It turns out that Phil Ivey's interest, along with the other high stakes pros wasn't the actual tournament, but rather the potentially massive and juicy cash games against wealthy Chinese businessmen. They are playing at the Hard Rock Poker Room in Macau.
Reports from Matt Savage, the APPT Macau tournament director indicate that "despite the light turnout at the Asian Poker Tour Macau the cash games are some of the biggest in history as Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Chau Giang, and John JuandaJohn Juanda are playing HK$5,000-10,000 with some Chinese businessmen. The game plays much bigger and there was about 40 million on the table last night when I saw the game."
According to Savage, the players were talking about doubling the blinds for the next session from 5k/10HK$ to 10k/20k HK$ which when converted to dollars at 13 US cents/HK$ meant at the increased stakes of 10k/20k HK$ it was equivalent to $1300/$2,600. That is much bigger than any games going on online, which top out at $500/$1000, and higher than any of the usual games in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio the last couple years.
They are playing at the Macau Hard Rock Poker Room, site of the APPT Macau. They are playing deep stacked NL Hold'em with players who are not afraid to gamble. Savage says that the biggest winner so far is Juanda, while Dwan, Ivey, and Giang were down "a few million HK$ combined".
"Tom Dwan made it through day one in the 5K main event but only came downstairs to play one hand 10-4 off suit in an attempt to bust and get back to the cash game but instead he doubled up and asked me to call him as soon as he was under 20 BB's," Savage explains, and also mentions that Dwan is already planning moving to Macau - though he may have been only joking. Tom eventually busted in 25th place and he is headed to the more lucrative cash games now.
Usually the high stakes poker games at the Starworld and Hard Rock are private and by invitation only. They often limit the number of pros that can play in them, but with some of the top poker celebrities in the world in town, there is an exception currently.
One hand described by a bystander:
Blinds were 5k/10k HKD
Ivey straddles to 20k
Dwan double straddles to 40k
Middle position player calls 40k
Ivey completes the 40k
Dwan maskes a raise to 180k total
Middle position player folds
Ivey re-raises to 1million almost all-in
Dwan instant goes all-in
Ivey snap calls
Pot is approximately 3M HKD
Hands - Ivey ATos, Dwan 77
Board runs out, no Ace no Ten. Dwan ships the 3 Million Pot.
When he left, Dwan was up about 3.5M HKD, which is about $700k.
The latest report from Matt Savage is that the game has moved back to its traditional spot at the Starworld and Ivey, Dwan and Giang were playing, with Chau Giang the big winner so far. I'll report back with more as I hear of it.
