tourist based countries (independently administrated regions) cannot be in the habit of having tourist killed....trust em noone in macau is that big to ejopardize the lifeblood of the region

Confirmed Stella on left, my floorman Chinh was willing to move to Macau for Stella and NOT the cash games!

Have to say not being a regular forum poster or visitor, the last few days have been both amusing and educational. A few things:-
Yes Stella is the girl on the left and yes she is cute. Please do not abuse her, if for no other reason that she is doing all the Starworld Big Game updates and you are likely to be hated for life by the rest of this thread if she stops posting because you upset her.Post #665 brilliant.

Please also drop the Durrrr is going to get in trouble if he wins big of the locals. Utter BS, it’s just not like that, somebody has been watching too many movies. The regulars and local businessmen that have flown in, are really enjoying playing against Phil and Tom Dwan and as one of them said, we are never going to get better playing the same old guys. Having played with Tom in a few sessions, it is amazing how he constructs hands. Saw him play 8 2 suited on an A J 10 board and bet the turn to bluff the river – didn’t work that particular time due to the river being a queen but at other times it did and because of the way he plays when he has it he gets paid off big. Will not add any more Durrr strategy comments as am sure there have been millions that are far more qualified than me.

With respect to poker in Macau, for sure it is no longer the total fishing ground that it was 2 years ago, however as most of the visting pros will confirm its still a far softer game that Bellagio at a weekend with the usual mix of tourists and vegas locals.

However, whilst we are delighted to welcome you all to Macau, our main objectives is to broaden the reach of poker in the Region and build it at grass roots level. It’s been a real challenge in Asia (despite having P2P sites like QQ with up to 3.5m concurrent players playing mahjong or Do Di Zhu – Chinese card game) as gambling on TV in Asia is highly restricted in most countries (poker on TV is accepted as probably the key factor in growth of poker). Only the Philippines allows it to be freely shown and funnily enough there poker has exploded with over 20 poker rooms opening in last few years.

As with any poker room / arena there are guys that have built good bankrolls over a short period of time and a few have built them enough to play in the big game from time to time. However few have the guts to play in a game where you can lose a year's earnings and hard graft in 30 minutes if you run bad. One local "pro" has actually helped the local poker community over time as he allowed multiple smaller players to take a piece of him in the big game, they built their own bank rolls as he ran well for a long time. Think he has had a very tough last few days though, so there is always risk.

Tournament fields are definitely softer than both the US or Europe though the style is a little different again say than the soft yet aggressive fields in palces like Italy. One area that seems to be very weak is main event satellites – as 2 pros stated the same thing to me “they don’t know how to play satellites” and would seem to be borne out by the fact that they won about 5 seats between them in a week.

Have received a lot of PMs in the last few days (only had about 3 in the last 2 years). Yes we enjoy our parties, but as a married man with kids, I think the younger, single guys (and girls) enjoy them a lot more than I do. We are hosting what should be a pretty good party in London on 26th Jan with the usual models in attendance as well as a group of the top poker players. I will organise a freeroll tournament on one of the online sites with the top 10 spots getting a VIP pass.

In Taiwan for a 2 day training course – never too old to learn new things!!

that sounds awesome, gonna train up my Freeroll skills up to Gosu Level.

I like.

I'm jealous of the fact that Ivey/Dwan are doing well and have the opportunity to play in a game like this, so I'll just make a post pointing out that there are people who wipe their ass with Ivey/Dwan's net worth. Yea, that'll show em. I feel way better about myself now.

I wonder if after this Tom Dwan wishes he changed careers.

I mean, yeah he is rich now but imagine if he spent his last 5 years becoming a super successful asian businessman. Then he'd have 10x the money u know?

Tom, am in Taipei also before heading to Macau....do you mind me asking what conference you're attending? something a poker player could potentially benefit from? i'm here visiting my brother and am often bored as he is usually working...

Not to do with poker playing specifically, internal meetings more internet based stuff and some system integration stuff - integrating sportsbook / poker / casino through single wallets; reviewing player requirements for online poker rooms after surveys; what games do people play and why etc. Have fallen behind on the tech side last year or so and need to get up to speed.

Unfortunately the flip side to being able to enjoy poker in my spare time is having to actually hold down a day job (though can't say I hate what I do).

ummm, was this towards the end of 2007? Even before Macau had cash games? If so, I was that American "kid", but I remember the Chinese guy having 6-8o when he busted me.

personally, if i were to move to macau to grind, i would bring more than 4-8 buy-ins at the lowest limit they spread. perhaps you are more of a gambler than me though.

lol

Are you serious? Thats like saying every person born in 1955 wishing they had invented microsoft.

good on you for staying on top of the latest!

you mentioned poker exploding in the philipinnes...any live games you could recommend there?!

i also know some players interested here in taiwan...any online sites in chinese that are up and running yet? (that are viable...legit and secure)

Metro Card Room is great in Manila - big room always lots of games.

Hmm, not sure what the etiquette here is on a thread like this and what you are allowed to recommend / not recommend online etc. As I am involved in several online poker rooms / sites / companies also don't want to appear to be favouring anything in a general thread. Apologies if this is in breach of protocol (as you can see from my posts before this thread I spend limited time here). Dafapoker on ipoker is really dedicated to Chinese players (whether from China, Taiwan or elsewhere) and apparently has good Chinese Customer Support and has been around a long time.

Since you couldn't figure it out (though it seemed pretty apparent to me), no he was not serious. There are things called jokes...

hope durrrr keeps it up, who knows he may even win enough that he won't have to shortstack jungleman anymore.

I dont get this statement Tom made, "they don’t know how to play satellites" arent they pretty much a standard 9man sng? Or am I thinking to hard on this one

Aha, have just been messaged by some people that tell me that promoting an online site through a thread is known as "trolling" - would love to know how that term came about. Won't say any more than I was responding to a question - anything else contact MDE147.

Stella / Winfred, any action last night or this morning?

The quote came from the pros, seems the locals were always playing to win the satellite tournament rather than just one of the say 3 seats on offer. They were usually multi table satellites

Oh ok i c...

Yeah was way overthinking it

How epic would a Tom Hall well be?

Amazing thread! Thanks Tom, Matt, Stella etc.!!!!

No point comparing life as a high-stakes poker player to that as a successful businessmen... seriously, can the majority of the world's population tell the difference between a net worth of 30mil USD/300mil USD? Or, would they whine about having ONLY 30mil USD when they do? As long as you make more than enough for you to blow away the rest of your life. (Well, if you are looking to get new jets everyday...) As the Chinese saying goes, "there are skies beyond skies", the same goes for people.

From wiki:

Guess you could call it spamming if you were affiliated with the site but definitely not trolling.

Archie, thank you for the compliment, my wife will definitely agree to disagree with you!! Yes the hand happened , was actually in the car from airport in Taiwan with Nam Le (who is friends with Chau) whilst they were discussing that hand and others. Crazy/crazy, still getting over the fact that blinds jumped yesterday to HK$50k/100k, thats just madness, where does it stop?

Thanks ChildPls, understood and noted, will know for the future. OK have to go the classroom now, will check back later