Quick-Fix American Guide to Bonuses and Rakeback for Newbies

This is a quick guide I'm throwing together that falls under the same category as most of my threads: answering shit that I keep getting asked over and over again so that I can just link people. The topic is people who are starting off with a small bankroll that are new in Internet NLHE and want to make the most of their experience.

Step 1: Make a small deposit of at least $50 to PokerStars and get the deposit bonus detailed here: http://www.flopturnriver.com/reviews...PokerStars.php

Of the two major poker sites available to Americans, PokerStars has the smallest stakes No-Limit Hold'em (NLHE) tables which is where you're going to start off playing. The deposit bonus is 150% up to $75 (on $50 deposit) and requires ten times the bonus amount in VPPs to clear the bonus, and you have six months to do so. That means that if you deposit $50, your bonus will be for $75 and you'll need to earn 750 VPPs over the next six months to release the bonus, which isn't going to be hard to do. This bonus will take a while to clear, but since you'll barely be paying any rake at 2nl and 5nl, it's not such a big deal.

Step 2: Grind $0.01/0.02 and buy in with $2 instead of $5 until you get to $150.

It's important to buy in with $2 instead of $5 at $0.01/0.02 because you're going to want to get used to 100bb effective stacks, which is the industry standard at the moment. Much later on in your poker career as you grow as a player into mid-stakes and high-stakes you might want to learn how to short-stack NLHE and/or how to play with deeper stacks, but for know we want to concentrate on play with ~100bb effective stacks since that's what you'll be doing most of the time.

Step 3: Grind $0.02/0.05 and buy in with $5 (not $10) until you get to $300. Grind $0.05/0.10 until you get to $600.

Similar to step 2. Now you will occasionally be getting a VPP here or there, but you don't need to worry about it. You will clear more VPPs in a week of $0.10/0.25 than you will in the entire time you spend at all lower stakes combined, but you need to grind through the stakes to learn the basics and cultivate some patience, discipline, and self-control to make sure you'll succeed at larger stakes.

Step 4: If you haven't cleared your deposit bonus at PokerStars, play $0.10/0.25 until you do. Then, get rakeback (very, very, very important) and the deposit bonus at Full Tilt Poker and move your $600+ over there to play $0.10/0.25.

The rakeback and bonus will give you a considerable edge in building your bankroll at Full Tilt Poker while you play through low stakes.

Step 5: Once you get $1500, make the move up to $0.25/0.50, and once you get up to $3500-$4000, move on up to $0.50/1.00.

This is the part where you just move up through the stakes, improve at poker, and grind your ass off.

Step 6: Once you are playing enough volume at 50nl or 100nl or 200nl to consistently make Platinum Star VIP status on PokerStars and you have cleared the Full Tilt deposit bonus, move your bankroll back over to PokerStars.

Once you are playing this volume, the bonuses at PokerStars are similar in value to the rakeback you get at Full Tilt, but in the meantime you're able to work on achieving Supernova VIP status, which is much, much better than Full Tilt's rakeback.

Haha...a LOT easier said than done. Looks so ez when its written on paper like that.

Originally Posted by L_Clan_Sup3rMaN

Haha...a LOT easier said than done. Looks so ez when its written on paper like that.

If you could play 50k hands/month then you could do this in under a year easily. Then you''ll be able to sit down at a computer and make money whenever you want. That's a fun skill to have.

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

Yes you can get Rakeback and bonus. Go to any of the major rakeback providers (search here, or google) and you should be good. I'm using raketherake and have been just fine with it. Just do some short reading about what they offer. One of the sites I was choosing did a thing where they rounded off the amount of rakeback you get and put the remainder into a freeroll tourney. That was no good for me b/c I don't play that much and sometimes all my rakeback would be taken away for that week.

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

If you already have an account that does not have rakeback, then you can't get rakeback. It doesn't matter if you haven't deposited.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by L_Clan_Sup3rMaN

Haha...a LOT easier said than done. Looks so ez when its written on paper like that.

If you could play 50k hands/month then you could do this in under a year easily. Then you''ll be able to sit down at a computer and make money whenever you want. That's a fun skill to have.

Someone that CAN do this under a year shouldn't be doing this. 50k hands a month? Someone starting to play .01/.02 n learning the game etc and trying to move up etc, cant b multi-tabling like a maniac, getting 50k hands a month and still expect their game skill to go up. Think they are better off doing 2 tables or so. More tables is gonna equal losing more money.

fwiw, L_Clan_Sup3rMan, I only started out on PS in mid April with a $50 deposit. On June 3rd I had $320 in my account and transitioned to cash (10nl) from SNGs. July 4th I started 25nl with $700 BR. July 29th I started 50nl with $1500 BR. Right now I'm sitting on ~$2100. So it is fairly achievable and if you put forth any decent amount of effort you will be able to do this is well under a year imo. I'm fairly sure I will be at 200nl by April or so next year, and I expect to make platinum either this month or next for sure.

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

fwiw, L_Clan_Sup3rMan, I only started out on PS in mid April with a $50 deposit. On June 3rd I had $320 in my account and transitioned to cash (10nl) from SNGs. July 4th I started 25nl with $700 BR. July 29th I started 50nl with $1500 BR. Right now I'm sitting on ~$2100. So it is fairly achievable and if you put forth any decent amount of effort you will be able to do this is well under a year imo. I'm fairly sure I will be at 200nl by April or so next year, and I expect to make platinum either this month or next for sure.

How many hands have you played total / per month to do this?

Originally Posted by TonyB73

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

fwiw, L_Clan_Sup3rMan, I only started out on PS in mid April with a $50 deposit. On June 3rd I had $320 in my account and transitioned to cash (10nl) from SNGs. July 4th I started 25nl with $700 BR. July 29th I started 50nl with $1500 BR. Right now I'm sitting on ~$2100. So it is fairly achievable and if you put forth any decent amount of effort you will be able to do this is well under a year imo. I'm fairly sure I will be at 200nl by April or so next year, and I expect to make platinum either this month or next for sure.

How many hands have you played total / per month to do this?

I don't know how many SNGs it took to get to $320, and I didn't have PT then anyways. But once I got to 10nl (BR $320) I put in 38k hands at 6.24ptbb/100 to get to 25nl. I moved up to 25nl 3 times before I stayed. I tried once when my roll was $500, then again at $580 and failed misterably both times. Moved up finally when roll was $700 and stayed. After getting to 25nl I played 32k at 3.94ptbb/100 before moving up to 50nl ($1500 BR, which is a little conservative).

Right now after 16k hands at 50nl at 3.48ptbb/100 I'm up $556 with a BR of $2150. So I have around 80k hands in my PT Database going from $320BR to $2100, in a matter of a little over 2 months. Keep in mind this is including RakeBack, which I get from grinding the 210fpp satellites on PS worth $11 per win (made about $160ish last month on RB alone and have round $100 this month already).

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

fwiw, L_Clan_Sup3rMan, I only started out on PS in mid April with a $50 deposit. On June 3rd I had $320 in my account and transitioned to cash (10nl) from SNGs. July 4th I started 25nl with $700 BR. July 29th I started 50nl with $1500 BR. Right now I'm sitting on ~$2100. So it is fairly achievable and if you put forth any decent amount of effort you will be able to do this is well under a year imo. I'm fairly sure I will be at 200nl by April or so next year, and I expect to make platinum either this month or next for sure.

Gratz on your achievement. To pull off something like that in about 2 months or so, you need to have certain poker skills you already have developed prior to doing this. Either that or you have an incredible learning curve.

It's completely possible for players who already know what they are doing to pull this off in a year (going from super micro to constant platinum). I was referring to total noobs who just started, as most people who start for the first time online are. Sure there are exceptions to that who have a strong live background n can do great online right off the bat, but thats not the case for most.

I just think a noobie trying to improve his game is better off not doing 40k hands a month but rather doing a lot less than that and spending the rest of the time studying/thinking on how he can improve and trying to implant that into his game.

Thanks Spoon, that's the exact info I was looking for.

Originally Posted by L_Clan_Sup3rMaN

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

fwiw, L_Clan_Sup3rMan, I only started out on PS in mid April with a $50 deposit. On June 3rd I had $320 in my account and transitioned to cash (10nl) from SNGs. July 4th I started 25nl with $700 BR. July 29th I started 50nl with $1500 BR. Right now I'm sitting on ~$2100. So it is fairly achievable and if you put forth any decent amount of effort you will be able to do this is well under a year imo. I'm fairly sure I will be at 200nl by April or so next year, and I expect to make platinum either this month or next for sure.

Gratz on your achievement. To pull off something like that in about 2 months or so, you need to have certain poker skills you already have developed prior to doing this. Either that or you have an incredible learning curve.

It's completely possible for players who already know what they are doing to pull this off in a year (going from super micro to constant platinum). I was referring to total noobs who just started, as most people who start for the first time online are. Sure there are exceptions to that who have a strong live background n can do great online right off the bat, but thats not the case for most.

I just think a noobie trying to improve his game is better off not doing 40k hands a month but rather doing a lot less than that and spending the rest of the time studying/thinking on how he can improve and trying to implant that into his game.

First off, 10k hands/week is nothing, even if you're like 4-6 tabling, which is fine for new players playing full ring, for example. Even 4-tabling 6-max would make this pretty easy imo, leaving plenty of time for pure study. Also keep in mind that I'm saying an average of 50k hands/month over the course of a year. Obviously you're not going to start off playing 50k/hands month in your first month of poker, but by the 12th you will probably be playing more if you're putting in the effort required to improve during that whole year. And really the 50k hands/month thing is arbitrary -- I'd say the minimum would be 30k hands/month.

This is also taking into consideration the fact that you're probably a losing player when you start playing 2nl. By the time you move up to the next level, you should have put forth enough effort at the level before that you will be +EV at that level. The difference in skill required to beat different micro and low stake levels is not very high.

To pull off something like that in about 2 months or so, you need to have certain poker skills you already have developed prior to doing this. Either that or you have an incredible learning curve.

It's really easy to write off people who come up through micro and low stakes quickly as "already being good" or whatever other excuse you could come up with, but the fact is people like Stacks have worked for it and put in the time and effort required to get better. Like you said, "someone that CAN do this under a year shouldn't be doing this," is just an excuse to yourself so that you have a reason not to put forth the effort required.

Learning to beat something like 50nl/100nl/200nl full ring isn't a damn college degree that requires years of work to achieve, and the sooner people like you start to realize that, the quicker you'll be able to rival the money you will make in a job with poker. It doesn't take "an incredible learning curve" to do, not to undermine the progress Stacks has made, but he's really just one of the few new people who actually do the things we tell everyone to do to get better instead of bitching and arguing every chance they get or making excuses about how other people can do this shit and they cannot.

Originally Posted by Wndllll

Thanks Spoon, that's the exact info I was looking for.

No problem. I get asked this a lot so I figured I'd go ahead and write it out.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

If you already have an account that does not have rakeback, then you can't get rakeback. It doesn't matter if you haven't deposited.

That's not true anymore. As long as your account isn't already tagged to an affiliate that doesn't offer rakeback then you can get rb through the affiliate that FTP owns.

Originally Posted by pankfish

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

If you already have an account that does not have rakeback, then you can't get rakeback. It doesn't matter if you haven't deposited.

That's not true anymore. As long as your account isn't already tagged to an affiliate that doesn't offer rakeback then you can get rb through the affiliate that FTP owns.

hUh?!?!
ok now I'm super confused... I was thinking of just creating a new account but now I dunno...

Ya know, instead of pissin' and moanin' about the OP, you guys should be thanking Spoon for laying it for you. If you apply yourself, poker really is this easy. "Oh boo-hoo, it will take me a year to build up a bankroll." Well holy fucking chris ferguson. I just spent nearly my entire bankroll from the past few years on a new house. And now I'm back down playing $10 BI games and playing maybe 2500 hands per month. Do ya hear me bitchin?!

Poker is not about getting one big pay day as fast you as you can and then livin' it up. Everyone's impatient attitude towards poker is what lined my pockets for the past two years. If you want to make money with this game, follow this guide. It's simple and to the point and best of all you're getting FREE money with your RB and bonuses.

The only thing I would add is that once you get your FTP $600 bonus, start experimenting with variations other than hold'em. It will only make you an all-around better poker player as well as better hold'em player. Plus, you'll then have enough BR to fuck around in the micros learning new games.

Now beat it.

Originally Posted by pankfish

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

If you already have an account that does not have rakeback, then you can't get rakeback. It doesn't matter if you haven't deposited.

That's not true anymore. As long as your account isn't already tagged to an affiliate that doesn't offer rakeback then you can get rb through the affiliate that FTP owns.

Now that's pretty damn cool.

Originally Posted by pankfish

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

If you already have an account that does not have rakeback, then you can't get rakeback. It doesn't matter if you haven't deposited.

That's not true anymore. As long as your account isn't already tagged to an affiliate that doesn't offer rakeback then you can get rb through the affiliate that FTP owns.

Ok I'm a little confused. So I've been playing at FT for several months now and would like to start getting RB. When I signed up I believe I did so directly through FT. I did get a bonus on my initial $100 deposit which I have received. So how would I then go about getting RB? I know you guys have answered these questions a million times but I would really appreciate it the help!

That means that if you deposit $50, your bonus will be for $750 and you'll need to earn 750 VPPs over the next six months to release the bonus, which isn't going to be hard to do. This bonus will take a while to clear, but since you'll barely be paying any rake at 2nl and 5nl, it's not such a big deal.

Im confused. how do u get a bonus of 750 when u deposit 50?

it's a $50 bonus, just a typo

ic thank you.
i was like wahhhh why am i not getting more bonus!!
i wish i started on ps rather than ft
i did the opposite. bad bad....
hmm... any recommendations for 1 more US site that offers rakeback and bonus?

Originally Posted by TheRedEyeJedi13

hmm... any recommendations for 1 more US site that offers rakeback and bonus?

Bodog has 110% deposit bonus, with 10% immediately available for play. They have thier own rakeback in the form on Poker Points, where you can conver to cash once you have 500. 100 points = $1.

Originally Posted by HarleyGuy13

Originally Posted by pankfish

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by xptboy

I got a question:
I got 720$ in my PS BR, I'm interested in moving to FTP,
I have an account but have not deposited anything on it yet, is it possible to get the bonus AND rakeback? if so how?

(links to sites would be useful)
thx for advice btw

If you already have an account that does not have rakeback, then you can't get rakeback. It doesn't matter if you haven't deposited.

That's not true anymore. As long as your account isn't already tagged to an affiliate that doesn't offer rakeback then you can get rb through the affiliate that FTP owns.

Ok I'm a little confused. So I've been playing at FT for several months now and would like to start getting RB. When I signed up I believe I did so directly through FT. I did get a bonus on my initial $100 deposit which I have received. So how would I then go about getting RB? I know you guys have answered these questions a million times but I would really appreciate it the help!

What do I need to do then in order to starting getting RB? Does RB have anything to do with deposits or just the # of ranked pots?

Originally Posted by iopq

it's a $50 bonus, just a typo

For a $50 deposit it's a $75 bonus, but I corrected the typo.

Originally Posted by kb coolman

Originally Posted by TheRedEyeJedi13

hmm... any recommendations for 1 more US site that offers rakeback and bonus?

Bodog has 110% deposit bonus, with 10% immediately available for play. They have thier own rakeback in the form on Poker Points, where you can conver to cash once you have 500. 100 points = $1.

Yeah, and good luck ever getting a cash out.

Yea, so I've heard. I haven't needed to get it yet, but I know the delays are horrid. I've not talked to anyone who said they couldn't get their money. It just took about 2 months.

I plan to leave my BR out there until I'm up to about $1500 or so, then move it all over to Stars or Full Tilt.

Originally Posted by kb coolman

Yea, so I've heard. I haven't needed to get it yet, but I know the delays are horrid. I've not talked to anyone who said they couldn't get their money. It just took about 2 months.

I plan to leave my BR out there until I'm up to about $1500 or so, then move it all over to Stars or Full Tilt.

Waiting that long to get your money isn't worth a little bit of a bonus. I'd get my roll onto Full Tilt or Stars ASAP.

I'm on Pokerstars and have built my roll up to the necessary $600 to get the FTP bonus, but which rakeback site do you guys recommend? They all seem to offer 27% rakeback, so does anyone have any suggestions? Rakeback.org good? Can you use any of the rakeback links on FTR? I'm only slightly confused.

Raketherake is supposed to be pretty good but I don't have experience with them.

i use rakeback pros and it is pretty good.

Raketracker is goot, too.

raketherake has been good when I've used them.

Somebody please help my dumbass! Do I just pick a rakeback site and sign up? Does it have to be a site that I am not currently using? I play at FullTilt now is it possible to get rakeback even though I already play there?

Originally Posted by XxStacksxX

fwiw, L_Clan_Sup3rMan, I only started out on PS in mid April with a $50 deposit. On June 3rd I had $320 in my account and transitioned to cash (10nl) from SNGs. July 4th I started 25nl with $700 BR. July 29th I started 50nl with $1500 BR. Right now I'm sitting on ~$2100. So it is fairly achievable and if you put forth any decent amount of effort you will be able to do this is well under a year imo. I'm fairly sure I will be at 200nl by April or so next year, and I expect to make platinum either this month or next for sure.

yeah similar here. I started with a $50 deposit and now im sitting on $1000! Its way faster than i expected.

I don't know how many SNGs it took to get to $320, and I didn't have PT then anyways. But once I got to 10nl (BR $320) I put in 38k hands at 6.24ptbb/100 to get to 25nl. I moved up to 25nl 3 times before I stayed. I tried once when my roll was $500, then again at $580 and failed misterably both times. Moved up finally when roll was $700 and stayed. After getting to 25nl I played 32k at 3.94ptbb/100 before moving up to 50nl ($1500 BR, which is a little conservative).

Right now after 16k hands at 50nl at 3.48ptbb/100 I'm up $556 with a BR of $2150. So I have around 80k hands in my PT Database going from $320BR to $2100, in a matter of a little over 2 months. Keep in mind this is including RakeBack, which I get from grinding the 210fpp satellites on PS worth $11 per win (made about $160ish last month on RB alone and have round $100 this month already).[/quote]
[b]
Would somebody please explain what these numbers are and what their significants are??

ptbb/100 is a reference to limit poker, and is PT(poker tracker) BB (big bet, 2xBB) per 100 hands. Its a way to measure your win rate. The goal is 3ptBB/100. At 10NL, it woudl be .60 in winnings per 100 hands, 1.50 at $25NL, and so on.

So just to clarify regarding FTP, I created an account on there a while back to play in an FTR freeroll. I signed up using the link provided by FTR and entered FLOPTURNRIVER as my referral code. Does this mean I cannot get rakeback without getting a new username?

I am just now above $600 for the second time (had to make a withdrawal some time ago), and once I clear my $150 reload bonus, I'll likely be moving my money over to FTP for the reasons outlined in this thread.

Thanks for putting this together .

Spoon, I have just finished reading through this whole thread, and first off want to thank you again for your patience with us newbies and learning folks, we are all benefitting from your knowledge sharing.

I believe I have missed out though by just jumping in to PS and FTP, I did get the $50 bonus on PS with the 500 FPPs, but have no rackeback. It is my impression from the various posts here and the others that because I already have an account, even if the FTP account is unaffiliated, I may not be able to achieve any rakeback. I'm going to research it and post up my results for those who have similar questions, I'll be back in touch with this thread when I find out what I can find out.

Originally Posted by Monty3038

Spoon, I have just finished reading through this whole thread, and first off want to thank you again for your patience with us newbies and learning folks, we are all benefitting from your knowledge sharing.

I believe I have missed out though by just jumping in to PS and FTP, I did get the $50 bonus on PS with the 500 FPPs, but have no rackeback. It is my impression from the various posts here and the others that because I already have an account, even if the FTP account is unaffiliated, I may not be able to achieve any rakeback. I'm going to research it and post up my results for those who have similar questions, I'll be back in touch with this thread when I find out what I can find out.

Hi Everyone, I have found that on www.raketherake.com it appears they MAY be able to attach to your previously existing account on FTP and get you rakeback, but it is very dependent on how you signed up. I am presently completing the process, which they say could take up to 5 days to complete, to see if I can qualify. If I do I will update you on my progress.

Monty

After attempting to get rakeback through raketherake.com, I have not yet found a way for someone already playing cash through FTP to achieve rakeback without closing your account and re-opening a new account with new information (which is seriously frowned upon).

The process mentioned in raketherake failed apparently, as I received no notice of qualifying and their website has not emailed me.

Originally Posted by Monty3038

After attempting to get rakeback through raketherake.com, I have not yet found a way for someone already playing cash through FTP to achieve rakeback without closing your account and re-opening a new account with new information (which is seriously frowned upon).

The process mentioned in raketherake failed apparently, as I received no notice of qualifying and their website has not emailed me.

Here's the process as I've been told:

-Tell FTP you want Rakeback but have an account
-They send you and e-mail they're thinking of a way to do it or something like that, then they put your name on a list
-Every month the ppl on that list are allowed to get RB through RakebackPros.
-Sign up through RBP and get RB.

I haven't done this yet but will attempting it in a month or so. I can post feedback if needed.

hehe i don't post much here anymore but I had to come back for this. Just hit supernova a couple days ago following all these steps . Feels very cool coming back and reading this again because I saw this thread when I was just starting at 2nl and was like "I want to go to there"

Only took ~3 years... ez

Wow! Congratulations chat!

I think you were grinding 10nl and just moving up to 25 when I first showed up. Good work man.