this 10% UNCAPPED rake is insane!!!!!

I play at RW in Manila and the rake is pretty much the lowest in the world.
I played at the table where minimum buyin is 30K with the local sharks and the koreans, i believe it's 100 / 200.

the rake is capped to 500 pesos. basically the rake is 500 PHP at every single hand!

500 PHP must be like 100 HKD.

In macau a table with similar stack size would be 50-100 and the rake would be 300 or 400 HKD max.

So I consider MNL rake to be very reasonable! I'm surprised Cebu rake would be so ridiculously high!

U sure about that rake at Resorts World??

I've actually never played there before, but everywhere else I have played in Manila (including Metro, which is the biggest room besides RW,) was 10% uncapped just like Cebu.

Not calling you a liar or anything of the sort, but I'd be very surprised if RW was the only place in the Philippines where the rake was reasonable and everywhere else it would be 10% uncapped.

lol @ $12 rake being considered reasonable

Well... yeah.

But you have to take into account also, those games are much softer on average then the games in Las Vegas.

That offsets the ****ty rake some.

with it being as uberdeepstacked as ive heard (like 150 min bb buy in i believe) i can see a tight aggressive strategy being profitable

i would think any sort of loose play would get eaten alive by the rake though

as i said 500 PHP rake on a "big" (well big by local standards) i mean everyone got 50,000 to 100,000 PHP (that's 1,000 USD+ to 2,000 USD+) is very cheap compared to Macau and compared to Europe where i come from.

Yes RW is 10% rake BUT the capping is set at a very very low level (once again compared to Macau or Europe). 500 PHP rake for pot that are always 10K+ and sometimes much more is very cheap for any asian or european player.

if you consider RWM rake high, i'd advise you to never set foot in Macau or anywhere in Europe.

Do you know if these are the highest games available in Manilla?
Thanks

The highest that consistently runs, to my knowledge, is 100-200 PHP, which is a bit bigger then $2/$5.

I believe I have seen a 200-500 running, which would be like $5.5/$11 in USD, but that isn't consistent.

If you can get your way into home games, I'm sure you can find games that run consistently that are bigger, but then of course as always, you have to deal with really ****ty rake and the potential for more shadiness and even outright cheating.

I heard in Metro sometimes they have 1k/2k games ...
I wouldn't know more as it's too high stakes for me.

Hey guys,

Greetings from Cebu where i've joined a poker house here! Just been here a few days and i'm liking it thus far. I'm pretty new here but if anyone has any questions about Cebu i'd be happy to help out along the way. I don't know a lot about the live scene here yet, but I plan to play the APT events around Asia beginning in January.

I have some questions around ACR cards and banking here that hopefully someone can help out with. Many of the guys in the house have applied for these with some major backlog/delays (some have been waiting 6+ months). Does anyone have any advice on how to expidite this? I'm a bit worried as being an american player I probably need one to open a bank account (someone please PM me if they know of a bank that would open an account without an ACR card, maybe for a small "fee" )

Also, if anyone has any advice on opening OUS poker accounts given I have no bank account yet etc i'd appreciate it...and is it possible to open some kind of ewallet being from america and maybe use this in the meantime to get funds on/off?

Sorry for such fishy questions being a noob here but appreciate any advice.

How's life in Cebu?

why did you choose Cebu over Manila?

How's life in Cebu? How much are the condos rents? or maybe you guys are renting a house in a subdivision?

you guys only play on Stars.com ?

regarding online poker, you can more easily find some local guy / girl to put everything into his/her name, open a moneybookers $ account too and get your master card... is gonna be much easier than trying to do it the proper way as an american i am afraid...

PLEAAAASE tell us about the size of the cash games at Waterfront Lahug and other places on week-ends mostly and how you fare... lot's of people wishing to know if it s realistic to grind live games there with the new venues that opened.. GOOD LUCK!

Cheers

easy to get ****ed over?

right, no way id do that ever

this might be the worst "advice"/most lame attempt to scam/level ever in the history of internet threads concerning travel in SE asia.

I can just hear it now... "Sirrrr, yes no problem sirrr, you just give me all of your information and I have make for your poker monies"

I chose Cebu over Manila because of the house and that it's farther away from the traffic/pollution/distractions of the city. We're still a short cab ride away from Mango square, the malls etc...when we'd like to go out.

I spent about 3 days in Manila on the way here (I had never been to the Philippines) and my impression to be honest was pretty negative. Granted i'm a noob and I was fumbling my way around Makati, etc. But the traffic is beyond terrible and I've lived in/visited LA, Bay Area, Chicago, Boston. It's so much worse you really need to live right where you work or want to spend time out. The cab drivers were all dishonest and tried to overcharge (unlike cebu where they run the meter).

I looked at some condo's online and they seemed to range from $600-$1k US with Club Ultima being the nicest in cebu. I haven't looked at anything first hand though. Chopping things in our huge house 7 ways and sharing a cook/maid/food/aircon should run total expenses to about 1k or hopefully a little less.

The guys play on various sites, stars, ongame, and i'm playing on the US sites for now but i'm definately jonesing to get a bank account and get set up. So again, any advice around an ACR card would be awesome.

Regarding the other post, there's no friggin way i'm putting anything in any locals name I haven't been out to the local casinos yet but when I do I will happily report back.

If anyone has any real advice regarding the ACR card i'd love to know!! Thanks!!

How long have you been in town? At a certain point, it's either your second or third 'visa run' they will require you buy one if you want to extend your visa again.

I believe you can go ahead and buy it prior to that point, but I just waited until they required me too, so I'm not sure if you can buy it earlier or not. I think you can, but not sure 100%.

Some banks there will allow you to open a bank account without an ACR card, I believe. Apparently, and this is surprising I know, you can even use your US issued Social Security number as a secondary source of ID (your passport being your primary source.)

There is also a website you should check out for more info while you are in Cebu, it's run buy expats from the US/UK etc.etc. and full of good people and good info.

It's called

Livingincebu

give it a check, you can definitely get more info on bank accounts and ACR cards etc. on there.

They were pretty heavy on everyone coming through immigration the other night, had to show onward ticket (first time ever they asked me that). Even some guy who was a resident was getting the third degree about what he does where he lives etc.

You can't get an ARC (by the way the C in ARC means card, so no reason to say ARC card, its like saying Alien Registration Card Card its stupid)

I know one way to get an ARC for Philippines, but there is no way I'm posting it on an internet forum.

Avoid big banks like BDO. Go for mid-market banks like Metrobank.

I have an ACR card.

Alien Certificate of Registration Card.

You're right. ACR = Alien Certificate of Registration

I made a mistake because in this country we say ARC= Alien Registration Card.

I'm wrong.

ur an alien WOW

isnt there anybody there that can help you or is it all new guys
if ur with regulars already they should be able to help u better in person

I'm guessing you're on a 21 tourist visa waiver given at the airport when you arrived? You'll need to extend that before the 21 days expires. Tell the Immigration people you expect to be there for a while and can you please get your ACR. They acted a bit surprised when I asked - like why would you want to buy something that's not required? - but they did it without any questions and it was available within 2 weeks. That was at a regional office in Luzon. One problem here is that different regional offices of most government agencies have quite different interpretations of the same rules, so Cebu might not work the same. There are lots of forums and Yahoo groups for expats living in RP and you'll get a better answer at one of them.

2 weeks, really??

They made up my ACR card right there at Immigration while I was waiting, I had it within an hour.

Can't imagine why you needed to wait 2 weeks.