Building a Bankroll with FTR

While the micros are great for improving your game, they aren't great for winning money especially with rake being a much higher relative percentage than at higher stakes. Moving up sounds like an obvious thing to do, but it's easy to get stuck in a rut if you have to take money out your bankroll or go on a downswing. This thread aims to help you out by showing you where to get free and easy money to add to your bankroll, letting you move up quicker.

Signup Bonuses

Non-Americans

The best signup bonus out there at the moment in my opinion is Full Tilt Poker, although I'm sure others will disagree. The software is great, it's easy to hit the first couple of VIP levels, and you can deposit up to 3 times to reach the full $600 so you don't have to stump it all up at once.

The bonus clears at $0.04 per FTP earnt, and $1 of rake is 10 FTPs, so the bonus is effectively 40% rakeback. You'll get the VIP club and your points to spend on top of that

You can sign up through FTR here and we hope to bring you some exclusive tournaments in the near future too

Americans

Unfortunately, choice is far lower. Bovada offers a 100% up to $1,000 but it also rakes deposits at 4.9% and has anonymous tables. On the plus side, 5NL is the lowest stake so it tends to be softer than other sites.

America's Cardroom should be flat-out avoided for any micro/low stakes cash players at the moment. "The Beast" promo means massive, massive rake on all micro tables which have any traffic, and I'd be very surprised if the games were beatable. If you play higher and have a chance at the Beast, or play SNGs or tournaments, it's worth considering and has a 100% bonus up to $1,000. It's also (apparently) got very fast cashouts at the moment.

Lock is the third option worth considering for Americans. 200% bonus up to $4k is massive but the bonus clears at $5 for every $84 in rake paid which means it'll be pretty much impossible for micro stakes players to clear. That said, it clears at $5 for every $12 of tournament fees, making it a good option if you want to play tournaments. The big downside is that cashouts are taking a couple of months even for ROW players
edit: Lock are best avoided at the current time. Many people have reported waiting over 6 months to receive cashouts and are still waiting. Skrill stopped allowing deposits to Lock Poker because of the cashout problems.

FTR Tournaments

These are the best place to start. The requirement to be an active forum member puts "freetrollers" off, keeping field sizes small. The best options are Pokerstars $250 Monthly Added for non-US players and Bovada Monthly Special for US players. Find the monthly thread in FTR Exclusive Events to look at the details for this month's tournaments.

Often, you'll find that direct buyin tournaments at smaller sites are even better value. In December we ran some Ladbrokes tournaments with a €5 buyin with over €15 added per player for each of the 20 players. Add in a signup bonus and these sites can be easy money.

Promotions

Some promotions tend to be much more beneficial to micro/recreational players than others. Avoid rake races and hand races (hands played leaderboards) in pretty much all cases. Qualifying to small field freerolls is often a good option as many players can't be bothered/can't play tournaments, making them decent value. I'll do my best to keep this thread updated.

A good one at the moment is the Ladbrokes 4x£2.5k. Play 800+ hands this month at £10NL or £20NL and get access to 4 x £2.5k freerolls paying top 50 £50 each.. If you play these stakes anyway then it's free money and I can't imagine too many players will bother to qualify, plus the payout structure is nice and flat.

For Americans, Carbon has a big freeroll for anyone who earns 50 points before Jan 27th, over $25k in tournament tickets being given away.


Discussion

Please feel free to use this thread to disagree/agree with anything I've said or post promotions for other members to use which haven't been mentioned. Would appreciate more info on American sites as I don't play on any.