This is what Winfred Yu, who runs the Poker King Club (which is where the big games are being held) and who himself is one of the regs at HK$5k/10k, had to say about the experience of playing these nosebleeds in Macau:

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Yu played in a HK$5,000/10,000 No Limit Hold’em game last week with the likes of John Juanda, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Chau Giang and Hong Kong businessman Tom Hall (one of the owners of the Asian Poker Tour). He finished the session with a HK$1.1 million profit, a result he is justifiably proud of.

“If I told anyone the line-up, and asked them to guess who the winners were in that game, I think almost everyone would get it wrong. Tom (Hall) and I were the only ones who won,” chuckled Yu.

He played in that game a second time several days later and recorded a second winning session.

The high-stakes cash action has been going on in Macau for almost two years now, but have recently catapulted into the limelight because of the involvement of Ivey, Dwan and Juanda, who jetted in to the former Portuguese enclave to play in the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Macau. Perhaps unsurprisingly, their attentions quickly switched to the side game action as soon as they arrived.

But for anyone who thinks that the Chinese businessmen in the game are soft targets, Yu has a word of warning.

“These guys are not complete fish. They have been playing poker for two years and they have improved a lot. Playing against them means that you are constantly under pressure. They like to over bet the pot and sometimes you just don’t have a strong enough hand to call,” he said.

“I was playing at the Venetian a few days ago with a friend and a Chinese businessman showed up with two bodyguards. He challenged me to a heads-up match and I accepted. I am probably ten times a better player than he is, but I ended up losing a lot of money.”

“At these kinds of stakes, it is not a question of who is the better player anymore. It is a question of whether you have the guts to put your chips into the pot and take a chance against them. They have a lot of money, and to them, losing HK$5 million or HK$10 million is nothing – they treat this money as ‘tuition fees’. They flew down from Beijing and Shanghai with HK$10 million each just because they heard that Phil Ivey was here, and they wanted to play against him. I don’t think any professional poker player can lose HK$10 million and walk out with a smile on their face.”

For those of you wondering what the action is like in Macau and what it's like to play against these guys:

I had the good (or bad) fortune of playing against some of these Chinese businessmen last week. We were playing HK$300/600, which was a relatively 'small' game for them. Our game was down to 5 handed, all regs, and all of a sudden 4 guys come to the table and ask what we are playing. Three out of the four had never played poker before. One of them asked the dealer if 'three pairs was bigger than four pairs'.

The regs were basically all jostling for seating position so that we could be in good spots to isolate the fish in position. We were limping into just about every pot with ATC because our implied odds were 200-1 to better if we made some random two pair. If any one of us had a hand, we would isolate by raising 10-12x preflop and up to 15-16x if we were OOP against the fish.

In one of the hands, the board read Q-Q-5-6 rainbow on the turn. One of the regs led out for HK$20,000 (into a HK$6,000 pot). One of the fish then raised to HK$260,000. The reg thought for a while, then folded. He folded a weak Queen because he thought the fish looked very strong and confident.

The fish then declared to the table that he 'really had it' and 'wasn't bluffing' after some goading. He then showed his cards to one of his friends and his friend nodded. We then said to the dealer that the 'show one, show all' rule ought to be enforced. The fish then said it was okay, we could all look at his cards since he 'wasn't bluffing and really had a very strong hand'. He turns over 5-6 and declares that he had three pairs.

That's how we roll in Macau.. lol

Hi All,

So as someone has posted earlier, everyone is already aware that Durr's been playing heads up with a guy from Shanghai for over 12+ hours already. 30k-60k HKD NL . As I've said already I cannot mention who's winning. But I can update two hands that were pretty big pots. And because these hands happened when I wasn't around apparantly noone saw the first bits of how the hands went down. So apologies on that part.

Hand of the Day:
FLOP: 6clubs, 9 clubs, 7 hearts
TURN: 3spades (Pot is already at 10M, not sure how it got to that before the turn)
RIVER: 8 diamonds
Shanghai Guy: Bets 3M into the 10M pot
Durr: pushes ALL in .....7m raise on top of the 3M
Shanghai Guy: FOLD
Durr: Shows Kspades,9 spades

NEXT HAND (Back to Back)
FLOP: 3clubs, 8clubs, 6 spades (5M pot, again dont know how it got to that)
TURN: Qclubs
Shanghai guy: Bets 2M into a 5M pot
Durr: raises it to 6M
Shanghai guy: FOLD

Sorry I didnt get to see the beginning of these pots, but I guess everyone can comment and guess on what they think happened. LOLZ....

Wouldn't Durrrr be at 27.5 mil total...?

First hand

10M in pot (5M from Durrrr) guy bets 3M Durrrr raises all in total of 10M

Meaning he started hand with a stack of 15m and wins 8M up to 23M


Second hand wins 4.5 M

Total Stack = 27.5M

ya he corrected himself a few posts later.

He said on facebook that he was there. His facebook status also stated that he "ironed johnny chan out heads up,haha"

Few things

Unfortunately due to the very nature of the internet this has spread far, far wider. Probably partially my own fault for posting but many of the first time posters or guest rep mainstream (non poker media). I have the emails to prove it.

I FULLY appreciate that most of you only care about the hands, swings, pots, what Tom and Phil are up to and that the thread has gone a bit off track as far as you are concerned. I am meeting with the guys that run the game over the weekend, Stella, poker room etc and we will figure out the way forward so that we can keep everybody happy as best we can. For me what was a quick post has turned into something that has taken up for too much time (mainly for Mark) and set off something we didn't really expect, so need to adjust accordingly.

I ask for a bit of patience (please). It is also compounded by the fact that this weekend is the Macau Grand Prix which is Macau's busiest weekend of the year full stop and the opening of the Playboy VIP Club at Sands, both of which are complete media circuses and make it hard to get anything done.

was at Starworld last night playing 10/25 in the vip section? where durrrr had played the businessman, but he was a no show last night. Chau Giang and Johnny Chan were there with a group of chinese but nobody was playing. at one point Johnny says to some whitey (brazilian accent?), "let's go, call Phil...let's gamble. tell him to hurry up. we're going next door to gamble." this was about 2am. the whole group then left, to where i don't know. and if he was talking about Ivey i don't know either.

Waiting for Tom Hall to get back from Macau with a report. His friend and business associate Chris Parker says he is going back to get back into the action.

the target market for the poker rooms in macau is not pros from the us. they want the chinese and people from other regional asian countries. to suggest they reduce the rake to cater for 5% of the player population is ridiculous. in any case there are already plenty of pro players from other countries grinding in macau, they seem to be making a good enough living regardless of the rake.

also, macau casinos will not reduce the rake due to their own bottom line. it was hard enough to get them to open poker rooms, considering baccarat tables make way more money for them.

Welcome to Macau!

Hi I understand from a player's perspective how important rake is to your winnings. We have changed our rake system recently and lowered it to accomodate our players more. Of course it cannot be the same as the US, because our currency is different, and there are many other factors differentiating a poker room in Macau and a poker room in Las Vegas.

Our rake system is:
Anything above 1k-2k no limit = 300 HKD Max. Including free food off our poker king club menu.
2-5 handed = 1/2 which is 150HKD Max.

Anything including 1k-2k and under is =200 HKD Max. (no free food)
2-5 handed = 1/2 wihch is 100 HKD Max.

This is the same rake structure as most of the other poker rooms in Macau as well.

Thanks for your interest, and I hope I've helped answer your question a bit. =)

Phil Ivey has gone back to the US ahead an unknown amount, Durrrr is still in Macau, this is all the information I was given at this time.

Tom Hall will report in the next 24 hours after meeting with the players and club owners.

Hello All, Just back from Macau.

OK updates and a few hands and a classic photo or two.

Rules are, we can report on the hands and give a few more details and some general guidelines but have to stay away from specific names. It was a minimum of HK$10m to sit down and everybody needed a further HK$10m behind to play. Session has been running 20+ hours in a private room. When I turned up it was 6 handed, I joined for a bit (I was given permission to buy in much smaller as had just come from an evening out and was a bit worse for wear). Thanks Reggie for the invites to the opening of the Playboy Lounge at the Sands in Macau.

The 2 main pots.

Blinds HK$10k/20k and 10k ante. Pre flop early position local raise to 120k, call, pro raises to 600k, original raiser makes it 1.6m, pro calls. Flop Ac jh 7c. Pro checks, local raises to 3m, pro has local covered puts him all in, local tanks for a while and calls his remaining approx 12m off. Pro turns over Ah Kc, local turns over 3c 5c. No insurance taken, club on the turn, blank on the river. HK$33m pot.

Pro 1 raises from mid position to 240k, second pro re raises to 1.2m, initial raiser pushes all in (has second pro covered 30m to 6m in chips), second pro tanks for a moment and adds "got to gamble with your ****!!", calls and turns over pocket 9s. Pro 1 slowly turns over pocket 8's. Pro 2 takes insurance on both cards for total of around HK$5m, 9's hold up for approx 12m pot.

I have a classic 38m chip stack, 12 x 2m (in 100k plaques), some 500k plaques on top and another stack of 500k plaques in front you can't see from last few days but don't have permission (knowledge) to add it. Will send to Matt Savage and KevMath for them to add.

Durrrr was still in the session when I left and we agreed not to discuss specifics until end of session, all I can say is he's doing OK now.

Phil has gone home as he had some business to attend to in the US.

BTW wasnt my chip stack (I wish). Photo should be added by Matt shortly.

From Tom Hall......Wow!

100,000 and 500,000HKD plaques on top

Hey smart math guys...How much do you think this is?

Matt you lemming, I said how much in the earlier post There was HK$110m approx on the table at the time

Room was cordial, watching soccer on TV, though everybody a little tired. Everybody dresses pretty casual, definitely no suits.

Off to Dim Sum lunch now. Have a good weekend or what's left of it

Game has always since the very beginning moved around, part of the deal on still reporting is not giving away location specifics and for the time being it will play privately between the various properties. There is no issue with starworld at all, just part of the rotation (share the rake around). Thats all I can say right now, don't mean to be an arse, but on consensus probably better you get hand updates and interesting photos / news without the specific location as it's fairly irrelevant anyway. Also, as somebody has pointed out, am sure Durrr will give some update when it suits him, not for me to do!!

I understand if you can't say exactly where but I'm pretty sure other posters have hit the current location. It's interesting what you say about various properties, does that mean more than two? Or maybe you can't give that away either.
I can't say that location is irrelevant; everyone knows the "Big Game" is in Bobby's room at Bellagio for example. I suppose you have to operate under certain reporting restrictions though and thanks for the information you have been able to share. Looking forward to Durrrr's updates, get him to hit Twitter or something

Bad news is there were some issues with the photo being posted but the good news is that they are OK with some information going out and currently Durrrr is still playing heads up in a marathon session.

I have resubmitted the photo for their approval........stay tuned

The heads up match continues that started at 3:25am Macau time. about 15 hours ago.

Permission granted to show this edited picture

Latest update from HU rematch no 2. Durrr is currently up over 60 mill HKD. Game is continuing..

Guys, pls cut Tom and Stella etc, some slack. They are kinda caught in between a rock and a hard place. The rest of us lurkers with no affiliation to any of the rooms will try to provide updates whenever we can.


Durrrr is up 62mill HKD atm.

Guys, I am delegating future posting to Matt Savage as I have a lot on next few weeks. Hopefully the posts will be interesting for you, we are doing what we can , sorry about the no names stuff, just the way it is.