During the start of the year, promising new heroes emerged, and the year was young for them to take their game to a higher level.

There were International poker events were held in the capital of Manila. But rumors of a growing pandemic was spreading.

At first, most people were ignoring it, but the rumors persisted. Until the president of the Philippines declared the country would go into a lockdown to curb the disease.

A few days became a month. A month became another. Even now, the Philippines is still imposing quarantine measures, and the number of people affected by the disease is still growing. Although restriction has been eased. There is still no word when can poker rooms resume operation like normal.

So how are the players doing? Here is an interview with one of the those players.

Jason Ambata

Jason Ambata was doing good during the early part of the year. He was winning and was on the top of the Philippines GPI. A humble man and generally a very nice person. He was very motivated to gain the top spot.

But time has changed, and we asked him how he coped during the pandemic.

What was your first reaction during the news of the lockdown?

“At first, I thought it would be temporary, So I did not really take it seriously, and I was starting to be active online anyway. I treated it like a temporary vacation but was actively playing online on a poker site.”

Was it hard to transition from live to online?

“I actually learn to play poker online. I started with Zynga and then transferred to online. I never really left playing online as I gained sponsorship to play online. I just became more focused when the lockdown happened.”

Did you find it easy to win?

“to be honest, no. During the lockdown, there were also a lot of good players that started playing online more as well. It was not as easy but it took some time to figure out who is who. Once I figured it out, I slowly learn how to play them.”

How your game lately?

I started playing on a new site just recently. they held a 300k event with a relatively small buy-in. I won there and played some cash games. The cash games are soft so from 11 USD I was able to gain 400 USD last week. It only took me 4 days to win it. I am now actively played there now and it’s a nice site to play.

Rumors are buzzing after they canceled the other 300k tournaments. are you still confident with the site.

All sites have problems during the start. Even one of the big networks recently had to postpone an event due to some technical issues.  They are new but knowing the owners they assured me the tournaments will be back soon.

Are you confident with the site?

They actually have a great marketing person working with them. which has not made his move yet. I am close with that person and he loves to do things that have not to be done by other poker sites. Definitely, there will be a lot of surprises coming out very soon. they already contacted me on some stuff but I can not announced yet. I think they will announced it next week. so stay tuned guys.

Would like to invite them to the site?

“I am inviting poker players who want to play online to join me by clicking here. I help you with cash in and cash out and will offer tips to improve your game! there a lot of bonus coming in soon.”