Truly miss such characters these days.

Please elaborate? Who, how much, etc?

love hearing all the stories above....

The stories of bacc players wandering onto a poker table were stuff of legend but for sure created fun times at table.

Back when Stars opened room at Hard Rock, I was playing in the room one night around 3AM during APPT so cash games were running. (cant rem if 25/50 or 50/100)

Anyway was late and game was prob about to break. It was me, 2 euro kids there for APPT tourny, and 4 locals. Euros knew exactly what they were doing. Others varied from very basic to pretty good.

Very attractive Chinese woman sits down with heaps of Bacc chips. Had no idea how much cuz there were all sorts of colors I had not seen. it was a ton.

Table got very interesting. After a few hands when her plans for the game became clear, it got very interesting. She was playing every hand and anyone that was going to play a hand with her against her was most likely going to be playing for stacks or at least a very large pot at some point in the hand

She would open shove it all and show Q4 or just limp and smile or bomb the river and show all kinds of stuff. One time in another monster pot she turned over what she thought was a losing hand because there was "no match". She had no idea she had a straight and felted the dude. (she always showed her hands. I think she thought it was required) It was hillarous, Some of the locals had no idea what to do and/or scared to play. Euros tried to mix it up but got hurt more than anything else. she was running pretty good and their GTO heads were short circuited

I was so tired I had no idea what to do so watched the hilarity for a while and then went to bed.

my first time in Macau, I think it was sometime in 2006

up in the Grand Lisboa after spending well over an hour trying to find poker

only one table running and i'm shocked at the stakes on offer as I was rolled for something like 1-2 and was able to just barely cover the min buyin at the lowest stakes

people are 4 betting and 5 betting pre regularly, i can't believe how absurd this is

the guy next to me speaks flawless English and he started out with some factories and now also owns a lot of fast food franchises across the border - he's pretty competent but clearly just looking to gamble it up and have some fun - just a really fun loving guy, can't remember the nickname we gave him but believe it had something to do with colonel sanders

he starts getting a series of phone calls

3 of his employees show up, they setup an impromtu work station at the unoccupied table next to us, laptop, paperwork, and constant phone calls

he is on the phone the entire time seated at that table, but he keeps playing poker

he however doesn't want to be rude and slow down the game, so he without even looking he'd say "fold, raise, call, all-in" etc and his employee would move his chips with help from the dealer. He did that for several orbits, not just jamming blind, but regularly calling jams on the turn and river blind because people actually were bluffing.

Eventually the phone is put away, the laptop and paperwork is packed up by his employees and off they go and pulls out this massive stack and rebuys yet again to start playing poker with actually looking at his cards. After a few orbits, I see he's not tilted or anything and everything is back to normal. Given that he basically tripled me up over the course of 4 hands or so, I can't help but ask what the hell just happened.

He looks at me and says one of his factories is on fire right now as we speak. The employees are all safe, the building and inventory are all insured, but he's still going to lose millions because he won't be able to fulfill his contracts and his clients are going to find new suppliers unless he's able to outsource the product and given margins so narrow he'll likely do so at a loss.

He said that given the amount of stress he was under while making those phone calls to both clients and other factory owners, the thought of losing a thousand dollars on a flip seemed pretty insigificant and helped get through a difficult time.

Really put things in perspective every time I saw someone just randomly shove blind it's probably some version of therapy for them.

but then there were the guys who'd never fold a hand like 83 pre because it was their birthday or lucky number or something... that i never found an excuse for

If you wanna be on payroll I'd suggest being Chinese and 40yo+)

A very old friend reg of mine shared with me cause he sitting on same benefits. Roughly would be around 50HKD/hr.

was it suited? if so Im not folding that chit ever, especially if clubs. thats my lucky suit. Reminds me of Lucky Charms cereal. they are magically delicious.

another story about that same night at PokerKing starworld.

Dont know if others rem the nosebleed stakes table that was on its own in the back a bit. I knew someone playing that night so was able to sweat the game a bit.

I've never seen so much money on a table on TV or anywhere else. I tried to add it up but was hard. Was measured in millions US$

When they took a break Ivey and Chinese dude started doing what I calc'd to be $US 100,000 flips. craziest stuff I've ever seen at a poker table.

Was just curious, since I hadnt heard about it before. I knew they had some reward program, back when they were at Starworld.

What about Wynn, do they have any sort of reward program for poker?

Back in Starworld it was actually applicable to general public. You could grind points by playing, double at night or something and exchange for food, cash, items etc. Also had some hand of the day draws etc.

In early Venetian you could make points from poker as well and order food.

When Galaxy poker room just opened they had similar promotions to old Starworld as well.

Don't remember if Wynn ever had any promos but most likely not, apart from the designated poker deposit system and cashier.

What I was talking about is just a thing they been doing since dawn of times. Which is networking with local retired breakeven regs in their mid 40s+ just to have an option of starting tables when needed. Back in Starworld days when poker just started they used to get fully staked and get some % of their winnings. These days it's a fixed rate for most. For PK it's a win/win situation, those regs also think like they getting something out of it. Ever wondered why same grandpas every day just come and play 16+ hr sessions while falling asleep between hands?

Oh yeah, I get why they are doing it.

I was playing at Starworld back then, it was nice, to at least get something back, considering all the rake paid

Are you in Macau now? Just got back from there, wondering if I know who you are

If someone would bring old Starworld games back I would agree to pay double rake)

Living and working in Hong Kong, used to grind full time. Then switched to part-time on weekends or days off from regular job. This year with all the divorce bullshit i had to go through played like once a month at best in Sands.

Currently exploring the option of getting a job in one of the casinos in Surveillance/Security field and just moving to Macau permanently since not much point living in HK anymore for me. Waited like a month for an agent to reply to me about one surveillance position which I'm by far the best candidate for with 3 years actual surveillance experience in valuable cargo logistics plus 12 years of "surveying" all types of crowd in casinos daily. Reply was : "I recently received feedback from my client and unfortunately, they have decided not to pursue with your profile as they would prefer previous working experience in surveillance." Really facepalm and had a strong urge to make an extensive "recommendation" in Linkedin lol

Sands have closed 25-50 which reduces to 0 the point of them having a poker room.

Whaaat? Damn it was actually a pretty good game. Do you know if the 50/100+ has still been getting up there? Actually didn't mind that poker room - like the high ceilings

Was a good game and had a potential to become much better with the room being open only somewhat recently. In Macau it usually takes months if not years to establish a proper packed poker room since there's no advertisement or event any type of posts about it whatsoever and basically you can hear about it only from someone told someone etc or by physically checking every casino like a ****** on monthly basis.

That room was never meant to run 50-100, at least not on a regular basis. They had occasional tables popping up once in a while but mainly it looked like 3 friends + 3 friends + 1 fish + 2 random regs. Even today at 2pm or so on Moon festival weekend they barely got the table going with the similar line up mentioned above.

It's pretty easy to destroy something but really hard to rebuild especially in terms of poker rooms in Macau. I've posted what I think about the situation these days several pages back in this thread but these panic attempts to "cut cost" by casino management when they been facing not a RECORD PROFIT several months overall in Macau by upping poker limits that no one will play are just pathetic. It's like treating an open leg fracture with placebo Panadol. Truly feel sad that they can only afford employees with ability to look at the piece of paper and able to add or subtract on calculator without seeing the bigger picture how much "unaccountable" traffic just having these limits generates for the casino. And Sands is a pretty boring property overall with nothing to offer apart from gambling. And I'm really not butt hurt or biased here in any way, this is just how things work in the business. But i guess they just choose to pray for Chinese peasant gaming with "Sambin and Choy Choy" ****.

Not sure its a cut cost thing in Macau. Baccarat table business will drive all decisions.

Macau has unique dynamics I have not seen and any other parts of the world.

1) Table cap. Not sure what DICJ uses as ratio of poker table to Bacc. It wa 1:1 (gg poker), but think it was changed to 10:1 which helped more rooms open. Not sure what it is now

2) Do dealers still have to be Macaunese. That was the case 5 years ago, and dont think it has changed. If thats still the case then that's a major issue for Casinos as well.

I've talked to the manager today and he's basically confirmed it's a "cut cost" thing since he even mentioned that they talked about increasing rake for 25-50 which is not wonderful by any means but at least can keep **** going. Thing i suggested personally was abandoning "chop blinds" rule just for this specific casino if that would make difference in their mind.

All the table ratio talk is just garbage when speaking of Sands in particular. Not meaning to undermine your point. But the property even being one of the oldest in Macau is still somewhat attractive only location wise to people.

What I really think is since Sands, Melco etc are in substance foreign entities and with fluctuating wierd geopolitical bullshit happening they just wanna milk as much as possible at any given moment and if needed just **** off at any given time with minimal cost. That's what the very senior management is thinking most likely. This idea is transferred to lower mgmt and since they needa show some "action" based on the directive to keep justifying their job titles they make such decisions.

^^

@Nordlinger89 i enjoy all your posts . you are on the ground there and can share great info others cant.

I would suggest that a poker room manager is not the best source of info for the issues I am talking about. They have nothing to with any decision making that matters in casino operations.

The Rio in Vegas cares about cutting costs because they are not profitable. I cant speak about the old traditional casinos downtown because I have no experience with them. The modern casinos in Macau have never been in cost cutting mode, because regardless of HK unrest, china/us trade BS, or anything else, they continue to throw off TONS of cash.

As far as the recent Concessions given to wynn, LVS, Galaxy, Melco, etc etc its naive to think table cap is not top of mind with casino execs when making many decisions.

Table allocations are scarce resource which they optimize to increase profit.

A bacc table in Macau can make US $40K+ per day. How much do you think a poker table makes (regardles of stake) ?

If you were an operator with only 10 tables allocate from DICJ, and could put out any como of poker vs bacc, how many poker tables would you put out. Each one you put costs you around $35K in loss profit per day, as that reduces the number of bacc tables you can have on the floor.

Next of importance is that dealers are also scarce resource given they must be Macau citizens (unless thats changed in the last few years)

Constrained table count, constrained labor drive many of the important decisions Casino Execs make in Macau.

Im sure the poker room manager as Sands is a great guy. But all these things are above his pay grade.

We both can mainly just speculate on the real reasoning behind their decisions.

But what puzzles me is that one of the largest Casino operators in Macau with 1/3 of the market share and generates massive income annually can't afford an extra 2-3 tables designated for poker which allows to diversify their games on offer which Macau government actually encourages operators to do.

Every property is different and for Sands specifically as a trash tier one based on Macau standards just having poker will increase popularity and traffic reasonably if they kept the room running affordable limits. People gamble on waiting lists, people also gamble after bad sessions, people come back just for poker again and also will gamble etc etc.

What was the point for them to even open a room in first place if they were not gonna stick with it for longer than 6 months. Now it will basically be dead. On weekdays there will be no game whatsoever there at 50/100 just because it's too much of hassle for regs to start the game.

I dont think you are listening and this is in no way speculation on my part. it is fact from my direct working experience in Macau with almost all the large Operators.

I can explain this to you but cant understand it for you

just google Macau Table Cap if you want to learn more.

Bacc Table makes US $40K plus A DAY, poker makes what $5k?

This badass lady used to work for PokerStars then she traveled around the world sightseeing and playing poker. Thought I'd put this here for those who want to see a Macau vlog. She needs more subscribers (1k min) to get her channel monetized.

Miss the times when something actually excite me about Macau lol

Hi all. I am going to Macau next week for the first time since 2013. Back then I played in a fairly low limit cash game at Starworld (something like 20/40?) and also a tournament. It was pretty enjoyable.

I was looking forward to going back until I read the last few pages of this thread! I am an OK poker player... I like to play for fun. I don't mind donking off several hundred dollars on a trip as long as it was fun. It sounds like Macau is now devoid of fun games though.

Is there any chance at all I can find a 25/50 game, or even a tournament? It sounds pretty grim on this thread.

I will be there Sep 29 - Oct 3.

Any advice or help appreciated.

unless things have changed in last 2 years, starworld no longer has poker and probably hasn't had poker since you were probably last there

can someone confirm which rooms are running these days?

Sands closed completely. Wynn and Poker King in Venetian only 50/100. There's also a mystery room in one of HKJC Properties that I've never mentioned but from what I've heard it's similar private **** like what Babylon used to have. Never bothered to physically check it out because of location.

During those dates not that much fun to be found but would advise Venetian.