Tony G. Poker Blog

I arrived on a rainy evening in Singapore.  It is a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam to Singapore.  It took a bit out of all of us but it was important not to sleep right away.  We waited for evening before turning in to get some rest and now, the morning after, I feel OK.

I met Tomas Kremser, the tournament director, last night in the lobby.  He told me that the main event is sold out with 370 players already and they are thinking about playing 11 handed. I am hoping he doesn’t do that but it’s all business these days in poker.

I am surprised at such a huge field.  It’s an extremely long way to come but many have and the people in Asia have also come to play.  The market in Asia appears to be ready to explode based on this event. The event in Asia before this, about two weeks ago, was in Manila and the main event had 34 players.  A good start, but I feel that this event has much more behind it and greater funded resources.  The company that is organizing this tour is called BAPT (Betfair Asian Poker Tour).  The company is massive and a major share holder, Softbank, is a big Japanese multi-national company.  As it turns out, I am also a small share holder of Betfair which is a company that does an exchange of sports betting.  USA players though are not allowed, and never have been allowed, to get close to the action.

The weather this morning looks much better and I will have to run around with my two daughters, Eva and Melisa.  They want to swim most of the day and then we have to visit restaurants.  They love to eat  - just like me.  LOL

The next BAPT event is in Goa India and that sounds very exciting to me. I know there are many hippies over there and the place is cool.  Although I have never been there, it sounds like a place where I have to go to in March 2007.

Poker in Asia is going to explode with Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia, also having poker in 2007.

Good luck to all the people that begin tours in this region, it could be a gold mine for them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 3:43 am and is filed under Tournaments, Travels.