don't quote me on this, but the general understanding of it was each casino had a cap on the amount of tables they could have running at any given time

an occupied baccarat table has lower overhead and higher earnings than a poker table, so as long as baccarat was busy, they'd restrict the low earning poker tables to an artificially low amount - this is also why many places don't have poker at all

When times are good, casino's will not care for poker. One Baccarat table probably destroys 20 poker tables as far as revenue goes.
Macau has a cap on tables and each casino will want more Baccarat action over Poker. In Macau there's more staff supervising a pit compared to Vegas. With dealers, supervisors and servers needed, management will cater to pit games and rather not deal with Poker.

But with traffic being slow, Poker will get more attention. Hence more tables at V now and also why Wynn always had a huge Poker presence otherwise it'd be a ghost town.

663366 Are waiting lists long at all stakes or lets say at 100/200 300/600 you can get a seat quickly?

Of course, the table caps are arguably the biggest hindrance and reason for all these crazy waitlists. And it probably won't change, I think the casino licenses were just extended not too long again, apparently no changes in regard to that, not that I heard of at least. Apparently the table caps are Macaus way of showing "social responsibility" or whatever, so like, "we limit our activities, our whole town is not just about gambling"
There is actually a big program running at the moment, presumably directed by the central govt, to diversify Macau away from just gambling (and, you know, the horizontal biz)
Generally speaking, like, in the US and a few other places, a few casinos understand, that while poker may not be the biggest moneymaker in terms of revenue per table, it is advantageous to have, it brings peeps to the casino that wouldn't go if it was just table games/slots and these peeps may spend on other games/food/drinks/shopping mall, may stay in the hotel etc.
But in Macau, quite honestly I think almost nobody understands that. And I think they also do seem to not understand like if you just add baccarat table XXY - XXZ they are not going to be as profitable as baccarat tables 001 -XXX because there is some point of saturation. I have never seen a Macau casino all full with all tables occupied, it may happen, but it's not a common occurrence. Every time I was in Wynn Cotai after they shut the poker room there, surprise, the baccarat tables that replaced it were all empty. Great stream of revenue you have there!

Lists are fluid and obviously depends on time of day, day of week, holiday or not, who's in town etc.

If it's any like precovid, 50/100 and 100 200 are kinda the same, at least at the Wynn, 100/200 smaller list but also less tables/players so it was a coinflip which one was faster. 300/600 and above you reportedly got called if there was a game/seat for you, again at least at the Wynn. Venetian was a lot more random, prolly mainly because not many serious players would gather and wait for games with this kind of rake. Running was whatever randomly arriving peeps would want to play. Also no rake reduction for shorthanded at either place...

Does anyone know if PLO4 running or is it only NLHE ?

Thankss

What’s the appeal of Wynn over the Venetian, out of interest? It’s the first time I’ve been to Macau.

The rake is lower at Wynn, but the lineup per game looked rather intimidating to me. Euro pros and a bunch of guys that looked like they were playing together.

The Venetian was choc full of tourists, with 16 tables going at the same time?

Wynn is class, comfort, high quality.

Venetian is the dollar store, filled with animals.

Yeah, games are tougher at Wynn. I agree 100%

I cannot recall Venetian ever running 16 tables or anything close to that number at the same time. Not to say it didn't happen, but it was certainly not a common occurrence. Staff / floor were also very poor, some of them lacking basic poker knowledge.
Now I agree that the games were better, sometimes much better than the Wynn. Whether it was worth paying all that crazy rake, that is the question. It is easy to think so when you are running good, but over the long run the rake just cuts into your winrate and increases variance. Surely, sitting with a large number of decent/good pros does the same thing. There is no definite answer to this.

V recently expanded. Lots of 50/100 games

k, that makes sense. Who would have thought that they would become kinda the premier poker venue in Macau. I still kinda hope though they will maybe reinstate the tourneys in CoD or another venue one day, that was where everything was happening, that brought tons of players to town, was generally good value and also provided tons of weaker players for the cash games. After they've done away with these that's when poker really went downhill

Heard MGM Cotai might open a small poker room sometime in May, few details but that casino doesn't have a lot of foot traffic so I'd expect games on offer to be lower stakes?

Yeah we need something resembling Macau Poker Cup again...

Macau is too sick. Upcoming Golden Week will be eliminating the 50/100 tables. Minimum stakes will be 100/200. HolyFk!

50/100 will return after the holidays.

What’s the deal with Covid entry requirements to Macau these days?
If I get one of these Hong Kong free flights I’ll surely use it to stay at the Venetian for a few nights

No requirements anymore. Our great leader said we have beat covid so there's that . Also free ferry/bus tickets until mid June if you arrive via HKIA, one night min stay required, google it. Hotel prices sky high presently though

i know it's a variance fest, but this is the exact reason that macau is good for poker

the talk about easy games and such is mostly nonsense - yes there were guys shoving 500bb all in pre with 85 because it was their birthday, but it was intentional degen behavior and they were otherwise smart and competent players

in USA#1 you get galaxy brain plays of shoving 500bb pre with 85 to protect their shoving range

much easier to play against complete morons who are trying than intelligent people who occasionally decide they will not care at all about winning the next orbit

what makes macau great is the bad players can't hide at low stakes the way they do stateside

It’s golden week in Japan too, would love to hear what the tables have been like the last couple of days. Must be a dream with a bunch of people who haven’t played poker since 2020 finally coming to burn through their bankroll

japanese playing in korea are a bunch of fun degens who took an hour long flight over for a fun weekend

japanese in macau are all super nitty pros and constantly collude and share bankrolls with each other

sounds like a terrible time to play but my exposure to japanese in macau is limited so perhaps I just ran bad

rickroll where did you play in Korea? I’m looking to go there soon as I’ll be in the country for a wedding and would love to hit the tables there. I heard Jeju isn’t bad but that’s anecdotal

only played in seoul there's a casino right across the street from one of the airports

can't really give much of a tr, my trips there were drunken tourism with a little bit of poker when the stars aligned

but playing in korea completely changed my perceptions of japanese, i couldn't stand them before and when i sat down at a table for the first time and realized it was all japanese I was not happy but soon enough they showed themselves to not be anything like the japanese i'd run into over in macau

I was in Macau last week, five total days. I played exclusively at the Venetian. Two days at the 50/100 and then three days at 100/200. Rickroll isn't wrong about the Japanese in Macau - super nitty pros. Kinda arrogant and table captain-y too.

There was also a large contingent of Euro pros, mostly eastern European. I met guys from Belarus, Romania, and Russia. A couple of Danes, too. These pros are also super nitty and definitely sharing bankrolls. The Romanian contingent in particular seemed to be quite large. I clocked at least six of them.

Perhaps it's just sample size but I didn't experience any wild or high variance game conditions. If anything the games I played in tended to be weak tight. The mainland tourists were the ones providing all the action. When playing a short stack the tourists I saw were happy to get it in pretty light. The other mainlanders playing a normal stack tended to be very passive, call down too light sometimes, but especially limp calling pre and then x/f the flop.

On day four of my trip, the biggest winning day, I was fortunate enough to play at a loose passive 100/200.

The limp call pre, x/f flop line was my probably my most important exploit. They mainlanders kinda know how to play, but they're very very unbalanced. It's almost like live NLHE in the US in 2006.

Nice update! Hope it was a profitable trip for you

Did you take the raise pre and fire on most flops approach?

Precisely this approach. Super loose in position, about 50% VPIP in CO and button. It was also not uncommon to have them peel and fold turn. Again, they're super unbalanced, so my exploits were also relatively unbalanced.

I have to say, these games get a bad rap for the rake, but they are eminently beatable for big numbers.

+765.15 BB for the trip