The 2005 Japanese Poker Championship … Not!

I had planned this particular column in advance, for months, in fact. In early April, I had my plans all set to fly to Tokyofor my third time to see the beautiful Japanese country, meet and visit with the people, and mostly to play poker in the annual Japanese Poker Championship.

Linda Johnson and I headed over there, and we had even accumulated enough American Express points to travel in style via business class on Singapore Air. I highly recommend that, by the way. Singapore Air's business class is nicer than any first class I have ever seen, and I have seen, well, at least two of them!

In the inaugural JPC, I won the event, thus becoming the first ever Japanese Poker Champion! The second year, Mike O'Malley joined in our adventure and he captured the title. This seemed destined to be Linda's year. After all, we were going to the Far Eastto provide poker instruction, tell poker stories, answer questions, and, in most ways, be feared as poker legends. OK, they didn't know, but who had to tell them? Anyway, we just knew it was going to be Linda's year to bring back the bragging rights and trophy. Unfortunately, this was not to be.

Suppose they threw a tournament and no one went? Or, worse yet, suppose we went halfway around the world for an event and missed it? Surely, you are wondering what is going on here! Let me explain.

We flew over on my newly beloved Singapore Airlines (visit their website and take the virtual tour, it is unreal). Having vintage wine, gourmet food, 60 on-demand movie channels of first-run shows, a zillion music albums, and a staff-to-passenger ratio that made you wonder how theycould get the plane off the ground, we were on our way to retain that title. Bringing it home to the United States would be amazing. We were two for two, so why stop now?

Linda Johnson and a group of Japanese poker players visited Jan in the hospital.

Our wonderful friend and host, Hiroshi Shimamura, met us at the airport and we hopped on an on-time train for the one-hour ride back to Tokyo. From there, we got a gloved driver in an immaculate cab to take us to Hiroshi's apartment to stay for the night before we began our tours and travels.

The next day, we packed overnight bags and got on a double-decker train to take the 16-hour overnight trip to the city of Sapporo. Yes, that is where the beer comes from. We didn't stop to tour the brewery, as we'd seen it before. We rented a car and drove to the beautiful mountain city of Furano. Just outside of Sapporo, the snow started accumulating, and by the time we arrived at this ski haven, the snowpack was about 12-15 feet deep! Furano is known for its cheese factory (which we toured), as well as its friendly people and beautiful scenery. We stayed right by the main ski lift and had a beautiful room with a view that would knock your kimono off! We had dinner at a "diner," where the owner was a collector of Americana and had so much stuff that we had to believe that his R2-D2 might actually be one of the originals.

From there, we traveled through even deeper snowpack to the lovely resort village of Akanko. We stayed at the most amazing hotel I ever have seen. It's called the Yukuno-Sato Tsuruga, which translates loosely to "Village of eternally playing graceful cranes." Does that sound like heaven, or what? Now, mind you, at this point in our journey, we were about 800-900 miles from Tokyo.That is hard to do in a country that's about the size of California! Spending the night there, enjoying our in-room hot bath overlooking the lake, as well as the hot tubs with outdoor vistas, and wearing ceremonial kimonos while enjoying (I use that term mildly) native Japanese cuisine, we thought we had died and gone to heaven. I'm not trying to be morbid, but that is almost what literally happened!

Without going into long and maudlin detail, on the airplane trip back to Tokyo, where we would take a one-hour train ride to another great resort to play in the poker tournament, I got very, very sick. I got so sick, in fact, that I had to be taken to the University of Tokyo Medical Center (one of the best hospitals in the world, I am told). Making a long story short, I had to have some emergency surgery, spent three nights there, and missed the entire event for which I had traveled there. Linda stayed with me to oversee my care, and missed it, as well. Needless to say, a Japanese player finally won the Japanese Poker Championship!

Hiroshi stayed with me at the hospital until I was totally OK and out of surgery, and then he caught the last train out to get to his event. He ended up running the event on no sleep and returned the next morning on the first train. He also brought along a group of the players to visit me in the hospital. Not speaking a word of English, it was so sweet that they all came by.

Jan in her ceremonial kimono

I did get to see the beautiful cherry blossoms while in peak bloom, another intention of mine on this trip, and I got to learn firsthand what it is like to be in a hospital in a foreign country where I don't understand a word of the language. Other than wishing everyone a good afternoon and saying thank you, I picked up the ability to suggest a left turn. Inasmuch as every car has a navigation system in it, the words "daddy hoe-koe" just seemed to stick in my brain.

The care I received in the Japanese hospital was first class. The nurses came running when I rang the bell, and they carried Japanese-American dictionaries to assist in our communication. The most astounding part of it all was the bill: For a CAT scan, four hours in the emergency room, the top specialist in Japan, surgery, three days in a private room, prescriptions, and so on, it came to a whopping $2,800. Japan is a great country!



So, in closing, I want you to know that I am fine, and thanks for all of the cards, e-mails, and good wishes I have received from so many of you. It seems only fitting that after so many years of writing this column, I end this one not with class dismissed, but with domo arigato (Japanese for thank you very much). ♠

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