Postcard from Macau

Day 1A of APT Macau is in the books. Now that we finally settled into a bit of a routine here, I had some time to make a few observations about the trip so far:

* After spending seven straight weeks at the Rio this summer in Las Vegas, PokerNews booked us in the Rio Macau for the first six nights of this trip. There's no affiliation between the two hotels -- pure coincidence -- but sometimes it seems like the Rio is a black hole that has engulfed my life. That, or someone at PokerNews has a warped sense of humor.

* Our hotel is in an area of Macau similar to downtown Las Vegas. The casino in this hotel is honeycombed through the ground, first and second floors and consists of about 90% baccarat, 5% blackjack and sic bo, and 5% slot machines. That distribution is almost universal throughout Macau. This is a baccarat town.

* The APT is taking place a few blocks away at the Galaxy StarWorld, a rather nice property sandwiched between Wynn Macau and MGM Macau. Most of the floor employees in the casinos speak serviceable English. I asked one at MGM two nights ago where I could find pai gow (tiles). He looked at me quizzically. I repeated my request, prompting him to respond, "Sir, I only speak English and Cantonese."

* Moral of the story: no pai gow here.

* There is no 4th floor in our hotel or, I imagine, in any building in Macau. In Chinese numerology, four is considered a very unlucky number. A little research into this revealed that the word "four", if pronounced with an incorrect tone, is the word "death". (We're all about educating our readership here at RTFT.)

* There is a brothel on the fifth floor of the hotel. It is actively promoted in all areas of the hotel as a "spa" but it is a men-only establishment. You do the math. Given that patrons get lucky in the spa, you would think it would be on the 8th floor. 8 is a lucky number in Chinese. If pronounced with an incorrect tone, it means "prosperity". Again -- education.

* No, I have not been to the brothel.

* Really!

* Unaccompanied females are very, very rare here. This morning I got up a little bit earlier than I've been getting up the last several days and spotted three unaccompanied females having breakfast at the hotel breakfast buffet. All were very attractive and substantially more "put together" than the average hotel guest. Hookers having breakfast - a tradition almost as old as hooking itself.

* The local currency is the Pataca, which is tied to the Hong Kong Dollar. Either currency is accepted everywhere in Macau. The abbreviations for the two currencies are HKD and MOP. Rather than say patacas or dollars, we've started calling the currency "moops". As in, "You owe me 450 moops!"

* There is a surprising number of Russians here. Almost all are women and probably hookers. C4 made the mistake of betting me at MGM two nights ago that a blonde we spotted was not Russian. I walked over to her and asked "Ti govorish po-russki?" and got an affirmative response. Easy moops.

* The Rio gave us a few coupons for free play in the casino. One was a $20 free slot play, the other $50 in free chips with a purchase of at least $50 in chips. I thought this was a pretty good deal until I realized the coupons were for moops. The exchange rate is about 8 moops to $1, meaning the slot play coupon was worth about $2.50 and the table game coupon was worth about $6.

* The slogan of APT Macau is "Your all-in Asian experience." Whoever came up with that slogan needs to visit the fifth floor spa at the Rio.

* We had a free day Wednesday, which we spent taking in some sights around Macau before heading to the opening ceremonies for the APT. After all that was through, we wanted to find a bar. First we tried the Whiskey Bar on the 16th floor of the StarWorld, but it was half-empty. The other half was filled with people in their 50s. At a loss for what to do, I walked up to a hostess (a super yummy-looking woman and the hottest person in the room by far) and asked her where she would go if she wanted to hit a bar. Without missing a beat, she answered "Lion Bar at MGM".

It was an excellent call. Lion Bar was chic and full of attractive young people. An enjoyable cover band played five sets of American pop throughout the night as the place filled up with 20- and 30-somethings looking for fun. We were the life of the party, dancing and chatting with everyone in the place. One member of our group hooked up with a sexy (married) Thai woman who was hammered and pretty much threw herself at him. Easy moops.

* I don't have a photo of that woman or many of other locals yet (I'm not good at remembering to take photos), but I do have a few I can share for Joaquin's benefit until I can get photos from some of the other PokerNews people.

Two of the APT girls.

Tila Tequila, PokerNews reporter Dave King and some random not-hot Asian woman.
Answers to yesterday's quiz coming tomorrow.