Super Whale-ly Fish, Haar Geng
A fish is someone who is a bad player and gives his money away in a poker game. What if his bankroll is of whale-like proportions? I have coined the term ‘whalely fish’. Haar Geng is a whaley fish. I first met Haar in Macau’s Wynn casino in 2013. He is a 27 year old kid who by good fortune (and the right connections) operates gambling junkets from China to Macau. He has deals with Macau casinos where he earns a percentage of his players loses. Baccarat is the game of choice for Chinese mainlanders who gamble in Macau. And with most casino table games the player will lose because of the vig (juice). The point is Haar makes a lot of money and he has a lot of spending cash. He took a liking to me, caught the poker bug and he loves PLO! In short order we hung together and hopped to a few Asian cities looking for poker action.
You hop on this to go from Macau, Singapore and Manilla in search of poker games.
There are no economy seats on this flight
Our gorgeous in-flight attendant Cindy.
Fast forward to summer of 2014. A week before going to the WSOP in Vegas, I get a call from Haar. He’s coming to the States and do I have time to spend with him? I say ‘Come to Vegas with me, we’ll stay at the Aria and play in their poker room’. Four days later, he lands in LA, we pal around a few days in LA and then drive from LA to Vegas.
Only way to ride from LA to Vegas, Bentley Mulsanne.
Haar’s reputation must have proceeded him because every time we walk into Aria’s poker room we are swarmed by notable poker players to start a game. We did not disappoint. Of note, I remember Ben Lamb as being the best at facilitating starting games with Haar and I. The game would be 100-200 PLO. The game was always full with a long waiting list. Later it became ‘a private game’ to weed out the really nitty pros.
Just to give you an idea of how big of a whale Haar was, while he was in Vegas, he had two assistants carrying Hermès bags full of cash and chips. That summer was the 2014 World Cup Soccer in which Germany beat Argentina for the title. I watched Haar bet every World Cup game during the two weeks we were in Vegas. His betting range was $50k - $250K per game. He had $400K on Germany in the finals. He would play every hand at PLO while sweating the World Cup games on TV.
One of Haar's toys. A Lamborghini Aventador
One day everyone decided to play 200-400 PLO and there was a soccer game on TV. For most of the poker game, Haar had his eyes on the TV, played every hand, always calling, hardly betting and never raising. The line up was: Haar, myself, Ben Lamb, Sammy Farha, Johnny Chan, Prahlad Friedman, two Chinese businessmen and Rick Solaman. That was one of the craziest games I can remember playing.
Rick Solaman is a crazy action celebrity/poker player who married Pamela Anderson TWICE. He must have wanted to show that he was better action than Haar because HE played every hand and potted preflop without looking at his hands on many occasions. This got every one else going and soon pots were easily over the quarter million dollar range. A conservative guess would be 10 million dollars in chips at that poker table. Rick Solaman earn the whalely fish title from me that day.
Two time ex-husband to Pamela Anderson, crazy-ass raising Rick Solamom.
It got so crazy the pros were starting to play like the fish. They were chasing small draws in the hopes of snagging those monster pots in the end. Needless to say it does not end well for the chaser.
By utter luck, Haar won big that day but ended up losing 800k in poker for the trip. Soccer was a different story, he beat his bookies out of 1.2 million. He summarized his Vegas excursion with “Hey, Vegas is fun and they (poker players) are nice guys’.
You’ll never know who you are going to meet. Be open minded, be friendly and sincere. Although Haar is a self admitted fish in poker he is a smart guy. Losing 800k is like losing $800 to you and me. To him, throwing off money in poker makes him a bigshot. He is paying to be a bigshot to rub shoulders with the likes of Sammy, Johnny and Rick.
I did not have a good run of cards but was able to book a win for the trip. I can safely say I had a BAD run of cards. Through discipline, skill, knowledge and an amiable personality, I put myself in a super positive EV (expected value) situation. This is all a poker player should want. Every hand, every action and every life decision you should seek positive EV. You cannot control luck, but if you align all your controllable decisions in a positive manner, you will be hard to beat!