In Macau you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em
ON MY FIRST visit to Macau, some 11 years ago, Lady Luck was not by my side. I had travelled overland from Foshan to the then Portuguese colony - an exasperating six-hour mini-bus journey over congested roads and inadequate bridges. Today the same distance is transited by modern coaches over modern expressways in less than two hours.
After crossing the border at twilight, a friend and I made our way to the Lisboa casino. What awaited us there came as a shock. Although I had never been to the gambling meccas of Las Vegas or Atlantic City in my own country, I had seen enough of their glitzy fun on television and in the movies to know that even when losing bags of money there, gamblers could at least count on a measure of entertainment, what with all the dancing showgirls, magicians, comedy acts, crooners and boxing matches.
Inside the Lisboa, there was no fun. In stark contrast to the hotel and casino's garish come-hither exterior, a heavy pall of cheap mainland cigarette smoke and a fatalistic doom hung over the gambling floor. Chips clicked monotonously and everyone, even the winners, wore their most impassive poker faces.
Against my better judgment, I cashed in a $500 note and joined my friend at a blackjack table. I had never before seen so much money disappear so quickly for so little in return - I might as well have been mugged.
It was especially painful as at that time I was a student at the University of Hong Kong and living off a United States government grant. Besides embarrassment at my own lack of street smarts, there was also a tinge of shame at having wasted Uncle Sam's money.
My friend, blessed with a quicker mind than my own, was doing rather better. Though no card-counting autistic genius, he would monitor the flow of high-point face cards - betting, for example, on a low card deal after a number of jacks, queens and kings had been turned over. With six or seven decks in play, industry professionals may scoff at my friend's technique, but all I know is that on that night his money multiplied.
Just when his luck appeared to be at full flow, my friend asked me to find out the rate for a large sea-view room at the Macau Mandarin. Five minutes later I told him the price, he calculated that his winnings were enough to cover our lodgings and - to my surprise - he walked away from the table.