GamingClub

The Gaming Club totally rocks. Wouldn't play anywhere else.

A few weeks ago The Gaming Club changed their definition of a raked hand, making their "up to $300 deposit" much more attractive. If you make a deposit of at least $20, then $20 of bonus is released for every 100 hands you were dealt cards in, that were raked at least 25 cents. You have 30 days to earn the bonus. I decided to try to earn the $300 with a minimum $20 deposit. It turns out my biggest obstacle was boredom. 1500 raked hands at .50/1.00 Limit Hold Em, is quite a grind. In my first session I had a bad run of cards, and quit down $12.00. Things did not look good for my experiment as my "bankroll" at TGC was down to $8.00. I switched to .25/.50 cent limit to avoid busting out, but now only very large pots were raked enough to get credit. As soon as I cleared the first bonus, I moved back up to .50/1.00. When I had $80.00, I started playing 2 tables at a time. At $120.00 went to three tables, and 4 tables at $160.00. I usually sit down with 40 big bets at limit. Then things began going much faster of course. Last night, up against my 30 day deadline, I quit procrastinating and played a marathon session to finish the bonus off. Here are my totals. Total Time: 27 Hrs. Total Bonus: $300.00 Total Bonus/ Hr.: $11.11 Total Game winnings: 138.74 Win Rate/ Hr: $5.10 Grand Total Return/ Hr.: $16.21 BB/ Hr. (per table: 2.5) 4 Table rates: Bonus earned while playing 4 tables: $240.00 Hrs. Spent playing 4 tables: 8 Bonus earn rate at 4 tables: $30.00/hr. Game earn rate at 4 tables: $8.00/hr. (I avg 2.00 BB/hr/Table on 4 tables) Total earn rate: $38.00/hr. If you want to get this bonus, and play Limit. I recommend depositing enough to play whatever your max number of tables is. I could have worked this bonus off in 12 hrs. that way. Of course the $30/hr in bonus more than made up for the 1/2 BB/hr I was giving up on each table, by playing so many.

The Interface for the Gaming Club is kind of colorful. One of the drawbacks with the interface is the fact that there are no avatars. Another problem is that the connection to the tables is somewhat slow. It is not uncommon to click on a table that is listed as 8/10 or 9/10 only to find it full when you finally get through. At the time of this writing the action was medium. There were more players than at PacificPoker or Absolute Poker but many less players than at PartyPoker/EmpirePoker. The technical support is listed as 24/7. I never had to use it. The ease of game is kind of hard to measure. I didn't think the players were all that good but I was not able to capitalize on it. The bonus is for .25/.50 tables and up only. Tournament does not count towards the bonus. The bonus is paid out somewhat slowly. Overall I rate this room as average in just about every major category.