thank you waldo for the 30-40 dollar cheaper motel places near lisboa... well im pretty sure im gonna head down to macau for APPT... nothings final but im pretty sure about going... plus cantonese i learned from my parents as a child... so thats great...

yah zhuhai is real cheap but theres no way im gonna waste even 20mins go ride down or back or whatever... i pass up a nicer place and pay more to stay closer to where i need to go...

about making 5k-6k that kinda sucks... i prob wont be staying macau to long if this is true...

I heard a rumor that the rake is VERY high... in walkerhill APPT seoul event... i actually went to the casino cause ive been in korea for 4 months now... but they rake 10% up to 20 bucks... the guy who used to run it offered me 3kUSD which is like 3000k WON per month to play there but... i passed it up ... the rake in korea was ******ed... but however the guys who ran it quit cause there were asking for to much rent and last they told me were heading to china somewhere to start a poker room... and there are new people in walkerhill casino in seoul now... and they were renovating it last month...

How high is the rake in waldo? and lisboa?

How far is waldo from lisboa?

Why not just sign a year lease and pay a fee to get out of the contract?

I dont think the contract would be valid in your home country anyways.

If I wanted to discontinue my lease, Id have to pay a one month fee, and Im out. See if thats an option.

well i dont really want a contract unless the games are real good... i plan to fly to seoul for the next APPT event after macaus done...

do they have 1year lease places in taipa island?

was butcher saying theres 1 year leases on apartment in taipa island where the casinos are located?

I actually never went to waldo, but i did check out taipa one day. I think waldoo and lisboa are about a 10 minute cab ride. Taipa is nicer and quieter and also has same apartments. Average is 5kHK for 1 bedroom, and you can get 3 bedroom for 10k. You can easily break the lease, but you have to pay 1 month commision up front to agency, and 1st month rent, and 2 months deposit. I was thinking about staying longer but its still not great right now, and there is nothing else to do besides the casino.

rake at lisboa is 5 bb, and waldo i think is half. Waldo has nicer room, good staff, low rake, but no players. The nicer room might hurt because of no flow from players from other games. The 10-20(they call it 20-40) game at lisboa is raked to 100 (about $14US), and higher limits are raked 250hk for 25-50.

When is the appt? I was thinking of heading back to check it out, and hope the games are good. Anyone played recently there? Some other poker rooms were supposed to open this month or soon.

is this the only place poker is played? skier told me he heard they ran a 125/250USD... but he said he knew for sure they ran a 50/100USD somewhere in china and this guy whos telling me plays huge on stars and tilt...

do you think hes talking about hongkong or what?"

APPT in macau is sept 1-9.

Grand Lisboa rake is 5% with max of 5 x BB at all limits (e.g. 10-20 would be $100)

Grand Waldo is 5% with lower rake. Half is easy to remember but from 50-100 to 500-1000 it's a max of $150. Doesn't hit a $200 max until 1000-2000.

Can't really say how much you could make as it depends on the player, stakes and hours you put in.

grand waldo has 50-100 game? thats like a 5-10nl game... they run games up to 500-1000nl?

they run big games at waldo?

i heard biggest holdem games in china were like 10 20 or 20 40... they run 50-100 regularly?

Okay so I read the entire thread.... Questions:

-There is no good website to find apartments for rent in macau?
-What's the internet situation like in Macau for online poker? Only interested in Macau TR's here.
-Anyone living there full time grinding online/live?

The biggest game at Waldo is 250/500 which is just under 25/50 in USD, but the max buy in is HK$100,000 so that's 200 BBs

And its only run during weekends.

You can play online in Macau on just about any site you want.

As for anyone living there full time.. well I am in HK now (just got in here after 1 week in Macau) and I will be going back to Macau on Monday.

I met plenty of people there from the States, Europe, and the mainland.. these guys all had jobs, a couple were engineers/architects from Beijing. I asked them how long they had been in Macau for and they said 2.5 months. Many of them were here "for the weekend" but the games were so juicy they decided to "change their flights". So I was like - when have you changed your flights to? They just said they didn't know cos they didn't book any dates yet. LOL

I have USD. If anyone wants to exchange for HKD at the current exchange rate please let me know - I will do any amount, just PM me. I'm in Macau.

I'm probably gonna go for exchange to HongKong next year but I need to decide soon so I've got a few questions about it.

1. I understand online poker is 100% legal and I should have no problems grinding and cashing out while being there?
2. Anyone uses neteller there?
3. What are the avarage prices to get a room/studio? If the area matters a lot - it's gonna be Hong Kong Baptist University.
4. Any idea how living in university halls looks like in HK? I mean is it like really strict or sth? Not sure if I want to rent sth on my own or go for a room in uni halls.
5. Anyone knows anything about this uni? I obv read some stuff online but maybe u know sth different about it? Is it well located btw?
6. What are the avarage prices of:
a) drinks/beers in a club/bar (drinking age is 18 right?)
b) bottles (like jack daniels or some decent vodka) in shops
c) cigarettes
d) eating out
7. Internet connection - is it fast and solid?
8. I've heard that partying scene is pretty good but can anyone elaborate on this?
9. What about the girls?

I know it's a lot of questions but if u can anwser any of those, i'd be very thankful!

Hong Kong is expensive. A studio in a central area would cost you upwards of US$1200 per month. A room in a shared flat would probably be slightly less, maybe in the $800-900 range?

As for eating out - if you're talking the really posh restaurants then you could easily spend $70-$100 per person including one drink or glass of wine.

If you're talking normal restaurant then probably $30-40 USD

McDonalds though is really cheap, a meal (burger + fries + coke) costs about $4.50 USD..lol

Cigs are like $4 bucks, but just take a trip to the mainland or macau once in a while and U can get duty free ($13 for a carton)....

I assume liquor is the same cost as anywhere in the west, but you can get it significantly cheaper through duty free as well.

You can find good cheap places too eat man...just dont go to the fancy ass places...

From what I know any form of gambling (besides the horses in HK) is ILLEGAL anywhere in China, except Macau.... Dont worry, you wont have any problems though.

LKF...a big drinking area of foreigners, as well as other nicer bars, drinks will usually run you $6 bucks or so...(no tippin necessary)

Girls...Well if you like Asian girls, your in the right spot...also there are lots of foreigners around besides. Don't expect to have sex with a good Chinese girl your first time meeting her. There are lots of hookers (Filipinos it seems), if thats your thing.

HK is awesome, real expensive but a cool city. The best part about it, your close to Macau, Guangzhou, short flight to Thailand and other cool places to go, when you get overwhelmed by the craziness of HK.

Hey guys, I just got into HK and spent last weekend in Macau (freakin AWESOME!). Gonna stay for bout 6 months assuming I don't bust. I stayed at a sauna the whole time but need a better living arrangement. Suggestions!?

Don't need anything fancy as I plan to play lotsa poker and partayyyy!!!

don t waste all ur time in macau...hope u go and travel around some bit. China is a huge country with lots of stuff to see..

I'm planning on traveling and playing poker for 2 years. After about six months in Macau I plan to relax my poker schedule a bit and see the rest of Asia. Then I'm gonna go to Vegas for 2 months during WSOP.

Where to after that? I dunno but I've always wanted to do something like this before I have to grow up and do all that adult stuff.

8/8/08....GL Beijing

heh, wonder what maccau is looking like atm

Bump for the dude who started his own thread when we got one right here..

I visit Zhu hai/ Macau once a month, def a cool area.

What do you do in Zhu hai? I assume teach since not many factories around there?

Sorry...I did not know that there was a thread like this one when I started mine. I did a search but did not look at all the threads....kinda scanned the first page of search results and did not see anything specifically for China. Again sorry for starting a new one when one existed. Hope you don't mind if I subscribe to this thread and put my two cents in occasionally

haha, nah man I dont give 2 ****s, Im actually glad so you can contribute too it since im a lazy ass ...

I like Zhu hai alot, probaly one of my favorite cities around China... and maybe some place I could see myself retiring and living...(long time be4 I retire though)

How old are you? How long have you been in China?

Is business pretty bad for you right now? Sure is for me

Zhuhai is actually quite an excellent place. It's got a good mix of urban and rural if you look properly.

Business is quite slow across casino sector. The visa restrictions that have been brought in (and raised twice) have impacted casual visitors quite heavily. I was told that this was a revenge factor due to the Macau govt. not donating enough $$$ during the earthquake crisis. So it may improve as hurt feelings heal - or not.

On the other hand, poker in particular is still getting bigger. Starworld now easily runs 5 tables on weekends. Grand Lisboa has up to twelve most weekend nights and even Grand Waldo manages to get a game or two running on really busy nights.
The recent tournaments exposed a lot of players to the growing poker environment and I've heard quite a few positive comments - along with the usual "dealer too slow", "blinds raised too quickly", "It's not like vegas" bitching.
Still it remains to be seen how many that visited for the tourneys will return to play regularly here.

hi everyone, i have a friend who travelled to shenzhen and said poker stars was blocked? (in hotel)???. So wondering if poker stars does work in china????

I lived in Chengdu last year , and want to move back , but this would be a huge problem. When i was there last year, partypoker was blocked, been trying to do research, is there any way to get through that with virtual private network or psiphon???

I know which sites are blocked changes real fast in China , so wanted to know!!
Thx for the help everyone!!