Liquidpoker might be a good place to ask, a couple of the regulars play in Seoul a lot (e.g, Rekrul, I think he plays professionally in the cardrooms there?)

Wow, more info on Seoul ASAP.

I've also heard of some decent games in Seoul, nice action though you might not walk away with your winnings in some of the bigger games. I understand that there are local Koreans, expats, and returnees in these games.

I don't know how it is in Japan, but in the China mainland it's almost all foreigners playing, especially when you get to medium stakes. Beijing (I live there) has at least 4 groups playing 2x/week, blinds range from 1/2 to 10/20 (RMB, not $). Most of these are basically open homegames, though the 10/20 games are well run with some decent players, and there are some monthly large field and larger buyin tourneys.

Shanghai I understand is similar, though I don't know that it is as well organized.

HK has some clubs where you can play, a few buddies have played there and said they were good.

Conventional wisdom here is that this is the way it's going to stay for a while...Macau is at least a year away from having anything, betfair was promising but not very big, and the asian poker tour turned out to be a joke. If you want to get into chinese gambling other than table games, forget poker...you'll be playing MJ or DouDiZhu

PM if you want more info about games on the mainland (esp. Beijing)

Lebowski,
Mahjong is a skilled game. There are many different types of mahjong: Taiwanese 16 tiles, Beijing 16 tiles, Canto 13 tiles. (I don't know the actual English name so I just translated as i know in Chinese). I've seen my parents and their friends for a big amount of money that'd end in like a win or loss of thousands in a day depending on the game you play. It's definitely more interesting than poker and I had been teaching my friends to play it for a while.

Also, I've seen people address you as KKF. What's up with that?

my previous 2+2 alias was kanekungfu123, among others.

Playing mahjong sounds like a sick way to pick up chicks.

Before going I searched the internet about no limit holdem poker in Macau, and only found this thread.

I was in Sands, Wynn, Galaxy, Babylon and Lisboa casinos, they don't have holdem poker just yet. At Sands they have Carribean and Three card poker according to the lobby receptionist.

Right now it's all about baccarat and the chinese market I guess.

Lebowski-

Mahjong is a skill game, especially the Japanese "reach" rules and there are pro's.
A league in Tokyo has about 500 members. There are about 50 pro's featured in a networked arcade game in Japan, Hong Kong and Macau.

http://reachmahjong.com/

is poker available in macau yet?

they have one hell of a chinese checkers room.

i'll be in macau in like a month. someone please spread the poker bug before then.

Possibly going to be a big Tournament in Macau in November...Matt Savage working on it.

I just skimmed the thread; it seems nobody has yet mentioned the very good article on page 96 of the September, 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly. It's titled "Macau's Big Gamble" and was written by the always interesting James Fallows.

Here's the link but I'm fairly certain you have to subscribe and register to get it to work.

~ Rick

I live in mainland China and visited Macau last month. There's absolutely no poker around. You'll have to pay for drinks and food, too (as opposed to AC or Vegas). Macau is flashy but definitely not worth it unless you like blackjack or baccarat... Just a heads up!

One of the Galaxy Casinos just installed 4 PokerPro automated tables. I hear it is doing well.....

Would be interesting to know the rake on the Macau pokerpro tables. Probably astronomical.

really? I don't wanna sound racists but how come I always find that black Americans are the most rude, impolite, uneducated ppl in this world?
And what's the deal w/ Chinese ppl, at least most Chinese/Taiwanese/HongKongnese are bilingual, and i doubt you can speak the top two most-used languages in the world. Just admit, the US has lost its edge in terms of world trade and business, the market is merging toward Asia. So you either keep living in your closed small world or open your arms and embrace them, maybe also learn how to speak Chinese too.

I just got back from holidaying in Macau. I played the PokerPro tables at Galaxy and can confirm the rake is pretty outrageous, varying from 5-10% of the pot. However, the standard of play is so low the games are easily beatable. Most people playing are old chinese guys who have wondered across from the casino floor and have never played before.

When i was there they had 2 tables running, $2.5/5 and $5/10
(HK dollars) hold em. There was also talk of a big buyin tourny in a couple of months, to formally open the cardroom.

The cardroom manager also informed me that the Lisboa has trained dealers, got tables etc ready for fully-live poker and is just waiting on government clarification of the legality of poker.

Cant wait!!!11

If they have reasonably poker room there that's +EV, I will be the first one to go back there to live.

Sitting behind a computer is just not the same as having real cards to fumble with, but it's better than nothing. http://www.pokertek.com/table.html

Hey guys,

I'm living in Hong Kong until june 2008 and I'm interested in playing poker in Macau / Hong Kong!! If there's anything going on, please let me know I would be more interested to participate in any kind on event .

Thx,

Matt

Hey Schneids, have you seen Dave from Minn lately? I went to college with him at USD and haven;t been able to get a hold of him since his bro final tabled the turning stone event.

wtf is this post

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I agree

bump cos I'm in Fuzhou atm and a 4 hour or so drive away from Macao

I want to get some gambol on, I heard about there being a 200+bb buyin 40/80 RMB game which must be pretty sweet - anyone have more info?