So I retired from poker at one point. Been grinding full time since 2016 and just got burnt out. I started to casino Advantage play and was doing really well. Then even though it wasn't planned I met a girl fell in love and find myself in the Phillipines waiting on her fiancée Visa so we can go back to the US. Now I make a decent amount of passive income every month that in the Phillipines I don't really need to make any more money I could sit pool aide every day and we'd be fine. But I just can't lice that life style I get bored I've always been a person looking to make more money, but in non conventional ways.

Joining the Army at 17 kind of ruined me, I can't work a job without a true purpose behind it and bad managers and bosses I just can't handle. So that's why when I ended my Army career in 2016 I went from a part time grinder, making more playing poker in my free time, to playing full time.

I did a contract with a cfp site completed that and grounded 6 max cash for a while on line. Got bored and realized how bad most mtt players were and switched to mtts and grinder those,about 200 a week, from 2018 to roughly 2022.

Eventually I decided I wanted to travel and do more than sit behind a monitor 12+ hours a day, I got into playing poker full time for the freedom of it and MTTs lack that freedom, you have to play when the tournaments are good. I often found myself grinding a series just for a series in another site to begin a few days later followed by another series.

So I learned to count cards and started traveling counting cards and then I got into other forms of Advantage Play as well. And tbh the life is great get to travel the marketing team sees you as a high roller so you get tons of comes and I was making pretty good money with minimal effort. Honestly it takes like 200 hours to become a proficient card counter and a few hours of practice a week to keep sharp. And compared to mtts the variance is lower and I was making more money clocking a lot less hours.

Then I met this Filipina, fell in love and moved to the Phillipines to be with her until her Visa gets approved so we can go to the US and get married hopefully the last week of July next year.

But here's the problem, I found myself in a place with HUGE casinos, but very little Advantage Play potential, they use continuous shuffle machines for BJ and other forms of AP although there are few, like under 10 total, they aren't worth the money to go check them every day.

But there is an upside, the Phillipines is currently going through a poker boom, the rooms always have games going and the fields are super super soft and I still play the occasional 100-500nl online when I find good games and it's late and I'm bored so my poler game is still fresh.


So the tittle is a bit miss leading I am going to attempt to turn 40k into 1m before I leave the Phillipines could be 4 months could be 12, but that's 40k philippine pesos into 1m php. But either way should be fun!

I am not playing full time at all this is a side thing for a few extra dollars and to give me something to do. I'll also be playing some lower stakes online games to help build the bankroll when I don't feel like going to the casino.

First session was tonight
In for 8k
Out for 21k
+13k php

Current bankroll 53k php

Interesting Hand tonight I'm sure I played it fine but I was playing 25/50 and we had a unknown waiting to play 100/200 sitting with us I was BB with TcTs

Stacks were about 12k deep eff we covered everyone

Utg opens to 300
Utg+1 calls
Btn calls
Sb calls
We make it 1500

Utg folds
Utg+1 calls
Others fold
Pot roughly: 3900
Eff 10.5k

Flop Qh8d4d

I typically as the 3better would like to press the gas here and continue to bet, but I'm OOP and the pot is already bloated so I'm deciding between a small bet of about 1200 or a check and decided to check

Villian bets 2k
We call
Pot 7900
Eff 8.5k
Turn is a Kh
We have an obvious check here and do and William checks back

Pot 7900
Eff 8.5k

River is the Qd

In this spot I think a fd is very likely which got there and villian could easily check back turn with FD to take a free card. He also has some Qx here that would check turn afraid of Kx so we are put in a tough spot.

Spr is just over 1 so I think if we bet it's either we jam for 8.5k eff but that's turning our TT into a bluff, which I'm not sure we want to or need to do here, or if we bet we need to bet small and fold to a raise.

We could also check then decided to use our hand as a bluff catcher or just check fold because the villians assumed range I can't find a lot of bluffs in.

We decided to check hoping we go to show down and villians jams.

Thoughts on this hand?
Results in spoiler

Typhoon couldn't play yesterday hopefully we get to play tonight

Played and crazy sessions I forgot to post but it most recent saw us stay off losing QQ V AK for -10k rebuild for 20k, lose AT to AJ A high board for 5k, reload for 15k, now in for 25k total. Win some pots to get my stack back to about 27k, get dealt 55 in the BB UTG+1 opens to 4bb 2 other callers and we call

Pot about 1600
26.6k eff

Flop Tc8c5s

We check UTG+1bets 1200
Folds to is we raise to 5000 villian calls

Pot about 11.6k
21.6k eff

Turn 2h
We lead for 7.5k
Villian jams
We snap call

River Ah

Pot 54k

Typhoon is about to hit and moving today so been busy with that. Hopefully we get to hit the tables tonight we will see

Br 15k

Decided to add in some online play since I can't always play live and there isn't always good games running. Play small stakes online just 50nl.

We will be playing live this weekend obviously depending on typhoon.

If we run bad and hit 0 I will restart with funds out of my own pocket. Hopefully that doesn't happen


Br is at 18,904 php