Dojo Royale

Yes, it's been a while since we last posted anything here at the Dojo blog. Why? Well, we've been on a little holiday, played some golf, done some gardening and generally done anything other than play or talk Ultimate. In fact, we can quickly summarise the Dojo's on-field Ultimate exploits since our last post by simply noting that the Dojo has won every game, most by a comfy margin.

So of course when yet another "training week" came around (immediately following the BPL's Uni Games no-play week) we were looking for anything other than Ultimate training to occupy our Thursday night. And what better substitute for a night of hard running and intensive skills practice than to take our places around the table at Andy "Coopers" Lankowski's place for a night of high-stakes poker - the inaugural Dojo Royale poker night.

As you can see from the image below, some were taking the event very seriously. That's Andy McLean decked out in the unbuttoned waistcoat (and newsreader-spec shorts below the table), trumped only for seriousness by the "Hustling German" Stefan Schmidt, looking like a cross between Eminem and an elderly driver with his hoodie up and dark specs on (sadly not caught on camera). Stefan also saw fit to let us know on the night that he'd previously spent 2 years as a poker dealer in some sort of travelling German poker circus. The things he can do with poker chips are truly arousing.


What you can't see in that photo is the huge stack of chips sitting in front of Mr McLean. At this point of the night he was undisputed chip leader, and it wasn't long before the final winner was decided. So in approximate order of departure from the table (we really should've posted this sooner with a fresher memory), the players on the night were:

- Andy Lankowski (great host, lots of bad hands)
- Mike Morgan (made the mistake of thinking that his trip-4 on the turn was going to be enough to beat the all-in Sensei's pair of aces in the hand and a 2 on the river giving a sensational straight)
- Stefan Rappazzo (had been duking it out all night in his own brash ultra-rapid style, opting against all common sense not to buy back in at the 9pm deadline and yet somehow hanging in there for another hour or so)
- Stefan Schmidt (can't remember how he went out, but most likely it was bluffing big time with absolutely nothing in hand)
- Stephen Cameron (unbelievably unlucky to lose out with his solid 2-pair from the flop against a big spending chip leader McLean who picked up an outrageously unlikely straight on the river, not at all similar to the the way the Sensei had knocked Morgs out earlier on)

That left the pot at the mercy of Leon McIntyre (the chap looking so relaxed in the photo) and Andy McLean. And actually it was all over the very next hand. Leon was clearly keen to wrap things up for better or worse, and went all in after the flop with nothing but maybe a king in hand, Andy (with a massive chip lead) went with him with pretty much the same hand. And as the cards came down it was the man in the white waistcoat who came out the winner.

So there you go, nothing on the Dojo blog for a couple of months and now something that has nothing to do with Ultimate at all. Or does it???

BTW - extra points for spotting the non-Dojo ring-in in the photo...

Story of the Season!

Last night on Field 2 at AJFC, 6 DojoMojo players took to the field against 14 UQ Passion boys and won convincingly. Easy to write, not at all easy to do.

The final scoreline was 15-9, and despite being down two points early and playing savage-minus-one the whole time, we managed to take the half, see off an early second-half challenge from the men in pink (which brought the score to 8-8), and somehow find the legs & lungs to pull away and win by 6. And this against a team which features undoubtedly the two best throwers in Queensland and a fleet of top-shelf receivers.

How did we do it? Steve Hjelm admitted after the game that at the outset he would have been happy just to get more than the 2 points the 6-man Messy scored against us last week. He wasn't the only one who thought it might get ugly for the kenshi. But we went into the game realising that we couldn't hope for anyone else to turn up (Watto for instance was busy watching synchronised swimming in the Olympics) and resolved to play a very simple game involving lots of quick disc movement on offence and a zone D which aimed at first taking away the long throws and second clogging up the middle.

It probably wasn't until the halftime break that we realised that we were actually the better team on the night and could win if our legs & hearts could hold out. So the 6 of us gritted our teeth, generated blocks all over the field, forced Passion to make risky throws and didn't allow them to effectively set up any form of defensive structure. It was simple doggedness and commitment.

All sounds a bit serious for a Dojo story, doesn't it? But the truth is that it was one of those very rare moments when a team becomes completely, intuitively cohesive and plays with an intensity and fluency that they themselves find surprising. The game didn't quite turn into a descending array of information, but a threshold was definitely crossed, and it's an experience those involved will be able to draw on in the future when things get tight.

For this writer, it's impossible to make an MVP call between Dan Walls, Steve Pettit, Matt Eastburn, Steve Hjelm, Andy Lankowski and Stephen Cameron (a group henceforth known within the Dojo as "The Several Steve Subset") this week. Every player worked every position, zipped the disc short, sent it or pulled it down long and made the D plays stick. Nonetheless, our MVP poll is a tradition not to be broken so you'll find this week's on the right. Voting for multiple players is possible and very likely.

With any luck, we'll resume our usual light-hearted service with a ringside chat with John "The Cheese" McNaughton at our monthly Dojo sumo contest over the weekend. Perhaps we'll hear John's views on Buzz's call of the night in the post-game huddle...? Oh yes, and even though we had the video camera at the field last night, there was no-one to hold it so no film this week... The near-Homeric odyssey above will have to suffice this time.

And lastly, we've discovered that commenting for non-blogger types had been disabled here at the DojoMojo Blog, so those with something to say will be pleased to know that this situation has now been rectified and commenting is encouraged from one & all, anonymous or otherwise...

[PS - MVP standings updated again with Dave Watson taking out the honours last week, so it's: Matt E (3.5), Stefan (2), Dave W (1), Mike (1), Stephen C (0.5).]