Back in the Game – My Phillipines Poker Journey with SV Poker
Intro
What’s up, guys? A while back, I did a DoorDash bankroll challenge, grinding deliveries to build a poker roll. It was going well, but I ended it early when I transitioned from poker to advantage play—mostly slot AP and card counting. That worked out for a while, but then life took a turn when I moved to the Philippines with my fiancee. It was supposed to be a short stay while we waited for her visa, but things didn’t go as planned, and now I’m here for the long haul—with a baby on the way in July!
The problem? Advantage play in Manila is basically dead.
Card counting is impossible – Continuous shuffle machines everywhere
Slot AP is ultra-limited – Maybe 10 playable machines in the whole city
Grinders camp those machines 24/7 – Smoking, drinking, and waiting for scraps
So, all my AP skills are useless here, at least until I’m back in the States later this year. That's when I realized: I need to get back to poker.
Why I Joined SV Poker
I’ve made my living from gambling since 2016, outside of a few short breaks. But with a baby on the way, I didn't want to deal with the variance stress of playing on my own dime. That’s when I started looking into poker stables—and I found one that actually made sense:
Enter SV Poker.
✔️ No bankroll stress – Just focus on playing +EV poker
✔️ Elite coaching & community – Work with crushers who actually know what theyÂ’re doing
✔️ Access to soft sites – Better ROI than just firing into GG and Stars donk-fests
✔️ Clear progression path – Play, study, improve, move up
Since joining, I’ve already made key adjustments to my game, cashed out my first profits, and feel like I'm finally back in the right mindset.
The 75-Day HARD MTT Challenge
I knew I had to shake off the rust and get back into serious volume, so I put together a 75-day challenge based on a lifestyle and poker training plan I saw online. It’s a mix of grinding, studying, and discipline to get back to playing at a high level.
📌 30 min/day study – Fix leaks one by one
📌 30 min/day exercise – Strong body, strong mind
📌 100+ MTTs/week – Minimum volume for SV Poker
📌 1 off day/week – Either light study or micro SNGs for FT/ICM practice
📌 Daily notes & review – Track leaks, session results, and improvements
Now, I started off rough. First few days, I was in makeup and questioning my adjustments. But after switching 90% of my volume to smaller, softer sites, I went on a crazy upswing:
Day 1 – 13 MTTs, -$19.14
Day 2 – 15 MTTs, +$55
Day 3 – 17 MTTs, +$300
Day 4 – 19 MTTs, +$167
Day 5 – Off day
First $500 upswing, out of makeup, and cashed out $154 from the stable already.
Want to Join SV Poker?
If you’re serious about grinding MTTs with backing and coaching, I 100% recommend SV Poker. They’ve already helped me get back on track, and I've got two friends in the process of joining.
🔗 Apply here
If you use my link, drop a comment—I'll personally help guide you through the process and make sure your application gets noticed.
Daily Updates & Next Steps
I’ll be updating this blog daily with:
✅ Grind results
✅ Study takeaways
✅ Deep runs & hand breakdowns
✅ Life in a poker stable & in the Philippines
Right now, I’m capped at $11 MTTs, but the goal is to move up ASAP. Let’s run it up.
had to one site today as I await a gg withdraw so didnt get in as much volume as we'd like got it all in twice on the flop with a set and los to draws did win a small tournament for a grand total of a $6 profit on the day lol better than a loss. it is funny though thats my send single digit winning day this week i think.
Yeah i just looked at it back on the 28th we had a $6 winning day as well so thats 2 $6 winning days this week and a $160 winning day. not the $500 upswing we had last week but not in make up. (we have coaching sessions on Tuesdays so I consider Tuesday to be the end of the week)
But I am happy with how we played, played well but sometimes in poker the numbers dont always show that, but if we can play well and not run the best and still end up slightly profitable then thats a good thing, when the variance balances out we will have better weeks.
Took 2 days off while I was getting verified on a new site and had to move some balances around from different sites. For the current results we are at +33.82 since last cash out.
Did feel good to get a few days off and back on the grind tomorrow. One thing I do worry about idk if its just me but when i move to a different site/software it seems to take me a day or two to get comfortable on the new software with my hud positions and getting everything set up. But we are now back to 3 sites and they are 3 pretty soft sites so hopefully we have a good weekend and we can make some cash outs this weekend, im really not interested in cashing out my share of $33 after crypto fees and everything I'd get something around liek 10-12 bucks so not worth the effort and I'm not starving or anything currently so Hopefully we can just keep moving forward improving and keep moving up levels.
We didnt get to move up to level 4 this week sadly, one of the sites we play on has no HH so without HH we can submit our weekly reports so they cant tell if we are improving. So we have 5 days roughly before our next coaching session to play and get some HH built and hopefully get to level 4 this week if not then definitly next week. If I fail to get to level 4 in 2 weeks it would be a bummer but all we have to do is study and then take what we study and imput it into our game and we should be good and keep moving up.
Also I will be streaming for SV in the future as well as keeping this blog and streaming so I'll get those links posted probably tomorrow.
Oh another gripe for any one looking to move to southeast asia who plays poker for a living specifically MTTs, The Phillipines isnt in the best time zone for the "major" tournaments. currently I am 13 hours ahead of US central time so most sites cater big events to Either US time or EU time and that means crazy early mornings to play or crazy late nights, and I have other priorities outside of poker so the hours I play I do miss out on some bigger MTTs but it does lead to smaller fields so its a give and take, now if you were a cash game player it would be perfect you could wake up and play at peak cash game time and then when they games start to die youd still have most of your day ahead of you.
