Macau
Does anyone know anything about poker in Macau?
I heard that they have huge private games there (often in hotel rooms above the casino). Do they have poker rooms there? What are they like? Is Holdem the game of choice?
BA
Anyone know if $25/50 runs at any of the rooms anymore? Much appreciated.
Bugger. Makes it feel a bit pricey for the average Joe. Appreciate the info though. Any feeling for where the softer games are at that 50/100 limit?
If you see majority short stacks anywhere in Macau, those are the regs who play like ****. I hear they mostly go to MGM. I haven't been back since before the pandemic but I used to live there. The games will be soft but tight. You can still make OK $ playing those games as long as you don't get too aggressive when you don't have it.
i were to list the tightest 100 tables i ever played at, all 100 would be macau
Bugger. Makes it feel a bit pricey for the average Joe. Appreciate the info though. Any feeling for where the softer games are at that 50/100 limit?
Always gonna be anywhere in Taipa, purely based on tourist attractions. Also would depend on how the room is being run. Haven't bothered to go Venetian in a 100 years though.
Cost is actually quite reasonable nowadays, especially if you are specifically dedicated to grinding.
Food being free is super nice. Free Häagen-Dazs ice cream and all sorts of other desserts and drinks at the casino. Didn’t have these perks in the past.
Parisian now having 26 tables is Poker Heaven. So many card rooms in Taipa, heard Wynn Palace will open as well. No better place than Macau imo.
Only money I spend nowadays is accommodations and entertainment. Otherwise do not need to spend a dollar and you can survive for weeks in Macau.
26 tables? Needa go see for myself within this month, otherwise insanely hard to believe 😀
26 tables? Needa go see for myself within this month, otherwise insanely hard to believe 😀
Yes, this new room is beautiful but the location is crap. Tucked in the very deep corner next to the high limit Baccarat room. Hard for randoms to find the PokerRoom to play.
Up to $350 dollars worth of food vouchers per pay. Depending on how many hours you play.
So how many of those tables are running for example on the weekend and what's the ratio in terms of stakes? Noone ever put a poker room in a great location apart from old 2010+ Venetian, which was purely a gold mine.
Well for the past two days there have been over 100 people on the list and 50/100 tables get broken and switched to 100/200.
if there're 100 people on the list, means around 5-6 tables of those 26 are open 😃 Which is the same story as usual. I got somewhat "horny" initially, based on your comment but back to impotency again 😃
You knew exactly what I meant 😀 Never really understood your agenda though, "advertising" Macau on an English speaking poker forum where most people somewhat are adequate at the game or retired as pros for all to come as if you gonna crush each one of us at 600bbs/hour 😀
People have the right to post whatever they want...
Fact is macau now has more tables than ever before due to recent increase in tables at parisian and mgm plus couple of other small rooms. But stakes are high, hardly any 50/100 during holidays. The free food for hours played is attracting the wrong crowd too. Recs don't care about that but online grinders from russia spain romania japan and so on have taken over the poker scene here. Especially since HKD is fixed to USD and their own currencies are weak af.
So yes lots of new tables but mostly high stakes and 7-8 regs per table. Games were softer 12 months ago and infinitely softer back in 2019. Can't be more honest than that. Unless you have a large bankroll and can beat 100/200+ comfortably and withstand the swings, better go to US where games are way softer. The lack of low stakes is also deterring newcomers into the game in macau. Now n00bs gotta go thru a few buyins of 20-30k minimum just to play with 3 japanese 2 spanish and 2 russians at an unfriendly table where they can't even speak mandarin to anyone.. that's not fun.
I was told you can find the equivalent to NL 1k and NL 2.5k usd. Isn't that possible, and if it is, are them soft games? Was planning to go there for a few days but from what I'm reading in this thread it seems not worthy the trip.
NL 1k/2.5k that's online poker speech, if you mean 5/10, 10/20 or something (equivalent in HKD) yeah that's easily available and no, the games are *hit and the rake is brutal but I know peeps who are still making a living out of it, so what do I know...
Here in HK I regularly get ads in my mailbox, mostly in Chinese, that go like, "how to beat the tough Macau games with advanced math and GTO" or something like that, haha. Some of it may be scam but at least some I know comes from peeps that I know are very good, so that's what you will be facing. Don't expect many players who are making basic mistakes...
last i ever saw of the real soft macau games were probably around 2011ish but the real heyday was the aughts
Well if games are running, it means they are beatable. The only question for westerners is are they different from games in eu or us, meaning do you see people puting 200bb's preflop with 67s, but that's just optimistic and looks like Macau is just the same as everywhere else. Games only run, when there is money to be made, you can see same thing online, u have no games running above 5knl, until a whale shows up, then u have 40+ reg on the waiting list to join the table in less then 1min. Well lets hope some big tournament series will come back to Macau, that would definitely improve the eco system at cash games.
Any news on tournament scene?
Umm, no, there are absolutely games running that are unbeatable due to a combination of rake and lack of abysmal players and actually some of the Macau games were or are good candidates for that. But unbeatable games prolly exist in many places around the globe. But in live poker you have all kinds of phenomena, e.g. it's easily possible to just run good for many thousand hands and think you are much better than you are, or that the game is much better than it is. This has been shown by Monte-Carlo simulations long ago. Also, you always have peeps who just feel the need to gamble, most casino games are unbeatable and you still have peeps playing. That does not necessarily mean that they are bad players. Actually I had this exact conversation here in HK with several players. They understand the game well enough to suspect the games are unbeatable, but they are still going some weekends or whatever, cos gambol. Obv almost all of these, like myself also, have other sources of income.
You have peeps who know basic strategy in BJ and know it is unbeatable without card counting and still playing in a setup where card counting is not possible. Ofc poker is more complex and the way the games are, there are probably peeps who are good enough to beat the games on every level. But prolly, there are way more players who might be good players, but just ran over EV a while/delusional. Like most peeps overestimate themselves in many areas they also overestimate themselves in their poker strength or beatability of the games.
With the tourneys 100% agreed, would be great for the ecosystem, but you have the issue with the table limits, widely discussed here ITT. Tables are limited, that framework was just renewed not too long ago, and apparently the 1000th baccarat/BJ table makes more money than poker. And the Macau govt is not interested in more tables/casinos/gamble, actually the directives/orders from Beijing are to diversify the economy, which might or might not happen, but that's where they want to go anyway...
Umm, no, there are absolutely games running that are unbeatable due to a combination of rake and lack of abysmal players and actually some of the Macau games were or are good candidates for that. But unbeatable games prolly exist in many places around the globe. But in live poker you have all kinds of phenomena, e.g. it's easily possible to just run good for many thousand hands and think you are much better than you are, or that the game is
Very solid answer. There will always be a steady supply of delusional people in the world for their own personal reasons. Some will be biased in overestimating their skill, some in other areas, for some it's just an experience trying to replicate Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim with their buddies. Tournaments indeed always made the games better temporarily, primarily at night when there's less competition for the table seats. But ultimately won't change anything as there're still 100 player waiting lists as the other person described.
In terms of HK, most games are not unbeatable because of common factors that can affect the quality but purely because of RFID and rigging the deck, people been cheating that way for years. That's why every mediocre fish I knew that was losing in Macau, been starting their "own" games since 2012+. The competition for cheating got so intense that I've seen twice such games get raided by some hired gangs, and several stories of same things happening from people I know. During that period people who spent hours in Macau losing money, somehow magically started winning overnight. Even though the fields were on average more competent in some cases.
Interesting news abt WPT, will have to play few events for sure.
Yep, to clarify I was talking with HK players about the Macau games. The HK underground games are a different beast and have other issues, absolutely.
And yes, that WPT is very good news, I will probably play some too. The Wynn Palace is actually one of the places as described before that abandoned their already small poker room in favor of like the 995th-1000th baccarat table.
I was talking to a former floor/supervisor of that game sometime after that, despite the said baccarat tables not exactly zooming with action every time I went past them, there was not really any interest in bringing poker back. The fact that they changed their mind on that is def something going in the right direction.
Not sure if I ever mentioned, but another thought on this topic just came up in my head.
The extra part of the "equation" of how casino operators perceive poker is not purely related to table cap/profit per hour but also due to factors like these:
1. The non-Chinese operated properties still feel that they're operating on borrowed time, given their mistrust of Chinese business practices in general, hence the only investments that make clear cut sense on paper are in straight forward things like amenities, new land development etc. They could easily make larger poker rooms and sacrifice profits in short term to win in the long run by attracting a different type of customer. But it simple doesn't look good on financial reports and such decisions take a lot of willpower to make from upper management which are overpaid and virtually living a freeroll lifestyle until their jobs are secure. I remember having drinks with one of the Senior guys from Sands in Taipa, then they did coke with my housemate until 7am. Then he had to go for a business meeting at 10. That's just how "easy" these jobs are. And noone wants to be the scapegoat ultimately, potentially sacrificing the sweet spot for some poker crusade.
2. The Chinese owned properties purely have no understanding of how to approach poker unless it somehow benefits them directly like Starworld games in the past which were the initiative of a select group of their VIP players. Apart from that they understand that their clientele is different in general and simply don't have necessary expertise to run games efficiently.
The reason when they're giving out comps and vouchers for spending time at the tables also seems obscure. If the poker room is somewhat known and the amount of tables is limited no amount of "effort" is required to keep them occupied unless they're 100/200+ who 90% of general population won't play regardless. If someone cared to analyze the profit/hour based on different stakes across every day of the week and the demand for such games a clear mathematical model can be developed that is both more efficient profit-wise and benefits the players directly. But so far is the same lazy approach to add poker just for the sake of it.
Do hope something changes, but probably won't make much difference to me personally anymore, since I'm not even at 30% of ability of what it took to be properly profitable right now.
