Back in the Game – My Phillipines Poker Journey with SV Poker

Ugh another painful early morning today for appointments for the baby. But yesterday was my off day for other appointments wilk be grinding later today and we got a coaching session later tonight so busy busy day, might have to sneak in a nap somewhere if I have time.

Played to tired today ran bad and played bad make a small ft and some small cashes i think i roughly lost liek $25 on the day made one small ft but just ran horrible lost a most all ins either running 2nd nuts into the nuts or loosing every flip and almost every 80/20 but all in all it could of been worse
Got a coaching session tonight and all of our stats are going in the right direction less red more greeen and yellow so thats a positive

Well the session went well we are still making some mistakes as ex9ected but we are moving in the right direction. We also got promoted in level 3 in the stable which raises our abi we are allowed to play and means we are on our way to higher levels. I'm not sure but I think with constant improvement and volume we can probably move up a level per week at these low levels in the stable.
The great thing about SV poker is they start you at a low abi so you don't fall to far into make up, but they give you all the tools you need to improve your game and move up. At these low levels and low ABIs making sure you are playing the correct ranges preflop and making the correct plays post flop are the primary focus and as long as we are showing improvement they have shown they are more than happy to increase our abi. I'm sure at higher levels that will take more work and longer time to increase our level naturally. But I won't lie when I first signed and saw the low ABIs for the first 5 level I was a bit concerned I'd be stuck in the micros for ever, but obviously we don't want that and neither do they. The more we improve to their standards the more money we will make and the more sense it makes to promote us to higher levels.

So on a side note with all the off the table work I do I think I need to have clear goals to improve my games each week between our weekly sessions we have with our coach. Now I've always struggled with what to work on and how to get better at it, luckily SV poker tells me exactly what to work on week by week and what to use to improve and fix that leak.

I won't go into deep detail on what I'm working on this week but it's going to be about 90% preflop play, our post flop is currently the strong point in our game but we are making some preflop mistakes that is costing us EV. We fix that and we will crush even harder.

Also I've decided to move 99% of my action off of GG. Great software but **** roi. We will be playing on smaller sites with smaller fields but with a much higher and more consistent roi. I gotta get some rest for tomorrow gl on the felt every one!

3 days in a row of early wake ups for doctors appointments and I decided instead of playing tired today like I did yesterday I would use today as week 2s day off and just study and get a good nap in.

But I feel great now, no 6 am wake up tomorrow so I'll study a bit more tonight then tomorrow study more then grind a good amount of volume tomorrow and like always hope to get a profit split at the end of the day.

do you speak russian or do they also coach in english? GL on your mtt journey.

I want to go to the phillipines in the future, so would be nice if you could also do some updates on living there.

No I speak only English there are q bunch of English players in the stable and plenty of English speaking coaches.

And the Phillipines is like anything else has its pros and cons maybe I'll make a post about it more later.

What a brutal day today was. made 1 small FT at the end to save it from being a total crushing day still lsot roughly $40 down about $90 roughly since last cash out.

Played well today but it was just one of thsoe days where the fish would call down a triple barrel bluff with bottom pair losing all ins in vital spots and just a rough day variance wise, we can win $500 in 3 days we can swing down just as hard if not harder. I will say though I felt like I played well today and I am happy with my play and my decisions and put in a good amount of volume today probably close to 20 tournaments.

Back at it tomorrow, gotta get a good night off with the soon to be wife and some relaxation and sleep.

I'll share my shcedule quickly I think its important to show what the stable can offer and how to take advantage of everything they offer.

I'm a late sleeper so I typically dont get to sleep till about 3-4 am sleep till roughly noon
get up eat breakfast
30 minutes of exercise
shower
then some time with my girl
then about 1:15 to 1:30 i start studying
check this quickly and update it,
check discord for any updates from SV
then start grinding between 2-2:30
and then usually wrap up around 8-9pm depending on what tournaments we make deep runs in
hang out with my girl for a few hours till she falls asleep
then I get a couple hours to myself to relax and unwind from the grind
then back at it again in the morning.

Good luck on felts

Official numbers since last profit split are -$80.22

Some one asked about life in the Phillipines, let's talk about it. I've lived all over metro manila in imus and in cavite. All of them have their pros and cons.

Manila has big casinos with soft live poker games and they host big series like the APT and at APPT.

Imus and cavite have smaller poker rooms I haven't checked out because I just don't trust if they are legit or not.

Manila is much more expensive but has everything you could ever want to do within a short distance.

Imus and cavite smaller areas much cheaper but to travel to say the casinos to play live you're looking at up to a 2 hour drive depending where you are at exactly.

As a white person in manila they will try to price gouge you on EVERYTHING

In imus and Cavite I've seen some of that but it's much more rare

The Phillipines is a less developed country with a lot of poverty so certain areas are very run down and dirty and stray dogs and cats are everywhere.

But certain areas are very nice.

I currently live in a gated subdivision with security and it's very much in the middle of everything. You can still find poverty striken dirty areas if you look but there are also very nice areas as well. Prices here are much lower than in manila but I am one of the few white people here and I've been in this area since August and I still draw a lot of attention.

I chose this area because I dint play much live poker I prefer to play online

I can get a big house abs have a maid for cheaper than a small apartment in manila

Also the price gouging seems to be pretty minimal.

In general things are much cheaper than in manila but you do give up some of the thinks manila offers like for me the VA clinic is 2 hours away the US embassy is 2 hours away. The closest place to renew my visa is about 40 minutes away.

But I'm not sure if I mentioned I'm a 90% disabled veteran so I get a small monthly paycheck of around 2.3k usd a month. In manila the budget was tight and we live in very small apartments. Here I live in one of the nicer houses in the area have fiber wifi to the house and my rent and maid combined is cheaper than rent in manila. Also my rent includes all utilities and wifi. Also the house was fully furnished.

Also another interesting thing is the Healthcare system.

Well less interesting more annoying, they have free health care but it's total trash but you can pay for private health care which i chose to do.

For my pregnant fiance the cost to have the baby praying for not complications will be about 50k peso which is about $875. Considering she has no sort of insurance that's crazy crazy cheap.

But they also have weird customs you have to get used to and every doctor you see will have different customs like for example we have to see a specific ultrasound tech so I'm allowed in the room for the ultrasounds. The others won't allow it. When it comes to her actually giving birth some OBs may allow it others won't, but according to Google the average income for an OB per month is about 30k-50k peso and every one here is willing to take a bribe for the most part so there's always a chance an extra 10 or 20k could change those rules pretty quickly (10k is 170 us roughly).

Safety wise it's about as safe as most US cities of course there are dangerous places if you go out alone at 3 am you might find trouble. I've had one time 2 kids try to steal my phone out of my pocket and it's because I was coming back to my place in makati at the time at like 4 am but besides that no issues.

All said I would suggest to visit I like it here in not sure where I'll end up long term I'm still yet to visit cebu and I hear great things about it but I also miss some things about the US as well.

So it's a mixed bag and I still have other south east Asian countries I'd like to visit but my suggestion if you want to come just do it. I put it off for several years and I regret having done it finally I just saved up money sold off everything I didn't need and I just moved here and have been living a pretty nomadic lifestyle for a while and I've enjoyed almost all of it.

As for night life I can't answer to much about that, I don't drink and I really don't party either I did enough of that in thr army so I'm pretty much over any of that but if you look on YouTube there's tons of videos on that.

But one of the best things is as a poker player tou can make a living here playing muxh lower stakes than you can in the US that's for sure.

Any other questions just ask I'm happy to answer!

During our session today GG was down so we were playing one site.
About $100 in buy ins and ended up +$6 on the day

Better than another losing day I guess.

Back at it tomorrow

Join sv get better at poker like me make money get a smoking hot wife have a maid and have a baby. Living the dream

Post pics of ur wife bro

Join SV maybe you'll get to meet her

im probably already better than everyone at SV poker tbh.
Just post pics of ur wife bro

Feel free to Google hot Filipina plenty on Google for you to enjoy looking at however I'll keep enjoying mine.

In other news my only complaint about the Phillipines is it was 90 degrees yesterday felt like 102

And it isn't even summer yet thank God I have AC

Well we played well today just didn't work out cash out curse it hitting us hard it seems currently -133.88 since last profit split but that's how mtt life goes. I mean it sound like a lot but that's 13 max buy ins at my current level in SV, so honestly it could be much much worse. Something I learned early into my mtt career is run bad can start any hand and it can end any hand. Tomorrow is Sunday here in the philippines so it's of course a big day when it comes to MTTs. So we will be back at it again.

This is a small swing if I look at my graphs on global and my spreadsheet from ignition I've had 2k+ total downswings, of course my ABI was much higher than it is now but this is part of MTT life.

I took a break from poker for a while, I was burnt out from it, I was a MTT grinder with around a 25-30 abi playing 100-200 MTTs a week for several years, that'll burn any one out.

The biggest thing I hate about MTTs is the schedule and the hours, I became a full time poker player because after 7 years in the army I was done with working terrible hours and strict schedules and MTTs do have that. There are hours I have to play to maximize my EV at the tables but no job is the perfect job, even if I went back to grinding cash there are still +ev hours where you aren't reg battling all day and you have a much higher ev.

I'm not to stressed about the results this week they are what they are.

I need to continue to improve my preflop game and every day we are getting better.

Obviously 3bet ranges and squeeze ranges are a bit more complicated to perfect in MTTs than cash games but I study at least 30 minutes a day often more and every day we get better and as long as we continue to improve the downswing will end like it always does and we will soon enough be running well again and making our deep runs and getting our wins.

Hell can I even complain yesterday we only showed a $6 profit but we played over $100 in buy ins and finished the day by winning a small tournament that literally saved the day. These small losses of 3-5 buy ins a day that's just another day hell that's not even running bad I've had way worse. Tomorrow is another day to get better and make profit. We are one good day from another profit split and another win.

Get some sleep guys tomorrow we got another long grind

Wife felt horrible today seems my son wasn't happy with anything she ate today or how she moved sat or laid so I had to prioritize dad and husband duty over poker, but hey that's why poker is awesome right? Didn't have to say we'll good luck as I left to go work all day and leave her home miserable instead I was able to sit here and spoil her all day like she deserves as she grows our son and has to put up with the crappy days that comes with it.

Seems she's finally starting to feel better but no game play or bankroll updates today, nothing has changed.

Here's to a long hard grind tomorrow to make up for today.

Here's a Phillipines gripe from an Americans view point.

I was talking to a friend about my time here in the Philippines, and one thing that really bothers me is how low the expectations are for men when it comes to family responsibility. The single motherhood rate is insanely high—out of 15 million single parents, over 14 million are single moms.

Its just normal here for mothers to be the ones working and providing for their families, while fathers… well, Im not really sure what they do. Theres no real expectation for them to step up, and theres basically no government support or child support enforcement. Its honestly sad to see so many kids out on the streets begging for money. It’s a problem that could be fixed, but nothing will change unless the government gets its act together first.

Had some good runs today i think we took a 2nd, 2nd, 3rd and a 4th i think.

Will update final balances later

Nice one dude. Wanna meet me at burgos street later tonight n bang some hookers

Don't think the wife would be happy with that, and burgos street is low quality go to bgc get something good

Does ur wife have a sister? Or a daughter maybe? Im thursty

2 sisters but I think you'd have better luck with the hookers

Whys that? Im pretty handsome dude. Lemme try her sisters bro.

So we started today 133.88 in mu finished today 26 in profit. Not great but we cleared make up