I recorded most of the interesting hands on my iphone after they were over. Reviewing my mistakes at night would probably help me avoid the same mistakes in future.
First Session at Grand Lisboa
Session Stats: 1115-1230hrs, 1h 15min, +HKD 2935, NL 10/25, Buyin 5000
Atmosphere: 3 tables running, all NL10/25. Only see 2-3 white guys and a few American Born Chinese (I think, from their accent). Most are PRCs/HKers.
Player Types: There weren't any gigantic whales. Most were just semi-tight and passive so you can apply pressure with multi-barrels which is always a nice thing. Other than that, the Chinese fish play like ur typical white guys in Vegas. One thing to note is that the Chinese seem to be all middle-aged mostly, compared to the old retired Americans in Vegas.
I have been observing the table for a while, trying to get some live tells on the players. One guy was listening to his MP3 and had an aloof expression on his face, after he betted. Was trying to deduce whether his hand was a monster or not but couldn't get anything.
1) Aloof guy limps with 55 and another limper comes along. I isoraise to 150 (6BB) in the BU and everyone folds except him. The board came out KXXAX. he donks about 300 into 400 and of course I call, with my Top pair. I'm not too sure what he has at this point but his donkbet seems really fishy and I was mostly putting him on some weak pair at this point in time. he checks on the Ace and of course I checkbehind, hoping to either induce another bluff, induce a light calldown on the river, or just reduce my losses overall if I was beat by his Ace. he bets again on the river, about 60% pot-size and I obviously opted to look him up, not giving him too much credit for anything strong. If he really had something strong he would have checked to me and raised over my flop bet. I won about 1000+ from him
2) A few hands later, Aloof guy limps with A7o from Early Position, together with the guy on his left. I picked up QQ and raised to 150 (6BB). A player in Late position came along and so did the first limper. Pot had 500 now.
Flop came out AQ7 with two clubs. Aloof guy leads into us for 350. I chose to call in case other guy had an Ace, I didn't want to chase him out. One could argue that I would probably need to raise for protection but AQX isn't as coordinated as a board like JTX so I'm fine with slowplaying the flop. Turn brought an off-suit T. He bets 1000 into 1200 and I minraised to 2000. He had another 300 so he shipped it in. River brought a 7 and the dealer misread the board. He almost gave the other guy the win, with his 7s full of As but everyone pointed out his mistake and that my Qs full of 7s was the best hand. Won about 3500 from this hand.
3) I picked up KJ in Middle Position and isoraised a limper or 2 to 150. A semi-aggro guy called and so did one of the limpers. Board came out 845r and I made a continuation bet of 300 on the Flop (which is super terrible IMO cos many people might not even fold Ace high in this spot). Aggro guy made a raise to 700 and I was paranoid that he was making a move on me so I flatted. I had some reads on him that he was particularly stabby in position in 3 or 4 way pots when it was checked to him but I had no idea how light he raises in such spots. In retrospect it was a terrible play. Turn brings an off-suit 8 and he fires again. I saw him giving up previously when the King paired on the turn so I think he really had a fullhouse or a straight.
Burnt about 1000 during this session from bad play
Second Session at Wynn
Session Stats: 1230-1615hrs, -HKD 14580, NL 50/100, Buyin 12500+2100
Players: This time we had a Korean, and the rest were Chinese. Two of them had American accents and spoke Cantonese while the rest were all Mainlanders. When I arrived the game was only 6-handed cos it was still quite early. When I was chipped down super bad, a Caucasian guy (I think he is European) sat to my left. He was the biggest fish for the day but too bad I was card dead towards the end + lacking in chips.
1) So I start off by stealing from the BU to 600. UTG straddled and he defends. board came out 98485. I checked behind on the flop cos it hits his range pretty hard but when he checked the turn again I definitely had to stab so I made a healthy looking bet of 80% pot. He thinks and calls pretty quickly. Now I suspect he would have probably donked out an 8 on the turn, and also most 9X or overpairs. So I'm putting him on a hand like 77-22/4X, sometimes even Ace high and rarely a passively played 9X hand. River came out a 5. I decided that I could rep a passively played 67 or 8X (which opted to potcontrol on the flop) so I bet rather big again and he folds.
2) I have been quite tight for a while. BU is an aggressive American Chinese and SB is a passive/weak PRC guy. I picked up 59s which is quite shitty but still somewhat playable with a few gutshot possibilities and flush potential so I squeeze 1300 into the initial raise of 300. BU calls and SB folds. Flop comes out AATs and for some reason my hand started to shiver (which is a physical tell that I have a monster). I tried to look nervous too but I think he probably didn't have anything anyway and folds to my halfpot bet.
3) I call AJs vs an EP raise and it was 4way, with the Korean being in the small blind. Korean leads out 1900 into 2300 on a AJ5s board. all fold to me and I raise to 6000 which is about half my stack. korean tank/folds and i earned about 4000 so I'm up 5000 at this point.
4) I raise from Middle Position with 78s (400) and I have 3 callers, 2 being in the blinds. SB is the same American Chinese. Both blinds check to me on a AK2s board and I cbet with my flushdraw 1000 into 1600. SB raises to 3000 and I call his raise, given that I was deep with him (I had 17500 and he covers). Turn was a blank 5 and he bets 2750 into 7600 which is really small so I call again with my good odds to hit. River was another 5 and he jams 15000 into me. I do some Hollywood and think for a while before folding. He shows a single 2 so he either had 22 or some random 2X bluff.
5) I steal from BU with T5o and chose to 2 barrel AQ2r6 board after villain instacheck/caled the flop. I was ready to fire 3 times cos he reeked of weakness with his timing tell (no one ever calls so quickly with a super strong hand cos they need time to consider whether they should raise or not). I also knew he wasn't a complete station.
6) I raise from MP and Aggro American Chinese 3bets me from SB so I fold A7s.
7) Aggro guy 3bets BU vs CO with AQ and stacks off for about 13000 preflop. He stupidly outlevels himself into thinking that he would get 4bet bluffed because of his image and ran into AA. Stupid thing was that the board came out KKX and the solid PRC asks, "Do you have KK?" Upon hearing that i knew he certainly had AA. rest of us at the table were like "wtf?". Other guy says I have AQ and muck his hand, leaving after he lost his entire stack.
8) I isoraise from Late Position with J9o and solid PRC calls from blinds, limper calls too. Board came out J57r3 and I bet/called a checkraise from the solid PRC guy which might/might not have been good. I still don't know cos I did see him pull a move on the crazy European later on.
9) Now I'm down to 5500 left and I pick up JJ. Another PRC guy raises to 900 cos it was a straddle pot and other guy calls, I shipped JJ. PRC guy tank/folds (what he claimed was AK lol) and other guy tank/folds with what he claimed was a middle pair.
10) I raise K8o to 700 from CO in a straddle pot and get called by SB/UTG. SB was a quiet girl who seems to be from HK while the UTG is a fat HK guy. Flop came out Q9XsQsK and I chose to check because I figured there were many straightdraws on the flop and I wasn't getting anything to fold. Turn was checked around again. River was bad card for me, the girl bets out 1900 into 2700 and I chose to call cos she might have easily been stabbing at the pot there. She shows A7s for the nutflush and takes the pot down. I'm almost broke at this point, with 2000 left.
11) I have been folding almost every hand for 15-20 hands. I picked up 33 in the big blind, some guy isoraises to 500 and I shipped 2000. In retrospect I have at most 30% fold equity since he is quite committed with about 2700 in the pot and him having to call only another 1500 more.
I did see him squeeze into 4 people with 23s earlier on though so I guess he wasn't as tight as the others. board came out AJTXX and he mutters "i'm screwed" in Mandarin. I show my hand which was 100% dead and he happily flips his 88 to take the pot down.
Overall Profit: -$11645 HKD (-$1500 USD)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Real Life - Day 1, 31 May
Singapore has been terribly hot and humid for the past few days and added to the fact that I have been sleeping at 0300 for the past few days, I could not fall asleep at 2300. I eventually fell asleep at 0100 after turning on the air-con but I had to wake up at 0430 so I was super exhausted.
I reached the airport at 0450 and checked in rather quickly due to the short queue. After eating a McDonalds breakfast, I ran into Herman. We chatted a bit about Rapture Gaming and Poker. He then asked me what time my flight was and I told him 0600. It was already 0520 then and JX still have not arrived yet. He informed me that budget airlines usually closed their counters 45 mins before take-off. When JX reached the airport, there was no longer any Macau counter around so he missed the flight and had to pay another $70 for the afternoon flight at 1330. FML, i would reach 8 hours earlier than him and I could not check into the hotel without him since he was the one who won the package at Grand Lisboa.
On board the plane, I was sitting beside a young boy and his mom/aunt. Couldn't tell where they were from. Their Mandarin seems good but it doesn't contain any thick/heavy Beijing/Shanghainese accent so I wasn't too sure if they were Singaporeans or not. The boy was kicking me a lot when he was sleeping. After that I got bored and started playing Chicken Invaders on my netbook and he was staring very intently at my screen. I almost wanted to let him play 2 players with me but the controls was too cramped up together so I changed my mind.
Upon arrival, there happened to be free Wireless Internet at the airport so I messaged JX on facebook to meet at the reception at 1830. I had no idea whether he received it or not so I felt very uneasy. If I could not find him I probably had to go book some random hotel on my own.
It seems there are two ways to go to Grand Lisboa from the airport. Either take the shuttle service to the Ferry Terminal, then change to another bus. Or you could take the cab. The cab only costs 60-70 HKD (10-12 SGD) so I was more than happy to take the cab.
At 1015 I arrived in the lobby of GL. The taxi driver dropped me nearby so I assumed it was the building but I wasn't entirely sure cos I could not see any sign anywhere. I approached a security guard and inquired whether the building we were in was the Grand Lisboa. He told me "Zhe Shi Pu Jing Jiu Dian" (This is Pu Jing Hotel) and I was like wtf where is Lisboa? Basically there are 2 hotels/casinos. One is Lisboa which is the older one and Grand Lisboa which is the newer one. I started walking out but I saw a road sign pointing in the direction I came from, then I finally realized that Pu Jing was GL in Chinese so I turned back.
Next, I approached the reception asking for any wireless internet. they informed me that it was only available for hotel guests so I found a place to put my bag down and started exploring the place.
First Stop: Grand Lisboa Casino
The age restriction in Macau was 18 and this is the first time that no one actually stopped me from entering. All the white dudes in Vegas/UK thought I was some 15 year old kid when I tried to enter previously.
Baccarat is definitely the most popular game in Macau, unlike Vegas. Da/Xiao (Big/Small) is also quite popular but I hardly saw any BlackJack tables. I went around asking for directions to the Poker Room in GL and they directed me to the second floor. I recalled going up 2 levels already but they have stupid stuff like "Upper First floor" so I had to go up a few more levels.
Second Stop: Grand Lisboa Poker Room
This is where PokerStars is holding its Macau Cup tournaments for the rest of the week. I'm probably not playing any of them cos I have not practiced playing for tournaments and I would probably throw my money away with some rash moves. More in the Poker post...
Third Stop: Wynn
I just finished my session of poker. Feeling good about my small winnings, I decided to head to the Wynn to play higher. I also wanted to explore the place since I needed to kill a lot of time before JX arrived at 1830. So I headed there. Apparently it's like 2 min away from sight, but you have to walk in an underpass which would waste another 3min of time but it's ok. There's a nice musical fountain outside with some random spraying of water.
Wynn seems more posh but the tables and slot machines seem quite desolated. I have no idea why but I don't care since I am only interested in poker and Wynn has the best games in town. I started playing 50/100 at 1230 and ended at 0415 after busting. More to come about poker...
Anyway while playing I was getting quite annoyed at the smoking at the tables. In Vegas smoking isn't allowed but all the stupid Mainland Chinese/Hong Kongers have no proper etiquette/table manners. Approxiately 25-30% of them smoke and sometimes I want to punch them in the face whenever they puff their cloud of smoke at me. I felt really hungry after two guys ordered some Char Siew Rice and Dumplings so I ordered Beef Kway Teow. Costed me 100 HKD which is ridiculous (but you could argue that it was only one Big Blind). I was up 5k at that point so I didn't really care but I lost money after my food arrived.
Fourth Stop: Star Galaxy
After losing a bunch of money (14000 HKD) at Wynn, I had no choice but to wander about. The next closest casino was the Star Galaxy so I headed there. It's just across the road. They have some pretty hostesses there to seduce u into playing their casinos. and all of them are super tall, like 1.8 or something (including the height of their high heels). I think a few are Thai so I suspect some of them are trannies.
I walked around in the casino and visited the Poker room there too. It was empty but apparently the movie Poker King was filmed there. After that I watched some performances in the lobby for a while. Seems that the performers in Macau are all whites and not Chinese.
Waiting
I was done at about 1630 or 1700 and I still had to wait for a little longer so I went back to GL. I needed a place to rest so I went up to the VIP lounge to sit for a while but they chased me away. I ended up waiting around the lobby for about an hour. Even tried calling JX with the payphone (who ever uses the payphone these days??) but his phone had no service in Macau.
JX arrived exactly at 1830. Apparently he saw my FB message. He took about 45 min longer than me to arrive and he said it was because everyone was snatching cabs from him. Pretty strange, there was a long line of cabs at my time and I just took the first one I saw.
Hotel Lisboa
Hotel Lisboa is super badass. Best hotel I have ever stayed in my life. It has 2 double beds (with some seat in front of it for duno what reason), a TV in the shitting room [place where the toilet bowl is] (ultimate baller), some soothing music and a display screen at the mirror/sink, a jacuzzi, and a steam bath. It costs about 250 USD per night if I'm not wrong. Pokerstars is paying for everything, including drinks and movies so I'm just going to abuse it and make them pay for raking tens of thousands off me.
Dinner time
JX and I went to the nearby Macs to eat dinner. A MacSpicy Meal (without upsize) costs 27.50 HKD (4.50 SGD) which is quite cheap. A MacSpicy Meal in school would cost 6+ and a meal outside would cost 7-8+. After that we headed back cos it was already 1930 and there was some late night ShootOut Tourney. JX asked if I wanted to buy his action (5000 HKD) so I bought half.
Tourney time
JX bought into the tourney. afterwards when he came back after busting, he said he was playing 40% of hands, really loose and aggressive. He lost AK vs AJ preflop allin which is pretty sad cos he would have been the chip leader if he won this all-in
That's all for today. I will probably not blog so much tomorrow cos I will be grinding at the Wynn I think. So I will be mostly writing about poker hands and stuff like that.
I reached the airport at 0450 and checked in rather quickly due to the short queue. After eating a McDonalds breakfast, I ran into Herman. We chatted a bit about Rapture Gaming and Poker. He then asked me what time my flight was and I told him 0600. It was already 0520 then and JX still have not arrived yet. He informed me that budget airlines usually closed their counters 45 mins before take-off. When JX reached the airport, there was no longer any Macau counter around so he missed the flight and had to pay another $70 for the afternoon flight at 1330. FML, i would reach 8 hours earlier than him and I could not check into the hotel without him since he was the one who won the package at Grand Lisboa.
On board the plane, I was sitting beside a young boy and his mom/aunt. Couldn't tell where they were from. Their Mandarin seems good but it doesn't contain any thick/heavy Beijing/Shanghainese accent so I wasn't too sure if they were Singaporeans or not. The boy was kicking me a lot when he was sleeping. After that I got bored and started playing Chicken Invaders on my netbook and he was staring very intently at my screen. I almost wanted to let him play 2 players with me but the controls was too cramped up together so I changed my mind.
Upon arrival, there happened to be free Wireless Internet at the airport so I messaged JX on facebook to meet at the reception at 1830. I had no idea whether he received it or not so I felt very uneasy. If I could not find him I probably had to go book some random hotel on my own.
It seems there are two ways to go to Grand Lisboa from the airport. Either take the shuttle service to the Ferry Terminal, then change to another bus. Or you could take the cab. The cab only costs 60-70 HKD (10-12 SGD) so I was more than happy to take the cab.
At 1015 I arrived in the lobby of GL. The taxi driver dropped me nearby so I assumed it was the building but I wasn't entirely sure cos I could not see any sign anywhere. I approached a security guard and inquired whether the building we were in was the Grand Lisboa. He told me "Zhe Shi Pu Jing Jiu Dian" (This is Pu Jing Hotel) and I was like wtf where is Lisboa? Basically there are 2 hotels/casinos. One is Lisboa which is the older one and Grand Lisboa which is the newer one. I started walking out but I saw a road sign pointing in the direction I came from, then I finally realized that Pu Jing was GL in Chinese so I turned back.
Next, I approached the reception asking for any wireless internet. they informed me that it was only available for hotel guests so I found a place to put my bag down and started exploring the place.
First Stop: Grand Lisboa Casino
The age restriction in Macau was 18 and this is the first time that no one actually stopped me from entering. All the white dudes in Vegas/UK thought I was some 15 year old kid when I tried to enter previously.
Baccarat is definitely the most popular game in Macau, unlike Vegas. Da/Xiao (Big/Small) is also quite popular but I hardly saw any BlackJack tables. I went around asking for directions to the Poker Room in GL and they directed me to the second floor. I recalled going up 2 levels already but they have stupid stuff like "Upper First floor" so I had to go up a few more levels.
Second Stop: Grand Lisboa Poker Room
This is where PokerStars is holding its Macau Cup tournaments for the rest of the week. I'm probably not playing any of them cos I have not practiced playing for tournaments and I would probably throw my money away with some rash moves. More in the Poker post...
Third Stop: Wynn
I just finished my session of poker. Feeling good about my small winnings, I decided to head to the Wynn to play higher. I also wanted to explore the place since I needed to kill a lot of time before JX arrived at 1830. So I headed there. Apparently it's like 2 min away from sight, but you have to walk in an underpass which would waste another 3min of time but it's ok. There's a nice musical fountain outside with some random spraying of water.
Wynn seems more posh but the tables and slot machines seem quite desolated. I have no idea why but I don't care since I am only interested in poker and Wynn has the best games in town. I started playing 50/100 at 1230 and ended at 0415 after busting. More to come about poker...
Anyway while playing I was getting quite annoyed at the smoking at the tables. In Vegas smoking isn't allowed but all the stupid Mainland Chinese/Hong Kongers have no proper etiquette/table manners. Approxiately 25-30% of them smoke and sometimes I want to punch them in the face whenever they puff their cloud of smoke at me. I felt really hungry after two guys ordered some Char Siew Rice and Dumplings so I ordered Beef Kway Teow. Costed me 100 HKD which is ridiculous (but you could argue that it was only one Big Blind). I was up 5k at that point so I didn't really care but I lost money after my food arrived.
Fourth Stop: Star Galaxy
After losing a bunch of money (14000 HKD) at Wynn, I had no choice but to wander about. The next closest casino was the Star Galaxy so I headed there. It's just across the road. They have some pretty hostesses there to seduce u into playing their casinos. and all of them are super tall, like 1.8 or something (including the height of their high heels). I think a few are Thai so I suspect some of them are trannies.
I walked around in the casino and visited the Poker room there too. It was empty but apparently the movie Poker King was filmed there. After that I watched some performances in the lobby for a while. Seems that the performers in Macau are all whites and not Chinese.
Waiting
I was done at about 1630 or 1700 and I still had to wait for a little longer so I went back to GL. I needed a place to rest so I went up to the VIP lounge to sit for a while but they chased me away. I ended up waiting around the lobby for about an hour. Even tried calling JX with the payphone (who ever uses the payphone these days??) but his phone had no service in Macau.
JX arrived exactly at 1830. Apparently he saw my FB message. He took about 45 min longer than me to arrive and he said it was because everyone was snatching cabs from him. Pretty strange, there was a long line of cabs at my time and I just took the first one I saw.
Hotel Lisboa
Hotel Lisboa is super badass. Best hotel I have ever stayed in my life. It has 2 double beds (with some seat in front of it for duno what reason), a TV in the shitting room [place where the toilet bowl is] (ultimate baller), some soothing music and a display screen at the mirror/sink, a jacuzzi, and a steam bath. It costs about 250 USD per night if I'm not wrong. Pokerstars is paying for everything, including drinks and movies so I'm just going to abuse it and make them pay for raking tens of thousands off me.
Dinner time
JX and I went to the nearby Macs to eat dinner. A MacSpicy Meal (without upsize) costs 27.50 HKD (4.50 SGD) which is quite cheap. A MacSpicy Meal in school would cost 6+ and a meal outside would cost 7-8+. After that we headed back cos it was already 1930 and there was some late night ShootOut Tourney. JX asked if I wanted to buy his action (5000 HKD) so I bought half.
Tourney time
JX bought into the tourney. afterwards when he came back after busting, he said he was playing 40% of hands, really loose and aggressive. He lost AK vs AJ preflop allin which is pretty sad cos he would have been the chip leader if he won this all-in
That's all for today. I will probably not blog so much tomorrow cos I will be grinding at the Wynn I think. So I will be mostly writing about poker hands and stuff like that.
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