US Player Trying to Rebuild a Bankroll

Hey guys,

Quit for a long time when college got way too heavy for me to keep up with the poker hobby. My bankroll was up somewhere around $270 when I quit (after moving a chunk of it to Bodog and eventually withdrawing it), and I've loaned out about $250 over the past few years to friends (US players) who all eventually paid me back in cash.

I've grinded back up to $39 or so over the past week or so at 2nl FR.

However, my original venture into poker was a naive one. I think I was around 16, working at an ice cream parlor and put in $30 for fun. Played $1/$2 SH Limit and got up to $80-$90. Then I bought Super System and HoH and found FTR and stopped being silly.

Following the fact that I was naive, I didn't load up my Stars account with a bonus back in the day.

Anyway, I don't have any interest in depositing more money in this poker hobby of mine (I'm rather fond of the fact it was all built on the original $30 back in the day), but I am interested in building a bankroll. Standardized bankroll building says I need to be aiming to clear a bonus at all times while running with rakeback (rakeback is automatic on Stars I assume?).

As a US player, what are my options for either getting a bonus on Stars (already have an account) or somewhere else? How do I move the money? Neteller isn't an option anymore, right? Once I turn this $39 into $50, what can I do to move this bankroll to a bonus clearing, rakeback grind?

I kinda feel like it'd just be easier to stick with PokerStars and just keep doing the 2nl FR grind and move up to 5nl FR grind etc. and just forget the bonus option, but that seems -EV.

Thanks!

Yes. Free money is certainly +EV.

However if you are really opposed you could build up a decent roll (maybe 200 or whatever you need for 5NL). And then take that over to FullTilt for 100% deposit bonus and be sure to sign up for rakeback (before making acct.)

Realistically you won't get any vpps playing 2 NL (like .1 every now and then). Pots are rarely even raked. So I don't think you are missing out on much by grinding that out at stars for a bit and then moving it for a bigger deposit bonus at Fulltilt.

Also, no rakeback at stars. All in form of vpps --> fpps which really isn't worth much at low stakes either as you will be a bronze/silver star and don't get a good vpp to fpp bonus ratio.

Yeah, if you're looking to clear bonuses, work up to where you have enough to do a substantial bonus. Why use up a first deposit bonus with a $40 deposit when you could wait until you have $100 or $200 or $500 and really get a boost out of it? You can use other sites for their bonuses other than just stars and ft. FTR's section has a few other sites that accept US players. Then just move your balance to stars once you can be at a level where you'll gather VPPs/FPPs at a decent rate.
Another option for right now is that stars just had a reload bonus with SCOOP promo going on, not sure if that's over? When they do one like that it's only 20%, but hey, why not?