12 Days in Taipei (Part 1)

I wasn't planning on returning to Taipei so soon but after getting 3 cashes at the WPT, I thought I continue playing more tournaments. I thought it was a pretty impulsive move but later you will see something even crazier. :)

The first event was the J88 poker series. J88 is a Korean based online poker platform and they have been running live events over Asia. It was followed by the HKPPA (Hong Kong Poker Players' Association) series where a lot of my friends will be playing in. This added to the pull to make the trip.

For just a few days I was representing Singapore

JJ ran into AA, QQ ran into KK, busted the shortdeck event 3 away from ITM, AA chopped with AK, AQ chopped with QK on a QQJ flop all in, blah blah blah..... the usual. The main event drew a big crowd of over 400 runners which made it very attractive to play in. I fired an unprecedented 5 bullets with the last one getting me into day 2 but falling short of the money. I witnessed many players who played seemingly bad but do much better than I did and again I start to question the skill factor of the game.

Finally on the final event of the J88 series I caught my run good. A5 spiking an A on the river vs KQ on a K high flop (all in preflop), QJ beating JJ on the river, K8 jam on the stone bubble to double up against 77 on the big blind. I managed a small cash in the deepstack event. Feels more like a defeat because I was the overall chip leader during the start of Day 2. But I will take the "consolation prize".

Taiwan comfort food. Pretty comforting after a disappointing tournament.

Overall J88 organized a solid series. The turnout was impressive and the whole J88 team was courteous and welcoming. It felt really homey and fun. A few of the J88 bosses shook my hand and said encouraging words to me throughout the whole series. I think maybe they mistook me for someone else, or someone told them I am a big fish. :)

By now I am stuck a big sum of money and the future of my tournament career is looking bleak. But since I have already booked my trip, I continued on to play the HKPPA series as planned. I tallied up my losses so far and it seemed a daunting task to recover it. But I set myself a goal to recover the losses and come up with a respectable profit. Was praying for mercy and a chance to redeem myself.

to be continued...