Johnny Tep's Macau Trip Report

Desole je post en anglais. C un copy paste de mon facebook.

The trip over

All of my loyal note followers know I went to Macau to play some cards. I had a good game plan: play my stakes, not go out on ridiculous bluffs, play solid hands. Basically a classic Tight-aggressive strategy but more on the tight side. The 24hrs before me sitting down at a table were horrible. I kept having recurring dreams of getting sucked out on the river, putting my money in with the best hand and getting some sort of awful beat. I was a nervous wreck on the whole plane ride and then my stomach was in a knot and started hurting. To top it off, the book I was reading said that you should learn to read your body and that stomach aches were bad signs. I took this as a horrible omen and got even more stressed. I met up with my friend Sam at the Bangkok airport. Sam is Finnish and a great poker player who has many years of experience playing in European card rooms. To my relief, he admitted to being nervous too although I wasn't sure if he meant it in anticipation or fear. He said to me: I need a drink. Damn! Why didn't I think of that?! So we hit the bar and I downed like 6 Jack Cokes to calm my nerves before taking the flight to Macau.

Arrival and first night

I managed to sleep a bit and woke up around landing time. Sam had pulled an all-nighter in Bkk so he was out fast as well. We arrived around 9pm and ouuuhed and awed throughout the cab ride to the guesthouse, pointing at the bright lights and tall buildings: look! the Venetian! ouuh there's the Sands! hey! MGM Grand! It was like a being a kid in a toy store! ^^ We arrived at the guesthouse which, as I had figured was a complete shit hole..but we weren't there to frolic about in our rooms so who cared?! We dropped our bags and went to the reception where our friend Fred has left us a note saying he was at the Wynn. Side note: Fred is the most experienced player of us all, he's a 37yr old American who was in private banking. He played almost all the casino's on the east coast and did Vegas a whole lotta times!

So we immediately hopped in a cab and headed to the Wynn. The Wynn looks exactly like the Bellagio inside (according to Fred) so needless to say that it's a swanky, super posh casino decorated with thick carpets and baller chandeliers. We found the poker room but Fred wasn't there. We decided to play and wait for him. We saw the pit boss and got put on the 10/20 waiting list. Shit. I was nervous again. This was for real. I'm putting money (more than I'm used to) on the table. What kind of first hand was I going to get? What if I have aces? What's the right raise..shit how much is the currency conversion again? What if I spill my coke all over the table? My mind was all over the place. Then this woman said: ok spot open on 1. She was pointing at me. Ok then. I looked at Sam who gave me a nod (kind of like a ok-this-is-it-go-get-'em nod). I sat down. The player on my right said hi to me as I placed my chips on the table. I glanced at the stacks to see if anyone was seriously stacked but no, all had pretty much the same amounts. I quickly discovered that there was nothing to worry about and I had more knowledge about both the game and table manners than most people. Some forgot to post blinds and would act out of turn when betting. I was relieved and ordered some coffee, smoked a cigarette and said to myself: ok let's do this! Time to hit it big!

Fred met us up later around 1 and managed to somehow quadruple his stack in 1 hour!! We stopped at 4am and I finished up that night! =D


Sidenote: I wont go into detail about all my hands nor how much money I won. Yes, I did win. Let's say I didn't win as much money as I hoped for but I covered my trip, hotel, expenses and a nice little extra. I want to talk about some big hands I hit and the worst beat I have ever witnessed (Fred agrees it's the most horrible thing he's ever seen).


The next day

The next day we hit the Wynn again and all lost huge amounts. The play was very odd. Some common examples: we were raising with pocket pairs preflop and would get called by donks with 6-4suited. Ok fine, that happens. But we then flop a set and bet it only to get called down to the river so they could hit a straight or flush. Sure in the long term, this is a great thing for us since statistically a donk cannot suckout each time! But there was no long term, they were hitting it all that night. It seemed to happen to the foreigners and the regulars were raking it all in...a bit odd. After leaving in disgust, Sam was convinced the game was rigged. Later in our trip we met other solid players who had the same experience. I don't believe a big name casino has rigged games, there's way too much at stake to rig a 10/20 table. Still it was all very odd. We vowed never to return.

That night we hit up the PokerStars room at the Grand Waldo. They were hosting tournaments and a few cash game tables. The cash games were mostly regulars who were payed to play (i discovered that later). We played the freeroll tournament which was a great warm up. Fred took 1st place which gave him a buy-in to the 1000$+1rebuy tourney on Friday which had a 40K guarantee. Then we followed up with a real tournament where I took 2nd place! =D...out of the last 4 players were me, Sam and Fred...and the guy who finished first. I was very proud to see we had all made it this far. We were definitely well representing! 5 places were paid.

After that we went to the Grand Lisboa. This place was a freaking goldmine. Super loose and chasy asian degens calling with mid pair or top pair on super sketchy boards. The first 30 minutes left me baffled at the type of play. I was really looking forward to bust these guys. I did well that night.

The worst bad beat. EVER.

First let me give MY definition of bad beat. In most situations when AQ>AK, I don't consider it a bad beat. If someone calls my all in with AQ and I hold AK, I'm happy right? I don't think it's bad play since AQ is pretty good hand. Sure AQ only has 3 outs upon showdown but he did a correct play (most of the time). So if the queen comes out ,I don't get mad at the player or say: what a bad beat! I just curse the cards and wonder how the fuck a 3 outter just fucked me. For me a bad beat is when someone sticks money in with no real reason to be in and sucks out on an already strong hand. (Sidenote: The other day online I got all in preflop with aces only to get called by aces. I'm pissed when I see were gonna split the pot. But then the other guy hit 4 card flush on the board to beat me. rough beat. not a bad beat).

On with the worst bad beat ever! It involves 2 players: A Japanese player who is really good...a real rock and an Indian guy from Goa who just sat down. Now the Jap was super strong, he only showed down strong hands and I rarely saw him put money in when he wasn't a favorite..so yeah, solid player. No info on the Indian guy.

There's raise preflop and only they are involved in the hand. Flop comes Q 8 8. Jap holds pocket Q for nut full house (QQQ88). He doesn't even slowplay it and bets a decent amount on it. Indian guy calls. Turn: 8. Now there's a possibility of quads so the Jap takes his time, determines Indian guy doesn't have 4 of a kind and makes another raise. Indian guy calls again. River: 8. Sure enough, the 2% runner-runner comes and totally counterfeits his hand, the best hand now being ace high. (BOARD is : Q 8 8 8 8 ). Of course the Indian guy had A9!!! SO SICK! He kept calling with nothing and 2% runner-runner counterfeited the Jap's hand. So disgusting. Pot was about 4.5K if I recall correctly. Gross!

Other nutty shit I witnessed

I was sitting next to one of the regular payed players from the PokerStars room at the GrandLisboa. He got his black aces cracked by a 25h. Was fucking funny. He steamed around the card room for 20 mins talking to himself. LOL bad beat

I saw flop: AAA. Turn A.

I saw straight flush get beat by royal flush at the table next to me. WOW! There was KQJ10s on the board.

One of the tourney players told me a story of an online tourney where 1st made 180K (USD). He was deep stack final table and went into a pot VS the chip lead. He flopped quads holding pocket 10 and river gave chip lead a str8 flush. Ouch.

My 2 most beautiful hands

SECOND: I hold Q8o in the small blind with 5 or 6 callers in the hand. I call. Flop comes Q 8 x with 2 hearts. I bet near pot. get one caller to my immediate left. Turn comes: Q. I'm happy with my nuts and check to him. He bets out decent amount. I look him over like do you have the Q...and call. River: Q. As soon as the 3rd queen drops I look at him intently, kinda squinting, pretending to try and get a read/tell off someone who hit quads. I make like nah it cant be and decide to bet. He called. Big Pot. I reckon he thought we were splitting with QQQ88. But no, I rocked him with my quads.

FIRST: I hold 33 under the gun. I limp. 3 callers. BB raises to 120. I almost fold but decide to call after considering I was pretty deep stack. Flop comes: 232. Nice full house. BB raises more than pot. Now for the past hour I was sitting next to Fred and muttering comments and shit about the game to him. This time I do the same and mutter just loud enough so the BB could hear me: " god!..i hope I'm making the right move here.." BB was french and understood English. So I just call. folds around. Turn comes: x. He bets big again. I look at him in amazement and say to him:"damn! How big is your pocket??" Think for a bit. Give a look that says nahhh no wayy. and call. River: 3. I have quads. He immediately goes all in. I make sure and ask: you all in? he nods. I insta-call while standing up. Table my cards and scream (the whole cardroom looked up): I GOT QUADS BABYYY!!!! Sure enough he did have a nice pocket Q. That pot was awesome.

So I "Hollywooded" quads twice and got payed well both times. I'm considering going into acting now. LOL!...Note that it took no skill whatsoever to win those pots...i was extremely lucky and even got bet into one of the times. I guess my acting was ok though and ended up paying off.

Macau-style play

Now the play in Macau is quite insane and it took me a while to understand how to adapt. Raise less preflop. Only make solid raises with QQ-AA. Since half the table consists of calling stations, your AK is often not so great to raise big with. Lets say you get AK. You raise maybe 60-80 preflop. If you hit ace on the flop and theres a straight or flush draw, you can't bet pot to push them off the draw. they just won't lay it down. Instead you make some sort of gay raise..like half pot or less. And if the draw then comes on the turn, you can curse the poker gods and get ready to lay it down. If it doesn't, THEN you can charge it. They do have A TINY BIT of sense and will think twice before drawing to one last river card. Sometimes you get a call and they don't hit the river and it's so obvious. I had a good Asian player from the states to my left. His hands shook or he shuffled his feet each time he had a good hand. Awesome tell. The place was full of lame tells! Goldmine I tell you.

Non-poker related A.K.A. boring stuff

I really recommend Macau except for families I guess. It's really unique. With it's old decrepit Portuguese architecture on one side and the super bright shiny tall casinos on the other it makes for something really special. While I was there it was the food festival and the formula 3 Grand Prix so that brought a lot of action to both the tables and the city. Shopping was great! Choices were amazing. I wanted to buy so many things. The Adidas store was sick. Food was good everywhere I went. No exceptions.

So I guess that sums up my trip. I had a blast and won some money. Regardless, win or lose, it was still a nice experience. I really would love to go back soon. Any takers?

Johnny Tep

PS: Fred and Sam and fictional names. Currency is HKD, divide by 7.7 to convert to USD.

Attends de voir à montréal easy money en masse.

Ahhh bon! Au casino de Monotreal tu veux dire? C electronique non?