i`m COMING

some of the new developments like one residence and contai strip 1 are up 70% from their pre-sale price and are at around 15k usd/m2 (most expensive condos in macau)... prices are skyrocketing but apparently still reasonable compared to other cities. i am hoping to find something nice as i think prices will just continue to be insane!

I played at the Grand Lisboa last Monday night. I didn't have long left in town so only spent a couple of hours at the tables.

I played 20/40 on one of 6 tables going at the time (close to modnight). Didn't spot the tables straight away as they are converted Baccarat tables (on level 2). The game was extremely soft, but I lost cause I am terrible at nl.

I checked out the pokerpro tables at starworld a couple of times and every time there wasn't a single person playing. I spotted a pokerpro at the dodgy Egyptian themed casino as well, same deal, no-one there.

General random observations

Drinking isn't big in Macau compared to Vegas, sometimes it was tough to find a bar in the smaller casino's.

Watch out for the zebra crossings in Macua, they don't mean $%^#$! to the locals, it's just a convenient place to try and run you down.

Cab's are cheap approx $5 US for 15-20min ride.

Some great portugese food there. Crab stockpot with fresh bread at Fernando's is excellent. Egg Custard tarts are gooooood.

Definitely check out some of the casino's geared more for the low rollers. The New Century has a kitsch Greek Mythology theme, and was a good laugh. Played Sic Bo while watching Village People rip-offs and lame magicians.

Booze is cheap at grocery stores. No duty. I picked up a large bottle of tequila for $10 US.

It seems a bit like Vegas with room rates, they go up on weekends. I stayed at the Holiday Inn which is ok, and close to the Ferry and Grand Lisboa. Stayed 4 nights including sat, sun and averaged at $100 US a night.

If I was there longer I would bungy jump from Macau Tower. It looked cool, and they jump from 230m up. I was on the observation deck drinking Moet. It's a good view, but pitty about all the smog from the mainland.

egg tarts are ridic good in macau. best i have ever had.

is it true that hand/hour =~15? so slow at lisboa?

More like 12

whats the reason for this bs?
are the dealer so slow? people brain dead and thinking foreever?

ty

yw

are those tournament schedules for macau still not released? are they going to be canceled ?

when is the best time to play in macau?
are there games like monday afternoon?
how many local regs are there? i bet in china it must be packed, everynoe here is soo poor

Is the age limit still 18? There was some discussion somewhere that it might change to 21.. And is the helicopter ride from HK worth 150€?

No, the U.S. is the only developed country with 21 as an age limit on anything, really

No, take the ferry

Isn't it 21 for residents and 18 for everyone else?

i live in bkk too, drop me a line if you like to put together a home game, i am up for it.

anyone living in guangzhouÉ

I've just got back from an 8 day trip with two very experienced American poker pros to play poker in Macau. The only game in town at the moment is at the Grand Lisboa.

DON'T BOTHER GOING !

Maximum of 8 tables available, never saw them all being used. Most games are 10/20 HKD ($1.25/$2.50 USD) although in the evening a bigger game, 25/50 HKD or 50/100 HKD, gets going at one or two tables. The max buy in for all games is 100BB. The way the games play means that even the max buy in feels like a short stack.

Most of the dealers are useless by western standards even allowing for the language problems, and the number and length of delays in between each hand are enough to make even the most patient person go insane. The supervisors and managers are equally awful, and I saw them get angry with a customer on many occasions when the customer had a legitimate point to make.

The converted Baccarra tables are far from ideal. A person in the 1 or 2 seat is almost invisble to someone in the 9 or 10 seat and vice versa. What might have looked like a call could easily be a raise, then someone mistakenly tries to call the previous bet and all hell breaks out in several different languages. Then there is no consistency of rulings from the (local) table supervisors or from the (foreign) pit bosses.

It's true that there are some fish at the 10/20 limit but most players, perhaps 80%, are decent poker players. When I played at the higher limits I did sometimes come across a loose table but most of the time they were as dry as a bone. This was partly due to the inevitable number of comparitive short stacks, and players frequently doing a partial rebuy just slowed the game down even more than normal.

The casino doesn't allow any straddles, the logic being that they encourage pots beyond the size that can be raked.

Even the smallest pots are raked 5%, for example if the big blind gets a walk.

Water/tea/coffee/soft drinks/Carlsburg draught beer is available free, so are ham/cheese/egg sandwiches and some small chinese cakes, but be warned that the sandwiches are bland beyond belief. I saw an asian player run off without putting the 1000 HKD he owed into the pot after he lost the hand. After the resulting commotion had died down the american player who had been stiffed was offered a 1000 HKD dollar food coupon by the pit boss. Quite what food the unfortunate young man would be able to purchase with said coupon remained a topic of conversation at the table for some time as there was no menu for poker players other than the free sandwiches.

The pro players who came on the trip with me just about refused to play in any of the games after the first day. They said they would rather stick needles in their eyes. I persevered but I wish I hadn't bothered, my game went into meltdown on the third or fourth day. When you are only seeing 12 hands an hour ANY two cards start to look good !!!

....oh did I mention that one night a pit boss told us he would be doubling the blinds at our table even though none of the players wanted to, or that when tables are combined the players who have made the effort to move cannot commence play at their new table with more than 100BB regardless of their stack size. I could go on,and on, and on, and on.......

Played a STT at APPT/Grand waldo, ended up going all-in preflop with T4s because of boredom, even knowing I was way beat. I just didn't care anymore, waiting another 10mins for another hand made needles in your eyes sound like a good alternative.

The shuffling by hand took forever, if they installed shuffling machines like in Vegas, the game would speed up drastically. Why don't they invest in proper poker tables, it's a casino -they have money to import it from the moon!? (Does Lisboa have shuffling machines?)

About Grand Lisboa, it's really an impressive and jaw dropping building, almost worth going just for the sight of it, and as one of few, they actually got a bar with some live entertainment.

WOW! That sounds terrible. Never could understand how multi million dollar casino businesses hire morons to run their gig. I was really interested in checking it out.

Maybe its due to the fact Holdem has only been played live for the past 2 months. You can't compare the experience of Macau floor people with those in Vegas which has been playing Holdem for decades.
If I was to hire you to build a house....would it be right for me to call you a moron?

Well yes. Depending on what your expectations are, if they are charging top dollar rake, you'd expect to have a somewhat competent person running the floor. Obviously Lisboa isn't a first class operation. Stanley Ho was the king of Macau for the longest time but he ain't no Adelson. Adelson wouldn't put out a halfass product, he'd be sure an efficient person was there for a few months at least running the room. Putting in rookies right away is foolish, you only get one chance at a first impression.


I never compared the two cities. I just stated from the posts that Macau seems like a horrible place to play poker right now. It's Golden Week in Asia and I was planning to go to Macau and play. It's disappointing to read that only 12 hands are dealt an hour. A guy was short $1000 and they gave him a food certificate. WTF is that?


I can't build houses, so yes you would be a moron to pay me to do something I don't know how to do. If a person paid me to build a house I wouldn't mind being called a moron as long as the money was good. I never asked for the job.

I often travel to Asia, especially Hong Kong & Macau. I hope they have a good room. All I'm saying is that they should bring in a few experienced people and have them stationed there to train the staff for a few months. Having incompetent people running the tables doesn't make for a very good poker experience.

I've been to Macau several times over the last 10 years. I would probably never have returned if Poker had not recently been introduced as a game to play.

It always struck me that the original Lisboa and other casinos in Macau treated gamblers (other than maybe the super rich) as compulsive idiots who would not complain about anything as long as they could gamble. "Don't ever give a sucker an even break" seemed to be the Stanley Ho mission statement.

He ended up a billionaire, and I can't afford to buy brand name baked beans so who am I to say he got it wrong..... however

Whoever set up the Grand Lisboa poker room regards poker players the same as pit players. They aren't.

My experience was that the dealers were frightened of their supervisors (one for each table), the supervisors were terrrified of the foreign pit bosses/managers and the top pit bosses were scared ****less of being put infront of a chinese firing squad. The biggest mistake any employee could make in the poker section was one which resulted in a smaller rake from a hand than should have been made. For example I saw a novice dealer burn and turn the turn card too early twice in the same hand, so in all three turn cards were seen by the six people still in the pot. The criticism the dealer received from her superior concentrated on the fact that either of the first two turn cards would have produced a larger pot, and hence a larger rake for the casino.

A comment that I often heard at the poker tables in the Grand Lisboa was, "When another poker room opens in Macau this place will be dead in the water". Presuming that a new room is run anywhere near properly then I would agree with that point 100%.

I was told that the reason nobody tips the dealers is because the casino keeps any tips, if that is indeed true then it sums the place up very well.

i made 30k hong kong playing craps last trip so its all good for me.

I also have visited Grand Lisboa more than a dozen times now.
The games are getting tighter as the noobs learn how to play.

My experience has been generally positive.
I agree that a lot of the staff seems very inexperienced. That combined with a lot of novice players leads to a lot of arguing. The Pit bosses also make some inconsistent decisions. There was one Pit Boss (quite nice kiwi/aussie) who told me that most of the Pit bosses have only just learnt poker. Generally they are okay with dealer errors but weaker when their is a player error.
I've also been comped wine and a meal at the restaurant. I enjoyed the free sandwiches/cakes/drinks - I haven't visited any poker rooms with 'free beer' before.

Your table must have been really slow - last Friday I played 50 hands in just over 2 hours (maybe 2+1/2). The dealer was fast, cute and she ran the game well.
Overall, i think it's getting better. It has only been two months.

I suppose you haven't played in Vegas!? they love to get you drunk, but don't think they serve any free sandwiches :P

I wonder where the next poker room in Macau will be. Now it's just Grand Lisboa, right?

I've been to vegas.
A compulsory tip doesn't equal "free"
No compulsion to tip here.