I do now! lol

I played 200-400 PLO with minimum buy in of 40-50k pesos at Metro club 3-5 months ago, so it is possible to find higher games of omaha.

So i'm just about to leave Manila for my first visit to Angeles (purely research). Saw alot more of Manila this time around.

Makati cinema square is amazing for DVD's. I picked up every season of Family guy, The office, Entourage and the Big bang theory + many films. Thing I liked the most you go into a shop ask for DVD's if they don't have it they run around all the other places till they can bring it back for you.

I played at the Metro on Friday and lasted 90 mins in the MTT as when I looked at the payouts I Didn't fancy grinding for 3 days to bust in 8th and win 16000PHP. I then managed to Dust off two buyins in the 50/100 game. I jammed a straight draw into a set and a flopped straight into a flopped flush.

My thoughts on the game- It wasn't the rock fest I was expecting. Had an obv wealthy Filipino chap that dusted off around 75k in a couple of hours and a crazy Korean dude who would raise blind etc...

Went to both Encore and Icon Friday night. My friend who I'm staying with has a regular hook up so she came round to his flat with some of her not so attractive friends and we pregamed a bottle of tequila. We went to Encore around midnight 500php entry and 3 free drinks so its not a bad deal. I was expecting it to be bigger than it was but its a pretty decent set up. We were going to get a table but decided against it as we wanted to be in the action down the front. The crowd in there was a mix of young to middle aged ex-pats, trendy Filipinos and young Koreans. We must have met 3 or 4 Korean girls that had come on there own and were looking for people to hang out with. Unfortunately I was getting brutally cockblocked by one of the not so attractive friend.

*I did learn that there are alot of English Language schools for Koreans in parts of the country. So if anyone is looking for those jobs they do exist apparently.

We left Encore at 4ish to go to Icon. I was disappointed with Icon as you read the reviews on the Internet and you think its going to be some huge superclub, it isn't. Don't get me wrong its a trendy place but the dance floor is a little small. But it does seem to be a good place to network as it was mainly an expat crowd.


Food-Yellowcab pasta and meatballs is the stone cold nuts!!!

Hi,

Quick question. For those of you that have used Smart Bro, if I hunted for a place outside of Manila with a good signal as my primary requisite for an apartment, can I grind 10-16 tables strictly on Smart Bro? I understand this is tough in Manila but lets say we are outside of Manila, how feasible is this?

Another question, lets say I live there and have a main connection and then Smart Bro as a back up. Lets say I am grinding sit n go turbos on Full Tilt and the main connection goes out. How long until I can get Smart Bro up and running to get me back in my games? Do you connect the USB and have the Smart Bro program running before you start to grind to be ready for outages etc? Anyone using this type of main line/Smart Bro back up strategy outside of Manila? Gory details please.

Thanks in advance.

FYI.

Thanks for the response.

I have heard of people using Smart Bro out there as a primary and said it worked pretty well, but location dependent. I am going on vacay there and maybe a 1 year stint in the future and was just wondering what my options were. On my first 2 week vacation coming up I was going to get a hotel with a wired line and then Smart Bro as back up, thats probably the best I can do on the fly yes?

If I decide to do the 1 yr then I would probably get the dual service and router.

Requesting a Manila clothes-shopping guide.

Not exactly one of my hobbies, I'm the "shop for half a year in a day" kind of guy. So I go for pretty huge quantities when I decide to go, which means my shopping trips are costly.

Looking for cool good quality jeans, shoes, blazers, fine collared shirts - like the kind you would wear with a suit and also casual shirts. Huge fan of donking around in smooth looking shirts 24/7.
I don't care about what brand they are, only that they look as good as top brands and have decent quality.

I'm looking for shops that are cheaper than western standards in good clothing.

Hey all, my buddy and I are in Makati from friday for 2 months, we will be looking for a place in Greenbelt or Rockwell.
We're kinda cash broke so if anyone would like to trade their pesos for our Full Tilt that would be great. Any tips on 2 months lease rentals in the aforementioned areas would be appreciated too.

If anyone wants to hang out, send me a pm and ill give you my number as soon as I get a mobile phone.
We are both 26 and french and play mostly lhe.

Yea, a lot of people use mobile internet as their primary internet, and yes, it's very location specific. Just search and you'll find a bunch of info about this.

What I would do in your situation (moving around a lot and playing poker on the run) is I would get 2 unlockable Huawei dongles, unlock them, get SIM cards from Globe/Smart/Sun, test the connections wherever you are, use one dongle as your main and the other as your backup. That should actually be faster and more reliable than wired hotel internet.

If you want branded jeans, Rockwell has a Diesel, Levi's, and a 7 For All Mankind store there. They're more expensive than in the States though. If you want a good fit, you can get tailored jeans at Defacto (P2000) in the Mile Long building in Makati, or at Viktor (P6000) in the Podium Mall in Ortigas. I can personally recommend Defacto.

OMGitsCheddar got some tailored shirts made locally. I think he used Cornell Tailor along Kalayaan Ave (near Rockwell) and bought the fabric at Glorietta. If you're willing to travel to Hong Kong, I can recommend Jantzen Tailor. I've gotten a bunch of shirts from them for around $45 each.

If you want a high-end $3000 suit, there's a Zegna in Rustans Makati that makes made-to-measure suits. For bespoke suits, again if you're willing to travel, I can recommend Dung Tailor in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. I have two suits from there ($200-300 each, fully-canvassed, Super 160s IIRC) that I love but unfortunately can't wear in Manila weather.

Thanks Paul B. I have a small 10.1 inch Asus, wireless mouse, 100 foot ethernet cable and I manage to pack this all in a knapsack. So yes I am on the fly. What about internet cafe's in Manila and in Cebu? (major cities) Will they have internet cafe's with laptop stations or can I "hook in" to their ethernet and monitor? Is the hook in feasible and easily done in a net cafe or are they going to freak out? I need to facilitate table ninja etc...

Arrived in Makati today, ran extremely good, planes were on time, slept through most of the 14 hours of the flight.
Anyone wanna go out ? 09286255348.
I'm staying at BSA tower, just across Greenbelt 5, for two days before my friend arrives and we find another place.
Oh and probably got screwed by the taxi php490 with a yellow one from airport to Greenbelt, there was a counter but you only saw the price at arrival.
And btw, how much is the standard tip for taxi ride / drinks and restaurant ?

I've done that before without any problems. Just ask the reception for permission.

Most restaurants include a service charge of 8-12%. For taxis just use your judgment. Always carry small bills.

Anyone down for a Monday or Tuesday night meetup? There are a bunch of people in town now I believe.

Just found this thread. I have lived in Manila for 2 years and played in the biggest games regularly during this time.
Out of curiousity, who was the proplayer in the Metro 100/200/500 game whose abilities you thought questionable?
I pretty much agree with your reads on the other cardrooms, I however always avoided Hyatt because of the smoky environment and bad service.
You forget to mention Pan Pacific which at times has by far the best highstake games in town, however I advice against playing there because of their financial situation. If you score big you will most likely not get paid for a couple of weeks as they always let their highrollers pay on credit that they can't cover until checks has cleared.
Common for all of the card rooms are that 99% of the dealers are terrible and regularly make huge mistakes that would never be tolerated in other countries.

Only places I've played a significant amount of live poker outside manila are Northern Indiana and Chicago Charitable Games, both of which actually had worse dealers by far than RW/Hyatt/Metro. However, Chicago Charitable had amateur dealers and Northern Indiana was ridiculously ghetto so that could have contributed to how bad they were/are. I've never played in Vegas or AC, so I'm guessing those are what you're used to, and I would imagine they have a much higher standard than manila casinos, and miles beyond Chicago/Indiana casinos.

Actually I've played pretty much everywhere in the world except for South america and never encountered such low standards.
Even in a huge event like the APT at Pavillion hotel with thousands of dollars in buyin the dealers were completely fresh, had no idea about the rules and relied on the players at the table to help out. They basically only knew how to shuffle and deal out the cards, but even that was a slow and painful process.