Playing poker online has numerous advantages, two of which are rakeback programs and bonuses. If you’re like me, you play too much poker. Until you fix whatever psychological ailment you may have, you might as well maximize your net by taking advantage of rake rebates and bonuses.

Rake rebates

My recent bonus whoring stint at Paradise Poker generated as much rake as profits. Okay, so it was a damn lousy run, and the fact that I was clearing a bonus would have made me ineligible for a rake rebate anyway, but it still illustrates how much better your bottom line would be with a rakeback of even 10%.

DuggleBogey has the scoop on rake rebates: “Everything you wanted to know about Rake Rebates and weren’t afraid to ask over and over and over and over and over.”

Bonuses

Before the mediocre run at Paradise, I had an even worse run at Empire. From what I’ve read, some of my fellow bonus chasers had the same lousy run, but not all. Maybe taking heed of their advice would have helped me get more out of the bonus. Sure, I’d still be clearing those bonuses, but that’s the point, right?

Sean has this to say on clearing bonuses: “I can sympathize with all of you that are having problems clearing the bonus, or where the bonus does not even make up for the money you lost trying to clear it. I used to be in that boat.”

ScurvyDog has a take on bonus whoring, too: “There are a few considerations to keep in mind in order to maximize the value of the bonus.”

Now I just need to find a clean computer to sign up for PokerNow via FrequentFlopper and start working on that new account bonus.

Usually rhymes with “junkie,” as in the case of the prolific use of the word “monkey” in Sound of a Suckout. If for whatever reason you read me and don’t read ScurvyDog’s ramblings, there’s something wrong with you, but happily, it’s treatable. Sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about your chlamydia.

Like most of the bloggers I enjoy reading, ScurvyDog’s style is full of personality and animation. He gets extra points for using the phrase “getting kicked in the junk” from time to time, which as you know, is particularly painful when you have chlamydia. Poor you.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This past weekend I spent some time with my good friend J who once expressed great surprise to learn that I was playing with Other People’s Money:

“From what I’ve read on your blog I thought you were losing tons of money!”

J has a habit of blowing things out of proportion, so now that he knows I’ve managed to grind out some wins here and there, he thinks I’m a great player. I asked him about a couple of his friends who also play poker at Party, and he said:

“Oh, so-and-so is pretty good, but nothing like you. They’re up and down in the red and black.”

I’ve been there. A few times. And while I take the game pretty seriously and think I know more than the average player, let me just say on the record that I am a very small-time beginning poker player who will never announce in this space that he is going pro.

Of course, what prompts this whole post is G-Rob’s musings at Up4Poker. I haven’t always shown a positive number (however small it may be) on the balance sheet, but until now I haven’t actually taken the time to line up all the rows and columns in my spreadsheet to figure out how low I sank, and when it all turned around.
Continue reading I’m not a professional poker player either →

Last night I had the option of paying $20 to see a friend of a friend of a friend’s independent 12 minute short or being dropped off at The Oaks for a chance to redeem myself for Thursday’s poor results. Not to be too results-oriented or anything, of course, but I figured if the game was that good at San Pablo (results notwithstanding), the game at the Oaks was sure to be as good or better. I was looking forward to playing some no limit at “One of Northern California’s oldest and largest card clubs.”

Sadly, there is no no limit hold’em at the Oaks.

An old Emeryville law regulating poker prohibits bets in excess of $200, which makes no limit poker games illegal, but allows bets in excess of $200 for games like Super Pan 9. Yeah, I’ve never heard of Super Pan 9 either, but I guess I’m not much of an Asian gambler.

With a couple hundred in my pocket and no chance to stack off against the denizens of the Oaks, I signed up for their 3/6 game, which combined the virtues of having a short waiting list, being somewhat affordable, and being less vulnerable to the effect of the drop. I really gotta get my bankroll up to a working level.

Over the course of four hours, I managed to keep the river beats down to an acceptable three, my calling down with a dominated hand down to a semi-acceptable one, and take down enough pots with the best hand to end the night with an extra 17.5 big bets in my pocket, making for an hourly rate of 4.4. Go me.

Spade flushes seemed to be the hand of the night, with no fewer than eight pots taken down by those pointy black devils. Happily, I managed to take more than my share of these large pots, with an ace high backdoor flush and a king high turned flush (an A or 9 would have given me the straight flush).

I also managed to get two big pocket pairs that held up. Kings unimproved in the first one or two orbits, and Jacks toward the end of the evening that flopped top set (a four straight on the river made me check behind, but still drag a large pot).

Actually, I take it back, the suited hammer was the hand of the night. One managed to get a full house on the river, one (which I folded) would have been the winning flush, and another was the winning flush. Needless to say, I folded the real hammer three times over the course of the night. No offense to Grubby, but that’s just a shitty hand. There was no real reason to raise with the hammer, win with it, and put the table on tilt; they were giving away plenty of money as it was. I think if I were to have stayed another couple hours, some pure bluffs with the hammer or other terrible hands probably would have been in order, since the last pot I won I dragged after betting the flop. If the phrase “even fish have eyes” hasn’t been copyrighted by anyone, I’m laying claim to it right here and now.

I’m still surprised at how often people will go to the showdown with nothing but Ace high or second pair or busted draws, but I’m still a relative newbie to live poker. Even the worst online tables don’t have this many calling stations. Those “short-handed” tables don’t count.

Afterwards, my friends told me the short was a terrible waste of time and money; knowing that makes tonight’s win even sweeter.

…but that’s been the state of Poker@Studioglyphic this past week. One would think that a change of scenery might mix things up enough to take a bit of the grind out of bonus-whoring, but no, clearing a Paradise bonus is as excruciating in Oakland as it is in LA. So far I’ve managed to keep my head above water, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about my last bonus-whoring experience at Empire, but there’s just no joy at the virtual tables.

I made my way out to Casino San Pablo Thursday night to check out the local action and try to win enough money to cover my airfare. San Pablo’s run by a landless Indian gaming tribe, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I know that tribal casinos aren’t necessarily subject to the same gaming laws as the card rooms, though they aren’t quite able to do the full Vegas-style casino either.

Sadly, there’s no roulette.

In fact, the only real difference I noticed was the fact that one could smoke anywhere inside the casino with the exception of the poker room. I grabbed a mug of coffee, had a cigarette, and put myself on the list for no limit.

San Pablo’s a pretty small place compared to the LA casinos, so they only had a regular table and a must-move table going. The main table had some pretty big stacks sitting in front of some of the guys. At first I thought this might be a problem. I imagined a table with 6 or 7 sharks devouring the buyins of the Moneymaker wannabes one at a time, but as I settled down at the must-move, I realized that all I needed to do was get a hand and someone would pay me off. Easier said than done:

glyphic: Couldn’t catch a damn flop on a seriously juicy table.
glyphic: How juicy? I raise to $20 and get four callers.
glyphic: Pots are regularly $80-100 on the flop
glyphic: People pushing whole trays of chips at each other.
HDouble: lol
glyphic: Damn. I hate being a bystander.

One guy rebought at least six times. He was a loose aggressive player who gave up at least two buyins to another guy who held cowboys at least half a dozen times throughout the evening. These cards held up every time but one.

In contrast, pocket queens was the best pair I had all night, with the rest being fives, fours, or twos. If I had big cards, the flop was coordinated rags or board pairs. If I had suited cards, the flop would be three of another suit. If I had small to medium connectors, the flop would be all broadway. When you keep limping with playable hands hoping to get in on the action, it doesn’t take too long to erode your stack.

I basically won three times in 6 hours: pocket queens, QJ on a jack-high flop, and AK on a king-high flop for my last hand of the night (I went all in for $46, chopped with an AK caller).

There was one hand that wiped out my first buy-in:

I flop two pair with A8 on a AJ8 board. The flop is checked all around. The turn is a T, and a guy in EP bets $20. I raise to $40. A guy in LP pushes. EP calls and I call for the rest of my stack, which amounts to $30 or so. EP’s A9 vs. my A8 vs. LP’s AJ. Oof. I don’t necessarily regret this hand, considering the size of my stack and the pot.

There were two hands I did regret:

I folded AQ on a 99X flop to a timid bet by the preflop raiser. I wanted to call, but I was irritated about missing yet another flop and decided to muck. The turn and river were aces.

On another hand, I folded KJ to a 3x raise. On this table, 5x raises were pretty standard and were almost always called by 3-4 people. I would have flopped top pair with a board pair out there to make me nervous. The action was checked to the button who made a small bet to represent trips trying to build the pot. It would have been an easy call and the turn would have given me kings full. Blah.

But these two hands probably would have made up the deficit from all my limping and possibly more. Once again I’m reminded that mistakes, even minor ones, can be very expensive.