Diary

Sept. 1, 2009
I went off on secondment for the main event of the Asian Poker Tour Macau to look after the media. The hotly anticipated festival took place between August 12 and 23, 2009 at the Starworld Casino, and will also be featured in a ground-breaking Chinese language poker movie. Many believe the film will have a similar impact on poker in Asia as the 1998 Hollywood film Rounders did on the western world. The movie is provisionally titled Poker King and will be directed by famous Chinese language director Chan Hing-Kai and Janet Chun, and produced by Amy Chin and Chan Hing-Kai. It tells the story of two bitter poker rivals competing for world championship glory. The cast will be all-star, A-list Chinese actors and pop stars, with a cinema release across the region set for later this year. Actors with the coveted starring roles include Louis Koo, Sean Lau Ching–Wan, Stephy Tang, Cherrie In, and Josie Ho. Those names mean nothing to me — suffice to say some have A-list western equivalents. I thought I may have seen the Chinese version of Angelina Jolie?

It was kind of surreal when they erected a mini-film set on day 1B. My Chinese is limited and so is my knowledge of Chinese film stars so I cannot comment on the quality of the acting but one thing is for sure, Johnny Chan was excited about being around and the potential the movie has. There have been several famous gaming films in the region, most notably the 1989 Chinese language classic God of Gamblers starring Chow Yun-Fat which spawned dozens of spin-offs. But Poker King is set to be the first release that focuses on poker.

The Asian Poker Tour events always receive good feedback from the online qualifiers at PartyPoker.com, and the organisers didn’t disappoint with their party and colourful branding of the event. The festival as a whole proved to be very successful for The Poker Pack, the Asian Poker Tour’s team of ambassadors. J.C. Tran, Steve Sung, Quinn Do, and David ‘Chino’ Rheem all won side events, with the awesome J.C. also making the final table of the main event. It would have been quite a story if J.C. had managed to take down first prize but young Frenchman Adrien Allain, an online qualifier from PKR, deserved his victory.

There is one memory that will linger long in my mind. I was in a nightclub and was left with a little bit of money to settle a bill for a table. A few Australian players who I didn’t know well were talking to some girls behind me. Later on I was asked by a local if I was with these guys. Even though they were taking drinks from the table I said I was not. He replied, “That’s good because those are girlfriends of some triads and they wanted to know who was hosting the table.” Exit stage left very quickly.

By the way I did invite Michael Phelps again but he didn’t turn up (though last time I heard he saw the letter but obviously had to go back to the U.S. as a national hero after the Olympics). I also invited Lady Gaga as she was playing in Macau at the time. One of these days one of them is going to bite.