First Full Tilt Deposit

In anticipation of my upcoming Christmas break when I'll have more time than normal to play poker, I am about to deposit on Full Tilt for the first time with Rakeback signing up via RakeTheRake and hopefully take full advantage of the $600 first time deposit. I plan to use eChecks and heard that you can only do up to $100 on your first one, but Full Tilt support told me I could still make more qualifying deposits within the time frame to complete the bonus.

I'd like to know if anyone knows how long it will take that first deposit to clear and if there are any restrictions on the amount of subsequent deposits? Will I have any issues with my bank trying to make this deposit? Is there anything I need to know about RakeTheRake when signing up for rakeback other than the instructions they detail about removing cookies and following their link?

Lastly, how do the full ring games @ $100NL and $50NL @ Full Tilt compare to the same games @ Stars? @ $50NL full ring on Stars, I am a 5.62 bb/100 or 2.81 ptBB/100 over 71k hands and currently a 9bb/100 or 4.5 ptBB/100 across ~10k hands. Are the Full Tilt games tougher, softer, the same? Do they have the same number of players and games, more, or less?

About how long would the bonus take to clear at $50NL or $100NL playing 6 tables?

I feel like I have one shot to get this right, so I want to make sure I don't make any mistakes and have contingency plans if needed.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Somebody may need to check my ciphering:

I play 10NL hands with avg pot of >$1. Assume all pots are $1
Rake at FTP is $0.15/dollar at 10NL with no rake if there's no flop
Bonus is one point/(dollar of rake)
It will take 6.6 hands for every dollar of rake.
Bonus is $0.06/point and you get one point per dollar of rake
So I get $0.06/(dollar of rake)
So every 6.6 hands I get $0.06 or 110 hands/dollar
It will take me 66k hands to get my $600 Bonus at FTP. I have 4 months to play 66k hands or 16,500 hands per month. If only half the hands see a flop then I need 33k hands per month. That's why table selection is so critical.

Assuming $1 pot, at 25NL I only need 5 hands per dollar of rake so I need 83 hands per dollar. So I'll need about 50k hands

At 50NL rake is $1/dollar with max at $3 so for every $3 rake you get $0.18 and you will only need 3333 hands to get your $600.

I can't imagine 3K hands = $600 bonus being accurate. I can't remember how many hands it was from a few months back but it was certainly more than that.

Originally Posted by Illfavor

I can't imagine 3K hands = $600 bonus being accurate. I can't remember how many hands it was from a few months back but it was certainly more than that.

That's assuming max rake for each hand.

I don't understand $1/dollar rake (this is according to FTP's website). How does that work?

My calculations for # hands to clear the $600 bonus:

10NL - 150K
25NL - 65-70K
50NL - 40K
100NL - 30K

These are pretty rough estimates based on my own playing stats, but should give you a good starting point.

Ok wait a minute I am confused. FT gave me a $300 bonus. It clears at $0.06 per FTP (std?) It will release in $20/333.33FTP's or 5k ftp's. If I move enough over to play $50NL/$100NL how long will this take? 20K/15K according to TonyB. Is this right?

Lastly, what is the deal with these bonus's, do they effect RB an should I bother with them?

Originally Posted by jyms

Ok wait a minute I am confused. FT gave me a $300 bonus. It clears at $0.06 per FTP (std?) It will release in $20/333.33FTP's or 5k ftp's. If I move enough over to play $50NL/$100NL how long will this take? 20K/15K according to TonyB. Is this right?

Lastly, what is the deal with these bonus's, do they effect RB an should I bother with them?

$0.06/FTP is the clear rate for all FTP bonuses that I have ever seen.
Bonuses vs rakeback on FTP is pretty simple - bonuses are deducted from MGR. Say, for example, you rake $1000 while clearing $200 in bonus, your rakeback will be calculated on $1000-$200 = $800. So you miss out on $54 in rakeback cos of the bonus, but this is more than compensated for by bonus $200>>>$54 rakeback.

I don't have data for 6-max, sorry about that. But 5k ftps isn't that many. You earn one point for every $ in rake taken from the table. So however many hands it takes for $5k in rake to be taken. At 6-max this means your dealt rake is (assuming full tables) $833, you can look at your own data to figure out how many hands this is likely to take. You can also see that these bonuses clear at a better rakeback equivalent playing full ring (5000/9 = 555ish, vs 833)
Hope this helps some.

I've generated about 12k ftps (excluding happy hour add-ons) this month so far, in around 24k hands at 100nl. Hope that helps some.

Thanks for the replies. I'm still a little foggy on the details. Would anyone mind detailing each step, term, and roughly how to figure out all the variables you'd need to know and the equation so you can roughly calculate times? If I play on PokerStars, what data do I need to extract to try to approximate clear times @ FullTilt? Once, average pot sized was mentioned, but I don't see anywhere in HEM to find tht stat.

Originally Posted by Jason

Thanks for the replies. I'm still a little foggy on the details. Would anyone mind detailing each step, term, and roughly how to figure out all the variables you'd need to know and the equation so you can roughly calculate times? If I play on PokerStars, what data do I need to extract to try to approximate clear times @ FullTilt? Once, average pot sized was mentioned, but I don't see anywhere in HEM to find tht stat.

I would love this, I am looking for someone to do a Full Tilt thread on par with Spoons Stars VPP thread to sticky here. If anyone would like to start a Full Tilt thread please do, I will sticky it once I think there is enough info for players to make choices.

Originally Posted by Jason

Thanks for the replies. I'm still a little foggy on the details. Would anyone mind detailing each step, term, and roughly how to figure out all the variables you'd need to know and the equation so you can roughly calculate times? If I play on PokerStars, what data do I need to extract to try to approximate clear times @ FullTilt? Once, average pot sized was mentioned, but I don't see anywhere in HEM to find tht stat.

here's a way to get a rough approximation in HEM (I think there used to be a rake/hand stat but it's gone now? that would be easy enough to build in if you cared to get things exact).

I'm tired, let me know if I've made a dumb error somewhere and I'll edit to fix:

1) get a decent sample size at your stakes
2) add "rake" to the report on this sample size (green + button in HEM, choose rake)
3) divide rake by number of hands in the sample - giving YOUR share of the rake/hand played.
4) multiply the number in 3 by 6 (if you play 6-max), or by 9 (if you play full ring). Call this x.
5) x is the average rake taken from the table/hand. You get one point for every $ in rake taken from the table.
6) you need 16 points for every $ in bonus.
7) so Hands required = 16*bonus amount * 1/x

I think.

I'm undertaking this Full Tilt journey mainly to have better table selection and also to get the $600 bonus, but how worth it is it to get the bonus if some or all of it is taken from your rakeback?

Also, does the rakeback money automatically show up in my FullTilt account?

How long after signing up should it take for my affiliate to "connect" with me?

I have to hand it to PokerStars, their VIP program makes it very tempting to NOT play at other sites. Even with a day job, I think I can clear the bonus and maintain Platinum, but there definitely isn't a lot of room to NOT play at Stars if you want to maintain your VIP status and early indications are that PokerStars has much better software. The way notes in particular are handled on Stars seems so much better.

If I can make a little over platinum each month, I can make Super-Nova which is equivalent to full-tilt's rakeback I'm told.

On the other hand, I just feel like if I ever want to be a professional poker player, I really need to have money on both sites and have optimal table selection choices.

Originally Posted by Jason

how worth it is it to get the bonus if some or all of it is taken from your rakeback?

the bonus is taken out of your MGR. So the amount that the rakeback % is calculated against reduces. Explained more thoroughly a couple of posts back in my blog.

Originally Posted by Jason

Also, does the rakeback money automatically show up in my FullTilt account?How long after signing up should it take for my affiliate to "connect" with me?

depends on the affiliate you sign up through. Get a referral from someone to the rakeback affiliate too = costs you nothing and more money stays in the poker player pool. I'm with RTR and from memory I e-mailed them to say that I'd signed up via their link. They confirmed with the site and all good. You have some selection of payment method, mine simply turns up in my FT account at the end of every week.

Originally Posted by Jason

early indications are that PokerStars has much better software. The way notes in particular are handled on Stars seems so much better.

apples vs oranges. I prefer FT software, others prefer stars. The notes on stars tilt me to death, maybe i need to teamviewer someone taking notes there. FT had colour coding for notes etc about a year before stars.

Originally Posted by Jason

If I can make a little over platinum each month, I can make Super-Nova which is equivalent to full-tilt's rakeback I'm told.

yeah, i think it's similar. Ask someone like spoon in irc if you want the details.

Thanks for the replies.

Wow, I can't believe it, but I think I actually pulled this off ... at least the initial steps I was worried about. I signed up for rakeback to Full Tilt and was actually able to deposit money via eChecks on the first try with no hassles. My affiliate sent me an email confirming that they "connected" with me and I see a rakeback balance. I've been playing $25NL with my meager 4BI until I can make another eCheck deposit, but in the meantime, I am up a buy-in, have cleared $10 of my bonus, and today the deduction for the $100 deposit showed up in my bank statement. Hopefully I'll be able to make the other qualifying deposits with equally no hassle and play $50NL, $100NL, $25NL, or wherever I need to be profitable and clear the bonus most efficiently and profitably.

I'm still not sure if it's worth it to do this but possibly having an extra $600 plus potential profits, having money on another site for more table selection, and to be on a site with rakeback can't be all bad.

So, I emailed Full Tilt about my first deposit and they said I even though I could only deposit $100 initially via eChecks, that I could still deposit more later to get the full $600 to try to clear the full amount. Yesterday I deposited more, but my bonus through the Full Tilt software is still showing the original $100. I expected it to expand to show $400 since I did $300 more.

Does anyone know when and if it will show the extra deposits? If I don't see it show up soon or after I clear my first $100, I'll email them, but unfortunately my last email took a week before I got a response.

Always reply to the email they sent saying they would, reminding them that you have deposited more. I would wait untilthe full $600 is in though so your not hounding them.

Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I'll wait until I've cleared the first $100, got the other $200 in, and then reply to the original email if there's still no sign that I'm set-up to keep clearing the full $600.

Just finished clearing the $600 FTP bonus last week (3 1/2 Months, started 9/1):

~50k hands @ 25 NL FR
~5k hands @ 50NL FR
27% Rakeback

Hope that helps!

Grrr ... finished clearing the initial $100 and the other $500 that I deposited after the first $100 because of the eCheck limit didn't show up next. I emailed support and I have documentation saying I could do the entire bonus, but I have to wait for them to respond. I've played some hands and wonder if they'll retrofit my rake credits for clearing the bonus in the future. Oh well ...