Close But No Cigar

Posted May 25th, 2008 by phillau

Hi guys, I finished 7th in the $10k Red Dragon Event, which pays top 5 players. Yes I know, this bites. It's six hours of practice for nothing. For more details on the hands that went down, I'll be writing on a seperate blog. Let's just say I was unlucky enough to have ran into quads twice, having survived the first one and then fought all the way back, only to the dismal of the second one. Overall I'm a bit disappointed in myself and I would sure hope to do better in my next tournament.

Review of the weekend:

On Friday, I arrived at the hotel on time at 3:30pm and checked into my hotel room. Wow, sea view. And there's nothing else but well.... sea. I like it as it's quiet and peaceful, and here's a special thanks to PokerStars.net for arranging everything. I settled in and went down to the poker room. I met Lee Nelson, and was very excited to be invited by him for some upcoming work in Macau (details will be released when I can make it public). We did our fair shares of media work, photo-taking, and interviews. By 7pm, I was exhausted and my sore throat was creeping up. I was arm-twisted into playing the $2000HKD charity event for the Sichuan earthquake, and i mean, it's for good cause, so who was I to turn it down. Heck, it was a super-turbo tournament. We started with 40 big blinds and level went up FAST. I got knocked out without much of a fight early on, but it's ok. Again, it's for good cause. I didn't completely manage to stay away from the cash game, which was my original plan. I played a bit while waiting for my friend to show up for a drink and dropped $1k. Not a big deal. I went out for a drink with a friend at the beautiful Macau Fisherman's Wharf, and it felt totally great to be out in the open, sipping a beer, and eating some chilly cheese fries. I hit the PokerStars after-party later on, and had lots of fun (*smilez*). Went back to hotel room at about 3:30am, only to find an exciting (despite being a re-run) game of Orioles versus Yankees. Game was tied at 1-1 until bottom of the ninth, when the Yanks score the winning run! So there I was, crashed in bed at 5am.

On Saturday, I got up at noon, and I went down to the poker room to check out the action. I found sitting there none other than the legendary Johnny Chan! He proposed a $200-$400 cash game with minimum buy in of $100k HKD. And oh, my friend Kenny was sitting there too! Very exciting stuff. The game was 6-handed. I watched them play on and didn't realize it was 3:30pm and I still haven't had any food. I ordered the usual BBQ pork rice, and ate and watched at the same time. Kenny finished the night up over $100k HKD. Woohoo! I went out for dinner at 6ish, had some decent Portuguese food. Came back at 8ish and sat down at the table of the $10k event. I grinded my way to a decent stack, and I worked the table good. I was putting up my usual wild image, but inside I was actually playing very tight. I got knocked out at 7th, and oh well. That's that. I went back to my room and crashed at around 3:30am.

On Sunday, I got up at 10am. I checked out of my room and went out for lunch. We decided to eat at the Fisherman's Wharf again, as there's a very good Portuguese restaurant. Oh the food was SO good.... I took the 1:30pm ferry back to HK and that concludes my Macau weekend!

In general, it was a weekend well spent. I enjoyed myself and had some very good poker action. I'm definitely looking forward to my next tourny tho, I'll do better and I'll get into the money, I swear.