A good friend of mine bought some fighters through the social media web sites FaceBook. You can certainly make friends and do business! In this case my friend pays and someone delivers the goods. The goods are fighters from Ipoh, Malaysia. The sellers are all over the internet for long, having their web sites and actively selling in the forum and now they are using the social media platform to make friends to those who are looking for fighters! They are the same people in different dress and in our words" Change of soups but no change in the medicine." In this time and age it is easy to part your hard earn money, and curiosity kills a cat, and the product is just a click away and the seller is a now a "FRIEND" so why not?

He gave me 2 fighters on the eve of CNY, he then gave me another 2 more from a new batch 2 weeks later and this time I paid him. Just don't know if it could cover the cost as he gave me a cheap price. He was beaming with confidence with these fighters from his new FRIEND in FaceBook. We will soon know how good.

Malaysian fighters have been around for a long time and players have maintained good relations with the breeders and the results are plain for all to see. The traditional way of buying from the breeders is through pooling. A few players would form a group and pool their money and buy in bulk. These groups initially are few, but with fewer locations suitable for Singapore breeders to breed good fighters, more players started the switch to Malaysian breeders and buying in bulk in groups gives local players greater buyer bargaining power. The players would ask for new spawns for testing before confirming their purchases. If the breeders can provide them with reliable fighters, the fishes would come in regularly and with them new spawns for testing and are free of charge too.The breeders in return gets a steady income and a help to clear their stocks. But of course the relationship are not all smooth sailing and in business things can happen. It is common for players to blame breeders for bad fishes and breeders claiming players did not pay. It is part and parcel that their relationships have it's up and down, but with the prices going up in SGD while the Ringgit is coming down, it is still a sellers' market for the Malaysian breeders in my opinion. With things not going well for the breeders here, you can bet the situation will only get worse.

KS is a local player, a retiree who owns a betta breeding facility in Seletar Farmway(Jalan Kayu).
He does it the traditional way, by fighting, so every generation of his fishes are bred on fighting results.
He fights his fishes and also shares his fishes but for a price.
No Internet, no emails and no FaceBook, just old simple ways of proofing his fighters at the arenas and see for yourself.

KS complains about the bad air and dust around his farm. The government is building like mad in the north eastern part of the country for homes to the people, and KS's farm is surrounded by land used to stock pile granite dust and sands for the construction works nearby. His fishes must have suffered fom the bad air and with bad environment, you can never raise good fighters and rightly so, witnessing him fought 3 and lost all of them! and that says a lot about our fishes going forward.

By the way last update in 2017 and KS had given up breeding bettas due to ill health. Many of the breeders rent spaces cheaply from old and unproductive ornamental fish farms and plant nurseries, and with the glory days of ornamental fish farming long gone and leases expiring, many such farms has decided to close instead of continuing with the bussiness. As of 2018 there are fewer breeders say compared to 15 years ago, and as breeding spaces are being squeezed out, betta numbers dwindling, more players are going for imports from outside the country then ever before. Yes WTF!(Welcome To FaceBook!), and this could be what players could depend on for their future successes and who knows! and good luck!

With things like FaceBook you can befriend a reseller or breeders in no time and hopefully good fighters are availabe but with no gaurantees(who could?). One need not form a group to pool money to buy in bulk but could buy few and as individual buyers. Many players do still believe in buying in bulk as they could buy the entire spawn and if the spawn is good it won't be available to people outside the group, so it seem. But when you are far away in another country, the breeders may not listen. Nevertheless the buying by individuals are not a new phenomenal, buying fighters from the internet has always been like that. It is afterall a new way to sell fighters(Using Facebook) and the sellers have it covered.

Of the 4 fighters from my friend I brought one to arena two Fridays ago. It was from the 2 fishes that came on the eve of CNY, the other one fell ill and was discarded.

I arrived after most players had already started to fight their fishes. LC the player who's family owned a ornamental fish farm approached me to match with his fish. A good friend encouraged me to match with other players and not LC and said his fish was "strong and healthy". To me it was a hint that he had got much better fighters. My fish weighed in at 1.87g and many others also had fishes in such a weight range but why not they matched with LC? It was obvious many sees him as "Favourites" for the night and avoided him, besides LC was looking for larger bets too. I soon realised that he got good results in the morning at K arena and won against LH's Malaysian fish. LH had learnt his lesson and refused to match LC tonight, not until a player pool in money to get him to fight. LC was very confident and eager to fight my fish and I chose his smaller fish weighing 0.01g lighter then mine to match. In the arena the more eager you want to match, the less leverage you will have in finding a match, I have finally learnt the finer points of matching my fighters! Take ADVANTAGE!

LC breeds and raises his own fighters, known not much for his quality but respected for his ability to train them well. His fighters are well known for their good stamina and strong heart, his fighters are known to keep fighting till the end then to surrender. But I remembered his fighters were destroyed by a player(a Mr.L) the last time I was at this arena, so LC may not be that good after all, my opinion only.

The match started well for LC, his fighter hit hard and penetrated my fish's scales. I could see much loss of scales on my fish's body and damages to the lower part of the mouth after some mouth locks. My fish was breathing heavily during mouth locks and was the quicker and more aggressive of the two. Players all agreed that LC's fish was at the advantage and it was a question of whether my fish would quit, thinking that a fish which was more aggressive and quick and is unable to do damage is just not good and against a fish with superior heart, a win was unthinkable. I went to the nearest canteen for some snacks and drinks and to pee. (Arena toilet was under repair) After a can of Soya drink and a pork bun, I came back thinking my fish would be in dire straits. But the situation was not the case, somehow LC's fish had gotten slower still and injuries from the neck to the stomach was visible. My fighter had turned the table according to AL. From that point on, my fish was at the advantage but winning was another story. LC now wanted to know more about my fish, suspecting I got my fish from so and so and the speculation went on as he approached players for answers. He would never know because I didn't get them the traditional way as I belonged to no group, buying from the internet as a individual buyer can certainly be anonymous.

I like LC, a friendly 60 something who has loads of experience in the game and more importantly he called me "Young Man"! We talked a lot about everything and had a good time. LC fought 3 fish and all drawn, but suffered the worst from mine!

My fish is long and thin but a good fighter nevertheless. After the game and on the way to the car park, PKS's buddy Mr.A told me I had a good fish(not once), and I told him it was a draw and nothing outstanding. To him winning LC is never easy(maybe impossible for me to win) and for giving his fish a hard time is already good work and that's a compliment not to me but more to LC(he beleives LC is a good trainer despite me having the superior fish). LC after all has been around for a long time and has established his reputation and not this "Young Man".

My friend who passed me the fish did reasonably well with this family, winning some and lost some, but overall still a good and reliable fish from his "Friend" in FaceBook and little wonder he has new batches coming again!

I still have 2 more fighters from him and we shall see.

Photos taken a week after fight, almost scratch free now! No medication was given, but plenty of food and rest.

email: redhillbetta@yahoo.com.sg