I'm taking the plunge into real cash money games.

[Ricarus]

OK so I'm 90% certain that I'm going to make a small (20$) initial deposit on full tilt. I do OK with the play chips, I make small but steady increments in the "BR" but i've got a couple nervous Nelly questions.

So from what I can see of the legal side, Banks are banned from making transactions with these online poker rooms but individuals are not. Has anyone ever had any issues taking a cash out check to a brick and mortar bank for deposit? Is this even a reasonable worry?

I've read through a lot of the beginners articles and some of the beginner forum, while some of the lingo and the hand histories seem a little eso-teric I think i'm getting the hang of it. So with the 40$ (20$ + fulltilt match, if I read things right), i'm gonna try my hand at the .05/.10 NL tables. So I guess the 2nd part isn't really a question, more of a wish me luck on not letting myself get tilted after a bad beat and just a general introduction!

[AdamThePirate]

no, with your $40 you should try your hand at the $2NL (.01/.02) tables.

You have 4 buy-ins for $10NL, a bad spout of variance could eliminate that in no time.

You have 20 buy-ins for $2NL, which at that level should be more than enough to learn about the fundamentals of poker.

[XTR1000]

Im also fairly confident that you wont get those 100% match up up front, u have to generate a certain amount of rake/full tilt points in order to convert bonus$ to real $. Clearing $20 at 2nl will take a million years, so dont count on that money

[daviddem]

Yes that is correct, with $20, count on starting with 10 buy-in for 2NL, which, strictly speaking is not really enough if high variance is encountered (read this: http://www.flopturnriver.com/Bankrol...ement-101.html).

Expect much more resistance at the cash money games than at the play money, even at these low stakes.

You will clear $0.06 of your bonus for each Full Tilt Point you earn, and the bonus will be released in 10% increments of your initial deposit. So to release $2 of your bonus, you need to earn 33.33 FTP. You earn 1 FTP for each $1 raked by Full Tilt from a pot in which you were involved (I think that "involved" means that you need to see the flop, somebody correct me if I am wrong). The rake is typically 6.6% at the low stakes, so if you play a $2 pot in which you saw the flop, Full Tilt will rake $0.132 from the pot and you will earn 0.132 FTP (and so will the other players who saw this flop, no matter how much they contributed to the final pot)

Finally, you should definitely and absolutely open your real money account through a (serious) rakeback provider such as raketherake.com. This will mean that for your entire life you will recover 27% of the rake. If you did not open your play money account through raketherake, then you should either contact raketherake to see if they can still "attach" your account to their system, and if not you should open another account with a different user name, different email address, different everything to make it difficult for Full Tilt to catch you. Go to the raketherake website and follow the instructions on how to open your account through them. You should leave your play money account inactive from that point on.

If you will use raketherake, please get a referral from another raketherake user (like me), as the referrer can earn some money in it (PM me if you want me to refer you )

Finally, note that you do not earn Full Tilt Points on the rake that you are recovering from raketherake (but you should still do it, because it is for life, whereas the bonus is only for now). Also, the extra Full Tilt Points you earn during Happy Hours do (generally) NOT count towards clearing your bonus.

[Ricarus]

Ahhhh ok, so thats what the Rakeback thingie is. Hehe I'm a noob. Alright then well i'm clearly not ready, back to the research.

EDIT:
So wait...what would Full Tilt do if they "caught" me making a new account? Would I lose the rakeback account? Would I then be a pariah and should never return to Full tilt?

[Jason]

If possible, I would recommend trying to find a friend who already has money on FullTilt and pay him money to transfer $20 to you. If you do it that way, I think you can build that bankroll up and if you move up through the stakes and prove to be a winner, you can later deposit $600 and play at levels to get the full bonus. You only get one chance at that bonus, so it would be to your advantage to try to get it, but it's not going to happen depositing $20 @ the lower stakes for sure.

You DEFINITELY want rakeback. I wouldn't even recommend playing @ FullTilt without it.

I did a bunch of research on all this stuff recently - read my thread "First Full Ti1t Deposit". In short, I recommend RakeTheRake for rakeback but you probably couldn't go wrong with Raketracker either. If you choose RakeTheRake and don't already have a referral send me a private message about being my referral if you don't already have one.

Everything else should be in that thread and there are probably other threads floating around, too. Good luck.

[Ricarus]

Ok, so if I made my account through Flopturnriver, would it already have that tagged to the account and thus not be able to apply Raketherake to it? I feel like I might have screwed up here somewhere.

[daviddem]

So wait...what would Full Tilt do if they "caught" me making a new account? Would I lose the Rakeback account? Would I then be a pariah and should never return to Full Tilt?

They might close one account or both. Anyway, it could be trouble. Your best bet is to contact raketherake. If you never played for real money on your play money account, they might well be able to attach your account. Try that first.

By the way, did I mention that if you don't have a referrer for raketherake, I would be happy to be yours?

Ok, so if I made my account through Flopturnriver, would it already have that tagged to the account and thus not be able to apply Raketherake to it? I feel like I might have screwed up here somewhere.

Maybe it is not irremediably tagged if you never played real money or earned real money in freerolls or such. Again, contact raketherake to find out. Otherwise take the route of creating a new account and drop your play money account.

Yes I would say it is a bit unfortunate that FTR offers to open your account on Full Tilt without offering rakeback...

[grindinginnj]

you can contact full tilt and tell them u want rakebak and they will refer u to rakebackpros 27% from them too

[Ricarus]

So wait...what would Full Tilt do if they "caught" me making a new account? Would I lose the Rakeback account? Would I then be a pariah and should never return to Full Tilt?

They might close one account or both. Anyway, it could be trouble. Your best bet is to contact raketherake. If you never played for real money on your play money account, they might well be able to attach your account. Try that first.

By the way, did I mention that if you don't have a referrer for raketherake, I would be happy to be yours?

Ok, so if I made my account through Flopturnriver, would it already have that tagged to the account and thus not be able to apply Raketherake to it? I feel like I might have screwed up here somewhere.

Maybe it is not irremediably tagged if you never played real money or earned real money in freerolls or such. Again, contact raketherake to find out. Otherwise take the route of creating a new account and drop your play money account.

Yes I would say it is a bit unfortunate that FTR offers to open your account on Full Tilt without offering rakeback...

You've been really helpful and I would love a refferal to Raketherake. I really want to get in on this so whatever I gotta do to make a serious go I will. Lemme just get in touch with Full tilt and Rake the rake and lemme see what I can do with either of my two play accounts...OI......

[daviddem]

OK cool, thanks. If you PM me your email address, I will send you the referral link.

You only need to contact raketherake. They will contact Full Tilt themselves to try and sort you out.

By the way, I made a mistake in what I said above: even if you fold before the flop, you still get Full Tilt Points, as long as you put money in the pot. However, in the case where the hand terminates before the flop (all fold to a preflop raise, or all fold to the big blind) then Full Tilt does not rake anything from the pot and so nobody gets points.

[daviddem]

There is actually a specific page on the raketherake site where you can request your account to be retagged. Not sure I am allowed to post the link here so I sent it to you by PM.

[Ricarus]

OK cool, thanks. If you PM me your email address, I will send you the referral link.

You only need to contact raketherake. They will contact Full Tilt themselves to try and sort you out.

By the way, I made a mistake in what I said above: even if you fold before the flop, you still get Full Tilt Points, as long as you put money in the pot. However, in the case where the hand terminates before the flop (all fold to a preflop raise, or all fold to the big blind) then Full Tilt does not rake anything from the pot and so nobody gets points.

Well I have to get to 10 posts before I can PM and stuff. Raketherake already said NO to what was going to be my real money account, the first one is about 6 months old and by their own rules it won't be eligible either. Is it a mistake to contact FullTilt and ask them to close those accounts or anything like that? I feel like i'm falling into holes in the ground that I wasn't aware of and before I make EVEN THE SMALLEST of deposits, I want to be sure I have everything in order.

On the rakeback, so if I have this right. The 100% matching for signing up is given over time as you hand over money in the rake in some crazy small portion. This is seperate from the money you would be getting back in the form of a rakeback? Man I'm a college grad and this stuff is more esoteric than Heidegger.

[daviddem]

You could try and contact Full Tilt to ask them, but be sure to do that from an email address you are not already using with them or will not use in the future, in case they will be hard asses about it.

On the other hand it may be better just not to attract too much attention on your case and just do it the sneaky way. As long as you are not actually frauding by having two real money accounts, I think there is little chance that you will have problems.

Tell you what I have done because I did not know better at the time. I have opened another account for real money, and I have not had problems so far, even though I still log in to the play money account from time to time. But if you don't want to take chances, just stop logging into your play money account (at least from the same IP address you use for the real money account) and remove your details like address and phone number from the play money account. When you open the real money account via raketherake, use a different email address and put in your real details (address, phone number, name, etc). There is very little chance you will ever have problems. I think most people who have problems are the ones who have several real money accounts, although I have read somewhere people having problems because they had separate play money and real money accounts.

[daviddem]

On the Rakeback, so if I have this right. The 100% matching for signing up is given over time as you hand over money in the rake in some crazy small portion. This is seperate from the money you would be getting back in the form of a Rakeback? Man I'm a college grad and this stuff is more esoteric than Heidegger.

It is even more complicated than that, because on Full Tilt, what you earn in bonus is deducted from your rakeback, so you can end up with "negative" rakeback. This does not mean that you owe them money, but that they will stop paying you rakeback until you rakeback gets back into the green...

Indeed this is crazy complex. See the raketherake FAQ specific to Full Tilt: http://www.raketherake.com/faq/?acti...&cat_id=006021
See also this thread on twoplustwo: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...9-post2083939/

At the end of the day, it means that you are still making money with rakeback, and there is still an interest to clear the bonus, but it is slower than you think. You should still go for the bonus AND the rakeback.

As for me, I have deposited $50, and I play 2NL and $1 Sit'n go. I don't have time to play a lot, and I hope to clear $10 of the whole bonus in the allocated 4 months. Obviously, the higher the stakes the faster you clear the bonus, but also the more chance you have to loose a lot of money fast... You should not play beyond your bankroll capabilities and your skills just to try to clear the bonus.

I am off now, will be back online in 12 hours.

Cheers,
David

[Ricarus]

Alright well, we'll see if Fulltilt paints me a fraud and if it does, I might check pokerstars. I dunno, again, as soon as I can PM i'm more than happy to send an e-mail out to get a refferal for Raketherake. This is number 7. Time to go find three other topics I can make minimal replies to.

[Ricarus]

All right, Thanks again David. So at the moment I don't have any real info on either of those two full tilt accounts of mine. I'm not going to log in to either of them again and I've reset my IP, cookies and the like. I've set up a new e-mail address exclusively for online poker and I'll have sent you a PM shortly for that referral for raketherake (as soon as I can under forum rules). Well while I haven't even used play chips today at least progress was made.

[Keith]

I thought asking for referrals was prohibited under the forum conditions. OP think laterally . are you married , brothers sisters parents etc . see if they want to register and getthem to refer you and get them give you the referer money so that get to keep all of the rake money thats going rather than give it to a stranger for evermore who you don't know.

[daviddem]

Apologies if it was forbidden, I did not know about it. I've seen it done in many other posts.

Rich, if you feel like doing it with a member of your family or friend to get the money back yourself, I don't mind. This person will have to open a raketherake and Full Tilt account and make a deposit. Then he/she can transfer the deposit to you via Full Tilt cashier, and also transfer the referral money to you every week or month, also via Full Tilt cashier.

Note however that an inactive account that is transferring all of the money in it to you *might* be seen as suspicious / multi-accounting by Full Tilt. I can't say for sure.

I was not trying to screw you.

David

[ScionOfOona]

If your going to make a deposit on full tilt for cash games, you need to deposit at least $40 because a good bankroll management rule is 20x the buyin to eliminate bad variance sending you broke quick. Also, you definitley need rakeback, which is where they pay you 27% of the rake back to you. I use BeatTheRake org for this.

[Ricarus]

Apologies if it was forbidden, I did not know about it. I've seen it done in many other posts.

Rich, if you feel like doing it with a member of your family or friend to get the money back yourself, I don't mind. This person will have to open a raketherake and Full Tilt account and make a deposit. Then he/she can transfer the deposit to you via Full Tilt cashier, and also transfer the referral money to you every week or month, also via Full Tilt cashier.

Note however that an inactive account that is transferring all of the money in it to you *might* be seen as suspicious / multi-accounting by Full Tilt. I can't say for sure.

I was not trying to screw you.

David

I didn't think you were, from what it looked like the referrer got something extra raketherake that wasn't a deduction from what would have been mine. And yes I am aware of what I must deposit to play at even the lowest of stakes. I would like to be able to deposit more but my family already thinks I'm crazy to be even considering this, so getting a referral for/from myself isn't really an option either. Could someone clarify how the referral program works then at Raketherake?

[celtic123]

i think , If you google rakeback, and sift through their site,, there will be a FAQ that explains the benefits of referrals,etc-+

[oskar]

Did not read all comments. Maybe it has been said.
Do not start out on Full Tilt - wait till you have ~$1500+ in profit and are playing 50NL+, and then move 600 over to FT and clear the bonus. It's fairly easy to clear at 50NL, but a pain in the ass below that. - that might seem like a long way away for you, but it might not be. - especially since you're starting in the lol-xmas season.

Start on stars - deposit the minimum and play the lowest possible stakes imo... it's better not to get tempted to play higher than you should.

[Robb]

Did not read all comments. Maybe it has been said.
Do not start out on Full Tilt - wait till you have ~$1500+ in profit and are playing 50NL+, and then move 600 over to FT and clear the bonus. It's fairly easy to clear at 50NL, but a pain in the ass below that. - that might seem like a long way away for you, but it might not be. - especially since you're starting in the lol-xmas season.

Start on stars - deposit the minimum and play the lowest possible stakes imo... it's better not to get tempted to play higher than you should.

Stars has a $600 first deposit bonus, too, which is next-to-impossible to clear below 50nl in this lifetime (or in the time Starz gives you, which is way less). Why not go for one of those smaller sites with rakeback and a bonus if you've only got a few bucks to invest? Also, are you sure you can't scrape together $75 or $100? It's SO much easier to build a roll if you have a decent start.