Genting Texas Hold'em Poker Challenge 2 Review

26th October 2010

Last week I attended the Genting Texas Hold'em Poker Challenge 2 (Tournament) at the Genting Highlands Casino. There was a guaranteed USD 26,000 in prize money and I thought I went and tried it out.

First session was a group of 120 to eliminate 60 and the remaining players will advance to the "semi-finals". My first table had 7 players who did not know how to play the game! They kept asking who is the "banker", the only poker they have ever played was Caribbean Stud. We took about 30 minutes to play 3 hands because they didn't know the rules. Kept asking what's this, what's that.

First hand I had AQs and I knew since they were all newbies, I better play it slow. Flop was AA4, I still played passively, check calling until the river. River was a 7 and the guy bet like 1/3 the pot, I called. He had A7. I was very happy with my play because I was sure he will call my shove on the flop.

Second hand I had KQ off. I raised to 6x the BB and almost everybody called. (crazy...) Flop was T63 two clubs. I bluffed again with 6x BB, everyone folded until the last player. She tanked and said, I want to fold. 20 seconds later, she put in the chips. I was like...... NO, you said you folded. Since I was bluffing, I wanted a fold but she kept saying, I don't know the rules, I am changing my mind. Funny thing was, the rest of the table (except 2 other players) agreed with her. So I insisted on calling the tournament director. He enforced the rules and she had to fold. Phew.

I made in to the semi finals but the structure was too fast. I doubled my starting stack but still I only had 20 BBs. My undoing came when I had AK diamonds and I raised 2.5x BB. Player with 99 shoved  to 6xBB. I had to call. I missed, and he doubled up. He was the eventual winner of the event by the way. I now only had 5 big blinds left. So every big hand I had, I shoved. Eventually my KT lost to AJ. I was out.

Overall, it was ok fun. Nice food and easy to play. However the structure was too fast and they were only interested in getting players to spend time and money in their casino rather than running a real poker tournament. Too many donkeys also spoil the game. If the structure were a little better, we could pick them off, but with super turbo speed, if you don't get lucky, you lose.

I probably won't return as there are much better tournaments elsewhere, but overall the experience was okay, since I won like $1000 from the casino. :)