When a fighter meets a fighter

I met a guy today (personal trainer of Ultimate Poker chairman Tom Breitling) who has a boxing match coming up on Friday Night Fights next week.

When a non-fighter meets a fighter for the first time and the fighter has a fight coming up, the non-fighter will inevitably ask things like "Are you nervous?" "Are you excited?" "Where is it?"

When a fighter meets another fighter for the first time and one finds out the other has a fight coming up, the fighter will only ask one question:

"How's your weight?"

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And, oh yeah, this Ultimate Poker stuff is fucking nuts. If you're a friend, sorry if I haven't returned your e-mail, text message, tweet, IM, Facebook, whatever.

"...and he was never heard from again."

That was the joke one of my exes, Jacqueline, used to make in a mock-ominous voice referring to individuals who had started playing World of Warcraft. The year was 2006 and she'd encountered an inordinate number of regular bloggers whose last blog posts began with, "so I signed up for World of Warcraft today" and correspondingly got sucked into the game so much that they were never heard from again (at least in the blogosphere).

Just as I have never tried crack or meth, I never touched WoW. But for the last month, I do feel like I've disappeared off the face of the earth. Sure, I've gone many long stretches without blogging, but this last month is the first time in my life I've been so immersed in work that I've had almost no interaction with the outside world. Many times over the last few weeks I've wanted to blog about how the working world has been treating me but the only thing I have time to do once I get home is work out (sometimes), cram a prepackaged dinner down my throat, and fall asleep. The only reason that tonight I have time to blog is that at this moment I'm on call, waiting for a co-worker who is on the road (it's 9:30pm) and could need my assistance online at any time.

Sadly, I haven't really been doing much in the way of MMA training. I make it to jiujitsu once or twice a week. I've hired a boxing trainer to give me private lessons twice a week. I've been trying to keep up general fitness and done a decent job of that. That's about it. Every time someone asks "when's your next fight?" I feel a little bit of life-tilt because there's no way I am in fight shape.

To be brutally honest, if I had known beforehand that this is what my life would be like, I might not have accepted the job. But despite the workload, I'm still glad I did. It's actually been fun in its own way. We have had a tremendously harried week here at Ultimate Poker, but the whole team has come together to support one another and get shit done. It's been nice to be a part of that. My stress level at times has been just through the roof and I have had my share of "omfg this is a disaster" freakouts, but there's definite life-ev in being part of a team.

I also like that I get to dabble in a little of everything in my work. I have had my hands in the technology, marketing, customer support, HR, and finance aspect of things. I definitely don't think I would have survived in a job where I was just doing one thing, and I hope the breadth of my work here at Ultimate Poker continues to increase.

But it is a crazy pace and hopefully things do settle down a bit soon, because I definitely don't think I will last long at the current pace. My hope is to set up and establish systems that largely run without me, so that I can get off the daily grind of burning the candle at both ends and instead work towards making a lasting long-term contribution to the organization. Not to mention getting back to fighting and playing poker.

A lot of people have been asking when we're going to start taking bets here at Ultimate Poker. While I'd love to go into detail, all I can say is that things are definitely getting exciting around here. We are continuing that push towards hand #1 of legal online poker and we really think we have what it takes to be the market winner in Nevada and beyond!

Shady motherf***ers: TC goes used-car shopping

There are a number of occupations that have bad reputations. For example, people love to take shots at lawyers and many people have pretty bad names for them. But most of the lawyers I know are actually solid, honest people who really want to help regular folks navigate difficult legal issues.

The profession that is most maligned is probably that of used car salesman. The three words are nearly synonymous with "slimy" in the heads of most people. When I googled "professions with a bad reputation" for the purpose of this post, this result was the #1 hit, and it showed used car salesman as the profession with the worst reputation.

The used car salesman still remains the measuring stick for all professions that are frowned upon. Society views these individuals as sleazy shysters who will do whatever it takes to get you into hunk of junk. Many people won’t even go near a used car lot for fear of being ripped off. Also, being swindled by a shady used car salesman is the only instance in life that, when given a lemon, you can’t make lemonade.

I never really wanted to believe that any profession is inherently bad. I've gone through my life trying to stay aware of potential cognitive biases. I reasoned that most people probably only deal with a used car salesmen a few times in their life, so if they have a bad experience with one, it's going to be quite impactful. On top of that, people have been preconditioned to believe that used car salesmen are these slimy people, so surely there must be a lot of confirmation bias at play.

Well I'll be damned if my most recent used car buying experience doesn't validate the public wisdom!

I needed a car in Vegas. I know what kind of car I like: small, sporty convertibles that are reasonably comfortable but not too expensive. I sent the same form letter to about a dozen used car dealerships in Vegas. I told them all to send me their best offers because I'm not going to be popping into all of the dealerships and this is their best chance to get me in the door.

The tactic worked out quite well; I was able to weed out all the salesmen who wouldn't give me a decent offer by e-mail and wanted me in the door. I ended up getting a competitive offer on a BMW 128i from Desert Audi's internet sales manager which was about $2000 below what they had it listed for. I took it for a test drive, and they pushed me to make a decision that day, but I decided I should mull it over. There were some scratches and dents on the car and I e-mailed them back to say that if they cleaned up the interior and exterior, and removed the $400 "documentation fee" that we had a deal. They set up an appointment for me to come in on Wednesday where I was supposed to simply point out what I wanted fixed on the car.

When I came in on Wednesday morning, they told me the car had been sold last night. Okay, no big deal, it happens. The internet sales manager apologized and said she'd e-mail me some more vehicles. No problem.

She came up with another 128i. It seemed to be the same car as the previous (without the dents) but for about $1000 more. I went back on Sunday, test drove the car, and it looked great. I said if they could make it the same price as last week's car, they had a deal. They came back with an offer for $500 less and I hemmed and hawwed, negotiated some window tint, and took it. The manager and I both signed a piece of paper agreeing on the price. I shook hands with a bunch of people who congratulated me on my new purchase and got my checkbook out.

Then came some waiting, waiting, waiting. The salesman told me it was "to prepare the paperwork" and at the time I actually believed that (after all, I've already agreed to the price -- shouldn't they want me out of there asap before I change my mind?) but I'm convinced that they intentionally make the whole process take longer to increase your commitment.

Finally the finance guy took me into his office. I know this is the part where they try to get me on a bunch of features, extras, extended warranties, and other high-margin crap I don't want. No problem, I figured I'm pretty strong at this kind of thing and can just decline across the board. So when he got into his whole extended warranty speech, I cut him off by saying, "well, this is a certified pre-owned and covered until 100k miles right? So I don't think I need that."

"Oh, is it? Let me double-check." The guy gets on his phone with the manager.

He hangs up and says, "sir, the BMW is not a Certified Pre-Owned."

I'm flabbergasted. I'd been double and triple sure to check this online and here is a screenshot *right now* of their online posting:

You can see at the bottom their Certified Pre-Owned banner in the bottom, which isn't present on some of their other cars. Oh, and when I showed up on the lot, there was a huge banner in the windshield which read "Certified Pre-Owned by BMW".

I asked about this and he said (are you ready for this?) "yes, but it was CPO at the original price. We're giving it to you for this reduced price."

Oh. You dirty motherfuckers. They were trying to pull out the rug and quietly remove the CPO (45000 miles of warranty) just without saying a word. Then they tried to calm me down by selling me their "Platinum Service" which is "much better than the Certified Pre-Owned." I'm sorry for being profane twice in the same paragraph, but you shady, shady motherfuckers. Like, how do you do that? I can understand high-pressure sales tactics, but how do you just change the terms of the deal without telling someone? Why not just take out the steering wheel, the engine, and the seats while you're at it, and charge me for those? "Sorry sir, the engine was included with the original price, but since we're giving it to you for this reduced price, that's going to be extra."

You slimy, underhanded motherfuckers. The world is right about you people after all.

I didn't actually drop any f-bombs in the dealership, but I told the manager that I thought this was shady and unethical. He didn't even try to argue, and I left the dealership. They had a sale in hand, an absolute lay-up, and they lost it by trying to fuck me over just one last time. And the scary part is that it damn near worked. If I weren't such an incredibly meticulous person on this type of thing and checked the CPO online before walking in, they would have gotten me.

What gets me is that the whole time, I actually did get the feeling they weren't trying to fuck me. Now I think the tactic with the whole sold car, the extra waiting, all of it is just a tactic to get me to make multiple trips and wear me down. When I look back on things, I can think of at least five different ways in which someone in the company simply lied to me to get me more committed to buying.

In general, I'm a conflict-avoider. I'm one of those people who feels bad about asking for what I really want. I'll often take a little the worst of it to avoid conflict. But when I get fucked over or someone tries to pull the rug out from under me, my moral outrage goes off the charts. I become the Incredible Fucking Hulk of moral outrage. I will spite people forever and make them mortal enemies. And yeah, maybe I'm being unfair painting all used car salesmen with the same brush, but now because of these guys, I've got the whole industry on notice.

I believe in capitalism. Always have. Always believed that voluntary transactions between individuals are beneficial to both parties; that they're win-win. But used car buying -- that's now adversarial. This is now me against you. When I play poker, I don't cheat, and when I fight, I don't break the rules. But now I have found that used car salesmen are pretty damn likely to short the pot, mark the cards, rub ointment on their gloves, and load their hand wraps. So now I'm on notice. Now it's on.

Ultimately, it seems the most important thing to remember when buying a used car is the same thing to remember when you're in a cage fight:

Protect yourself at all times.

PokerListings "Easy Game" mini-documentary

PokerListings.com's Matt Showell approached me a few months ago to say he wanted to feature me in one of their mini-documentaries. Egotist that I am, I couldn't say no! Matt messaged me to let me know that the video is now online, and here it is.


If the above doesn't work, you can always click through to the original page here.

I think the documentary turned out great and I'm really happy with it! In particular I like the part where I get to talk about my motivations and reasoning for doing this. Matt was super easy to work with and the whole thing was far more fun than work.

I'm joining Ultimate Poker!

I've teased a couple times on this blog over the last year that I had something in the pipeline brewing. It's with great pleasure that today I get to announce it.

I have joined the Ultimate Poker team.

For those of you who don't know, Ultimate Poker is the newest venture out of Ultimate Gaming. Ultimate Gaming was one of the first companies to receive an online poker license in Nevada, way back in the fall of 2012. We are also majority-owned by Station Casinos and are partnered up with the UFC (who are of course, also owned by the Fertitta brothers).

It should seem fairly obvious that this is a pretty good place for an MMA-obsessed poker pro to land, from both my side and theirs.

I was first contacted with the idea of joining Ultimate Poker almost one year ago to the day. Since then it's been in my head the whole time. It was a struggle to decide though. I thought, "hey, my life as a poker pro/MMA nerd is great. Why mess with something that isn't broken?"

For the last two years (when I started to seriously get into MMA), my life has been a repeat of: wake up, work out, eat, nap, train MMA, eat again, and sleep - and I simply fill the gaps with a small amount of online grinding. Once in a while when there's an exciting major tournament somewhere cool, I go to that -- and try to find a fight gym worth training at as well.

Despite how content I was with everything, I still couldn't shake the idea. I talked to a few close and trusted friends and they thought it was a great opportunity for me. I thought back to my PokerStars days and how much fun it was to be part of a poker startup, to watch a business grow from infancy into something massive and awesome. At the same time, playing poker started to become less exciting to me. Ten WSOP cashes is great and all, but when you cash ten times, that's a ton of hours at the poker table (and no real big payoff, in my case). In the fall, I played only five live tournaments and had a 1st, 2nd and 4th. I ran super-hot in that period and yet I still wasn't sure if I wanted to play poker for a living. I thought, "if I'm not super-excited about poker when I'm running good, I'm a little worried what's going to happen when I start running bad..."

So I kept coming back to the Ultimate Poker thing. I had been mostly talking with their Chief Marketing Officer, Joe Versaci. Joe was North American Marketing Director at PokerStars for many years. Our respective Stars careers barely overlapped, but we know many of the same people, and the people I talked to all said great things about him. Joe not only wanted me because I had past experience starting up the PokerStars support team, but he also loved the idea that I'm a poker player who lives and breathes MMA and the UFC. So I said to Joe that I'd love to work for the company -- as long as you can promise that I'll still be able to train MMA the way I'm used to. When it came to salary, I didn't ask for a dollar more than they were offering; I only wanted the freedom. He agreed, and in fact told me that not only supported, but actually wanted me to fight and play major poker tournaments as it would be great for our brand. And that's why I'm sitting here with a real j-o-b in an actual o-f-f-i-c-e for the first time in nine years.

On one hand, it's a huge change for me. I know from experience that being part of a startup is crazy work. Stuff always goes wrong and there are always challenges and hurdles you didn't anticipate. But more than anything I'm excited. Excited to be hopefully a good team player and leader. Our Vegas office is a couple dozen employees and they're an awesome group who has welcomed me. We have a lot of fun in the office throwing around poker ideas as we stand on the precipice of the first legal real-money hand of online poker in the United States. There's so much talent here, all channeled towards the same goal, that I can't imagine anything other than success and good times.

As for what you'll be seeing from me: more of the same! Any time anyone ever sees me at a poker tournament, they want to know when I'll be fighting again. Well, I've now relocated (yes, legally) to the biggest fight town in the world. So, let's hope the answer to that question is, "soon!" And I'll still be at the WSOP; look for me rocking the Ultimate Poker gear at the tables. I might not have month-long training vacations in Thailand or be able to fly down to Australia or Europe as much, but I'll still be in the poker scene.

One of the nice things about having been successful and reasonably smart with my money over the years is that I only have to do this as long as it's fun, and if it stops being fun, I'll go do something else. That goes for poker, MMA, or working in a poker startup. But I'm loving the people and the environment so far, and I'm excited to be a part of something big. They say that when one door closes, another opens. But I've walked through a new door here, and I still get to keep the other ones open. Good deal for me!

But that's enough self-indulgent writing for now. If you'll excuse me, there's work to do to get Hand #1 dealt!

Waking up to paternalistic jackassery

If you're like me, one of the first things you do when you wake up in the morning and get your caffeinated beverage of choice, is roll on over to your computer and log on to find out what you've missed in the last eight hours. The other day I encountered a post called 13 Healthy Ways to Start Your Day. Among the 13 suggestions?

Set the Inner Conversation

[B]egin your day thinking on a positive and productive note. Skip the computer, TV, radio, and even the newspaper. Do you really need to start the day with news of 3,000 dead in an earthquake? There’s plenty of hours left to inform yourself.

Not a bad idea, I thought. So today instead of immediately logging on, I grabbed my caffeinated beverage, took a stroll outside and breathed in a little fresh air. Then I came back to my Twitter feed. What greeted me there?

The first notable tweet was from poker media personality Jess Welman who tweeted a link to this article:

N.Y. Mayor Bloomberg bans 2-liter sodas with pizza delivery: report

Say goodbye to that 2-liter soda with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid’s birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub, The New York Post reports.

The mayor’s new rules prohibit restaurants from serving or selling soda in containers larger than 16 ounces.

Awesome. Just awesome. This is some of the most paternalistic bullshit ever.  I don't eat pizza and rarely drink soda. And even suggesting that I have a favourite nightclub is amusing. Oh yeah, and I don't live in New York or have any plans to.  But if you're in any way a principled person, you see how fucking ridiculous this is. I mean you know how the story goes. First they came for the carbonated sugar water drinkers, and I did not speak, for I was not a carbonated sugar water drinker...

But then I scrolled down my feed a bit more, and found something that hit closer to home: SD Senator seeks to ban MMA, calls it 'child porn of sports'

Within the article, a blog post by a state representative is copied:

MMA Cage Fighting is the child porn of sports. The psychological community will tell you that desensitization to violence works exactly like desensitization to porn. You know how porn progresses... a peek at topless isn't enough, it all has to come off, then a pic is not enough... it goes to video then to virtual and then to the devaluation and mistreatment of women, human trafficking and sex crimes against women. Violence works the same way. Boxing wasn't enough so they took the gloves off, then they allowed kicking, kneeing people in the head, then elbows to the face, then they put a cage around it. The point is to knock the other guy unconscious while pay per view crowds cheer it on. Why not nunchucks? In Rome they'd gather in colosseums and bring out prisoners and entertain themselves by making them fight to the death. That wasn't enough so they brought out the helpless and the hated and brought in the hungry lions. Crowds cheered.

No, really: someone competent enough to use a computer and put together grammatically correct sentences actually wrote the above. *HEAD EXPLODE*

I care passionately about MMA, but the New York soda/pizza law won't ever affect me. Pretty much the only thing they have in common is paternalistic, vote-pandering politicians.

So a big "fuck you" goes out to both Mayor Bloomberg and State Representative Hickey. I was having such a good morning before I had to read about you two jackasses being jackasses.

(I guess the walk didn't really help. Oh well, it was worth a try.)

A personal announcement

Effective today, I would like to announce that I am no longer a sponsored pro for Hero Poker. Hero Poker has treated me extremely well and I am very proud to have represented Hero over the last two years.

I would like to make it very clear that my departure from Hero Poker is not in any way a reflection of how I feel about Hero Poker’s future. Rather, I have a bit of a personal project that I am focussing on which will conflict with my ability to be a member of the Hero team. I will make an announcement about that project when it becomes official and I can discuss it, but I want this post to be about Hero Poker.

David Jung, Hero Poker's CEO, has been tremendous to me and the other Hero pros. He has asked very little of us and given tremendously. This is a man who, when I complained about being hungry at 11:30pm one night at the Aussie Millions, drove to the supermarket to cook me a steak at his house. He also accompanied me on a 6-hour train ride through South Korea to assist me in my second amateur MMA fight. I don’t know many poker site CEOs who would do that for one of his pros. And I know he carries this extra-mile attitude towards his customers as well. Despite the challenges that have faced Hero (such as Black Friday occurring three months after launch and the issues with their former network), I’m confident that upon their relaunch, Dave and his customer-first attitude can navigate his ship to prosperity.

So, I would like to close by thanking Dave for bringing me aboard the team, and to the Hero Poker players who signed up due to my endorsement. Good luck to Dave, my former teammates on Hero Poker, and of course, the players for playing there!

Nit or risk-taker?

"Have you ever had an MRI?" she asked, seemingly out of the blue.

"Yes," I answered, with what surely was a look of great confusion. This seemed like an abrupt change of topic because I'm pretty sure the previous question had been something about poker.

"Do you happen to know the size of your prefrontal lobe?"

"Well, no...I had it done on my knee."

I'd only met Jennifer a couple hours earlier, but we found ourselves seated next to each other at dinner. A pretty Chinese-American woman in her mid-20s (of course, the "you can never tell how old Asians are" point of conversation had already been covered), Jennifer was a mutual friend of Bill Chen, who had organized our dinner. The setting was Greycliff restaurant, the well-known 5-star Bahamian fine dining restaurant converted from a centuries-old colonial house. Jennifer's dress and style indicated to me that she was very familiar with such fancy establishments. So I certainly would have forgiven her if she'd largely ignored this poker player, who'd arrived in the fanciest clothes he'd brought on this trip: a Roots zip-up sweater, moderately dressy jeans, and a pair of New Balance Minimus trail shoes.

But if she passed judgment on my attire, it was unapparent to me. She had too many questions to ask. Her curiosity about the size of my prefrontal lobe (that's what she said?) stemmed from her formal education in neuroscience. Apparently, individuals with larger prefrontal lobes are more inclined towards risk-taking behaviours, like perhaps participating in cage fights or quitting one's job to play poker for a living. Hence the inquiry.

I went on to explain that while something like playing professional poker does seem like a risky activity, it was a decision that I deliberated on for quite a long time before acting on it. I further noted that I no longer play the biggest games online, and prefer more medium-stakes games and tournaments in an effort to reduce my stress level. And while I can't argue that MMA isn't risky, I generally don't participate in other risky or thrill-seeking behaviour. I've never been one for alcohol or drugs, I am pretty good about wearing my seatbelt, and I don't really have a particularly strong urge to try skydiving.

Just one day earlier, I was sitting in a side event and playing at a table of mostly young pros. The table chatter on this occasion was also about risk-taking and life. A Swedish player named Ramzi Jelassi was being talkative and splashing around in a lot of pots, at one point late in the day raising on the button, c-betting into three opponents and showing 93o after they all folded. The same man also admitted to being "a total life nit."  Ramzi said he basically takes as few risks in life as possible, saying with a smile, "I'm too good at life, so I can't risk it." Not long after that comment, he called off a large 3-bet shove with A7 from middle position and lost a big chunk of his stack.

At the party on the final night of the PCA, I once again heard the words "life nit" used in a self-descriptive manner, this time from the mouth of British pro Max Silver. I've only played with Max once, but most of it was heads-up. It was the second table of the shootout event of the WSOP Europe in 2011, and Max had gotten most of his chips by 5-betting Vanessa Selbst with 64s, flopping trips and turning quads to smash her KK. I don't know Max well enough to know whether or not he's a life nit, but I faced enough of his 3-barrels on that day to confidently say that he's no poker nit.

The word "nit", in the poker world, is used as a near-antonym of "gambler" (alternatively, "degen", "sicko", "LAG", etc). Whom do we consider nits? The ultra-tight, conservative players who never play above their bankrolls and often even play below it. We picture these guys walking instead of taking a cab to save a few bucks, scrounging around for buffet comps before the dinner break, and eyeing the money bubble of any tournament they play. But is this an accurate depiction? What of the Max Silvers and the Ramzi Jelassis? And what am I? Is Terrence Chan some adrenaline-junkie MMA fighter, or a guy who leaves 10 minutes early on dinner break to make sure there's no possibility he'll miss a big blind? Consider the old adage, "lucky in cards, unlucky in love." Should we add to it, "sicko at cards, nit at life?"

For most regular folks, the idea that there are people even walking around with $1000, $10000, or $100000 of cash on a regular basis strikes them as incredibly risky, much less gambling it in a poker tournament with less than a 15% chance of getting any of it back. But I'm not convinced that poker players are that much more risk-seeking than the rest of the population; rather, they have simply become very good at compartmentalizing that risk. What else would explain all the self-proclaimed life nits in the poker world?

I dislike it when people not in the poker world say, "I could never do that; I'm not much of a gambler." Everyone gambles, because everything is a gamble. Crossing the street is a gamble, and so is driving to your destination. The gamble is simply that you will pick up enough value by getting to your destination (whether it's your office, the gym, the grocery store, or your grandmother's house) that you are willing to fade the possibility of being hit by a bus. To limit the idea of gambling to wagers involving dollars and cents is to misunderstand the nature of human existence.

So just how big are the prefrontal lobes of the poker world? The Jennifers of the world are dying to know.

Phuket Top Team training, take 2

I've been in Phuket since last Thursday, once again training at Phuket Top Team. Since the last time I was here, they have even further improved the training schedule. This is what Monday and Tuesday look like; every other day except Sunday (when they close) looks pretty much the same.

I really like that I can get up at dawn (6:30am here), go train Muay Thai, be done by 9, get breakfast and nap, get some sun by the pool, then do another afternoon session. The best part is the flexibility; if I feel like doing Muay Thai in the evening I can do that, or I can do MMA, or wrestling, or no-gi grappling. As you can see, the day finishes very early (one of the unfortunate things about MMA gyms in most big cities is that the classes go very late because people come in after work). When I was training for my fight in Vancouver, I often didn't get out of the gym until almost 11pm, which really messed with my sleep.

PTT has grown since I was last here 11 months ago. The instructor-to-student ratio is still pretty good so I still get a decent amount of personal attention, and now there are more sparring partners as well. So the growth has actually been a good thing. They have also added MMA wrestling which is great, because my wrestling is still fairly terrible. The wrestling is headed by Andrew Leone who was a decorated collegiate wrestler and also a 125-pounder! Before I came, I was excited to train with a guy who is at the elite status of my weight class (he holds an MMA win over a guy who is now in the UFC). I haven't gotten the chance to actually roll or spar with Andrew yet but I've enjoyed taking his wrestling class.

So I am definitely enjoying this trip a lot more than last time. Last January, I had a good time but I lamented the poor internet (which meant I couldn't get any work done), the lack of social interaction, and I also got sick/injured a couple times which further perpetuated my boredom. I think this time I'm coping a lot better: I'm more physically fit and I've also learned a lot about hacking my body to improve recovery, so I can spend more time in the gym productively without overtraining. I'm using a heart rate variability monitor and my scores are better than they have ever been, even better than during my last fight camp. My digestive system is handling the food a lot better, and I'm a nice crispy shade of golden brown. Between training, eating, sleeping and getting massages, I only have about 5 hours a day of downtime, which I can use to catch up on various things. (The internet is also somewhat less terrible where I'm staying this time, though still not great.)

It really is fighter paradise here. I feel like this is possibly the place where I would really be able to optimize everything and fulfill my potential as a fighter. If I had absolutely nothing else on the go, I might consider being here very long term (like 3-6 months or even more), but alas I'm only here until Thursday. The only thing that would get to me about staying here would be not having any of my friends around. The fellow fight tourists seem cool and all, but the friendships you build are necessarily ephemeral. And it's fairly unlikely I would ever have a girlfriend here - most of the foreign girls don't stay very long, and while Thai girls are attractive and nice, I think there's far too much of a cultural barrier to find an ideal companion for me here.

But in terms of being able to optimize and tailor my own training with no real limitations, and stay healthy, this would be a great spot. And while I have some projects planned back on the other side of the Pacific, you shouldn't be terribly shocked if you end up reading about some sort of semi-long-term relocation to Phuket.

Having your buttons pushed: Western perceptions of Hong Kong manners

I spent last night in Macau, an overnight trip to celebrate the wedding of two good friends. In the elevator of the Landmark Hotel Macau, I snapped this picture with my phone:

The camera photo heard around my Facebook feed

The next day, I posted it to Facebook with the very simple description, "I feel like this photo tells you so much about Macau/Hong Kong/China." To my surprise, the picture was an instant hit, receiving an inordinate number of Likes. The Likes were also disproportionately representative of my expat friends in Hong Kong. Clearly, the picture and what it symbolizes resonates with westerners who have spent a lot of time in the southeast China region. Below are a couple of comments from the thread:

There's no doubt about it. Chinese people love to mash the close door button. Often before you've had the chance to get in or out of the elevator. And they are absolutely unapologetic about it. To a foreigner unaccustomed to the Chinese ways, it is definitely shocking that a person would mash the button with such apparent disregard for others, but no local will ever bat an eyelash. People are always on the move in Hong Kong. Get to where you are going, and be quick about it. 

But perhaps the button-mashing mentality is representative of one of the greatest parts of Chinese culture. No one ever questions that the Chinese culture is one of diligence and hard work. In a sense, the jamming of the elevator buttons, the desperate cramming on to the MTR, and myriad other examples of chaos is what gives rise to the incredible skyscrapers, exciting commerce and success of the great harbour city. These people hustle and grind so that slackers like me can reap the rewards of a leisurely walk around town.

Yet from a mathematical standpoint, the button mashing makes little sense. The difference between mashing and waiting for the person to be comfortably situated in the elevator is probably 0.5 seconds at best. Even if you are constantly in an elevator throughout your work day, it is fairly unlikely you can even save a full minute per day. So this behaviour earns the performer well under 0.1% of their day. Hardly seems worth the number of bruised shoulders caught in elevator doors, not to mention the unfortunate souls who have to wait minutes -- full minutes! -- because they didn't get through the doors quick enough and were left to helplessly watch the elevator depart without them. Can't we just take that 0.5 seconds and lower our collective stress levels?

To be sure, the practice of slamming elevator doors in the faces of your fellow men is certainly one I would remove if I were given magical powers (a good indication that if there is such a thing as magical power, it would be a waste to bestow them upon me). Though an ethnic Chinese, I've spent most of my life in Canada and such practices offend my Canadian sensibilities of politeness. Hell, I'm so Canadian, I usually don't even hit the button until the person exiting the elevator is far enough they can't even hear me hitting the button.

But allow me to propose an idea: perhaps politeness is simply a form of currency. If that is the case, then it follows that overt politeness is simply a form of conspicuous consumption. Here, let me hold the door open for you; I am in no rush. The implicit message is: "I have plenty of time. I can afford the time." If politeness is a form of Canadian currency, then is extra politeness to Canadians what abalone, shark fin soup and Johnnie Walker Blue Label are to the Chinese?

In Chinese culture, we give money as gifts, be the occasion a birthday, a wedding, or a holiday. It's always money, and the more the better. In North America the practice of money as a gift has fallen into disfavour; instead gifts are more valued if there is the feeling the sender put a great deal of thought and/or effort into the gift. The divide thus comes down to time versus money; in the Chinese tradition, the value is measured in the money spent by the giver whereas in the West, the value is indicated by the the giver's time.

Time versus money. Two sides of the same coin. It is an interesting paradigm in which to view the East/West divide. Or at least, that's how I'll try to look at it the next time someone slams the door in my face.

Twelve weeks for 70 seconds: thoughts from my latest fight

"So when are you gonna retire undefeated already?"

-- "North Shore" Mike McManus, my friend of 12 years, over dinner last Tuesday night.

This is a common question from many of my friends. Especially, of course, the ones who don't fight. The opposite feeling is best summarized by a conversation between two of my cousins, Calvin and Derek, back in September 2011. The conversation occurred a couple weeks before my first fight:

Derek: "So do you think this will be Terrence's only fight?"

Calvin: "No way. If he wins, he'll be addicted to it. If he loses, he'll want to redeem himself."

And so here I am, fifteen months and four fights later. I still haven't tasted defeat in an MMA cage or ring. And it is still an amazing feeling to be able to step into a cage after what seems like endless weeks of preparation, and emerge victorious.

As I wrote in my last post, I could not have felt more ready to fight on this past November 24. I had absolutely zero doubt in my mind that even as I approach my 32^nd birthday I am a better fighter now than I have ever been. The fight would be at flyweight, meaning for the first time I would be the larger combatant.

The cut to 125 was difficult, but not exceptionally so. My subsequent rehydrate and refuel went great and I was back to about 138 by fight time. I was in a great mood all day. I'm all smiles when I get to fight. I only do this because I love it, and I'll quit when I stop loving it. The preparation is the horrible part. It's where all the true pain lies. If you can survive the training camp – if you don't get injured, if you don't break down mentally – the fight is the easy part. So there's no reason not to be all smiles on fight day.

For those who haven't seen it yet, the video is below; my apologies for the lack of sound. The fight begins about 4:00 into the video.

Without giving short shrift to my opponent, you can see that this was pretty decisive. I was better in the standup and better on the ground. I launched a steady volley of knees in the clinch, but my trip takedown was countered and that's how I ended up on my back. I certainly didn't anticipate being on my back in this fight and I didn't anticipate winning by submission off my back. But being the smallest fighter in the gym usually means you learn to be aggressive off your back.

A lot of people asked whether I wished it had gone longer, whether I wish I'd gotten more out of it considering how much I'd gone through to get to that point. And I admit the thought has crossed my mind at times. I went through a hard second half of 2012 getting ready for this fight. I got beat up every single day. And going into the fight, I wanted a tough fight. I wanted to be pushed, simply because I knew that I had never been as ready for a fight as I was on that day. And I didn't really get it.

But at the risk of stating the perfectly obvious, fighting is dangerous. It may take weeks or months to prepare for a fight, but it only takes seconds to lose one. Any time feet and fists are flying, there is the potential to lose a fight in a split second. I've been submitted in grappling competition in matches that I should have won. That's why when you get an opening to finish a fight, you don't fuck around. I didn't intend to throw up that armbar. I really just wanted to sweep (reverse positions) or get my opponent off of me. But as I rotated perpendicular to him, I noticed I still had his arm trapped. With his arm trapped, I was in a great position for the armbar. And once I had that armbar locked in, I cranked it. I had it in deep, and I ripped it. Anyone who trains with me can tell you I am not an aggressive person in the gym. I don't “get mean”. On the continuum of sparring too hard and not sparring hard enough, if anything I am on the side of the latter. I've let up on more submissions and pulled more punches than I can count. But this time, when I knew I had it, I yanked on that arm like I was trying to take it home and frame it on my wall.

I confess to a certain level of satisfaction with one aspect of this particular win. As I said, I wasn't trying for the armbar. I was trying for something else, and the armbar was there. There was no conscious thought on my part. It's nice to know that I've put in enough repetitions now that under a scenario of extreme stress, my body will just do what it has done so many times in practice. When I scored an armbar victory in Legend FC earlier this year, the last thing I heard in the fight was “switch to the armbar!” Taking it on pure faith that my corner saw something there – as you simply have to do during a fight – I switched to the armbar, and it worked. But this time there was no command from either an outside voice or my own. This time, the armbar simply happened.

So I am happy for the win. Seventy seconds or otherwise, difficult opponent or otherwise. After all, I have always maintained that I fight to become a better fighter. Perhaps that borders on an iterative tautology which might not make sense to anyone else, but it makes sense to me.

But I also admit that part of me searches for that war. It seeks that challenge, the one that pushes me to the edge, where I am forced to empty the reserves and dig deep to a place inside me that I didn't know existed. A fight where I feel deep down that I am 100% prepared and where I need every last ounce of that preparation to emerge victorious.

I want to break someone, although I don't mean in a a sadistic or necessarily even violent way. A knockout or a submission is great, don't get me wrong. Finishing the fight should always be the goal. But there is something I haven't experienced in a fight yet, and that is the feeling of overwhelming someone. To overwhelm that person to the point he quits. Fighters like to say that they will never quit, that they will never stop. But everyone has a breaking point. People have varying levels of toughness, but everyone will break. It's just a matter of at what point. In my first fight, I beat the daylights out of the guy for two rounds, but he never quit; the referee had to jump in to stop him from taking further punishment. Since that fight I've made two opponents submit, but I've never made anyone quit. There's a big difference. I wanted this to be the first fight where I made someone quit. But I'm still searching.

But now I have to cut this train of thought short. I am encroaching the borders of hubris and arrogance. I am still a no one and a nothing in the MMA world. I am a babe in the woods. I am not in a position to decide whom to fight; that is the responsibility of my coaches. Keep winning, and you get tougher opponents. That's how it works. My job is simple: train hard, shut up, and keep winning.

And so, it's on to the next one. Sorry, Mike.

Two days to a fight

A week of weight cutting is about to approach its climax. On the weekend I began what's called a "sodium load", where you ingest a ton of sodium and water for three days, then rapidly remove all the sodium and reduce your water intake until the weigh-in. (Further details for those curious are available here.)

The first day of the sodium load felt awful. I think I probably overdid it with the sodium. I had some bad diarrhea and felt tremendously bloated. The second day was a bit of a "hangover" from the first, but not as bad. The third day I still felt bloated but it was tolerable. My heart rate variability measuring tool reported a terrible result after the first night but then got better.

I felt much better on the sodium de-loading days. I went into the gym to hit pads, roll light, stuff like that, and had definitely reduced energy, but I think I'm less exhausted than the other weight-cutters on the team. You definitely get tired much more quickly when you deprive yourself of all carbohydrates and sodium for an extended period of time.

It's almost 5pm on Thursday as I write this -- 24 hours before weighins -- which means this cup of black coffee in front of me will be my last intake of anything until this time on Friday. No food, no water. Tomorrow I'll wake up slightly dehydrated, then go dehydrate myself further in the sauna. At 5, I'll make it to the Shark Club Bar & Grill in downtown Vancouver for the weigh-in event, which will be late and full of cranky fighters who can't wait to get off the scale and down Pedialyte. It will also be at this time I stare my opponent in the eyes for the first time and try to get a sense of how he feels about stepping into the cage with another trained combatant.

I already know how I feel, and that's great. Nothing has changed since my last update other than another week of thinking positively about how well this is going to go for me. Mentally and physically I am in a great place, and I am prepared to deliver the best performance of my MMA career to date.

Also, two links to share:

• For those who are unable to attend the event in person but still want to watch, the fight will be live streamed on PPV for $7 Canadian.
• I'm doing a reddit-style "AMA" on 2+2 here. Obviously, I'll also answer questions here in the comments section.

Well, 5:02pm. That means the weight cut has begun. Thanks for the support!