Great info guys, thanks!

Will they let Isildur1 play?

can we please make it so only tom and matt can post in this thread?

Hi DS,

There have been a lot of funny moments, certainly for a game of this size has to be the most humorous I have ever seen (not that I can claim to be a global high stakes player).

A lot of it usually happens around the insurance side bets. Obviously the odds offered reflect a bit of vig for the "book" but when you hold AA versus a nut flush draw or open ended straight draw on the flop and there's over US$1in the middle its hard not to get drawn into taking insurance (well for a semi-fish like me anyway). Insurance is done on a card by card basis, i.e. turn card and then again river card. I can't disclose the biggest insurance pay out, but it was truly MASSIVE and I have seen insurance paid out once on a one outer.

One of the players is known as "All In" and when he's playing its very entertaining as he only has two bets, 4 bet raise pre flop and all in on the flop.

The length of the sessions are also lengendary with 20-30 hour sessions with a 6 hour break and then being repeated 4-5 times relatively common. One of the players has been known not to move, I mean not to go the restroom, eat, drink or shift position in his chair (other than pick his cards up and bet) for 8 hours.

Bluffing is highly respected (but don't get caught - its expensive)!!

take a ruler and divide the stack by 7.8

Re Isildur - Not sure ask winfred, would think extremely unlikely if other big name pros are in Macau at the time.

nice, love hearing about these massive games that one can't view otherwise, I guess the action is pretty insane sometimes, and that there are a lot of those character guys(like the dont move a muscle but to bet guy)

are there any social etiquettes that ivey/tom etc have had problems with or any funny incidents?

biggest pot for yourself in the game?

thanks again for sharing info/stories!

thx for the insight view tom

OK, sorry last post - missed answering some of DS's questions, have to do some real work today after the APT week!!.

I have known the guys running the game for many years in Asia, I actually encouraged them to try poker a few years back as I thought they would enjoy it (and hopefully save them some money losses on bacarrat) and then one of their good friends also discovered the poker bug and the game sort of just started. It was originally at the Wynn in Macau but moved for a variety of reasons.

First session I ever played I lost despite probaably being a better player than nearly all of them at the time (now 2-3 of them are far, far better than I am - not that thats saying much re my own skill level). I am lucky enough to count JC Tran and Nam Le as friends and they gave me a few pointers and strategy tips for this type of game and I have done Ok since. I don't play often due to work commitments that have me travelling a lot.

Its great having guys like Chau Giang out there - "Uncle" as he is respectfully referred to by all that play, everybody knows he's a great player and enjoys his company (and stories).

Ok back to the boring work now, come on out to the next APT Macau event of Poker King tournament and come see for yourselves. Not sure if I am allowed to post a link here but check out www.theasianpokertour.com for what just went on. Macau is a really fun place for poker, nightlife with beautiful beach resorts for the post-poker R&R only 2 hours away in Thailand, Philippines and the like!!

hey tom ty for sharing dude.. any other known poker pros sit in this game or only just the players mentioned in title?

Whats all the hype with isuldur1..... And btw he real money only

Yeah sure, I mean if there was a game of white businessmen in at Bobby's Room in Las Vegas that played regularly, I'm sure there would be no cries of "racism" if Asians weren't allowed to play.

It'd just be about excluding outsiders, don'tcha know.

If you traveled at all outside of the US, you might realize that not everyone follows the same laws and customs that we do.

Political correctness isn't as important in some places.

Besides we do have BET television, Miss Black USA, etc... so maybe there is still Racism here in the US you can try to straighten out before you worry about fixing it in Macau?

So enough racism cries, and back on topic.

Actually the Wynn was the first to have PLO in Macau but the games at Starworld are usually smaller but run more often.

Ivey does not bet spreads when betting a million or so, lolz

He will 100% take a -250ML if he is betting 2.5 mil or whatever

I was playing PLO 25/50 HKD (3.25/7.50 USD) at Starworld... next table was NLHE with Johnny Chan and Chau Giang, next to that John Juanda and Tom Dwan (John left and Phil Ivey joined later).

Tom Dwan took a beat with J6 vs K6 on a flop of KJ6 but later went far in front calling an all-in from two players: AK vs QQ vs TT. Tom Dwan had the AK, flopped a pair and it stood up. The pot was around 2.8M USD

I had a chance to talk briefly with Tom a couple of days earlier and I found him very approachable and friendly. I was also very impressed with how polite he was to the casino staff and waitresses and to the other players in the game whether he was winning or losing.

I do travel outside of the US; I've traveled extensively in Asia, and elsewhere. My point isn't that the USA (or anywhere for that matter) is perfect on this count; but rather that couching racism as "cultural differences" is simply bogus.

I've encountered it in Japan "Japanese only, so sorry" and elsewhere. Let's not sugarcoat it.

Said I wouldnt post more till later, but somebody is monitoring for me.

I think I tried to cover the racism issue. There simply isn't any, there is some exclusion, but its nothing to do with race / ethnicity that is for sure. There are white guys, black guys (we don't use the African American descriptor in Asia so am not intending to offend here in any way) Indian guys, Asian guys and a whole load of half castes like me (Eurasian) that have played in the games. Let's try and focus on the poker, isn't that what this site is all about.

winfred tells me that Ted Forrest has turned up and is playing one of the 2 games, there are 2 big games playing 10k/20k and a 5k/10k. Phil apparently up large now.

wow...youre the man tom! thanks a bunch for anything you post here for us!

lol at Ted Forrest hopping a plane ASAP to get in on the action...pretty sure the top tier of poker is officially playing in macau now!...also, just googled Starworld and that architecture is amazing!...just added another destination to my personal bucket list!

I have traveled extensively also. And have encountered the same thing in Japan. But I write it off to cultural differences.

Didn't bother me in the least. Nor does the fact that these guys want to have their private game attended by primarily Chinese speaking individuals.

I don't think the guys down at Augusta are going to let me play on their golf course either.

I am not sugar coating it, but that culture accepts it then so be it. When they want to change they will.

This is one of the most interesting things in poker IMO.

I love hearing stories about the best of the best battling millionaires.

Durrrr winning a 40 mill HK dollar pot, so insane to me.

Like one time this dude told me he knows a rich doctor in NY City who plays Ivey at NLHE 2K 4K. Assuming that is true it just boggle my mind and this guy was a stand up dude.


Durrrr and Ivey have probably lived some of the most unique lives and especially Durrr since he's only 24/25?

A private game in a public casino. That's not exactly a home game.

Anyway, if you find a public business in the USA where a guy at the door turns people away by saying "So sorry, American only" to Chinese people, I think you'd be more than slightly annoyed. And rightly so.

I understand and respect cultural differences; my wife is Chinese Malay. Turning people away from entering because of an "XXXXXX only" policy isn't a cultural difference.

Even if that's not the case in this specific instance, this exact scenario can and does happen in many places in Asia... and it doesn't happen in the USA, Canada, Europe, and many other places.

Please to be keeping some discussion about something that hasn't even happened here to some other section of the forum, this thread is about high stakes action, and that only. Hopefully

looking forward to seeing some updates on the game when logging in tomorrow.

Ivey probably continuing going strong etc

tom w/ the awesome updates