Wrapped in a nutshell, 2008 was an awesome year for me lifewise and a decent one pokerwise. I can't fully say that I am satisfied with the results, only having one semi-significant live poker cash after playing all those big buy-in tournaments was certainly a disappointment. The online games are getting harder by the day and the variance that accompanies that change is no fun to deal with.

That being said, 2008 enabled me to see different parts of the world (I should really start saving frequent flyer miles) and that is something I want to continue through the new year. This year I'll be starting in the Philippines followed immediately by Australia, similar to last year. At some point during the year I'd like to make it to South America as I've never been there yet and I've heard so many good things about it.

2009 is going to be a great year, I can feel it! CelebPoker have decided to sponsor me for several live tournaments and that is something I have been wanting for a very long time now! I'm so happy that we finally worked out a deal that will see me playing some live tournaments wearing CelebPoker's flag. Those of you who have followed this blog know that they have been my site of choice since the early days, getting to know the people behind the operation have just solidified my opinion of the site.

As far as goals are concerned, I'd really like to improve my live poker results. I know the shortterm variance makes live poker results pretty meaningless and winning a tournament requires an insane amount of luck (now imagine how much luck winning two tournaments takes *cough cough*) but still I think with enough focus I can really come up with a significant cash or two.

Thanks to anyone who still throws an eye on my blog from time to time. I'll try to keep it as updated as I have in the past though it's not always easy. I love the freedom to blog whenever I want and have turned out offers to blog at paid sites because I don't want the obligation of having to blog x amount of times in a month. I appreciate all the comments, they are what really keep me blogging!

Sick, literally.

I'm not sure what it was but something made me feel a little under the weather as I was packing last night. Maybe it was the fact that I had to pack for both summer and winter weather and try to jam a month's worth of stuff into two suitcases without forgetting something (I just noticed I forgot my American cell phone). Or maybe it was the steak that Luckbox treated us to a few hours beforehand because he was in town for a visit. Right before we left for the airport it finally caught up with me and I puked, begging that that would be the end of it.

When I got to the airport there was a pretty long line at the check-in but I managed to get almost to the very front before I began to feel very dizzy then started sweating like a wild animal. I walked up to one of the workers and asked him if I could leave my bags there really fast because I felt sick, but he clearly told me no. I could not wait so I just ignored him and walked over to the bathroom. He chased me down as if he had seen the next Bin Laden but I think his doubts were rested when he witnessed me vomit in the stall. I asked him to notify the cleaning personnel that it did not look pretty in there.

I considered calling off the trip right there but I didn't want to disappoint my family who were waiting for me in Kansas City. Luckily I immediately passed out on the plane and woke up with just a couple hours to fly before arriving in New York. My stomach felt fine, the sweating had stopped and I made it "home" without any further incidents. After arriving in KC, I made the traditional drive to Taco Bell and even that stayed down just fine so I knew the stomach virus had left my system once and for all!

Now I'm here for just Christmas Eve, tomorrow is Christmas Day and we're on a 10am flight to Salt Lake City for some skiing and to visit my step-sister and her family!

Merry Christmas!

and the winner is........

1st place:

submitted by Tosh

Runner ups:

submitted by Anonymous

submitted by Raminator

submitted by Anonymous

One more honorable mention is this picture (NSFW) submitted by Anonymous. Mom, don't click that link! A lot of the suggestions really had me laughing, some more than others but all in all I'm pretty pleased with the result. Congrats to Tosh for the $100 (contact me with your Stars/FTP screenname please). Thanks to everyone who took the time to think of an idea and post it!

On the pokerfront, things have still not been running so well for me. I only have a few more days in Berlin before beginning my month-long journey to USA-Philippines-Australia so I only have a few more sessions to play before getting away from the game for a while. I've ordered a couple DVDs and even purchased a (non-poker) book to keep me entertained on the long plane/car rides. Man I hate flying.

Photoshop contest

Unfortunately Nasr busted out in 7th place but still got €99k for his efforts. In honor of his success, I'm offering $100 to the person who best fills the empty speech bubble. Also, feel free to edit the picture's contents for bonus points!

Go Nas Dog Go

GL to Nasr el Nasr who's at the final table of EPT Prague. He's got 376k chips which is good enough to be in 6th place out of the remaining 8 players. As I pointed out a couple blogs ago, he just started a trip around the world. It was really looking like Seb was gonna make the FT as well but he bubbled out in 9th place :( Still, nice work and congrats!

Travel plans

The first couple days of the month really looked like things were turning around but that hope has been killed completely since then. So far I've put in around 17k hands losing around 1 euro/hand, but I'm not too concerned about it for the time being. I am happy with my game, the desired results will follow sooner or later.

I'm actually going to be taking a month off from late December through late January as I'll be doing some world travelling. My schedule looks something like this:
Dec 23-25 Kansas for Christmas
Dec 25-28 Salt Lake City with the family for some skiing
Dec 28-31 Kansas
Dec 31-Jan 7 Philippines with my sister to visit my Dad
Jan 7 - 12 Fly to Sydney and drive down the coast for 5 days to Melbourne with my sister
Jan 12-25 Melbourne for the Aussie Millions

The only poker I'll be playing during the trip will be at the Aussie Millions, so it should be great to get away from the tables for a bit and spend some time with my family. I'm really not looking forward to all the flying, especially the long flights, but balling out for a private jet just isn't quite realistic yet :)

To get into the Xmas spirit I've been listening to Straight No Chaser - 12 Days. A capella at its finest. If you have some time, check out their other songs as well. You won't regret it.