The family be Clubbin until the wheels fall off!

I wanted to try and write about each and every day that goes on here in Vietnam, but there's so much to do and so little time that I haven't been able to do so. It's already Sunday here in Vietnam (we're a day ahead) and it seems like only a day or so has gone by. On friday we decided to do a little shopping and hit the market. The market is pretty much 7 mile fair in Wisconsin where you can pretty much find anything you want; but here in vietnam it's so much better. They have everything from jewelry like jade bracelets, necklaces, rings, statues, toys, any kind of asian food you can think of; clothes, footwear, fabric, electronics, souvenirs, etc. I could go on an on, but I think you get the point…. That’s the place to go shopping!

The kewl thing about it is that most of the places you can bargin for different things, so if that’s your kind of thing you can bargin to get the lowest price on an item or just look somewhere else for it, for a cheaper price. My cousin Linh is definitely a pro at it though. What we would do is, if I wanted something I would tell here and then she would tell the person selling the item to go lower and if they wouldn’t go down to a price we would like, we would walk away.

Now this is where my impulse kicks in, and I’m definitely bad at that. If I want something I usually want it then and there. So the first time we did the bargining, and we were walking away my impulse instinct kicked in and I kept telling my brother and Linh, that we should go back and just get the item I wanted. But Linh just winked at me and my brother said just watch and hold up….. And sure enough the person selling the item, would come running up to us telling us that they well sell the item we wanted for the price we wanted. It was bargining at it’s finest, and I have Linh to thank for that. I think if I want to go shopping anywhere I have to take her with!

After we done a little shopping and hanged out at the hotel, we went out to look for this restaurant my mom seen in this Vietnam book. If you have never went to Vietnam, the streets are crazy with traffic with people in cars, bikes and mopeds and bicycles. If you thought Chicago traffic was crazy you should go here! I actually think that the Vietnamese people are better drivers, but there are so many people riding vehicles that it’s very intimidating to cross the street. You pretty much have to just pick a spot and just go, and just walk slowly, otherwise your arse will get hit! Another thing is you can’t ever hesitate otherwise you’ll get hit as well, but after the first couple times you’ll get use to walking in the street.

We couldn’t find the place my mom was looking for so we went to this place that was recommended by some local security guard out in the street that was across from where he was at. It was pretty good food considering I’m the most picky eater in the world! I actually ordered a Australian steak with fries (my cuz from Australia calls them chips) and my brother ordered this orange chicken. I wish I would’ve picked what my brother did because that stuff was great! My brother keeps trying to find that plate at every restaurant we go to now, and I have to agree with him, it was excellent! The food was actually a little more expensive then a usual restaurant, but I think it was well worth it.

Our bellies were all full, and we wanted to go out dancing, so we went out to hit the clubs and see how they did it Vietnamese style. The first club we went to, was actually right next door, so that was really kewl because we didn’t have to do any walking around. I really don’t care how far we go because these days I’m not walking I’m just rolling! My brother does all of the pushing, so I have to give big props to him helping me out. One thing is for sure in Vietnam; it’s definitely not a place for wheelchairs. The sidewalks (if you can call them that, are all uneven and have potholes and big curbs ranging from 8 inches to 2 feet, so my brother Jason is always having a workout pushing my arse around! They are some ramps by the edge of the curbs, but everybody parks there motorcycles on the sidewalk so half the time Jason’s pushing me in the street with all the hundreds of drivers. Since I have been here I have not seen 1 WHEELCHAIR! That’s prolly why everybody looks at us when we are walking around. That, and because we are also tourists.

So let me get back to talking about the club. I forgot the name of the club, but it was on the second floor ( more steps yippie for me and Jason!) and when we got upstairs and went it it was dark as hell. It was so dark that the people working there would shine a flashlight on the ground to show us where to sit down. It was like a restaurant slash club, and when we went in there, we saw a couple of people dancing to the band that was playing this jazz rock Vietnamese music. After a couple of minutes a guy came by us and flashed his flashlight at the menu to show us what was on the menu to drink. We were there for about 10 minutes and then the band stopped playing, and then all of a sudden this house beat kicked in and everybody got up and started dancing! One this is for sure in Vietnam…. They love there house/techno music!


There was actually an older crowd of people dancing to the music, which surprised me because I didn’t think many people over 35 liked electronic music, but there they were kickin a groove to the beats. I’d like to point out the all the older people were men and they were dancing with women that looked half their age. The club had decent lights, but for some reason they just mostly used the strobe lights. My mom and dad actually came with us and they had their hands over their eyes practically the whole time the house music was goin on, because of the strobe lights. We were about to go, but after 30 minutes, the house music stopped and the band came back to play, so we decided to stay a little bit longer because they were playing a couple slow songs and gus,linh,mom and my dad got up and slow danced.

We decided to leave after a couple of slow songs, and my ozzy (Australian) and Vietnamese cousins wanted to hit up another club so off we went! My mom and dad actually wanted to come to another club, so we all went. It kinda surprised me because my mom hasn’t really ever went to a club, and my dad looked pretty jet lagged. We found this other nightclub not to far away call the Rainforest. When we went in it looked just like a club you would see in the states. They had a couple of tables in the back and the dance floor took up the rest of the room. They had a DJ spinning some house,techno and everybody looked like they were having a good time. Someone was having a birthday because there was TV screens saying happy birthday to the person, and someone on the mic would say happy birthday every 10 minutes as well.

The DJ wasn’t that good though, because at one time he just killed the flow ( a sign of a bad DJ ) and at one poin the played a remix version of MC Hammer, “ You Can’t Touch This “, so when I heard that I just laughed out loud. It was pretty packed, but the music all stopped at midnight because it was more of a restaurant than a club, which kinda surprised me because it looked straight up like a club from the states. When the music stopped at midnight we all left and went to the hotel to sleep, because we had to get up early to do another adventure the next day.

Well that pretty much sums it all up for that day! I’m actually 2 days behind on telling you what happened, but I’m not going to forget what happened on those days. I will write about it as soon as I can get on the internet again and actually have time to do so again. We are actually going to another hotel at this resort by the ocean called Vung Tau and are getting up at 8am. I’ve been up writing all this for about 2 hours now and it’s midnight already, so I have to get some sleep in. ( if you don’t know me that well, I LOVE SLEEP)

I’ll be writing about the day after this and the next day as soon as I get some time again….. But until then…. Raise that Pot!

Touchdown T-minus 26 hour later

Well I'm finally here and wow, what a journey! We started from Chicago and then took a Korean Air all the way to Souel which was a exhausting 13 hour & 1/2hr flight. It was a pretty decent flight though, they gave us a kewl little pouch with a pair of socks, toothbrush, eye mask, and all that good stuff for the plane ride. They keep feeding us with little things and 2 main meals, and had 2 movies on the flight as well, but one movie was the crappy sequel to Zorro and this korean movie, that I only watched half us, because the person in front of me had a big ass head.

We finally got off the flight and they we were layed over in Korea for 3 hours. The Korean airport was pretty kewl though. Every thing was high in technology... even the bathrooms. A carton of cigs was only 15 bucks!!!! I don't even smoke... but I had to buy a carton just cause, and I could hook anyone up with a smoke if they asked me for money. They had this wacky game show on TV, at the airport, where there were a bunch of guys and they were trying to guess how many fingers a person was holding, but the person would wave his hand around super fast so it was real difficult to see how many fingers he was holding. If the person guessed wrong, the guy holding up the fingers, would flick the guy who got it wrong right in the head! It was funny as hell and I didn't have to understand the language. They reality shows are way better than ours in america. I could watch that for ever an ever.

After that me and my bro went out to get our last burger, before the good ol nam, so we hit up the good old burger king for my last double bacon cheeseburger. It costed 15000 W in korean money. I really don't know how much that is in american, but it wasn't that much. I'll know exactly how much it was when I go back... I'll take a look at the currency rate.

I munched down my burger, and watched the rest of that crazy game show. After that I busted out my poker chips and a deck of cards ( yes i brought chips and cards... I'm a poker player for life!) to teach my mom how to play poker. It took about 1hr to teach her all the basics, an she understands it alot more, but still don't know the names of the hands. But She actually played pretty good for the first time, so next time I watch poker on TV, she will understand it alot better and get into it alot more. I actually played heads up on the plane with my brother too. We played 2 outta 3 and I took it down. ( who else you think won?)

It was finally time to leave the korean airport and go to Vietnam finally! So it was another 5 hours until touchdown at Ho Chi Minh city. We had yet ANOTHER meal, and after that I just tried to sleep and listen to that new Harland Williams comedy CD. Of coarse he did a wookie joke and did the chewbacka yell. DDDDDDDDDRRRRRRRRRRRR!

When we got to the Vietnam airport, it was if we went back in time 20 years. The airport was all basic with old desks and everything out of date technologywise. The bathrooms were small and simple and I could barely get my wheelchair in there to pee. One thing is for sure.... Vietnam wasn't built for peeps in wheelchairs!!!!!

One the ride to the hotel, it was crazy! They hardly have any traffic lights and mopeds and motorcycles everywhere! You think chicago is bad, come to Vietnam.... Traffic is insane! You definately have to keep your eyes peeled, because they will be a moped to the left,right,back,front of you!

Well I'm going to get back to talking and socializing with the whole family. I'll hop back on and update whenever I get some more free time. My hotel has a internet cafe, so I'll be updating it more than I though.

Until then... Keep it real in the USA!

Goin to the NAM

Nam?

Vietnam foo! Yup, as I speak my whole family is racing to have everything ready for the long trip. It's about a 14 hours flight there, plus a 4 hour layover in korea. We will be goin to Chicago to Korea, and then from Korea to Vietnam. My old man said that there will be wifi on the actual plane, and I hope so, so I can have a little more time to update and tell you more things about the trip. In Vietnam they have only dial up, but at least they have a internet connection. I brought alot of things to keep me entertained on the trip, and my doctor prescribed some sleepin pills too, in case I want to sleep on the trip; since it is 14 hours! I'm going to try and see if there's any poker rooms there in the good ol Ho Chi Minh and I'll comeback and touchdown as soon as I can plug in. Until then, Raise that pot!

Promo of the week

This is actually a pre-registration of a new poker site coming out called Spades Lounge. If you preregister you are in the 40k freeroll and the 3g freerolls as well. So I wanted to give you all a heads up on it so you can get in on this potential free money. Here’s the link… http://www.spadeslounge.com/Preregistration.aspx

It's been awhile!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything in my blog, and the reason why is after the 2 month binge in Minnisota, I have been chillin pretty hard at home. I'm just about back to normal mode after coming back and have paid all my bills (most of them) and replied back to everyone trying to get ahold of me since I left.

On the poker side of things, I've been barely playing compared to the played I did before. Right now I play about an hour or two of limit at the 1/2$ tables online. Why have I gone down to 1/2$ now? Well limit online is a little different than live play, but I've been spending alot of time studying the game of No Limit Tournaments since that is my best game. Since the last time I wrote, I've won a 400$ freeroll and 1st prize was $80. So that's not too shabby, and I've been doing pretty decent on the sit n go tournaments as well. I just have been playing alot less tournaments (for now)

I plan on going back to full speed and upping the ante to $10,$20 Sng's as soon as I get done doing a couple things I've been meaning to finish for a long time. For instance, I've bought a 5 disc dvd on poker from gus hansen and friends, that I haven't had time to watch and also I have a couple books I need to finish up on as well. In fact I'll be finishing up a book as soon as I get this blog entry finished.

Poker School has been pretty kewl, although I've only been to one seminar since I came back, but I'm ready and I'm not going anywhere for a month I can do alot of catching up and attend a ton of seminars. For those of you who haven't heard about this school, it's run by Brett Jungblut the wsop bracelet winner for Omaha hi/low in 2004. Here's a link of the site Pro Poker School

Take a look at it, you don't have buy a year membership to the school, you can buy single seminars on subjects that you want to learn, or check the schedule for a free seminar so you can see what it's all about! I'll be keepin in touch more frequently, so keep on checking back! I usually sent out a little mailing list, so if you want to be on it just reply with your email addy and I'll add you to the list.

Now raise an make'em fold!

Road to Perdition

I only got 4 hours rest before I went to bed, so I was pretty tired to go and almost didn't. But I told Paul I wanted a ride the day before, so I just went. THAT WAS THE 1ST MISTAKE ( I wanted to read a little more info on limit) Paul asked me if I had seen what was outside, and I responded no of coarse, since I don't see the outside very often. I'm like a cat that hisses when it feels like it is threatened. He showed me a mountain of snow outside and so we put on the snow chains for my wheelchair and off we were! The salt from truckers tires got all over Paul's window when we were driving, and the washer fluid wasn't squirting high enough to clean the window, so we pretty much Ace Ventura'ed it all the way to the next gas station, with a couple wrong exits and turns in the mix, but we finally got to the club; body parts still attached.

I ate my usual brakefast and off the the tables I was! The table I was at pretty much sucked after my first hand (so far every time I sat down at a table for the first time, I win the pot) because there were two maniacs at the table. So there was no seeing a flop with out it being raised at least once preflop. Half the time it was capped! I played when I had good cards to play and of coarse it was capped preflop by this d00d named chester, but I flop a nut flush. Of coarse the pot is capped almost every turn, and he gets his 2 outer on the river on me. So I put my name on the board to move to a different seat as fast as I could.

I got to the next table and this table was even worse! Every hand I would play I would get sucked out on the river! It happened so much the dealer was like, "man, you've been having horrible beats man you should take a brake." It was good advice because I was starting to steam then and he simmered it down a little....... but not enough. I started loosining my starting hands and started calling turns and rivers when I should've just folded, and had the patience to get premium hands. So, I was definately not playing my A-game after all those beats, and playing marginal hands after getting beat all those times, made me loose double when I should've just lost on the bad beats. I actually didn't win a hand until after sitting there for 2 hours, because I either got beat on the river or the hands were just so terrible that I had to just fold and be gone with the hands. and that just lost me more money. Like I said before and I'll say it again, Limit and No Limit are poker games the they play like night and day compared to the two.

In the end I came out negative, but walked out with some valuable, but expensive lessons. Lets hope they pay off!

Preboot Camp

I'm back here for round two of the Canterbury Park mission, and going to invest my time and Bankroll towards limit for now, and I think it's going to be a very good investment at that. I've been here for about 5 days now getting all situated and I wanted to catch up on some knowledge before I sit back down again. Not that I couldn't sit down right now, I just wanted to be prepared for everything and anything, especially getting every extra ducket that I can in the pot.

The Wolf, my bro and me have been all crammed up in one room for the past 4 days because Paul didn't come up until later, but finally arrived today at 6am. I stayed up until he came, and then had a little session before bedtime. My bro and I just got done rearranging our room, so we are all situated now and I'm just waiting for his ass to get home from the gym, so I can grip on some food. He actually goes to the gym after he works for 10 hours! Reason why is so he whole body doesn't get outta wack, because he only uses certain muscles while working. I guess he don't want to look like Popeye. My plan is to hit up the Park on saturday and try and work my mojo. Saturday is always a good day for the bones to be rollin. Hopefully my way!

Until then...
Ez

The Canterbury Park Plan

The Canterbury Park Plan

I got a good nights rest, the day before and was pretty hyped to get there ( I actually had trouble sleeping for a couple hours because I was thinking to much. I got myself out of bed and made sure Paul was up, and he decided to just take me to the Park, and my bro would drive to work with Wolf. Just as we arrived at the Park, Paul gets a call from my brother saying his car won’t start so poor Paul had to go back to the hotel to pick those cats up and then go to work. But enough about them, lets get to the casino.

The place was pretty dead since it was 6:30am, but as long as there’s a table for me to play on I don’t care. I wanted to have a little breakfast first so I got me my favorite breakfast meal, 2 eggs, 2 toast, 4 pieces of bacon and a glass of OJ. I have a whole system for eating the meal, but I won’t get into that. I gave the service lady a generous of enough tip that she said it made her start of the day.

I put my name up on the board for the 2/4 and got called before I could even check the coat I borrowed from Paul. After I got back and sat in my seat, I took a hundo in chips an started my day off. I doubled up pretty quickly, but then caught some bad luck on a couple big pots that were capped. One had I had the nut flush and this guy hit his out on the river and gave him a full house.

The hand that really got me was when I was in mid position and had a pocket pair of deuces, and this guy that bought in with 20 and looked like Coolio, capped it preflop and I was heads up with d00d. The flop came 2,3,3 rainbow, and I flopped a full house. The turn was a 6 and we capped it with 4 bets. I put him on a set of 3’s by now and the river came a 7. For some reason he slowed down and just checked and I bet 4 and he called.

I flip over my 2’s and he flips over 7,3! I felt like going to the bathroom to go and throw up. He was trying to buy the pot preflop and thought I was just bluffing for some reason, prolly because I was winning alot of hands, while he was at the table. My bankroll went all the way down to 40 bones at one time, but I managed to hang on and kept on rolling.

When I first sat at the table there was this guy by the name of Aaron that sat next to me. He had been playing for more than 20 hours and still playing. He pretty much made the day go by just talking about poker among other things. One time this old d00d sitting next to Aaron, actually said, “ jesus Christ, will shut up for a second my hurting my ears!” Aaron replied back.. “ don’t say the lords name in vain”. After that I had to brake the ice because it was getting serious after that and the whole table was having fun before that.

Aaron stay there as long as I did,(27hours around) and he lost about 300 hundo while I was sitting at the table with him. He told me that he didn’t care if he won, he just played to see if he could stay up as long as he could and still do it. That’s not really the plan I would really go for, because if your tired, you will just make errors that you normally wouldn’t do, and it wouldn’t just stop after a couple of errors, which would mean more and more money lost on just trying to hit any 2 cards you have. You will start thinking that you have to play until you are even, but I learned that if you just stop playing while you are at a loss; you are already even in money. Just wait until the next day and start off fresh.

I played at that same table for 10 hours and it went by just like a snap of the fingers. At the end of the day I had 9 stacks of 40 sitting next to me and that was definately intimidating my opponents that were at my table. I walked out of there with 4 racks (360 bones) and a big grin on my face. The plan was a success, and I think I could grind this out just like I did every single day I play!

So Wolf and the Paul and my brother are off for the week for Thanksgiving and coming back on Sunday. I’ll be coming back with them as well, and I’ll be going to my job at the tables while they go do there job. Paul is nice enough to hook me up with a ride to the Park as long as I give him gas money, but of coarse that’s fine with me. I’ll even include brakefast, shit!

This is a great opportunity for me since I can’t get out of the house and go to the tables whenever I want and there isn’t a card club where I leave either so, this is the perfect for me to test out my limit holdem skills to the fullest. And I definitely need some more knowledge in the game, so I’ll be getting my SS2, and my Limit Holdem resources that I have never touched until now. It really sucks that they don’t have No Limit, but I don’t play so hot when it comes to No Limit cash games anyway. I think I see my future already. Me playing Limit Holdem for Cash Games and me Playing NLHE for the tournaments. Usually people play limit before no limit when they learn the game, but I guess I’m doing the vice-versa approach to it.

I never really was a big fan of the Limit but I’m starting to like it. I don’t think I would ever play it at any home game still, but as for the live play I’m down for it for now. We’ll see how it all goes in a couple of weeks.