Asia’s largest ever Texas Hold’em poker tournament and the first poker event to be held in Macau saw 352 players sweating it out last week for US$2 million in prize money.

However it wasn’t only the players feeling the heat. With each entrant putting up almost US$2,500 to join the competition, the dealers couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

Taking charge of the tables was a fleet of 60 newly trained local croupiers from the tournament host, Galaxy Entertainment Group’s Grand Waldo Casino.

The dealers from the casino’s pool of approximately 600 put up their hand for a chance to learn the new game.

Familiar with locally played games such as baccarat, most of the group had to go from no knowledge of poker to experts in a matter of weeks.

“The first week of learning the game was very hard, there were so many names to learn and so many different card combinations,” said Angie Tang.

“In the beginning I didn’t even know what it was.”

After a month of full-time training, Ms Tang was hooked.

“The game is very interesting and exciting, much more interesting than baccarat which is always the same,” she said.

Feeling very nervous in the first few games of the tournament, Ms Tang noticed that her hands were shaking. However she soon found her rhythm.

“During the first game I couldn’t relax, but in the next games I started enjoying it,” she said.

“The players were also nice and would encourage me, so that helped.”

However the pressure was always on.

“I had to decide who wins and loses very fast and I could not make any mistakes, it really went very fast,” she said.

“There were so many things to remember, things like a flush, flush ace-high, straight.”

The first week of her training was spent on theory, learning the game. Then time was spent both playing and dealing to learn both sides of the table.

Now the 24-year-old is fluent with the terms and the plays of the game. Although enjoying the openly competitive atmosphere of poker, it’s the wrist flick deal Ms Tang enjoys most.

“Pitching the cards is very cool, no other game has anything like that,” she said.

The Gaming Inspection and Co-ordination Bureau granted the Grand Waldo temporary permission to run the tournament at its casino.

The bureau is considering applications received by a number of casinos to open Texas Hold’em tables permanently.

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