It's the same story every single time.

One talking about quitting a "billion $" job to play cash/tournaments, disappears.

Another gambling, losing money, telling some fish hand histories, disappears.

Other one almost pre-cumming on how he studies for SNG's with 75 thousand solvers and study programs, disappears.

The bottom line is. When people deep inside know they're engaging into a bullshit endeavour and noone outside of their direct circle is supporting them, they will resort to seeking any "validation" they can get from people who ultimately don't give a ****. But it's still more comforting than getting nothing.

Purely on a basis of common sense, it's much more beneficial to ascertain critical review of something than fake positive stories of people who either lie to themselves, are biased on different levels or is purely a plot of imagination of self-created persona. That applies to everything in life from fake Google reviews to people on Instagram pretending to be driving a new Rolls Royce everyday, while collecting food stamps.

100%, when i lookl back at Macau, 2013 was the last of the glory era and by 2016 I'd get seated at a 10 handed table and it'd literally be 8 other professionals from Europe trying to stack the guy from India

@Nordling89 I feel like im just answering your rants rather then having a productive discussion, however im doing nothing so i will entertain.
1) ''The issue with poker that you can call yourself "pro" within weeks.''
I'm shocked that i even need to explain to you what being a pro is, but since u dont know i will. A poker pro is someone who's main source of income is from playing poker, usually started from freerolls or penny stakes, moved slowly up stakes, built a bankroll and over long period of time proved to be profitable player. If someone is break even player variance will catch up to them very quickly online, in live poker it can take longer, but no more then a year/1.5y.
2) ''I think we can all agree that pursuing poker in this era can be divided only in to two outcomes. Making small money "out of air" due to incompetent competition, being extremely superior to your competition by being a genius/lucky in high stakes live consistently''
You have very narrow way of thinking about this. Lots of people from south america and eastern europe grind micro stakes online, for example $3/5/10 mtt's making $2/3 a game playing 1000 tourneys a month. Of course they are all weak regs playing abc tight poker, but they make 3/4x the avg. income of theyt respected countrys, while $3k usd a month might seems like a joke to you, but in theyr situation they are making good money. So when we talk about financial benefits it's not the same for everyone, and some people don't even do it for money, I know a guy from UK who quite his 50k/y office job, moved to vietnam, grinds nl5 (0,02/0,05) online, and lives of that, and probably is happier then any of us. However what u said about high stakes is true, edges are small, variance plays a big roll. From online most elite players make up to 250k/y if we talk consistently, anything over that will be due to variance, in EV around 250k is the ceiling for online. So you look from your own perspective, what is small money for you, for someone else is a fortune.
3) You talk a lot about cheating. When you say people team play in Macau games, what exactly do you mean? If you are talking about friends soft playing each other, then its nothing. I dont think i ever played in a live game where that wasnt the case, but its so insignificant and easy to spot, plus people that do that arent super good, that u lose more EV tipping dealers then to those guys.. You talked about rigged decks and marked cards, i dont think thats a problem in normal casinos, but if u choose to play underground well thats your problem. The only real cheating in regulated casino that i can think of is card sharing. That would be a serious issue if u had 3 people giving each other signal that they folded nuts or nut blockers to the player left in the hand, but the reason thats very unlikely or at least not common, these people need to be very good players to exploit this in the first place, secondly there are plenty of unregulated poker rooms online and apps where they can do this at the same stakes with 10 times the volume with zero impunity and anonymity. And if they tried it at super high stakes live, player pool is so small and players at nosebleeds are sharp, that those rats would be caught very fast.
4) ''In actual high stakes where the table consists of a mix of players with their own bankroll playing for themselves, I would not consider myself a fish by any means. And that's extremely objective as I always am. But we're mainly discussing day to day grind of 50/100, 100/200 stakes in Macau. For that I perfectly well accept that I'm not a winning player anymore. And the reasons for it aren't always directly related to skill, even though it makes up 40-50% of it.''
Actual high stakes? Are you talking about private games? Well sure if half of the table rich business men and rest are some semi pro types im sure anyone with a pulse can beat that game. When you say u did 0 studying in the last 5 years then claim that u are extremely objective of your ability as a player, I'm sorry i just cant take u seriously anymore, when it comes to poker.. And when u say the reason you are not winning is 60% because of cheated ect. thats like the classic fish excuse...

@Nordling89 About this last rant.
Why do you think its wrong to look for like minded people in this forum? Name of the thread Macau, not I quite poker you should too. Sure I hoped someone would share theyr experiece how they are currently grinding, at the moment dealing with some personal things, some positive motivation would have been nice, but looks like people who actually do it dont waste theyr time here, so on that you were right. But at least i found out about the games.
Tell me if you think its pointless and stupid why are you here? What do you get out of putting people down?

I don't think Nordling is putting anyone down. He is just stating the facts about poker in general. It's a very degenerate activity and it is very lifestyle oriented.
It's even worse in Macau as an american or foreigner .There are too may obstacles in Macau and they include (not in any particular order) :

1. Table caps- which is why the games are always away from where the general public is
2. Visa upon arrival requirements : dependent on your country . Around 2015 things changed, you could live in zhuhai, cross the border to macau everyay and as long as you crossed back over before midnight into zhuhai, your via would reset ( again, country dependent as far as the amount of days )
3. It's reg infested, I used to play during the day about 11am, just holding a seat until about 7pm-ish waiting for a seat to open and for a fish to come in. ALL OF MACAU does this. we would sit there all day and barely **** with each other unless we had it, all waiting for a seat to open.
4. high cost of living- i used to rent 2 apartments, 1 in macau for about $350 USD and 1 in china for $200 , I would hold them at the same time so I could have 2 places to live and would rotate between them once my sessions were over. , prices are more like 8X that now- this wa sin 2010
5. When you hang around other degenerates that do degenerate activities, you truly do now know who you can trust. You also fall into stockholm syndrome where you want so desperately to believe that the life you are living is a noble and adventurous one, that you're special, that no one is like you and that they don't know what you're going through etc etc and the percentage of things that go bad- they will not happen to you, cuz you are the best player ever and you gonna sit down next to phil ivey one day and flop a straight flush on him when you call his 3 bet with 6 8 suited.
theres more **** I can't think of, but we're all here to share. hope no one gets pissed at me

Most of the things I've said, you misunderstood the meaning. Give me few hours, will reply in more detail. A bit busy at work. I value your point of view or anyone's for that matter who are willing to talk freely. But there're more similarities in our view than you initially thought.

As you may well have noticed, I've been on this forum 14 years with 321 posts to my name. With most of them being in this thread, covering all range of topics related to Macau. From "good" days to "bad" days and everything in between. Given the frequency of my posts I can hardly be classified as a person who “rants” about anything in general. I am still on this forum occasionally for the following reasons:

1. Poker has been a huge part of my life, that took up nearly a decade of my adult years. The moment I was legally allowed to go to a casino in New Zealand for example, I was there at 00.10am already. So, it has a great degree of nostalgic value for me in general. My view on it, in its current state, can be considered critical or pessimistic but it’s a view of the person who lived through it all and I know what I am talking about, especially in this specific location of the world. I’ve never commented on anything that I don’t have direct extensive experience in for a significant period of time to be entitled to my own opinion.

2. I somewhat still care about the state of poker, but purely based on Macau. Since it’s the only place I would still be willing to go play “recreationally”, considering I’ve been living in HK primarily for the past 14 years. And with family and all real-world commitments, I can’t be going to live in Manila for 6 months anymore, etc.

3. I feel that I can contribute positively by providing clear, objective, non-filtered, non-biased information to people who enquire about the state of poker in this region on multiple levels. From daily expenses to intricacies of the games. And even given that I only travel to play or relax once a month or two. Based on my experience, even just taking a few days to observe and play is enough to paint a clear picture of what has changed or not. It’s possible because you know which key areas to focus on when doing so.

Now returning to your comments. Productive discussions are exactly the place where relative truth is “born” so to speak. I perfectly understand that people in different stages of their poker careers approach it differently due to various factors. I was also enthusiastic, excited and all the other adjectives when it brought me the lifestyle I had, few great friendships, opportunity to travel, financial freedom for not doing too much work technically, etc. As you get older, things appear more and more in perspective based on what your life journey was and acquiring additional skills and life experience. You can then proceed to “share” this point of view for various reasons be it personal benefit, ego boosting or just purely helping people when nothing you need to gain anymore. I hope we can agree that it’s much more valuable when someone honestly speaks to you about something that can be improved, rather than patting you on the head constantly and saying, “Good boy, you’re doing everything right”.

So point by point now.

1. I am perfectly aware what being a pro means in terms of poker. You’ve missed the main point of what I was referring to in my statement. Being that there’re countless people online, talking about poker, that feel like they’re “pros” due to any “reason” imaginable they can come up with in their heads. Then based on that, they proceed to act like ones and brandish their “opinions” for all sorts of either biased or unqualified reasons to provide anything of substance. To me personally a definition of a pro is a person who treats the game with respect, has integrity and it’s either his main source of income or main source of occupation, given higher income from other investments.

2. You have a good point that based on geographic location there’s somewhat a grey zone (3rd point) that fits right in the middle of what I’ve described. But the point can be made first of all on the amount of effort they need to earn that type of money, which could be significantly higher than average monthly for their territory. The amount of time that they are giving up, relationships, health, normal careers, etc. I don’t think that making money that way ultimately leads to happiness on any level. Think of a situation like this. You’re living for example in Argentina, economy is ****ed, everything is ****ed. Average monthly salary is about 200$. Someone offers you a choice of making guaranteed 1,500$ every month for 12 hour work day, every single day of the month. Or instead of that you can make 400$, have a wife, kids, be healthy, but live somewhat “poor”. People will make this choice purely based on their current situation and their life experience. I mean there’s a ton to talk about regarding this, I really hope you understand my point. Otherwise just for this subject I can write at least a 5k word essay debating the philosophical aspect of it.

3. I don’t talk a lot about cheating, I mention it occasionally as it being in my life from a “victims” perspective. All my life I’ve never even soft played “friends” which sometimes led to their confusion in a few situations. Ultimately, they were either able to understand or not. Off the table they always knew what friendship really means to me though. The cheating scenarios that I’ve mentioned either happened in underground home games or private clubs in Philippines. In terms of Macau and casino settings in general, I’ve been multiple times approached by people to join in on the action to play as teams with signaling and “engineering” unique post flop situations. Hope you understand what it means. This point is not really relevant to what I’m trying to say so will just leave it here as is.

4. I’m talking about a mix of very good pros, mediocre pros and 2-3 recreational players with stakes equivalent to 50/100$+. And where everyone plays for themselves, with varied bankrolls. If you think that only purely studying 24/7 like a monk will give you an edge in such games, you can’t be more wrong. As I’ve said, skill level will constitute for 40-50% of your ability to be a winning player in such set ups. Other things will range from ability to gauge behavioral patterns, background considerations, knowledge of body language, interpreting table dynamics, noticing nuances in play based on each given day, bankroll status, depth of your experience/thinking, ability to process that information in a quick and efficient manner and a TON of other factors. If you only think that what constitutes win rate at higher stakes is just about at what frequency/ranges/stack depth etc. to 3bet profitably for each scenario, without taking into consideration the implications of it then you can’t be more wrong.

5. I don’t understand for the love of God when have I ever said that the reason I’m not “winning” is because of cheating. The reason I’m not winning is because I don’t care to win anymore. The reason I’m not winning is because I’m not PLAYING to begin with. And the final reason is because I chose to “win” at something else that brings me much more happiness and a balanced lifestyle at my age. And that, as again I reiterate comes down to regular mid stakes grind and not because I can’t get myself to a level where I can start winning again but purely because it firstly bores me, secondly, as we grow older there’re other things in life that become more important. I am never “ashamed” or whatever else to admit it. It should tell you something in terms of what kind of person I am.

And just to finally sum it all up. I never, ever have a need to “bring anyone down” through what I say. It’s clear to notice that things I write neutrally are purely just an external opinion for additional room for thought to people. I very scarcely comment anything and only in times where I feel people might need another opinion since they’re so confused in themselves, and I can already project to where it’s heading, since I’ve seen hundreds of different cases and life stories, ranging from suicides over Baccarat losses to people losing their families over cocaine addictions from “easy money”. But, I’m still here for 14 years.

As I’ve said, I respect you personally and respect your opinion. I never resort to calling people “drunk losers”, berating them in any way. But I don’t take any random **** either from people who are acting weirdly aggressive and whose “opinion” based on illogical, knowingly bullshit stories discrediting all the years of me contributing to this thread first handedly.

If you clearly read and understand what I’ve written, you would realize that I understand everything you say and your logic perfectly well. Just as an added benefit to you, in terms of self-development, you should also be open-minded to my input. Then we all “win”.

@Nordling89
Thank you for the response. I'm only gonna touch a few points.
I acknowledge that having a family and grinding full time has a lot of challenges, but lots of pro's have wifes/husbands and kids, its not a choice between poker or family. I know plenty of people who are married have kids and spend 9 month a year abroad working manual labor for 5x the money they would get in theyr home country. Stigma that exists in society around poker is the real issue. But nowadays if u want to make it in poker, all this degen stuff like doing drugs, punting money at pit games ect. is simply not possible, games are to tough, there is no easy money like 15y ago and people who do this stuff quickly go broke unless they change theyr life style. 10y i could wake up hungover fire 20 tables online and print money, nowadays i take 1 hour walk prepare myself for the session, try to live healthy, otherwise i have no change to make it. There are some unique cases where people live this party boy life style and still do good money consistently from poker, but the rest take it super seriously.
About studying, like i said in previous posts u need to study and use it as a base line, and then adjust(exploit) depending who you are up against. When i say study i dont just mean gto, u can study population tendencies (harder to do in live poker due to lack of sufficient data), in what scenarios people over bluff/under bluff, fix your own leaks, ect. You can be the most savvy player ever but there is a ceiling to what games you can beat without doing any study.
I feel like what ever i said in this forum i backed it up with sound arguments, i dont live in fairy tail world, i know the time and energy it takes to make it, and there are easier and better ways to achieve financial freedom then poker, but this is what i chose. Of course when i get older i want to feel some gratification from what i do, and poker being zero sum game doesnt help. But like i said this is who am, this is what i want, and nothing good in life is easy.

Yes absolutely, and I wish you the very best as well. Somewhere down the road though it's good to develop a back up plan for what you would like to do if something happens to poker. Either some financial crisis or the rake becomes so insane that not worthwhile playing for anyone professionally. Quoting a famous relevant movie. "Always leave yourself outs".

In 2024 any poker pro still strictly 100% depending on poker for income = life fish

In my early 20s I had this twisted world view if you are not rich or not doing something that can make you rich, then you are a loser or how u put it ''life fish''. Of course this arrogant mindset bite me in the ass, later in life. People who play poker purely for financial gains don't last long. Everyone who still successfully grind for a living, including me do it because they are passionite about the game, love to compete ect. It doesnt matter if u make videos on youtube, stream playing video games on twitch or play poker for a living, as long as u enjoy it, can support yourself and dont harm anyone in the process, you are not a loser or ''life fish''. And there are still plenty of soft low stakes games online and live, where anyone with a brain can make enough money to support themselves.
I understand you are upset that you are no longer able to make good money from poker, but this is not the right place to post your salty opinion.

@Nordling89 Thanks man, likewise. I like the quote from Rounders, definitely applies to bankroll management, but as far as poker suddenly dying, very unlikely and here is why.

1) There were incidents when some poker room operators increased rake to unbeatable both live and online, and immediately poker community boycotted the games and operates were forced to go back to the rake % as before and in some cases even lowered the previous %. 90% of poker players play because they think they can beat the game or that it is possible to beat it, if operators got greedy and made games unbeatable they would kill the games, and new operator would enter and take the market.

2) Casinos have no incentive to get rid of pros since they start the games, boost tournament prize pools that attract people who wouldnt come otherwise.

3) There is endless recreational player pool in micro and low stakes, so unless you live in extremely high income country, you will have no problem to support yourself and you can always move.

Given the current geopolitical situation there is high chance of nuclear apocalypse, then everyone getting extremely good at poker any time soon

lol you sure are one deluded and self-centered clown, making bunch of personal attacks just because a statement that wasn't even aimed at you hit a nerve. If you were smart at all you'd realize what I said was invaluable advice but your IQ is obviously not high enough for such realization.

Btw you sound like a low stakes dude, some of us actually play or played high and have other sources of income. Not going to out myself though but thanks for your idiotic, unsolicited reply. Who's the one getting needlessly emotional and salty again? I wasn't even talking to you. If you really want to prove your poker worth I'd be quite happy to arrange for a HU match vs you online or live anytime. Not sure what stakes you can afford to play though, you sound kinda broke to me hahaha.

Thanks for outing yourself as both a poker and life FISH! ROTFLMAO

"High" chance of nuclear war destroying the entire planet? Hahaha please don't talk geopolitics again, you obviously have no clue.

Also a quick scan of posts reveal TomasPlay as recently as September last year was in this thread asking for advice on macau games, seemingly never having been at all. So how come a few months later you're in this thread arguing and throwing insults at macau players past and present with 10+ years of experience? Oh they can't beat the game anymore, they're salty, they're retired shouldn't speak, this and that. You're in this thread asking for advice and bite the hand that feeds you?

I know 2+2 isn't a popular poker forum anymore and this thread is probably viewed by very few people, but in most other forums this type of behavior is a straight ban.

@1000lakes I meant to say higher not high ^^. Anyways keep your ''invaluable advice'' to yourself. No need to flood the forum with your manchild salty opinions, stick to the topic please. About hu match there is no upside for me, im not an expert in that format, and if you are actually good u will destroy me and if u are terrible u just wont show up.

Look up the thread last 100 posts, I only made 1 or 2 posts giving current reports of macau poker rooms before your unsolicited attack, while you made countless long posts arguing with someone else.

So who's the one flooding the thread with nonsense?

The misunderstanding i had with Nordling89, we cleared it out. I simply pointed out false thinking, for example I used to almost exclusively grind hu cashgames and sng's from like 2013 untill 2015 when they removed supernova from pokerstars, after that it made no sense to play it since a lot of my EV came from rake back, so i moved to mtt's and didnt look back. So if someone came to me today say hey you used to be good at hu can you coach me, i would say sorry because by todays standards im newb at hu, and would tell them to look for someone who is currently grinding it. I simply pointed out that if you are not currently grinding then you lack competence to objectively talk about current state of the games.
You said i bite the hand that feeds, im not here begging for money or looking for someone to hold my hand. People share theyr opinions and experiences of theyr own free will, and if i think it is false or incorrect i will point it out.

Why argue over stuff? Just came back from work. Let me make peace for you guys instead. Hold on.

Unfortunately can only reply tmr. On an insane all-up bet in Norwegian league that wanna enjoy watching and still needa wake up early tmr, don't wanna write a half-assed post.

p.s Please pray that Bodo/Tromso is over 3.5 goals. In this case I will win so much that I promised myself to quit smoking completely.

I just cum//////. Will reply tmr in terms of your guys "dispute" that should not really be the case. Then will take a long break from anything that can cause "stress" for at least few months.

Both of you have got a point, it's just the words that are being used to prove that point aren't either necessary or wrong because the point is not deep/objective enough.

I agree that putting all eggs in one basket, especially with an intangible skill like poker is not the fool-proof solution in the long run for anybody. In the end we're not the providers of this type of "service" and if all somehow goes to **** due to circumstances outside of our control then what are we gonna be left with? Offer people in front of supermarket to play heads up for cucumbers or deliberately go to jail to "build a bankroll" there? Just like anything in life that can feel stable as a ****ing rock, things can change for a multitude of reasons that we're not aware of. Just look at Boeing issues for example and their stock values for the past several years. Who would've thought, right?

But also as I believe I've mentioned, some people play not to become rich or move up in stakes every year. They can be comfortable with what they get. Ultimately there's no point to argue over anything. Everyone lives their life the way they see best. We share our opinions for different reasons, but what is definitely wrong in this situation is to try "project" ones opinion through mutual insults when every party can be wrong in one way or another regardless. What civilized people would do instead is when they feel an external opinion can be of benefit is to provide it. If it's rejected, then just move on. It's not like anyone will gain something out of fighting over one's "truth". Regardless how much you believe in what we're saying.

And will be my last post for a while. Will focus on health, maintaining strong willpower to quit smoking and purely afk from any things apart from work and family. Wish you guys all the best.

Check this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS2T8rCGehk (Channel name 撲克夫妻WiN Poker Couple)
It's in Chinese but has English subtitles. I think he is Taiwanese, got plenty SE-Asia tournament videos too.

If anyone knows anywhere in Macau that runs 25/50 anymore either now or in the future please post where. Thank you.

If you are interested in micro live stakes I can recommend Cambodia thread