Yeah I get cashouts very quickly (2 days through Moneybookers for mid 4-figure sums). I use Hana Bank though and I'm on an f-4.

i'll be in Korea prolly the last week of December - right between the holidays.

i'm a LA born Korean, but i'm pretty in-tune with the Korean culture.

however, i'll be all the way down in Mokpo since my girl is movin' there to teach English.

any word on how the Limit games are at the casinos there?

i'm thinkin' of just settin' up an account there and playin' online, but i play mostly live so it's good to get out and see faces once in a while.

there are no limit games in korea afaik

also semi-big news:

"After several years hiatus, the Pokerstars APPT will return to Seoul!
March 7th – 11th will be the date of the tournament with a 3,000,000
KRW Buy-In. Satellite tournaments for the big event will be scheduled
shortly."

may take a trip back to seoul for that.

ahh well that sucks...looks like i'll be mostly playin' online then =X

hey are you guys able to play on eurosites and stars without a problem? Last time I was there, some networks let me played stars but not ftp, or the other way around.

Sorry if this question has been asked before, but are Americans allowed to open bank accounts in Korea without an Alien ID #? My mother is a landlord and planning to "live" in korea for a little bit while im setting up my pokerstars account. I think one of the requirements was a non-US bank account. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

nope, u need an ARC before you can open a bank account.

that's awesome. where did you read that though? i checked the appt website and it didn't have anything about that event.

walker hill email listserv

nice thanks for that

can someone give me some info/websites on these english teaching jobs? do you have to be caucasian or just have us citizenship? thanks

you need to have a college degree first of all

Hey !

I'm planning to live in South Korea for a few months/years (depending on how I like it) and have many friends there. My korean is okish (can have a conversation with non english speakers easily but not enough to get a job there yet).

I've read about apartments' prices a lot but when I'm trying to find any on the internet, prices are ridiculously high ($3k/month, yeah right )

So, what would you say is the average price for a standard flat, 1 bedroom in Seoul ? Same question in other cities like Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, .. ?

Thank you

Been here 16 months and never been to the COEX but heard the games there are awful and the dealers are even worse. Walker Hill is the best place to play live in Seoul except the rake is ridiculous there. Tourneys are set up pretty nice tho and fairly easy fields.

dont know about non-military here in korea but if your military u can get a korean bank account but you cant get a debit card for it. you can get an account and a "cash card" where u can depo/withdraw from. Our "KATUSA" at work advised me to go through CitiBank because you can withdraw in USD.

Hey guys I might have a spot at my apartment opening up in mid January (around the 19th). It's a highrise luxury apartment in Dogok-Dong, near Samsung Tower Palace in Seoul. Pretty great location for partying and all that stuff.

You would have your own bedroom and a bed would be provided. It's fully furnished and we'd share a bathroom.

I'm a very easy-going poker pro and we can definitely talk strategy and such. If you're not a weirdo I can take you out on weekends and show you the nightlife and eiffel tower beautiful Korean women with you.

This will probably be temporary (month to month basis). I'm decently known on 2+2 with a lot of references so rent and stuff will be handled informally.

PM me if you're interested for pictures and rent.

I haven't played at COEX yet either but I'm curious what's so terrible about the games there? Is there a difference in rake between COEX and Walker Hill?

The dealers are just bad... They had never dealt Hold Em before and they deal very slowly, make mistakes (giving the pot to wrong player at first, etc) and generally slow down the game because of their lack of experience. The floormen aren't great either especially compared to the ones at Walker. Overall, it's just not a well-run poker room... If they did a better job they would probably be blowing Walker out of the water right now because of the prime location, but that clearly isn't the case.

The games themselves aren't bad, though, tons of fish. Rake is exact same as Walker.

I manage to bink a package to Seoul for the APPT event next March. I want to arrive in good time for it so I need to find an inexpensive hotel (< $100 a night) for a couple of nights before I move to the Sheraton (part of the package) - any recommendations for the best areas to stay or any specific hotels.

Thanks for any help.

samgapsal and moksal ftw. chomchee kimbap aint bad and its cheap too! Anyone in other areas of Korea other than Seoul? Daegu, Busan, Jeju, Daejeon etc?

Well I guess that's me sorted for food then.......
Ok I guess I best trawl through this long thread (instead of browsing and searching like I've done so far) then and see what if any hotels and are areas are good to stay in.

Still if anyone who knows Seoul can recommend places to stay that are actually places to stay and not food dishes that would be cool

btw thanks to the OP in particular from my browsing alone it's apparent he's put on a tonne of good information in this thread.

Can't really help you there but can you tell me what the whole package include and how much it's worth ? Im on my phone so I can't check it on any pokerrooms.

No worries kojika. I imagine if I just pick somewhere fairly central I should have a reasonable chance of being somewhere alright. I'll look back through the thread anyway.

There's a few different packages.
The seat & Cash package is valued at $3720. You get your seat valued at $2720 plus $1k Cash.
I won a hotel and seat package valued at $4500 which copied from the Pokerstars email includes:

* KRW3,000,000 buy-in to the APPT Seoul Main Event. You have been automatically placed in DAY 1A on March 8 at 12:15 PM.
* $750 has been credited to your PokerStars account towards your travel costs. You will need to arrange your own travel plans.
* Five nights' accommodation at the luxurious Sheraton Grande Walkerhill Hotel, located within the Paradise Walkerhill Casino complex, arriving on the 7th March and checking out on the 12th of March. The room will be double-occupancy, meaning you can bring a guest if you wish (at no extra cost to you). You will need to pay for all meals and will also be responsible for additional charges to your room. '

I have noticed that in dollars KRW3,000,000 at today's xe.com exchange rate is $2586 so looks like Pokerstars are doing alright from that part!

Wow, just finished reading pretty much this entire thread. By far the longest thread I've read from start to finish on 2+2. Unusual for such a long thread to be virtually ****** free, must give credit to the ethnic Koreans for this (I'm Irish btw). Totally legendary thread and an absolute must read for anyone going or thinking of going to Seoul. It's really stoked my interest.

I have to do a big shout out here to the contributors to this legentastic thread. Syous, Rekrul and SuperUberBob these 3 really got this thread going, it was riveting reading. I know Syous and SuperUberBob were at polls apart at times in their outlook but twas fascinating stuff nonetheless.

Also got to give a shout out to the other big contributors to this thread....
eatmefish808, loosekanen, flip2win, KoreanBrad, Bear Jew, djz and windmasta (particularly for his hotel recommendations on page 67). Sorry if I missed any other main contributor out - it's a longggggg thread, but many other posters made this a great thread.

Legendz one and all

Got 2 months to go now before the start of APPT Seoul, flight is booked, will be arriving a few days before the start of the main event. Was excited already and after reading this thread can't wait to get there. Can't wait to try out the food and check out the nightlife.

Sounds like the areas to look for a hotel for me are probably Itaewon (playing it safe as a white foreigner who can't speak a word of Korean) or Gangnam. Hongdae sounds like it's probably going to be too young for me as I'm older than probably most of you guys, though still well up for partying

baztalkspoker I'll be there at the APPT Seoul too, there will be three of us, we are located in Daejeon so we'll be KTX'ing it there, Also looking for accomm in Seoul and not the Casino's Official Hotel as Prices are way inflated (stars at 260,000KW where as you can get a love motel for 60000KW). Anyway see you there

love motel. tons around walker hill. reasonable rooms and good prices. safe too. often stay at the first one right down the street. i am running like 70/30 on getting a room there because i can pretend like i speak korean well. but theres many others to be found. you are not going to new york city or even a high level part of seoul. and even if you were in the most expensive parts of seoul you could still get a good love motel.