Rumors of the insanely high limits being played at StarWorld Casino in Macau began with APT tournament director Matt Savage positing on the 2+2 poker forum about some high-stakes action that seems to pop-up around the poker pros in town for the APT Cebu Main Event. However, as more and more details leak out about the game it seems readily apparent that the stakes being played are actually NORMAL for the wealthy players who are regulars in the semi-private affair.
If high-stakes action in Las Vegas consists of a $200/$400 or sometimes $400/$800 No Limit Holdem game than Vegas can no longer be considered the Mecca of poker –the rumored stakes in the Macau games are in the $1,400/$2,800 ballpark, with Tom Dwan playing a heads-up match with $4k/$8k blinds! A $200/$400 game in Macau is relegated to the second-tier tables.
This leads me to wonder if Asia will become the new home of many of the world’s top poker players. If this kind of money is at stake than why wouldn’t the best in the world want in on the action? The only thing preventing them from playing is bankroll, but as we’ve seen the locals are more than happy to start a game of virtually any stakes –Jeff Lisandro, Ted Forrest and others are rumored to be playing in $200/$400 and $300/$600 games in Macau, and a number of poker players have been flying in over the past week as news of the wild games has spread.
The one issue may be availability; a few years back Brian “TSRAST” Rast was rumored to have taken over $4 million off of this game and outsiders were not allowed to play for a long time –although that rule seems to have been scrapped over the past week!
More worrisome is the endless supply of money some of these wealthy Chinese businessmen possess –Even if they lose $2 million in the course of a night they have probably made more than that in interest from their other assets!
For instance, in the heads-up match Dwan is pitted in his opponent bought in for a rumored $150 million!!! Dwan bought in for a mere $3 million according to reports. These games in Macau are definitely not for the faint of heart, and a bad night could send you back to $100 NLHE games on Full Tilt Poker. Another poster on 2+2 added how the Chinese will keep upping the stakes if they are losing, and at some point they will get their money back –similar to the Martingale roulette system.
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