Macau

There really is not much in Macau. There are casinos and some good food and a Formula 1 track. I think that is it. I had some good food, though I did frequent McDonald's more than I would like to admit. I ran the Formula 1 track (which is just a series of streets) best I could. And, of course, I went to the casinos.

I was meeting a guy that I might in Suzhou, China, Sanjee, who was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in Africa and New Zealand, and lives in Australia (seriously, these are the kinds of people I meet all the time). We actually played cards in Suzhou together and kept in touch. He arrived in Macau a couple of days before I did, with a net profit of HK$55 (about US$7).

Despite his warnings I decided to stay at the same hostel he was staying. In fact, his bleek descriptions of the San Va only made me more interested in staying there. The walls are basically cardboard and do not extend to the ceiling so you and easily hear eveything happening in the rooms next to you and have a good idea of what is happening throughout the hostel. If I where a real estate agent and I commissioned to sell the San Va I would use words like "charm" and "unique" and "charasmatic" in the property description.

Warning: If you are not into gambling and or are not interested in every detail of my trip, you should consider not reading the rest of this post because it will probably get pretty dull. A short summary if you are just curious about profits and losses: I lost track exactly, but I made about US$1000 net profit with one losing day. I more than exceeded my goal of making my Macau trip pay for itself (transportation, hostel, food, etc).

I arrived in the hostel, put my bags down, and immediately head to the Grand Lisboa Casino, where Sanjee told me he would be. I found it without a problem as it is just a ten minute walk down the street from the hostel and has plenty of flashing lights. I wandered around the casino a bit before finding the poker room.

A couple quick notes before I continue: casinos in Macau do NOT accept the local currency in Macau, the Pataca (MOP), which is fixed at a 1:1 ratio to the HKD (MOP1 is always exactly equal in value to HKD1). Also, the HKD is fixed at a 7.80 ratio to the USD (USD1 is always equal to HKD7.80, though the currency is allowed to fluctuate a little bit, about 7.70-7.90). Another note: all this currency conversion stuff is information I have to deal with on a constant basis. Literally all the time. USD are accepted all over the world for the most part but if you try to use them you get a terrible rate. You are constantly converting currencies in your head and are forced to round and use short-cuts (for example, blinds: HKD10/20 to USD1.5/3. It is not exact, but it is close enough for small amounts of money). Also, all dollar amounts stated for the rest of the post are in Hong Kong Dollars, unless otherwise stated. I am not going to indicate this every time or convert it for you.

I say hello to Sanjee, ask how he is doing (down a little bit), etc. The minimum stakes where 10/20, which is still the biggest stakes I have played in a casino (I have played US$1/2 in Vegas before), with a buy-in of 1000-3000. I get 2000 and sit down. Immediately I am getting above average cards and, more importantly, playing good poker. I doublt up fairly quickly and can tell I am going to make some money in the session. By the time I am finished with the session I have about 6500 in front of me and Sanjee and I go get some 30% off sushi. I use some of my profits to buy a much needed external hard drive.

We walk around for a bit, talk poker, where we have traveled since Suzhou, and all that. We return to the hostel because he wants to call it a night because he is losing and I want to put the hard drive in my room before I go back to the casino to gamble more.

I end of gambling all night. This time I lose 2000 almost right away and decide to call it a night because of the loss and I suddenly felt very tired. Upon my return to the hostel, I hear "board games being played" in the room next to me and have trouble falling asleep.

The next day Sanjee and I get to the casino in the early afternoon and start our day. He continues losing money slowly and I continue making money. He leaves at some point to get some food but I am on a rush so I do not want to leave the table. I end up getting up from the table to get some dinner around 9:30PM (in an effort to catch the 30% off sushi again, which starts at 9:30). I eat and Sanjee joins me for another break from his current losing session. We walk around again after and go back to the casino. I win more, he loses more. Sanjee was planning on leaving the casino at 5AM to catch the first free shuttle bus to the ferry pier but decided instead to leave at 1AM to catch the last shuttle because of his declining funds. (Sanjee, if you are reading this, sorry, man. I am not trying to rag on you or anything.) We say bye and will try to meet up when I am in Australia/New Zealand. I continue playing and make more money. I return to the hostel and go to sleep (at this point it was early enough in the new day that there were no "board games being played.")

The following day is my last day. I was either going to leave with Sanjee if I was losing or leave the next day if I was winning. I was winning, so I had the extra day to win more. This logic failed me completely. This final day was the only day I incurred loses.

I decided to play in my first ever casino tournament. It was a 300 buy-in starting at 2:10 in the afternoon. I got to the casino around 1 to play a little in an effort to warm up. I lost 2000 within 20 minutes. I took a breather before the tournament began. The tourney was small, only about 20 entrants and a first-place prize around 2700. Given the previous two days, I would be losing money in opportunity costs if I win the tourney becauce I could win more in that time playing in the cash games. I realized this about two hands into the tournament and immediately started trying to lose. Of course, this caused me to win. After about a dozen hands I realized I was the chip leader at the table and decide that even though I could potentially make more in the cash games I would try to win the tournament. Let me say now that I was playing some stellar poker in this tournament. I was not geting the cards I was getting the previous two days, but I was making great decisions. One hand comes to mind: I have J6 off, I hit none of the flop, get bet into, all-in. Normally this is an easy fold. However, people in Macau raise insanely pre-flop (normal pre-flop raise is 6-20x, not 3.5-5x), which creates great pot-odds later in the hand. So, the raise into me creates pot odds of about 8:1. I have an over card and two draws. I call, turn the 6 and river the J for a win. I apologize and my opponent acknowleges he did not have enough to get me out of the hand.

By the end of it, I am heads-up with a Chinese guy. I have a 2:1 chip advantage, all the momentum, and, truthfully, am a better play than my adversary. There is a bunch of raise-folding at first with few hands even getting to the flop. Eventually there is a meaningful hand. I have AQ and top pair on the flop. We get all-in. He has a pair of 5s. I am way ahead, but he rivers his 3 and all the sudden I go from up 2:1 to down 1:2. The next hand I have J10, hit top-pair (J) again, go all-in, and am called by AJ. I lose the tourney and first-place. In the end, I am pleased with my play, though I really do with I had won. Second place is not bad for my first casino tournament but I wanted the win.

Especially when you consider that I took my 1300 in tournament winnings (1000 profit) and immediately lost it playing in the cash game. After this, I went for a walk. I go back to the casino, bought in again for 2000 and was doing well. I decided that I would play until I had 6000 in front of me or 6AM or 0 in front of me, which ever came first. I was doing pretty well considering how the rest of the day had treated me and was up to about 5000 when my pocket kings got cracked around 4:30AM. I went to me hostel and slept until 10AM, woke up, ran the Formula 1 track, returned to the hostel, showered, and left Macau to go back to Hong Kong.