a little late but this is about to start here in eastwood, free food, free booze and free concert, im about to check this out.

http://www.gig.ph/2011/discounts-mag...eastwood-city/

I use my laptop so I always have battery backup. Internet sucks sometimes but so far I've been lucky and lost very few hands to disconnects. I've lost about as much money from misclicks as I have from losing my connection.

You have to be sure that there is reliable service in your exact location, and in some locations there are different providers with better quality than in other locations. Having a backup provider is extra insurance.

On top of this get used to what your connection can and can't do. The fastest we get here on Mindoro is 0.5mb line (hell I know). But pokersites run pretty smoothly when i'm doing little to no surfing. However when I start opening up pages with pictures my tables to lag.

How is the internet/ power in cebu? How often will I lose connection/ month (if at all) ?

anybody in manila, i need $350 shipped on stars and have pesos to trade. pm me or message me on skype k00pa666. trying to get this done today, thanks.

Both depend on your exact location.

Power goes out every few days for an hour or two in my neighborhood. I have PLDT DSL 5mbps and it hasn't gone down in two months, but getting it installed took three weeks. If you have a laptop and 2 internet sources (DSL+Wireless or 2xWireless), you should be good for poker at all times.

^^thx

Also, I am sure this has been answered be4 but thread is very big:

I read that moneybookers/neteller don't work from the philippines, so do ppl just trade money on 2p2 (online$ for bank$ or so?) or use a VPN (if so, what happens when moneybookers finds out?) ? How about having a local bank acc? Worth it if only staying there for 3 months?

3 months is a good time to get a feel for the place. You will have a great time if you're social and dont mind talking to strangers.

Oh, that question was referring to the previous one (creating local bank acc). No doubt we will enjoy the 3 month we are going to stay in the Philippines

What do you guys think are the biggest pros and cons setting up a poker house in the Philippines compared to Thailand?

Here it is getting people willing to commit for at least 6-12months (most houses require 1year lease but obv you can nego that) and the 2p2 expat community is much smaller, getting a nice house in a cool location that people will agree on long term.

Pros are obviously not needing to do border runs and then you have all the stuff that is basically personal preference like language and culture, Thailand/Philippines is an apple/oranges kind of thing but the mainstream settle in Thailand so it depends what kind of person you are.
Prices will be similar but extremely varying depending on location.

With good advertising you will be able to set one up here though. There might be some houses running in Cebu atm we don't hear a lot from them here, I've heard they have threads at p5. You might be better off contacting them who have first hand experience. Good luck

Thanks for the input! So it sounds like getting a baller pad for 3 months will be difficult? Any advice on how to try and do that?

Also does the Philippines want you to have a return ticket booked before coming in? Any advice on getting around that would be much appreciated, thanks

Fwiw it appears like a really cheap way to get there from Europe is to fly airasia from London or Paris to KL, Malaysia, and then on to Manila and then Cebu from there. If anyone has any other tips or recommendations for getting to Cebu I'd love to hear it. Thanks!

And sorry to spam the thread but if anyone can recommend a good hotel to stay at in Cebu while house hunting that'd be great. Something not too pricey with internet access.

Thanks again!

anyone here have experience with using Globe 4G Tatoo "Lamborghini" USB internet? is it any good, reliable, and fast enough to play online games without too much lag?

Still looking.

Yeah, you'll save quite a bit on atm and currency conversion fees with a local bank account and it's easy enough to open one.

i already talked about it earlier itt, it sucks, doesnt give anywhere near advertised speeds anywhere even in the areas listed to be in 4g hspa+ coverage, they are also being sued by lamborghini for using the brand name without their permission, so i assume they will be off the market soon. there is also a daily/monthly bandwidth cap on the globe prepaid stuff, which sucks.

It isn't reliable enough to play full time. I use it for a backup if my main globe goes down.

As for getting around having the return ticket to go into the Philippines. Buy a cheap one way to Macau, then throw it away.

I have been using a US dollar account at a local Philippine bank for about a year. It has worked great until I tried to cash out today. PokerStars rejected it saying that I would now have to use Euro not US dollars for transactions to the Philippines. Poker Stars said I would have to open a Euro account here in order to do wire transfers. They even said I would have to get a check in Euro. Has anyone else had this problem?

what bank are you using?

what fees do lacal banks charge if changing $ or € to PHP ?

I am using the Commerce Bank

Hi,

Has any one had any experience with the live tournament scene in Manila? Any consistent success or failure? What are your thoughts as to the viability of making consistent money this way?