For years, if you wanted to play poker in Asia, you were out of luck. While many gambling games have been played across Asia for thousands of years, poker developed as a European game. The surge in popularity the game experienced at the turn of the century did not immediately translate to the Pacific.

That has all changed with the emergence of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour. Based on the success of the World Poker Tour and in cooperation with PokerStars.net, the APPT is a series of poker tournaments based in Asia and the Pacific Rim.

The first season of the APPT, held in 2007, included stops in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, as well as a tournament in Seoul, South Korea and one in Macau, referred to as the “Las Vegas of the East.”

The Grand Final of the first season took place in Sydney, Australia. It had a prize pool of over three million dollars, with Grant Levy winning first place and its $850,000 prize.

Season two again saw Macau hosting a major event at the Grand Waldo Hotel & Casino. This one drew a prize pool of over 1.5 million dollars.

In addition, the Macau tournament featured a separate High Rollers event with a $19,000 entry fee. The Seoul and Manila tournaments also returned for season two, which added a stop in Auckland to the tour.

A huge way to get poker’s popularity to grow in a certain area is to make it accessible through television. If this is the case, we can expect to see more native Asians joining the ranks of poker’s elite, as the APPT events televise all throughout Asia.

The events are also televised in Australia and Latin America. Highlights are on PokerStars.tv. Watch some of poker’s greats go to war over the green felt in Asia, and if you find yourself in Asia, consider signing up for one of these tournaments. The experience could change your life.

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What’s Malaysia coming to? When you get 6 strokes of rotan & RM5,000 fine for drinking as a Muslim. Now look, I’m not saying they should’ve done it, but come on… 6 strokes of rotan? First of all, did they get to choose their religion? If you’re born a Muslim in Malaysia, you’ll remain a Muslim unless you leave the country. I sure hope it was some damn good beer.

I was born a Buddhist but I’m kind of a non-believer now. What I believe is we should absorb the good teachings, and ignore the obvious bullshit. For example, I’m not supposed to eat beef, but no one has been able to convince me not to (few have tried, including my mum). “We’re not supposed to” is not enough. Not when beef tastes so damn good. For all you know, maybe beef was causing a disease back then, and some wise ass decided to stop people from eating it by saying it’s religion based. Ever occurred to you?

On a different note, PAS tried to stop Rihanna from having a concert in Malaysia, saying “it would result in an outflow of local currency to the United States, and in turn, cause loss to the country and suffering to the Palestinians.” They never cease to amaze me. Hey if you wanna stop buying shit from the US, be my guest. But let the people decide what they want to do with their money. In fact, I work for a US company. Should I resign to “show displeasure against the United States”? Stupid.

Chinese New Year is in 2 days, so to all celebrating, Gong Xi Fa Cai! Win more money! (unless you’re gambling with me!)

Start deleting your friends on facebook…. and get a free Whopper! Wonder if that applies to Malaysia. The fun part is how it displays “sacrificed <name> for a free Whopper!” on the status updates.

Hi, I have not forgotten about the site. So here’s an update.. I’m no longer with ProElite. I’m now working full time for RotoHog. Exciting times! =) WIll update the ‘Who this be?’ section soon, can’t be bothered booting up my editor now.

In case I don’t make it to post before the end of year, let me just say that this has been a pretty good year for me. Hopefully next year will be better! Lastly, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So, Wrath of the Lich King expansion is coming in a month. At this point it’s pretty pointless to be doing anything for those who have reached the level cap. If you’re on a PVP server, especially if you’re a rogue/druid, there’s plenty of fun to be had! From Alliance’s perspective, here goes…

Nagrand’s Ring of Blood

Read the rest!

Hi, as promised, here’s a link to the Langkawi pictures! I can’t be bothered uploading here, Joanne has uploaded to her facebook. You need to be her friend to view it though I think.

Langkawi 08!

Man sues doctors for amputating penis. Talk about having a bad day!

Shit happens I guess. Next time you have a surgery, any surgery, make sure to make it clear to your doctor that under no circumstances should he remove your penis!

On an unrelated note, I’ll be posting some Langkawi pictures up (hopefully) soon.

Almost. Reading the news nowadays is like watching soap opera. There’s a new twist almost everyday, with news that will baffle anyone. If you don’t know any better, you’d think they made shit up just to entertain us. There’s really no surprise why so many people started blogging about politics. It’s like predicting the upcoming twist in the next episode of Lost. Only this shit is real, and it’s hitting the fan.

I’m almost ashamed to call myself Malaysian. Woops! I might get arrested for saying that! But hey, no one reads this blog enough for it to be a national security threat. Though I’m pretty sure a lot of Malaysians share the same sentiment. Am I right or am I right?

Tonight there will be a Pakatan anti-ISA rally at Kelana Jaya. Any of you going? I sure would like to hear what the opposition leaders have to say. Will there be a live telecast of this event? If you’re like me, you don’t know exactly what’s happening to the country. Seriously. So we need someone to clarify everything, someone with power, someone we can trust. But at this point, who can we really trust?

I did not vote during the last general election. Does it mean I’m not entitled to have a say in this? Maybe. But you’re reading my blog, so my opinion must matter here right? Right.

Update: For those coming in through search engines searching for live telecast of the event, sorry this is not the place, and I couldn’t find any feed! =|

GetDropbox is a cool new service that lets you share files easily. I know, how is this any different than the thousands of other similar service, right? Wrong! After you set it up, to share a file all you gotta do is drop your file into a specific folder on your machine and it will be synced to the server (ala Tortoise SVN, but automatically commits!). The files can be public/private, you can even create an album!

Just imagine the possibilities. The only thing that might set you back is the 2GB limit. It is not stated anywhere if it might be increased in the future, but 2GB is a good start. So, leave a comment if you want a beta invite (or you can sign up for a beta account on their site).

Update: Dropbox is no longer in private beta, registration is now open to all!