Hard Rock Poker Lounge shuts doors at high noon In a blow to Asia’s poker players, City of Dreams have decided to close the Hard Rock Poker Lounge in Macau. While rumours of the closure have persisted for weeks, management have refused to make any official comment, preferring instead to let one of Macau’s most-loved poker rooms go out with a whimper rather than a bang.
A few of the regulars were there last night for the room’s last hurrah. Only two tables were running, however, with blinds at HKD $10/$25. The only sign perhaps that things were different was the free pizza being passed around between players. When I visited the room at 2pm today, all the tables were still set up and they had both entrances roped off with a sign telling players to prepare themselves for the arrival of a “new Hard Rock gaming experience”.
After finding a pit manager on the second level gaming floor where the poker lounge was located, I asked whether I could get a game and he told me that as of 12 noon today there was no more poker being played at the Hard Rock. He was very apologetic but was unable to tell me what exactly the casino was replacing the poker lounge with.
The Hard Rock Poker Lounge only opened on June 23, 2010 and featured seven main area tables plus two VIP ‘High Stakes’ tables. It was one of the more stylish venues offering poker in Macau, with plush leather surroundings, large LCD screens, bar and lounge area, and scantily clad waitresses delivering free drinks to poker players.
In a sign that perhaps foretold of the closure, four of the tables were recently decommissioned and diverted elsewhere in the casino. Macau’s government imposes a cap on table numbers at casinos so there is pressure on poker from higher-earning tables like baccarat and black jack. This brings the total number of venues offering poker in Macau down to four – The Venetian, Casino Grand Lisboa, StarWorld Casino and Wynn Macau.
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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