ItalianoGACKT Official Blog update. Translation below:
Fasting, day 5.
And today is the 2nd day
of the “ASIAN POKER TOUR” main tournament.
When I’m fasting
I wake up feeling unbelievably well.
Honestly, the reason for this isn’t very clear but
more than half of the guys who are fasting say the same thing.
I woke up at 6 in the morning
then trained alone while watching a movie.
It was quite a meaningful stretch of time but
while I had my coffee,
I missed being able to spend my time slowly.
I have absolutely no desire for food but
I once again came to understand how precious it is
to spend time while enjoying a cup of coffee,
or in other words, 【the desire to gracefully and freely spend time】 is.
Just a few years ago
I couldn’t even put coffee in my mouth.
The strange thing is
no matter how much people can hate the taste of coffee,
there’s not a single person who hate the smell of coffee.
When I first went to France at 25,
I saw and admired the customers who drank espressos in the cafes
and wanted to be like them
so using halting French, I ordered an espresso
and brought my nose close to it, imitating the atmosphere.
『What a wonderful aroma!』
Then I took a sip of it.
『It tastes terrible!!』
Why are they drinking something like this
in such a delicious manner?
Could it be that
what I ordered is different from theirs? I thought
and ordered it again but I can’t drink it after all.
It’s something that makes me sigh at my own idiocy.
Since then, for 10 years
I’ve never touched coffee
even once.
However, probably around 9 years ago,
when I went to Canada for a shoot,
I happened to see someone
drinking a cappuccino in an exceptionally delicious manner.
『I’ll have one of that too…』
I asked for one, and following that,
I pretty much became attracted to
the charm of coffee.
I studied quite a lot
and even learnt latte art.
And through some wondrous fate
I even got to work with Nestle.
In life, you really don’t know
what will happen.
The training
ended without an incident despite
everyone’s miserable cries filling the room.
We quickly prepared ourselves
and headed to the tournament.
On the second day of preliminaries in the main tournament,
I have around 60,000 chips.
It’s enough to fight with.
From there,
while employing a variety of tactics,
my numbers went up and down, fluctuating.
There’s a major reflection point today.
If you’re someone who plays poker
you’ll definitely understand my explanation though.
This is the situation.
In the middle of today’s event, the perfect timing came up.
Everyone has preflopped and no one was calling,
in my hand were the cards 🔶5 ＆ 7 but
this isn’t a hand I like.
Since I’m also in the late position, I did a raise in.
Only button players can grab the moment and call.
Then
the cards 🔶6, ♣️8, 🔶K appeared on the table.
That means I’ll have a straight draw and flush draw.
At this point, I checked.
The button player made a raise.
I waited for quite awhile before calling.
Then, at the next turn, a 🔶J appeared.
In other words, a flush has been made.
The greedy me checked
and the other player made a bet.
I then countered that with check raise 2.5 times of it.
The other guy as quite worried, but he called.
Then, a ♠️8 appeared last.
He went all in.
I called too.
When we opened the cards,
that guy had a 6 in his hand.
In other words, he got a full house.
Because of this,
I lost quite a large number of my chips.
If only I ended it one turn before this…
Indeed, I have to work towards
getting the highest number of chips possible but
in dangerous situations, I certainly have to withdraw from my opponent.
Well, more than anything,
I’m upset at myself for breaking what I decided on,
in other words, the 【GACKT rule】.
【80% in everything】
If you seek 100％ of profits or performance,
the probability of getting into an accident,
in other words, the chances of getting into trouble, becomes exceptionally high.
It can be said for anything and everything.
If you’re talking about it in terms of a car,
if you draw out 100％ of it’s potential,
you can spoil the car
or get into an accident because of a tiny thing.
Opinions may be divided on this but
anyway,
it can’t be helped that I’m truly angry
at myself for breaking my own rule.
From there, I regained my composure
and somehow reached 280,000 points
after falling to 60,000 points,
which brought me to the semifinals taking place tomorrow.
Really, after I started playing poker,
my weaknesses get revealed in a variety of situations.
As long as I can gradually raise myself to a higher level like this, it’s alright.
While recognising my weaknesses within myself,
I’m thankful to be able to feel like I’ve grown as a person
even at this age.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the semifinals tomorrow.
Source: GACKT Blog
Translation: GACKT ITALIA Team
Translation © GACKT ITALIA