Mid-stake poker in Hong Kong is (near) dead

Poker in Hong Kong went from mediocre to completely bad over the last 12 months or so. It used to be that 25/50 NLH was the standard game with some 50/100 on weekends. Now? No one but a few good players are willing to play 25/50 anything. The standard right now is 10/20 NLH and if lucky there might be a table of 10/20/40 PLO. Which totally sucks. Some try to organize 25/50 PLO but it usually turns out very dry with 4-5 good players sharing 1-2 bad players. At the end of night being up 1BI is considered good and 2BI amazing. I played reasonably well one time for 3 hours and managed to win 60BB. LOL. I have to say, unless the 25/50 scene improves, I can't be bothered with playing live in HK anymore.

Suggestion: get people adapted to 25/50 PLO. People meaning casual players who can laugh off a couple of Buy-ins, or small time grinders who want to try their hands on the big(ger) stakes. (hint: last thing we need is more pros.)

OMG last night was funnnnnn.....

I had probably one of the most fun nights in terms of hang out with poker people last night. I went out for dinner with Terrence, Celina, Fred from Pokerstars, and my friend Manish. We went to my favorite Japanese restaurant Sushi Kuu, headed by my awesome friend Satoru Mukugawa, who's one of the best Jap chef I know. We had omakaze (Japanese chef's menu). As a general guideline, always go for the omakaze at any upscale Jap restaurant for true goodness. Satoru's omakaze is as fantastic as always, maybe even more so this time since this is the first time I had abalone from him. We probably ate more food than we thought we would be eating, and we cleared two bottles of sake. We played CCR for the bill but Fred and Manish bought themselves out so it was 3-handed (Terrence, Celina, me). Terrence lost and had to cover the tap.

Naturally we played poker after dinner. We played SHOT, which was a combination of 150/300 Limit Stud, 25/50 NL Hold'em, 25/50 PL Omaha, and 150/300 Limit Triple Draw. The mixture of the game was great and the action was good too as we had one guy walked up to us asking if he could join. I think all of us smiled wickedly while welcoming him. It was one of the most enjoyable poker session I've had since I love mixed game so much and with the right bunch of people the fun level just gets elevated by so much. We ended the night at like 2:30am and I went home a happy man. Oh, also helps that I ran good and made 10k. =)

Probably the biggest draw in my life (so far)....

I rarely write a post just about a hand (if my memory serves me right, i never write a post just about a hand). This is an exception. I hit what's probably the biggest draw in my life, outs wise. The game is $1/2 PLO 6-max. Nothing big.

My hand: 9d 7d 5h 8h

Position: BB

Preflop: everyone limps around to SB who raises it to $12, I call, 3 more callers. Total five players to the flop.

Pot: $58

Flop: Ah 5d 2d. SB continues for $39. I make a pretty questionable call but does he really have 34 for the straight? Pretty sure he'd bet pot if he had it. Does he have diamond draw? Maybe. Don't see why he'd be so eager to bet into a made straight board if he had diamonds.

Pot : $136

Turn: 6h. Key card! Even assuming the guy has the straight, I still have 25 outs. (All the diamonds and hearts, two black 4s, two black 7s, two black 8s, two black 9s, and minus one of the 4 he has in his hand to make his straight.) I bet pot which I think works well because he can't call with diamonds anymore, and I would be ahead otherwise. The guy tanks and then shoves the rest of his stack in which is only $25.55 more. I obv call.

Pot: $457.10

River: 5s. I hit trip 5s and take down the pot as the guy mucks of all things A369 clubs. I had not 25 but 28 outs against this particular hand! Oh also, it turns out that my read on the flop was correct, that he didn't make the straight and no diamonds.

I had 64% to in on the turn eventho I was the one drawing one card. Pretty awesome feeling it is.

Live game. WHAAATTTTT???

I'm out of town right now and when I return to Hong Kong in five days, there might no longer be a live poker scene. At least not a public one. For those of you who doesn't know what happened, here's the long story short. The Blue Room (a place for higher stakes poker) has been raided by the cops. It's not some minor "license-check" either, they took chips and tables and money and people. Apparently they plotted an undercover cop at the place disguised as a player for a few weeks before the raid.

What's gonna happen to live poker in town? No idea. But all I know (from what I can hear so far) is people are scared to play publicly. This really kills the action as poker is hardly profitable without new fishes coming in. Pretty sad thing imo. There might be private 1-table games at private places, but the accessibility is incomparable. More people might play online and more people will definitely go to Macau. Both for me aren't ideal as online poker is just different and Macau, well, Macau is just far. No more can I drive 10 minutes to a game I know is running. And I'll have to go thru the pain of finding out which game happens when and where. (TO ALL: PLEASE email me or call me or fb me or whatever with any private games that might be running or being set up. This will very much be appreciated. obv don't post details in comment here lol.) I'll still have my one high stake private game at my disposal and I think that game will never be raided because it's set up inside a VERY safe venue but I won't disclose more to protect the game.

What's gonna happen to the most popular poker room in town namely HKPH? No idea. But my guess is they'll see much less traffic. The action there is pretty pfff before all this happened anyways (they only have 10/20 on most nights, or at best 25/50NLH.) Unless they set up a higher stake game and they somehow prove that it's safe to play there, I can't be bothered going.

This just sucks.