Sam Greenwood Loses $1.2m Pot With a Flush
Another Mega Pot for Paul Phua In the Triton $1 Million Cash Game
As far as life stories go, they don’t come more colorful than Paul Phua’s, the billionaire businessman with a passion for poker rising through the ranks to become one of the most powerful men in Macau.
Wei Seng "Paul" Phua was born in Borneo, Malaysia back in 1964 and rose from poor beginnings through the construction industry and Kuala Lumpur backstreet gambling houses to running the world’s biggest bookmakers IBCBet.
It’s clear he moves in the highest circles, playing the nosebleed stakes in Macau along with Ivey, Dwan and a host of other big name pros – and Phua holds his own, a hard worker at the game he loves.
He had to work hard, as back in the mid-noughties he was just another rich whale, allegedly blowing millions along with business partner and fellow poker convert Richard Yong. According to English-Chinese bookmaker Tom Hall:
“Paul and Richard were the biggest whales in the world. They were losing $30 million to $100 million every year on baccarat. I said, 'Hey, you guys should try poker. You can play other players, instead of losing to the house'.”
In Brett Forrest’s incredibly detailed ESPN account of Phua’s dealings, he writes:
"They didn't know how to play. In Macau, there was no one to teach them. Phua and Yong gathered a small group of associates for regular games, these experienced gamblers teaching themselves this new game as they went along."
With 2011 and the Black Friday shockwaves which hit the poker world, the biggest pros were looking for new pastures – and Phua with Yong offered them untold riches and adventures in the Far East, not only leading to their own games improving but also offering business opportunities in the poker staking world.
Now, several years on, in tournament play, Paul Phua has over $4.5million in earnings – although every penny is from the Super High Rollers (from as far afield as London and Melbourne to Monte Carlo and Manila) taking down his first-ever tournament cash for £1million ($1,621,297) at London’s Aspers Casino in 2012 in the £100k buy-in event.
Whatever people might think of his business background and connections, his love for poker is evident, and the new Paul Phua Poker website and school is testament to his desire to explain the game at all levels to all players.
Video content interviews with Ivey, Dwan, Colman and others gives an insight into how the best players in the world think, while rules, strategy and general information fills out an increasingly popular hub for those interested in the game.
Phua is and will likely always remain one of the most interesting people ever to have graced the game of poker.
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Another Mega Pot for Paul Phua In the Triton $1 Million Cash Game
The incredibly exciting Short Deck poker is coming to America’s Cardroom next week
The Triton Titan just keeps trucking this week with another massive win at the Super High Roller Series in sunny Montenegro.
With big names and a collosal buy in of €1,000,000 minimum, this is probably the highest stakes cash game ever televised (or streamed) anywhere ever.
Schillhabel scooped just over US$750,000 when he fought off the challenge of many of the world’s best high-stakes players in the opening salvo of the Triton Super High Roller in Macau.
World’s most famous poker player put in an appearance in Beijing this week to promote the Chinese poker application Zhi Zou.
What happens when pros decide to bet, raise and call all sorts of bets when they’re holding hands which we’ve been taught as amateurs are bad hands?
This week’s Paul Phua Poker School offering sees Phua receiving a lesson in tournament play, with none other than Sam Trickett in the teacher’s seat!
Paul Phua discusses bluffing and the Asian school of poker-thinking with his guests Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates and Winfred Yu.
The who’s who of the high-stakes world descended on the resort for its official re-opening and it’s the subject of a little bonus video from the guys at Paul Phua Poker.