Inside a real Kumite by Michael Schiavello. (click the link at the bottom of the page to read the rest of the article and see the Kumite video)
IN A GYM ON THE FOURTH FLOOR OF ICHIGEKI PLAZA IN TOKYO, Artur Hovhannisyan stands by a full-length window and looks down upon the streets of Ebisu though his thoughts are miles away. His white gi is pristine and a black belt adorns his waist with three gold bars on the tip (one for each dan ranking). With his shaved head and clean appearance, the 33-year-old Armenian could pass as a banker or an accountant. Indeed it’s not until you see his calloused knuckles and stare into the black abyss of his eyes that you realize who you’re really standing face-to-face with.
“It’s time,” says a voice from across the room.
“Osu!” grunts Hovhannisyan. He slams his fist into his palm, lets out a loud breath and is led out of the gym by two officials with all the solemnity of wardens leading a death-row inmate to the chair. Hovhannisyan enters the tiny Honbu (headquarters) dojo and the wooden door slides shut behind him. The eerie thud of a Taiko drum renders the room silent. As he gazes around the dojo his eyes widen; only now does he truly comprehend the gravity of what lies ahead. On the floor sit one hundred black and brown belts, legs crossed, perfectly postured. They’re bare knuckled and hungry, like a pack of jackals ready to rip Hovhannisyan apart at the limbs.
At 13:00 Kancho Shokei Matsui, Kyokushin Karate’s global leader, addresses the dojo. His voice is soft and melodic, unbefitting of a man who twenty-three years ago steamrolled his way through the Hyaku-Nin Kumite (100-Man Kumite) with a record 76 knockouts. He directs attention to a small altar and invokes the blessing of Kyokushin’s late founder, Sosai Mas Oyama, or God. Perhaps both — though one wonders how any sort of spiritual serenity can exist in the masochistic madness that is about to unfold. Then again traditional Karate is as much a spiritual pursuit as it is a physical one. The small ceremony, precisely worded in Japanese and conducted with complete attentionto detail, seems to still the ego, empty the mind, and raise the vibrational energy of the room in an almost shamanistic way.
I want to change about 150k fpp. Is there a limit regarding what amount I can change using the concierge service on Pokerstars? I know that it can only be used once per month. I have changed amount of 500-1000$ at the rate of 500$/31000 fpp.
One of the best/most important ted speeches i've listened to imo. It is not very for lack of a better phrase at 4AM intellectually stimulating especially as ted speeches go (no new information to anyone who has examined the ideas at all). But damnit the idea is so fucking important in today's world.
Hey guys, I'm landing in Vegas tomorrow. I'll be there for about 10 days.
Going to play a bunch of 2/5 and get out of make up with any luck at all. Been thinking a lot about poker again the last couple of days and working on making sure my game is strong.. I feel pretty good about it.
But I want to have a couple of nights hanging out with mah frienz. Here's the place to let me know what's going down. I won't be online but to check my e-mail for the next 3 weeks so get at me NOW if you want to trade phone numbers n shit. I'll be staying like one block off the strip, flamingo ave I think.. on the Wynn side of the strip. Won't have a car.
I need to know what Moneybookers currency you use for eurosites.
Do you have USD or EURO for your main account?
(so you can transfer back and forth from eurosites without getting hit with exchange rates)
When you cashout from Moneybookers EURO currency to CAD bank account, are you hit with 2 currency exchange fees?
(EURO to USD, then USD to CAD)
Also does anyone have a contact email/phone number for canadians or any email? I don't want to contact them with international phone rate + I cannot access my old Moneybookers account and can't seem to contact them any other way than logging in (which I can't) or calling.
Thank you for the help
(I know that you are allowed to have 2 Moneybooker accounts. So since my 1st account I can't access/get a hold of them, my 2nd account will either be USD or EURO)
HERO POKER CEO’s JUNE 2011 PLAYER’S UPDATEby HeroPoker-CEO, June 06
1. EXISTING PROMOTIONAL UPDATES
Triumvirate Hero $100 Daily – US & CANADA ONLY
“To the victor goes the spoils”
The point of this tournament is that it is only top 3 that pay out and this will not change. It is a daily shot of getting back in the game. Not for the feeble hearted.
-Triumvirate Hero $100 Daily has been modified to include Canada
-Blinds have been reduced to 8mins from 10mins
-Break is now synchronized at 55min on the hour
Tournament Details:
-Client Location: Tournaments: Scheduled: Special
-7pm PST, 10pm EST (21:00 Game Server Time)
-6 handed, 8min blinds (antes), 3,000 starting chips
-Top 3: $50, $30, $20
-Registration: 1 hour before, no late registration
-300 Max Players
2. NEW DAILY PROMOTION
MTT Hero $99 Daily – US & CANADA ONLY
“Heroes make their own Destiny: Go MTT or Cash”
This tournament provides $11 in cash for each of the top 9 finishers.
This $11 can be used for cash games or for a tournament buy-in for many of the daily guaranteed tournaments or as a satellite for the $109 entry 100k Sunday Guarantee. This is meant to be just a stepping stop for an MTT Hero. Players can opt just to use it as cash as is.
Tournament Details:
-Client Location: Tournaments: Scheduled: Special
-4pm PST, 7pm EST (18:00 Game Server Time)
-9 handed, 5 min blinds (antes), 5,000 starting chips
-Top 9: $11 each
-Registration: 2 hours before, no late registration
-300 Max Players
3. GENERAL CEO THOUGHTS
Moving forward, I’ve decided to write these monthly updates as the CEO. While I have no need to do monthly revenue calls or issue public investor updates and take calls with analysts, I do feel that as a young company that each and everyone of our players is like a shareholder for the future of this company. In many respects I think that analogy does hold true simply because the way poker is set up as a communal game as well as the direct issues of player balances and liquidity. That being said, the main focus of these monthly updates will be to give clarification on promotions and market activity as well as my own rational for doing so. Of course I welcome all feedback from our players, but the object of this Player’s Update is more for reporting purposes than an open discussion as there will be areas where due to the competitive nature of the industry I will not be able to comment or invite further analysis on.
Tournament FreeRoll Promotions:
Apologies for the late update and due to feed back, these tournaments are now all synchronized at 55min past the hour. There are a few criteria that I have when making these promotions:
For Freeroll type promotions I want to engage players who enjoy player poker more than anything else. Also, I want the prize to also be worth something. Now for the most part, these types of promotions will make freeroll scavengers quite annoyed, but I feel for the poker enthusiast, it gives them an additional option to practice and enjoy during their regular game play.
So, what I’d like to do is, every couple of months, introduce a new daily promotion and tweak the existing ones. Why I like daily regular promotions is that I want our players to know that any day they feel like it, these online events will be there for them.
To that end you’ll find that in order to achieve this I’ve:
1. capped max player numbers, limited registration period
2. increased normal starting chip size, and
3. created unique payout structures
Engaging Canada:
We will gently being promoting to Canada throughout the summer. In some ways with Stars and FTP focusing internationally and specifically on Europe, our tournament schedule becomes the biggest advantage we have. That being said, bringing value to Canadian players is very difficult because it is very much a pre-Black Friday situation where Hero compared to Stars/FTP is quite mismatched on a client side. But Hero does benefit from all the payment solution options in Canada and as the Sunday 100k continues to overlay each week, we feel that that is obvious EV. Also the two daily promotions are now open to Canadian players.
VIP System:
I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that the VIP system structure is fine, but I will be more exact in the ranges of return. Meaning that I’m going to tweak the rake back equivalent percentages and be as transparent as I can about why and where. There are basically 3 aspects that create the total value of the system: a. each tournament ticket per level, b. divisional class instant cash and c. divisional class play through bonus. Essentially I have guidelines from the new Merge standard VIP system to work with and I think it is very generous at the top level, so I will adjust accordingly over the week. Keep in mind that many of these things could be instantly done, if, I wasn’t also constrained by internal network policies, of course, Merge has been more than reasonable and flexible etc, and I in turn wish to respect the policies in place; so some further creative thinking needs to be put in place. But this has been long overdue, my hesitation was in considering to re do the entire system, but I feel the initial founding principles are still valid, except that they need to be scaled up for more of a mature market.
Concluding Thoughts:
The players on Hero probably represent the highest degree of diversity of player types as we were not focused on attracting grinders. While we do have some high volume players, these players are more attracted to the fact they can email the CEO for mental reassurance that things are fine rather than being in a situation where they are locked out from support with no communication. I think at any time we could run a rake race, but at this point, I’d rather allocate that monthly capital to looking at new markets. Again, players may fundamentally question, why should Hero do this, of course it is good for the network, but why Hero. And I say, for us our value/equity is in the long term and what name we make for ourselves now. As with any network effect business model, once a certain level of growth or development is established, it creates its own ongoing value (virtuous circle: basically good will, will in turn, breed good will). June-August are traditionally the slower months of our industry, but it is also a good chance for Hero to really set the framework for the last quarter of 2011 and for the entirety of 2012. Unfortunately, there are no plans in place to re-enter into the American market.
On behalf of Hero Poker and our Pros: Gavin, Terrence, James, Daniel, David & Julian. We wish you the best of luck at WSOP and an enjoyable start to the summer.
Best Regards,
David Jung
Hero Poker CEO
Cliffs:
-daily promotion breaks synchronized
-new one added: MTT Hero, top 9 get $11 each
-Open to now Canadian players
-CEO general thoughts: just approaching things as if players were shareholders and will do monthly reporting on that end to keep players in the loop from a promotional stand point
all NL50...
since I started playing poker again I didnt had I session like this, was planning to play only 1k hands but decided to stretch it cause I didnt want to end up losing that much.
I feel like I played bad, I can point out a lot of leaks at my game.
I'm trying hard to fix them and hopefully improve a lot my game
saturday night, time to go outside with my girl
poker feels really good again!
GL ALL!
FML at this moments
Looks like i stay at microstakes forever
5 years playing poker without evolution
My backs cant hold anymore sitting at pc
NL25 rakeback pro
FML at this moments
Looks like i stay at microstakes forever
5 years playing poker without evolution
My backs cant hold anymore sitting at pc
NL25 rakeback pro
Yesterday arrived at the resort where the BSOP (Brazilian Series of Poker), ME is today, wanted to play some cash games but there were only nosebleed and high stakes omaha going on at the time (tables just opening up) so instead of waiting for some NLH I decided to sit at 25/50 (~15/30 usd) PLO w/ 3k because why not. Was down to 1.5 and then started godmoding and left +9.2 (~5.8 usd) for my best live sess, yay! Hopefully I still have some rungood for today's tourney.
Didn't play much sngs in May but it was a good month w/ other games:
I raise 35 UTG with JJ, UTG 3bets to 100, all folds to BB, BB shoves.
Me: 1400, been playing TaGish
UTG+1: 800, only played like 30 hands with him , seems good so far, young guy.
BB: 500. Biggest donk ever. Seen him get 100bb in pf with 23o, he splashing money all over..easily has much worse.
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