On the first flight from London to Beijing I upgraded and the flight was great, but then as soon as I took my transfer from Beijing (amazing airport) to Macau with Air-Macau everything went downhill. I had a few cheeky beers in the bar, then ordered the local Beijing delicacy favored by locals, which you probably will not have heard of called 'Microwaved Lasagna'! It arrived late, so I paid up and ran to the boarding gate where my gate was apparently closing. Thirty minutes later and we still had not boarded the plane. Two hours and 30 minutes after we boarded the plane, we had still not taken off, taxiing around the runways awaiting clearance to leave!!! Ridiculous. By the time we should have arrived in Macau, we had finally taken off, and I found I had the only seat on the plane that did not recline!
First night - party time
Arriving late, I found that the currency in Macau was not HKD (Hong Kong Dollars) but in fact MOP (Macau Pataca) so I changed all of my $17,000 HKD that I changed in London, to MOP! On arrival at my hotel, I found that the rooms did not have Wi-fi and I had to use a two foot cable to connect to my laptop. Arguments with the management who did not (or chose not to) understand English very well meant nothing got sorted that evening, and only a longer cable was bought up the next day. I went for a few more beers with Neil from PKR, zlatan35 and Waswini, ended up drinking in a bar surrounded by (not so desirable) women and (more desireable) bottles of vodka, then we ended up taking care of a rather drunk zlatan!
Playing the money markets
As I arrived for registration for the Heads Up side event, my currency saga continued... I could not buy into any of the events in MOD, only HKD (which I had changed up at the airport when I found out the local currency was MOD)! So I went back and changed up to HKD again, and left a few thousand dollars in MOD for using around town. In steps Neil... 'No, no, James you can use HKD anywhere in Macau as well!' Apparently that was the case, therefore I changed up my money to the same currency over and over again paying commission every time. Could my stay get any worse!
Things are looking (heads) up
IN Round 1 of the Heads Up event, I was playing a guy who clearly had very little idea what he was doing, and was very easy to read. I still had to get lucky against him though as the blinds got high. With 45cc vs A5 off suit, I turned the flush and made it through to Round 2. Round 2 arrived, I showed up for my seating and was told I had got a walk, as there were not enough players to fulfill the 64 available seats for the tournament. I was lucky enough to win Round 2 without playing - nice!
In Round 3 I was loving my chances. With $6500 HKD at stake in this match, we sat down with the $4k starting stack we had in the first round, but little did we know, they had decided to turn the tournament into a crapshoot now, with blinds starting at 100/200 instead of the 25/50 from before!!! 20xbb's! I got it in good, with A8 vs A7, and the JT9 flop looked great for me, until the 8 popped up on the river to give him the bottom end straight. He got up to leave, and didn't understand why he had won! Great, I just lost against another guy who did not know the worst hand from the best hand!
Parties, problems and online cash
Another lively night, followed by a none-too-sober HU cash game on PKR vs MrDaigle. Three dishes from the room service menu and a not so long sleep, and I was up ready for Go Karting. We only managed one 15 minute session before we had to return for the APT cocktail welcome party at the Star World Casino, which was hosted by some of the best looking models i have ever seen in my life! The APT had gone all out, hiring Tila Tequila (anyone who watches American television will know who she is). Our very own Liv Boeree from England showed for the Celebrity Invitational tournament, and all of the other APT Promo girls were just as (if not more) beautiful!
As we hit the bars again in the evening, I unfortunately had to return to my room half way through. A personal problem with a friend meant I had to miss out on a few hours of the night, and by the time I had bought my new phone charger (which blew up my phone!), got hold of them and sorted it all out, I was so tired, and crashed out asleep with my laptop still open on my bed!
I'm about to go and hit a Japanese restaurant for lunch with kingkai84 and one of the APT models who Kai and Henrik (pokey85) befriended last year, so I shall make sure some more 'blogworthy' material occurs during the next half of the week!
Good luck at the tables, and this time - wish me good luck in the APT Main event on Thursday!
James666