3. Your bankroll and how to get some extra $$
Bankroll and money management
It is very important to manage your money when you play online. To do this properly you should know what stakes you feel comfortable playing at and knowing the risks involved with playing for certain stakes. So you have to make a decision if you are going to try to make money at playing poker by playing correctly or if you just want to have fun. Luckily for the few professional players out there, most players play for fun. A good way to start out is by learning how to play Limit Texas Hold'em, as this is by far the most popular game played both online and offline. You should be aware that a beginning player can easily lose 30-50 big bets at one table during a few hours of online poker, even good players can lose this much if they are running unlucky. This equals losses of $60-$100 at a $1-$2 limit game, which is still considered low limit. Knowing this should help you accepting the unavoidable swings that take place in poker. Good professional poker players usually need a bank roll of at least 300 times the big bet, when playing Limit Texas Hold'em, in order to play comfortably over time.
How to maximize your bonuses
All online poker rooms are easily accessible for online players, which make competition among the rooms extremely high. To give bonuses to the players have therefore become really important and these deals should you as a player definitely take advantage from. The bonuses are usually made in a way that you as a first time depositor receive an extra bonus as a percentage of your deposit. For example, a maximum $250 bonus at 50% deposit match means that if you deposit $500 (where 50% of $500 is $250) you will receive $250 for free as an extra bonus in the account for a total balance of $750. There are always restrictions for how you will be able to use or cash out the bonus amount. Typically you have to play a certain number of "raked hands" in order to receive or cash out the bonus amount. This is to minimize the risk of abuse for the poker rooms, as they will get most or more than their bonus investment back in the form of rake before you receive the bonus money. Be aware of the risk of going broke before you have played the amount of raked hands needed to qualify for the bonus. In this case you would need to make another deposit to reach the requirement. Luckily many poker rooms either give you the bonus amount to play for right away or pay out the bonus dollars in increments as you earn them while playing.
These rooms has the best bonuses for PortalPoker.com visitors:
Full Tilt Poker
Ultimate Bet
PokerRoom
To decide whether an offer is good or not, you first have to think of how much money you are willing to deposit. For example, if a site offers a $250 bonus with a 50% match-up and another one offers a $100 bonus with a 60% match-up but you only plan to deposit $100, which one is the best for you? Well, the first offer gives you an actual bonus of $50 (50% of $100) and the second one gives you an actual bonus of $60 (60% of $100), so clearly the second one would be most beneficial for you.
So depending on whether your deposit is going to be small or big, the value of the offers varies.
As a standard, an offer of approximately $50 bonus with a 25% match-up is not very good and an offer of approximately $600 with a 100% match-up is very good. Obviously, the higher the bonus and match-up the better the offer is.
Sign-up at multiple rooms and gain benefits
Bonus deals are a great way to build your bankroll when you start out playing. The way to do this is by signing up at multiple sites and take advantage of more than one bonus deal at once. Basically you deposit money at one site and play until you receive the maximum bonus, then you can either cash out and move your money into a new site or leave it there and deposit more money at a new site. If you do this at something like 4-5 different sites it amounts to some serious money. Having accounts with multiple sites gives you many advantages than playing at just one site. For example, one site may offer great tournaments but not as good ring games etc, it gives you greater chances of using re-load bonus offers (read below), you can wait for tournaments with the best value, more chances of picking up good promotions, more free roll tournaments and all in all greater game selection. This way you will also get the opportunity to try out a few different sites and see which one you like the best.
Re-load bonuses are bonuses offered to players who already have an account at a certain site. They are usually set up in the same way as sign-up bonuses, with a set maximum bonus amount and a percentage match-up on the re-load. This means that if you deposit more money into your account you will receive a new bonus, but only when offered to do so.
Loyalty programs
Common ways to give some of the rake back to the players are through loyalty programs. These are set up in a way that the more you play, the more credit you as a customer gets. For example if you play at a level where you pay a lot of rake you will receive more points. Loyalty programs are usually a type of point program where you may use your points for buying into tournaments, satellites or buying poker merchandise.
Loyalty programs have low value in general, making promotions more interesting. But some sites are picking up on this and creating better loyalty programs. For example, Pacific Poker offers a money back program, where you can exchange your points into cash instead of having to buy merchandise or using your points as buy-in into tournaments. Also the Cryptologic network gives rakeback to the players through bonuses up to $90.
Some major players or persons who are marketing affiliates to a certain site can, in most cases, negotiate a "poker rakeback" program. This means that some of the cut is going back to the player or affiliate. For example, if you are a big affiliate (meaning that you marketing a site/sites) you can receive something like 20%-30% of the rake back from players that signed-up through the affiliate.
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