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

 

In Lisboa I was slowly loosing chips again. Feeling miserable when I couldn't beat the easiest game in the world. My biggest problem was definitely adapting to a totally new game which had hardly anything to do with online games. People are limping and calling all the time which didn't quite fit together with my game as I tried to push people away from the pots and played too many hands. I was just sitting there in one of the worlds greatest casinos, listening to my ipod and thinking what's going wrong.

 

Around midnight they broke our table and I got just the seat I had been hoping for. Next to drunken Norwegian and American. Those guys were hilarious, having fun, drinking beer and being loud. From this American guy I got my first real lecture of live poker. He was hardly playing any hands. He just made so much noise and ordered beers so loud that everyone heard that. People assumed that he's a maniac and even though he was playing solid poker, he almost always got paid off. As the American was talking to everyone in the table I ditched my ipod and started listening to what's happening. And you know what? This made reading people and categorising them much easier and faster than before. I was pretty sure that I should just play my own game and not try to concentrate on reads as this was something totally new to me, however I found it extremely useful and things started to go my way. Asian people in the table thought that I was now part of this noisy group (I also had a beer or two) and for some weard reasons I started to get more value to my made hands. Another thing was that I wasn't bored anymore and was able to play less hands. We stopped playing somewhere around 11am and I had been playing for almost 18 hours with just one break. I ended up winning a bit as the asians paid me off and the noisy guys were not as good in poker as I and I took money away from them as they took it from locals.

 

So, in a nutshell what did I learn from the first trip:

  • Act like a tourist who is there just to have fun. Don't give away that you're an online player!

  • Drink beer so that it doesn't affect your game and announce that your drinking!

  • Concentrate on reads and find those you can exploit!

  • Leave ipod at home!

  • Have fun!

 

In the following writings I'll tell you guys what more I've learned here in Asia. For example what's stereotypical Asian player like, how to get their money, creating a table image, reading people and especially things from live games which help me to develop in online games. I've played 4 years and I'm still totally lost with this game but at least live games have helped me a bit. If there's something you want to ask about HK or Macau, I'd be happy to help.