POKER LIFESTYLE

Poker in Vietnam: Hanoi

By Ashley Adams
January 26, 2025

You might think that Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam wouldn’t have much of a poker scene. After all, you might figure, poker, with roots in the United States is a game emblematic of capitalism. Thus, Hanoi, the capital of one of the most populous communist countries isn’t likely to have much in that regard. Right?

Wrong.

Hanoi is home to not one but several poker rooms. I visited four of them on my latest poker trip. It has a great poker scene.

Poker in Vietnam

Exploring Hanoi, Vietnam

First, before we get to the poker in Vietnam, a quick overview of the remarkable city of Hanoi.

Hanoi is a huge city, Vietnam’s second most populous (after Ho Chi Minh City), with nearly 9 million people. It is the capital of Vietnam, a nation of nearly 100 million, the 15th most populous country in the world.

It has major traffic congestion (chiefly motor bikes and scooters) and some of the worst smog in the world. If you have unhealthy lungs or are just concerned about inhaling a steady stream of unhealthy air, you might reconsider your plans to visit (which would be a shame because it’s an amazing place). Most residents and visitors wear masks.

Ironically, this capital of the communist nation of Vietnam, the place where the Vietnamese successfully fought off what they saw as an invasion by the forces of capitalism, is one of the most visibly capitalist places in the world! You cannot walk 10 steps without encountering one business or another. There are not just thousands of storefronts of every type of business imaginable. There are also tens of thousands of street vendors selling their wares from blankets, bicycles, small trucks, huts, makeshift stands, cartons, and benches. Everyone it seems is selling something to someone. The city is like one enormous market and bazaar – dizzying in its enormity and variety.

fruit and meat vendors Hanoi Vietnam

Hanoi, Vietnam street vendors selling fruit and meat. They are ubiquitous, clogging up the sidewalks and even the streets in many places.

The city is also defined by the seemingly infinite number of alleys, and alleys off of alleys. Dark even during the day, threatening and scary to the uninitiated, they are NOT dangerous – as there is little violent or predatory crime in Hanoi. The city may not be as completely safe as Tokyo or Seoul, but it’s much safer than most American or European cities. I observed women and children walking alone at all hours in all places – including these alleys. I too learned to enjoy walking down those tiny, crowded and dark alleys. They changed in my eyes from foreboding and scary to enchanted and fascinating.

How Expensive is Hanoi?

Hanoi is extremely inexpensive by western standards. I stayed in a local, perfectly clean and safe hotel, near the center of the city. It cost me $100 for five nights, including taxes and fees. I had a room, a private bathroom, an adequate supply of towels, and daily maid service. My room was not particularly spacious, but it was airy, well lighted, had a desk, chair, refrigerator, fan and air conditioning. The bed was king-sized and very comfortable.

Meals in Hanoi were practically free by Western standards. I ate out three, four, or five times daily. I treated myself to a few “high end” meals in fancy, western styled restaurants; and was not price conscious or thrifty in my purchases. Even so, I didn’t spend more than a total of $150 on food during my five-night, six-day visit.

As the capital city in a country with a rich, tragic and triumphant recent history, Hanoi, Vietnam has plenty of historic places to visit for those so inclined. The museums and government buildings and memorials are very inexpensive and quite accessible to the English-speaking tourists. Signage is largely in English. Audio equipment in a dozen different languages is available for self-guided touring. And real guides are plentiful and cheap or free (there is a company called Hanoi Kids that will provide you with a fluent English-speaking high school or college student to shepherd you around town at no charge. Tip them as you wish; they work for free to gain experience speaking English). I strongly recommend that if you visit Hanoi, especially if it is for the first time, that you hire a local Vietnamese guide, at least for half a day, to walk you around the city. You will see and learn a lot that you might otherwise have missed.

I could easily have amused and interested myself with a six-day trip to Hanoi without poker. There is a lot to see and do. But I came for the poker in Vietnam – so let’s get to it.

The Poker Scene in Hanoi

As of this publication, there are currently four active poker rooms in Hanoi, listed below along with links to their Facebook pages. There were five, but The Crown Poker Room closed a few days before I arrived. Its closure is a story worth telling as a cautionary tale.

Bolton Poker Ha Noi

117 D. Tran Duy Hung

Trung Hoa, Cau Giay

http://boltonpoker.com

https://www.facebook.com/boltonpokerclub

Center Point Poker Club

27 D. Le Van Luong

Nhan Chinh, Than Xuan

https://www.facebook.com/centerpoint.pokerclub

Galaxy Poker Room

139 D. Cau Giay,

Quan Hoa, Cau Giay

https://www.facebook.com/GalaxyPokerClub

Royal Poker Room

195 P. Kham Thien,

Tho Quan, Dong Do

https://www.facebook.com/RoyalPokerHanoi/

Royal Poker Club Hanoi

The Crown was said to be the best, busiest, and biggest of Hanoi’s poker rooms, and had been host to the Asian Poker Tour event in December. It is the only poker room in Vietnam listed in Poker Atlas. But, according to many sources, they ran afoul of the local law by offering a bounty tournament; and were summarily closed, their assets seized, and at least a few operators and perhaps a few patrons jailed. The offering a bounty, though not in and of itself the same as having cash games, was close enough to be illegal, prompting immediate closure.

The lesson is that cash game poker is strictly illegal in Hanoi. Anything appearing to resemble a cash game is illegal in Vietnam. This is not “nod-and-a-wink illegal”, where the law doesn’t really do anything about the violation. This is the type of illegal where participants will be fined and have their chips and cash confiscated. This type of illegal may mean seeing the inside of a Vietnamese prison.

Poker tournaments, on the other hand, are openly and boldly legal in Hanoi. There may be as many as 16 of them on any day of the week.

I visited and played a tournament in three Hanoi poker rooms. I can recommend all of them. They were very similar in many ways. Their differences were chiefly in the size of the tournaments offered.

Tournament buy-ins and structures change regularly. But as of the beginning of 2025, Center Point offered the largest regular tournaments. I played in a $60 buy-in event. There were smaller events there on the day I played. It’s followed in size by Royal, where I played in a $30 tournament. The smallest tournaments are offered at the Galaxy, where I played in a $15 event. Bolton, where I did not play, has poker tournaments that rival the size of those at Center Point. But don’t believe their website; they do NOT offer cash games.

Again, please be forewarned. Poker rooms and their tournaments, and tournament schedules, change regularly. Places come and go, change their names, and completely make over their tournament offering. My strongest suggestion regarding these poker rooms in Vietnam is to locate their Facebook page and see what’s been going on lately. They usually post their poker tournament schedule for the week.

I also suggest that you hold off on any final plans about where and when you’ll play during your trip until you physically visit at least one poker room and talk to some players about the local scene. Local players were extremely friendly and talkative with me, gladly sharing their opinions about each of the rooms. They knew who was doing what. I’d suggest that you talk with a local player to get the lowdown on all the other rooms in town – and then decide exactly where and when you’ll play poker.

Royal Poker Club chips Hanoi

When I was there in early January, all rooms offered four tournaments daily, announced on their respective Facebook pages. There were also occasional regional tournaments that tended to be larger and better subscribed than the dailies. These, too, were advertised on the room’s Facebook page.

They all followed a similar and interesting procedure.

One-Way Cards and Washing the Deck

Interestingly, the rooms all used cards with “one-way” backs. A one-way back is a design on the card that may be oriented up or down. It is the opposite of a card that is perfectly symmetrical – where the design is the same no matter how the card is turned.

Royal Poker Club cards Hanoi

Card sharps and sharp-eyed poker players may use the observation of the direction of the card to their advantage – as it narrows the possibilities of an unseen card. Imagine, for example, a fresh deck with every card going in the same direction. Now take one card and reverse it, reinserting it in the deck “upside down”. If the back has an asymmetrical design, you’d be able to immediately distinguish it from all the other cards just by looking at its direction. On the other hand, if the design on the back were the same in both directions, you wouldn’t be able to do this – as there would be no up or down – the card would look the same in either direction.

This is why all cards used in all major poker rooms in the US (and to my knowledge everywhere else in the world) are designed to be two-way cards – completely symmetrical, so the direction of the card may not be known. In fact, in 2009 there was an incident at the World Series of Poker. They introduced cards celebrating the WSOP – with WSOP 2009 printed across all of the cards. The image wasn’t mirrored – (accidentally) creating one-way WSOP cards. I pointed this out to the tournament director at the time. By the next day, every single WSOP deck had been replaced with two-way cards.

Not so Hanoi, Vietnam! I don’t know why, but each room has its own version of a one-way deck. However, they do engage in a practice to diminish the advantage to any sharp-eyed player. They “wash” the cards after every single deal. By washing the cards – that somewhat elaborate shuffle that starts with all of the cards being spread out and fully mixed up with sweeping hand motions – the dealer changes the direction of the cards in a way that is almost impossible for all but the keenest-eyed shuffle trackers to follow. So even if you saw that the Kh, 4s, and 3d were facing in one direction, by the time the wash is done, you’d be unlikely to know how they were facing.

That said, this slows the game considerably – inserting a good 20-30 seconds of card washing into every single deal. Accordingly, dealers only get out 10 or 12 hands in per half hour or so – a little more than half as many as a typical dealer who doesn’t wash. This elongates the duration of tournaments. Thus, good, reasonably structured daily tournaments last 11-13 hours instead of the more typical 7-8.

There are a few other procedures and local behaviors that bear mentioning – as they are done consistently in all the rooms.

Hanoi Poker Food Service

I love Vietnamese food. Noodles, soups, rice dishes with a variety of meats and vegetables all appeal to me. Fortunately, all the poker rooms have kitchens either within the room or close enough to serve the interests of the players. Much like in many California poker rooms, food is regularly shuttled to the poker table. I enjoyed a great rice noodle dish while I played. Players aren’t treated to the food (unlike California poker rooms of yore). But the food is so cheap, $1 – $3 typically, that it may as well be free! Also, if you’ve never had a Vietnamese coffee made with condensed milk – I recommend you try one. It’s delicious!

The poker tournaments in Vietnam have 10-minute breaks every couple of hours. The house provides a small snack to the players during this time. The snack is cut fruit. Players in the know walk over early to the area where the fruit is to be served, to make sure they are first in line for this treat. Don’t be intimidated. When the break starts, walk through the scrum and make sure to grab a few slices of melon, guava, pineapple, watermelon (and some other fruits I couldn’t identify) for yourself. There’s also usually a container of flavored salt to dip the fruit into. Fruit and salt? I found the combination of flavors was delicious.

Hanoi Poker Style of Tournament Play

People often ask me if I’ve noticed any differences among players in different parts of the world. Do Florida players play differently than those in Aruba, or the Yukon Territory, or Spain, for example.

READ MORE: Raminder Singh – The True Poker Amateur and King of South Florida Poker

My answer is always the same. In fact, the variation among people from different places is usually greater than the differences between players of different regions – so it’s very hard to characterize one region or place as playing poker differently from those of another region. That’s another way of saying there are loose, tight, wild, conservative, tricky and straightforward players everywhere. So, I avoid generalizations or stereotypes based on where players are from.

That being said, I know that there are certain stereotypes we have of different types of players – based on their ethnic, demographic, and gender. Older white men tend to be seen as tight, women as timid and “by the book”. The stereotype for Asian players tends to be that of a very aggressive bordering on wild and loose player.

Like stereotypes in all walks of life, I wouldn’t put much stock in these poker stereotypes. They tend to blind us to how an individual actually plays. Nowhere is this proven more powerfully than in Hanoi poker rooms in Vietnam.

I observed young Asian players for three tournaments – for a total of about 18 hours. I don’t think I have ever seen tournament players more conservative and cautious. This was true in all phases of the tournaments.

First of all, the typical pre-flop raise was a min-raise. True, some players came in for 2.5, 3, 4 or even more. But the default raise – what most players did most of the time, no matter the stage of the tournament – was to bring in the raise for 2 Big Blinds!

Many of the hands were 3-bet pre-flop. Typically, this would be to 4.5 big blinds. So, for example, if the blinds were 500/1,000, the first raise would be to 2,000 and the 3-bet would be to 5,000. This is very different from what I have seen in live tournaments lately in the US – where initial bets are closer to 2.5 BB, and 3-bets are 7-9 BB.

I found the general demeanor to be friendly, but soft spoken, often silent, and focused. There was very little horsing around, grandstanding, taunting, or even speaking. The events were polite, serious, and largely silent.

I also noticed that in latter betting rounds, caution was at a premium. There was much less value betting, as hands were more likely to be checked on the river than I’ve seen in tournaments in other places. I didn’t attribute this to the friendly, collusion-like, checking it down when two players know each other. But rather, I believe that it was a sign of conservative play. Players were minimizing risk at the expense of optimizing their return for the hand.

Hanoi Center Point Poker Club

I also noticed a lot of people playing very slowly and deliberately. This was true at all stages of a tournament. It almost seemed as if a professional poker player had come to each room, done a class on proper tournament practices and behavior, and these students took the instructions literally and were carrying them out. They appeared to follow a script that said, “Don’t look at your cards until it’s your turn; wait for action to come to you, then pause a second, reveal cards to yourself, pause a second, and then make a clear, purposeful betting action.”

Out of the 9 of us at the table, typically 4 or 5 would follow this betting protocol precisely each hand. A player or two would often add an additional delay of 5-10 seconds – just because they could!

All tournaments were played with 20-30 second shot clocks (different times for different tournaments) and with players having three time-chips to extend their time by 20-30 seconds. Some players made a point of using up at least half of their allotted 30 seconds nearly every time it was their turn.

This methodical and slow method of playing became more pronounced as we neared the money bubble and each pay bubble. This was true in all three poker rooms where I played. Players stalled and frequently tanked, using their time chips profligately. Had I been on any schedule at all, this may have annoyed me. But as I had absolutely nothing else to do during my stay, I found it amusing more than anything else. It surely contributed to the long length of these tournaments.

Poker Tournament Endgame in Vietnam

I watched three tournaments reach conclusions, one of which was the one where I finished in the money, cashing for 14.5 million dong (about $600 US). I also talked a bit to players about the typical way that tournaments end. The practice in all the rooms is to have an ICM chop when the tournament reaches the final table.

READ MORE: MTT Poker Basics – Running Deep with ICM

Players were very courteous in making sure I truly gave my consent. I didn’t feel bullied to do this. And they explained that it had to be unanimous. No one pressured anyone, from what I could see. And yet, in each room players told me that chopping tended to be the practice. It would be very unusual for players to play it out to the end.

Vietnamese Dong

Buy-ins ranged from about $15 to $60, with fields from 30 to 140 entries. Players are incentivized to start the tournament on time, with both extra chips and a free rake offered to those who start the tournament with a re-entry purchase by the time the tournament kicks off.

The tournaments were played with Big Blind antes – kicking in either in the second or third level. There was structure variation among the tournaments as well, to be sure. There were turbos, deep stacks, and deep stack turbos. They all had re-entries, and only re-entries; no add ons (though in some rooms, the re-entry is called a re-buy or an add on). These were possible until Level 13 or 14. With breaks and with levels that lasted from 20-27 minutes, this meant that in a 10:00 AM tournament, some people were either re-entering or buying in for the first time as late as 3PM. By that time, their buy-in only gave them 20BB or so of action. But some of the regulars said they preferred to buy in then, avoiding the variance of an earlier entry. Typically, the entries, including all of the re-entries, was about 30% more than the total people in the tournament.

Overall, the poker was excellent, with stakes just about ideal for me for a poker trip like this. For those who prefer bigger events, they may time their trip to correspond to one of the major poker tours that make their stop in Hanoi. This past year there were four or five, with at least a few tournaments having four-figure buy-ins.

For those looking to tour the rest of the country, I can report that every one of the dozens of people I spoke to about touring in Vietnam mentioned the beauty of the ocean and the inland countryside. They all recommended I return without any intention of playing poker. They also told me that the nation’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh City in the south (formerly and still regularly called “Saigon”) had a very different quality, was worth visiting, and also had poker.

Ashley Adams Hanoi Center Point Poker Club

Ashley, after cashing in a tournament at Hanoi’s Center Point Poker Club.

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Ashley Adams poker author
Written By.

Ashley Adams

Ashley Adams has been playing and writing about poker since 2001. He has authored two poker books: Winning 7-card Stud and Winning Poker in 30 Minutes a Day. His articles have appeared in Card Player Magazine and Poker Player Newspaper; and can be found on many internet sites including: pokernews.com, thepokerforum.com, and pokerology.com. He is […]

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