Mr.Skimbl's blog

I finally got more information why Blueroom got raided and had to close down a couple of weeks ago. The first problem was that they didn't require membership and by doing this didn't even work on the grey area. The second problem was that the owners were playing in the game which is also forbidden. There had been undercover cops playing in the games and found out these leaks in Blueroom's system. I was possibly playing with undercover cops, that's kind of cool!

This is what I've heard but anyway these kind of things often have other factors aswell. What came to mind was that maybe someone didn't remember to pay bribes, Hong Kong Poker House has better connections and didn't like Blueroom taking over the market or they were running something even more illegal on the side. Just maybe...

Anyway at least next PLO game and the biggest NL games are running in a totally new place for me. Some Mahjong-club which now also has poker games. Because of these undercover cops you can't get into this club only if you know someone who takes you there, but otherwise they don't take new members. I'm not quite sure if this is the case with HKPH aswell now but have to find out if I happen to go there again. Next time (hopefully in the next two days) I'll go and try this Mahjong-club and try to enjoy a little bit more live poker before I have to leave HK in two months. Luckily before that another Coinflipper is coming here for two weeks and besides sightseeing we have to try poker in HK and Macau, get wasted in both cities and go for THE bungee jump. Can't tell you I wasn't excited.

Today we should have had omaha night in Blue room but I got a message that it has been cancelled because the government had raided the place and forced it to close up. All the players had been taken to police station but eventually they were allowed to just leave with no sanctions. Poker games are now really quiet because noone knows if they are going to close all the poker rooms or just this one because of some possible conflicts. Anyway it looks like next post from live games is going to come from Macau... 

Played some online, first in two days went up around 15 buy ins. Then it happened again... When I first win it's somehow impossible to admit your loss and end a session when I'm down. I ended up dropping 20 buyins one stake higher so eventually in one fking session I lost my winnings and went down pretty much the same amount. As normal I was playing a bit too high and 20 buyins really hurts. Feels like a group of rabid monkeys had beaten me up and raped. I don't know if I ever can call myself a poker player as it seems like I never know when everything goes black again and after bad beats I start donating to those same morons who were so easy to read just a day before.

Then the next day I tried another poker room in Hong Kong for the first time. First went up a little bit in omaha and when the game died I played an hour 50/100HKD hold'em. For some reason some retard decided he had a good hand and with ATs and we got in total 14k in pf. I got queens and I obviously lost the "flip". It was just another hand but now it really feels like someone up there has some serious problems with me. The only good thing was that I left the table and didn't tilt any more money away.

I set myself a loosing limit for a single session to 3% of my bankroll as Helppi advised in some of his writing. If I can stick to it I think I can make profit as long as I'm still as interested in poker as now. It's just ridiculous that 5 years of this sick game have taught me nothing and I'm still the same idiot as I was years ago. If I can't stick to my losing limit I'll just quit poker and admit that I'm way too retarded to play.

I got back from Vietnam & Cambodia a couple of days ago. The trip was awesome as it is impossible not to love these amazing countries. Prices are extremely cheap, people are the nicest and for some reason happiest I've ever met anywhere, culture is interesting & exciting, food is good and weather was sweet (around +30C all the time), Vietnam offers great beaches and it's easy to travel between Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. However I learned a lot more about the history of these nations and they are really sad. I saw people living in a dump, begging, two-year-old on a street alone at night, really small kids working to get something to eat. I highly recommend taking Cambodia as your next destination. When you go there remember that every dollar is about 100 times more valuable for those kids who try to sell you a book than for you. I've pretty much never before donated anything, but now I promise to give 1% of my winnings every year to charity. I just need to find a channel which takes money to its destination. Cambodia is highly corrupted so it can be hard, but I'll definitely do my best. I challenge every winning player to give at least something to people who need it. If no more, just one big blind in a month can do the difference for some kid.

Poker approach: Maybe it will help me to concentrate and not to tilt when I know that every time I do something stupid it's going to be away from those who need it.

Yesterday I went to Hong Kong Poker House again. I was dissappointed when I noticed that we couldn't get omaha going. So I sat down to 25/50 NL table with 8 other players.

Normally when I play in HKPH the atmosphere is nice and everyone is having fun in the tables. This time it was totally different. These boring nits were check-calling all night long and when you're card dead it's impossible to do anything. I ended up winning as I eventually picked up a couple hands and got paid off which was expected in this table.

Even though I won, it was the most boring night with poker I've had in a long long time. In my opinion half of live poker is that you're having fun. There's no point playing live as the action is so slow if it isn't fun. I think I should take this idea to playing online as well. I'm much more patient when having fun and in general making better decisions than if I was bored and frustrated. So from this point on I'll try not to play when I'm not having fun. Probably it's not going to happen but it's worth trying, right?

First time in long time I was able to play online. Online games tasted so sweet after a long break and I had one of the biggest upswings I've ever had. When playing is fun and I can make good profit everything else comes after poker. So now when I'm writing again I lost some money and my game wasn't as good as it was when I started again. I think I'll just continue my break and get back to live tables.

Anyway, I think it's time to tell something about HK's games. Running a casino is illegal in HK but there's some kind of gap in the law so that you can arrange private games. So this has lead the city to the point where there are multiple small poker houses offering games only for members – and anyone can be a member. I'm still not quite sure if this is legal but I've been playing in Hong Kong Poker House (HKPH) and I was more comfortable going there the first time as I saw from their homepage that PokerStars is their sponsor. Can't be too dangerous. Right? HKPH is pretty open as they have homepage and big signs on their windows in the city central. Becoming a memeber costs 500HKD and includes one nights play (250HKD+2 drinks). Games start every night 8pm and end around 4am. So you can play 8 hours with 250HKD. Even though tipping is kind of required, the price is extremely cheap as no rake is taken. You can also find other places with search engines and even on Facebook.

Me and about ten of my friends headed to Macau one sunny afternoon. A ferry trip from Hong Kong to Macau takes about an hour and our trip took about two hours in total. I hadn't played any poker for a month or two and I couldn't wait to get to tables. When we finally arrived to Macau others went to find a hostel. At this point I just announced them that now it's poker time, I won't sleep this night and see you tomorrow!

Free shuttle busses take you from the ferry station to casinos and I took a bus to MGM Grand. When I got there, I got shocked. They don't have any real poker tables!! Casino staff didn't even understand what I was asking. Later on I found out that in Macau you can only play poker (doesn't include fortune poker) in Grand Lisboa and Wynn. Now they have also reopened a poker room in Venetsian.

I found my way to Wynn and had to wait for a while because they don't open new tables too easily and keep players waiting (which on my second trip resulted to a conflict with the staff). Eventually I got dealt in and since that everything went wrong. I was way too anxious to play so I played way too many hands and tried to push people away from pots with bad results. I went down a couple of buy-ins and decided to have dinner and change to Grand Lisboa

Hi All!

As this is my first writing to Coinflip.com, I'll start by telling you guys something about my history as a poker player and what this blog is going to deal with.

I've been playing for about 4 years online and transferred from MTTs and S&Gs to full ring NL player and now I'm playing mainly short-handed PLO. I still play sunday MTTs and NL cash games every now and then, when I feel like it. I read blogs, forums and watch videos of poker almost daily. Now I feel like it's my turn to give something to poker community as I got something to say and not just bad beat stories.

This September I changed my address to see what Hong Kong looks like. I'm not going to tell you too much about the city itself (even though it's one of the greatest cities in the world). What I got to say is how I'm feeling about transfering from online games to live games and why I believe that it's good for online players to play live poker aswell. Until June I'll be here in East-Asia playing in different games and reporting to Coinflip.com about events from Macau and Hong Kong. As online poker is illegal in Hong Kong and I'll get kicked out from the place I live if I get caught from playing, I'll try to keep away from the online tables and concentrate on live games and taking my game to the next level. When I get back home in June... oh my, it's time to play some online poker. But until that I'll just tell you guys how are things in Asia, how to get locals' money and how playing live can improve your game.