Prime Poker Club in Manila, Philippines

Prime Poker is a stand alone poker room located in HK Sun Plaza in Pasay, just moments away from Manila Bay.

HK Sun Plaza, a bird's eye view

Formerly known as GG Poker and then Two Ace, the club has been rebranded once again as Prime. The GG Poker title was probably a little short sighted, given the existence of the unaffiliated GGPoker.com, the most popular online poker site in the world at the moment. 'Two Ace' was a reasonable name, but with the entrance of 'Ace Poker' located at nearby Heritage casino, perhaps the additional rebranding was needed.

Prime recently moved south within HK Sun Plaza, from beside the Korean mini-mart to just before Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant. It is still facing the Dampa Seaside Market and Manila Bay, it is just at the end of the plaza instead of the middle. The location is centrally located relative to a number of other Manila poker rooms, so if you don't like the action at your table, you can pay 150 pesos and take a quick Grab ride to a competing room.

before

after

And the new location is huge! Just look at all those tables, about 100 in total. The venue also hosts a restaurant and convenience store if you want some snacks, and you can order food directly there via Grab if you prefer. Some basic drinks like coffee, iced tea, and service water are free or you can purchase smoothies, alcohol, juice etc.

Prime is now Manila's largest poker room 

 

Most of the tables are for tournaments. Starting yesterday they are hosting daily tournaments, some of which have satellites as well.  

They also host larger tournament series, such as APL Manila, which was held back in February, or the upcoming Philippine Poker Millions.

Cash games start in the early afternoon (around 2-3 pm) and run into the morning. Their main offering is 25/50, which will usually have several tables going except at the start and end of the night. Usually you can get seated pretty quickly, because they are quite aggressive with opening new games, and there are some props who will stand up so that you can play. They also spread 50/100, 100/100, 100/200, PLO, and higher stakes games on demand. Even at 25/50, players can take advantage of running it twice if they want to reduce variance. 

Not that the games really need it. With a lot of short stacks, small opens, and passive play the standard deviation for the 25/50 is quite reasonable. Most of the players are content to limp in and check it down unless they hit something spectacular, shying away from playing big pots and killing time while they wait for a Korean whale to sit down and blast off a few stacks. The tougher, more aggressive players tend to gravitate to the higher blind levels, so the 25/50 is usually quite reasonable. As is typical of low stakes live games, your toughest opponent is going to be the house.

At 10% up to ₱300 the rake can be problematic, especially with a median stack size of 20 to 30 big blinds. This cost can be ameliorated somewhat by adopting a nitty preflop strategy. And the house does allow players to buy a maximum of  ₱10,000, so sometimes the games can get quite deep. Additionally, they have some promotional offerings, such as a leaderboard, free scratch and win tickets, high hand prizes, and a bad beat jackpot. They also have a progressive raffle draw which you enter just by being present. The monetary value of these offerings is mostly negligible, but the crowd there gets really into it. 

More appealing than these half baked promotional schemes are the Prime Poker dealers, who pitch cards with the speed and accuracy of a ninja throwing their shuriken. The vigor and competence of their team stands out starkly when compared to the lethargy and inexperience you find at competing rooms like Resorts World and Okada. Plus some of them are really cute.

and she's not even one of the hot ones

Also very attractive from the view point of the health conscious poker player is the no smoking policy of the club. They do have a dedicated smoking room, which the smokers invariably leave the door to open, but the size of venue and the filtration they have in place makes air quality a non issue. 

Keep in mind there is no ATM on the premises, or even nearby. If you have GCash, you can purchase chip via transfer but otherwise you should come prepared with plenty of cash, especially if you want to sample some of the higher stake action. The rake cap does increase with the blind level. 

Here is the typical Manila rake cap structure. Just like with the 25/50, the rake is a flat 10% up to the cap.

Limit Cap 

25/50	300
50/100	400
100/200	500
200/400	600

For your typical budget poker player, Prime is a very competitive option. The 25/50 rake is competitive with Okada and City of Dreams, and there are the promotional offerings as well. The games might not be quite as soft as they are at the resort casinos, but they are still very reasonable. The dealers keep things moving at a rapid pace, and you seldom wait long for a seat.