The now closed Hard Rock Poker Lounge One of the biggest casualties of the closure of the Hard Rock Poker Lounge at City of Dreams is the loss of a venue to hold the next Macau leg of the Asian Poker Tour (APT). With the very limited availability of venues in Macau that are able to support a large tournament, it’s not known if a replacement venue can be found in time to stage this very popular event this year.
APT Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Mann, said, “This is obviously very sad news for poker in Macau and the APT as we expected to be returning to Hard Rock later this year. We understand the decision was taken because of space limitations; the gaming table cap that is enforced at each casino. Macau is really booming right now and it puts huge pressure on the best usage of floor space, logistics and, of course, staffing. As a commercial decision it is understandable but unfortunately it means the APT needs to find a new home.”
However, landing a new venue is not as easy as it sounds, as Mann added, “The fact is a poker event just can’t be held anywhere in Macau. For the authorities to approve an event it must be with an approved casino and held in a designated gaming area. In addition, that casino must be operating a poker room. All I can say to players is to watch this space as we are working on trying to find a solution for this year.”
In 2008 and 2009, APT Macau was staged at Galaxy StarWorld and then moved to the Hard Rock last year. The reason cited for the move at the time was that StarWorld just could not accommodate the APT, given its size, anymore as its facilities were fully booked for most of the time. Existing poker room operators at the StarWorld Poker King Club have not been able to stage tournaments frequently because of this fact: the StarWorld ballroom is one of the busiest in Macau and is often booked a year in advance.
We’ll just have to wait and see whether the APT will be able to sort out its Macau dilemma for this year. Poker Portal Asia will bring you any updates as they happen.
February 22, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
The Dirty Ice Cream Cup (DICC) is returning to Metro Card Club on March 15-20, 2012 and what better way to get the lowdown on it than to go to the man behind the tournament, Neil Arce. Every year, Arce holds the DICC to help celebrate his birthday and the tournament has been constantly growing with bigger fields and prize pool guarantees with every running.
Arce has an impre...
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February 22, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
DafaPoker has just announced the creation of two new mini sites, the Mega Million De Zhou Poker Tournament and the Mega Million, aimed at promoting their upcoming tournament, the Mega Million Main Event on July 7, 2012. Although these sites are in Chinese and targeted towards the Chinese market, the event itself is open to all registered DafaPoker players.
As previously rep...
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February 21, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
PokerStars Macau issued a press release earlier this month announcing the postponement of the Macau Millions tournament and the ending of its three-year partnership Casino Grand Lisboa in March, 2012. Ever since there has been speculation on where Asia’s biggest and most successful tournament room would relocate.
The norm with these kind of releases is to also announce a n...
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February 20, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
The PokerStars Macau room at Casino Grand Lisboa kicked off this weekend with a field of 196 players taking to the felt for the opening event of the 2012 Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon. After all the excitement, it was Xiao Yang Cui from Australia who claimed victory in the HKD $3000 No Limit Hold’em event, earning himself HKD $127,100 in winnings.
"This is my first time play...
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February 17, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
One of the things we observed at APT Asian Series Cebu at the beginning of the month was that no players from the Philippines managed to make it to the final table. At last year's event, more than half of the final tablists were Filipinos and, with our curiosities piqued, we decided to take a closer look at the stats and found a few surprises.
In 2011, a large percentage of ...
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February 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
Another running of the rake-free PokerGuru Tour (PGT) was completed last weekend with Vinay Suchede taking out top honours in the INR 25,000 buy-in Main Event. He conquered a field of 58 players to take home INR 550,000 in first place prize money.
On Saturday, play went down until the money bubble burst courtesy of Vineet Bailur who departed at seven-handed. Many of the not...
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February 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
Crown Melbourne’s VIP gaming salons have recently won the ‘Casino VIP Room of the Year’ title at the International Gaming Awards (IGA) 2012 in London. The ultra-luxurious VIP gaming salons are one of the showpieces of a AUD 1.5 billion redevelopment project at the complex, which is due to be completed later this year.
Poker players the world over should be familiar wit...
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