I think most of you are like me, shocked to hear that there's poker in Sri Lanka. A friend of mine was grinding in India in the past few months and told me games were good there, and heard that Sri Lanka was also great. I was looking for a break from MTTs, want to add to my list of poker countries (now 40th) and it sounded like an adventure so off I went.
My initial plan was to grind cash games, but it just so happen that there was a series at the same time called the Royal Spade at the newly built City of Dreams. This time I had a couple of poker friends going together as well so it sounded like fun.
We arrived at night and it was off to a bad start as my friend was stopped by immigration for having travelled to Cambodia too often. Interestingly I used to live there but I got by with no issues. We went to our separate hotels and he got semi-scammed, first by a tuk tuk driver who aggressively asked for a 5-star rating and a tip. He received 1-star and no tip. Then by the food delivery app that sent him a tiny burger. The next day he also had a bad experience with a cafe, overcharging him for a coffee by 40% based on the price on the wall. I on the other hand had a more fortunate experience. My Airbnb host was kind, the place was decent for the price.
Our first day we explored 3 different casinos, only to find out the poker room permanently closed at Majestic Pride, rake uncapped at Bally's, and COD capped at 20bbs. The rake alone probably would have been okay but they enforce a minimum commitment time of 2-4 hours, and a 1 hour call time. That means you have to play at least 3-5 hours before you can leave the table. Cash games have edge because of game selection, seat selection, start and stop at your choosing... but with this setup, plus the rake, I felt that I had a better edge playing the tournament, so I did, shallow cashing the main, but nice to get my 12th flag on Hendon. To our surprise, we even met a couple of Malaysians there.
The tournament was fun, the field soft, the environment comfy. The structure for the main was decent, although I would have preferred if they played till ITM or had a slower structure instead of being neither here or there. There was a lot of stalling as well so I hope they will introduce time banks at some point. The customer service and marketing need a lot of improvement but maybe just lacked initiative and experience.
Colombo is pretty boring if you ask me, we covered half of the sights we wanted to see within the first day. Sri Lankan food is not as exciting or flavorful as their counterparts in South Asia, the best meal I had was at the Ministry of Crab but it was ridiculously overpriced. You'll easily spend $250 per person not to mention the 20% VAT and 10% service charge.
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| This was the 3rd largest size they had on the menu |
Sri Lanka in my opinion has potential, but it is a bud that needs to be nurtured. If operators are willing to spend the time and effort doing proper marketing, not go crazy with the rake, improve on the overall user experience and customer service, it can blossom into one of Asia's hot poker destinations. But if not done with care, it will just die off and be long forgotten. I am currently writing this in India, which I will share about my poker experience in another post. Stay tuned.
