Never thought I would go on this trip but I am glad I did. Let's start with the positives. The resort we were in had probably the best service I have ever experienced in my life. From the bellhops, waitresses to housekeeping, reception staff, the service was impeccable! Even better than my experience in Japan. It kind of makes up for the location as it was far away from anything, 20 minutes from Hoi An town, 45 minutes away from Danang. Food options were limited and expensive, and other than tournament poker, there was nothing much else to do.
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Luxurious stay at a beach resort
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| Hoi An market by day |
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Hoi An at night
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Just like the first event in Genting, the Poker Dream turn out was impressive. I was surprised to see contingents of Koreans, Thai, Filipinos and Malaysians came all the way to support. However I must say the field was not soft compared to most events in Vietnam. The inexperience of the team still showed when it came to the procedures and scheduling. There were days where there wasn't much to play if you bust early. Cash games although separate from Poker Dream were also poorly organized. I can't believe that with so many poker players stuck in a far away resort with nothing much to do, on most days they couldn't even get one table to run. There was one day I played heads up just so there was a cash game.
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| 1000bb stack but was the short stack! |
When we first landed into Danang, there was a super heavy rain that caused a flash flood. It was so bad that our driver wouldn't take us to the resort so we had to abandon "ship" and stayed a night in Danang. So by the time we got there, I could only play the Deepstack as my first event. Thank God I ran deep in that event and eventually final tabled. Can't complain as I laddered up a couple of spots when some of my table mates committed ICM suicide. Other events weren't so smooth for me but I picked only 5 events to play. I ran deep in the main event again but only to fizzle out on day 2. Card dead pretty much the whole day and the only time I had QQ they were cracked by 99. But to cash 2/5 events isn't bad, and this was my 4th Main event cash of the year (total I played 8 main events this year). 50% itm rate for main events is a pretty good achievement in my opinion.
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| Mr Gorilla hiding behind my big stack! |
As rare as the cash games were, I managed to play 4 sessions. There was one particular session that was super fun. Blinds were USD 2/4 but there were two whales that were raising USD 80/100+ preflop. I managed a comeback in that game and booked a win. I won all 4 sessions of my cash games for a modest profit.
Tournaments + 166.65m
Cash games + 19m
Buy action - 19m
Sold action - 69.165m
All expenses - 35.58m (airfare + hotel + food + shopping + incidentals)
Overall +61.9m (approx USD 2.5k)
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| Favourite photo of the trip |
Not a huge profit, but considering this trip is probably the most lavish I have had in a while, and we got a free vacation to Danang and Hoi An, and that I made some money for my friends, I am pretty happy with the result.
