Bonus Whoring

[GoSeahawks]

Anybody know a step by step on bonus whoring poker servers? I heard there were like 5 sites good for a couple hundred a month. Any help on the subject would be great.

[KWhit]

Well, I know the Bunny Ranch in Carson City had a deal where your 5th girl was 10% off, but...

Oh, nevermind.

[TLK]

hxxp://www.bonuswhores.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4720

[MJ4H]

Anybody know a step by step on bonus whoring poker servers? I heard there were like 5 sites good for a couple hundred a month. Any help on the subject would be great.
hxxp://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1060198&page=3&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=14&fpart=1

[Subby]

Anybody know a step by step on bonus whoring poker servers? I heard there were like 5 sites good for a couple hundred a month. Any help on the subject would be great.
Those are good links that TLK and MJ4H offered. Read through all of that, but here is an executive summary of how to maximize bonus whoring:

1) Buy Pokertracker - this will help improve your game by leaps and bounds - not only does it help with analysis of your own game, but it keeps invaluable information on your opponents. You have to be a solid poker player to make bonuswhoring worth it - nothing sucks like clearing $3 of a $100 bonus because you couldn't stop spewing chips. You will make the $55 price back in a month. Also get either the gametime+ or playerview plugins to help you get a read on your opponents using all of your data.

2) Learn to multi-table: You need a monitor and videocard capable of 1600x1200 resolution. being able to four table maximizes your effort and on sites that give you play bonuses based on five table hours, you can clear a £25 bonus in 75 minutes.

3) Get a Neteller account: This is the e-Wallet of choice for all casinos and poker rooms. Many will cash out to neteller within a matter of minutes or hours.

4) Concentrate on the main sites: Crap sites like Full Tilt, ChecknRaise and Poker Mountain might give you massive $500 bonuses, but the clearing requirements for those are a pain in the ass and you will be playing forever to get the money. A good rule of thumb is that a doable bonus rarely requires 10x the bonus amount in raked hands.

5) Learn and love the Party network: There are 6 party poker skins - Party poker, Empire poker, Coral Eurobet, Multipoker, Pokernow and Intertops. These six sites share the same cardrooms and are home to the fishiest players on the Internet. You can get ~$400 in bonuses a month from the six combned and their clearance requirements are usually the easiest to satisfy.

6) Don't EVER do Refer-A-Friend bonuses - I wish I had known this way back when. The bonus amounts for these are horrible. You are much better off going through an affiliate like BonusWhores.com and getting your sign-up bonus. Let me repeat...Refer-a-Friend is horrid. Don't do it.

7) Learn and love the Cryptologic network: Interpoker, PokerPlex, William Hill, UKbetting, TotalBet and Caribbean Sun are worth ~$320 per month to your for about 12 real hours of play.

8) Read the Bonuswhores web site and the Internet forum at 2+2 every day to keep abreast of new bonus happenings.

And the blog I contribute to (below) also has a lot of casino and poker whoring info.

Good luck!

[Airhog]

Spoken like a true whore Subby!

[SoxWin]

WTF is bonus whoring?

[Franklinnoble]

WTF is bonus whoring?

It's when guys like Deion Sanders sign fat contracts, then retire or get themselves otherwise released, and then negotiate new deals with fat new signing bonuses on an annual basis.

[Franklinnoble]

Those are good links that TLK and MJ4H offered. Read through all of that, but here is an executive summary of how to maximize bonus whoring:

1) Buy Pokertracker - this will help improve your game by leaps and bounds - not only does it help with analysis of your own game, but it keeps invaluable information on your opponents. You have to be a solid poker player to make bonuswhoring worth it - nothing sucks like clearing $3 of a $100 bonus because you couldn't stop spewing chips. You will make the $55 price back in a month. Also get either the gametime+ or playerview plugins to help you get a read on your opponents using all of your data.

2) Learn to multi-table: You need a monitor and videocard capable of 1600x1200 resolution. being able to four table maximizes your effort and on sites that give you play bonuses based on five table hours, you can clear a £25 bonus in 75 minutes.

3) Get a Neteller account: This is the e-Wallet of choice for all casinos and poker rooms. Many will cash out to neteller within a matter of minutes or hours.

4) Concentrate on the main sites: Crap sites like Full Tilt, ChecknRaise and Poker Mountain might give you massive $500 bonuses, but the clearing requirements for those are a pain in the ass and you will be playing forever to get the money. A good rule of thumb is that a doable bonus rarely requires 10x the bonus amount in raked hands.

5) Learn and love the Party network: There are 6 party poker skins - Party poker, Empire poker, Coral Eurobet, Multipoker, Pokernow and Intertops. These six sites share the same cardrooms and are home to the fishiest players on the Internet. You can get ~$400 in bonuses a month from the six combned and their clearance requirements are usually the easiest to satisfy.

6) Don't EVER do Refer-A-Friend bonuses - I wish I had known this way back when. The bonus amounts for these are horrible. You are much better off going through an affiliate like BonusWhores.com and getting your sign-up bonus. Let me repeat...Refer-a-Friend is horrid. Don't do it.

7) Learn and love the Cryptologic network: Interpoker, PokerPlex, William Hill, UKbetting, TotalBet and Caribbean Sun are worth ~$320 per month to your for about 12 real hours of play.

8) Read the Bonuswhores web site and the Internet forum at 2+2 every day to keep abreast of new bonus happenings.

And the blog I contribute to (below) also has a lot of casino and poker whoring info.

Good luck!

Do you have a job?

[TLK]

Do you have a job?
If your a good whore.... you don't need a job....

[Subby]

Do you have a job?
Yes?

[Franklinnoble]

Yes?

How do you have time for all this? I read your impressive primer on whoring... and I think it would take me about 6 hours a day to do all that...

[GoSeahawks]

Thanks for all the info guys. Also, I downloaded poker tracker in the middle of last month. I honestly don't know how I ever played poker without it. I always thought I was a good player being tight, but didn't realize there was more to it. Since PT I have profited about 500% more than I did before. It's an unbelievable program and I reccomend it to anyone who I won't ever face.

[Subby]

How do you have time for all this? I read your impressive primer on whoring... and I think it would take me about 6 hours a day to do all that...It takes about 40 hours per month - so it's kind of like a part time job, in a way. You can make a minimum of $1,000 per month doing it, so its kind of like having a part time job that a) pays $25 per hour and b) is pants optional.

[Radii]

How do you have time for all this? I read your impressive primer on whoring... and I think it would take me about 6 hours a day to do all that...

I don't have the time for this that some do, but, I try to play 8 hours a week or so, some good weeks i get in more, some less, and I can easily earn $600 in bonuses that either boost my winnings or cushion my losses. I don't play on all the crazy sites subby does though :)

[Suicane75]

I wish I could start all over and do this step by step, I just dont feel like using aliases, as it is ive almost cleared my PS $120 bonus from like 3 months ago.

[TLK]

I wish I could start all over and do this step by step, I just dont feel like using aliases, as it is ive almost cleared my PS $120 bonus from like 3 months ago.
Why would you need to use aliases?

[Suicane75]

Why would you need to use aliases?

I didn't mean aliases per se, its just so hard to remember what site I signed up with, with what name and what email address that sometimes I'll go to one and not be able to remember what name, email addy, etc I used when I signed up.

I never ever use my real name when I sign up for a site, always a variation on my first/middle name, just feel more comfortable that way for some reason.

[Gary Gorski]

Subby - I downloaded the free trial of PT and I have a few questions. First, is there anywhere it just gives you an easy to see list of what success % you have overall with each hand pre-flop? I know I can see how many times I've played AQo from position x but is there some way I can see with one click how successful each hand has been regardless of position? Also, how do you feel it helps while playing? Do you like go to it and check things about players before you bet or something? Right now I just try to watch the table and get a feel for how each player plays but maybe that's because I only play 1 table at a time :)

Also maybe some of the poker guys here can give me some advice. I had a nice run in the 5+1 SnG's finishing three straight ITM with two 2nds and a 1st. But since then I've played four straight where I finished 5th or worse. I consistently find myself playing maybe too conservatively - it seems that by the time level 3 rolls around I've hardly played any hands and am maybe in 5th-6th place in terms of chips. Some people seem to win a big pot early and then barely play anything until towards the end. The tourneys I placed ITM it seems that people busted very early (like half the table was done by level 3). So in those games it was good for me to be conservative and sit out while the carnage was going on but the last few it seems there's alot of times where everyone just hangs around - they play alot of hands but it seems that each one of them will hit one of them every so often while my stack just gets blinded down or dwindles on a call or two that doesn't hit on the flop. I just can't bring myself to play things like 64o like some of these guys routinely do yet they seem to be able to hang around by doing so.

[Subby]

Subby - I downloaded the free trial of PT and I have a few questions. First, is there anywhere it just gives you an easy to see list of what success % you have overall with each hand pre-flop? I know I can see how many times I've played AQo from position x but is there some way I can see with one click how successful each hand has been regardless of position? I can only speak to ring play, since I don't use PT to track tourneys (it isn't real helpful in that regard, in my experience). For ring play, all of your starting hands are listed on the general tab - clicking on the filter button gives you a million and one options (e.g. only show hands where you put money in, only show suited connectors, etc.). However, your success rate is listed right there next to each starting hand in terms of winning pct., bb/hand, etc..

Here is a link to a nice Poker Tracker newbie guide (http://www.bet-the-pot.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=31&MMN_position=26:26) - one of the chapters focuses on plugging leaks and analyzing your starting hands (the author plays NL ring, but his approach is still valid).

Also, how do you feel it helps while playing? Do you like go to it and check things about players before you bet or something? Right now I just try to watch the table and get a feel for how each player plays but maybe that's because I only play 1 table at a time. GameTime+ (http://www.pokerdominion.com/) and PlayerView (http://www.playerview.net/) are both free programs that take advantage of Poker Tracker's auto-import and auto-rating features to overlay real time game data about each player on your poker client. I use GameTime+ and have instant information about players after a few orbits. As an example, let's say a player opens for a raise and I have AJo in middle position. If he is a total rock, then I probably muck this hand. If he is a maniac, I am re-raising here as it is likely I have the best hand so far. Without GameTime+, I might not have this information readily accessible and I may be making this decision blind.

On the Party network and at Ultimate Bet, you can actually "datamine", meaning you can download hand histories from games you just observe. That is a huge plus. For example, on the Party network you could observe up to 24 tables at once (6 sites x 4 tables each) and gain thousands of valuable hand histories after just a few hours. Then, when you go to sit down at a table, there is a good chance that you already have a good amount of data on many of the players already there.

In fact, I rarely sit down at a table "cold" anymore. I usually observe a table for 30 minutes, then sit down...that way I have at least 3 orbits worth of data on most of the players there.

One note about both - I know that GT+ doesn't support tourneys, not sure about Playerview.

Also maybe some of the poker guys here can give me some advice. I had a nice run in the 5+1 SnG's finishing three straight ITM with two 2nds and a 1st. But since then I've played four straight where I finished 5th or worse. I consistently find myself playing maybe too conservatively - it seems that by the time level 3 rolls around I've hardly played any hands and am maybe in 5th-6th place in terms of chips. Some people seem to win a big pot early and then barely play anything until towards the end. The tourneys I placed ITM it seems that people busted very early (like half the table was done by level 3). So in those games it was good for me to be conservative and sit out while the carnage was going on but the last few it seems there's alot of times where everyone just hangs around - they play alot of hands but it seems that each one of them will hit one of them every so often while my stack just gets blinded down or dwindles on a call or two that doesn't hit on the flop. I just can't bring myself to play things like 64o like some of these guys routinely do yet they seem to be able to hang around by doing so. Tight is right. Variance is a bitch and especially at the 5+1 level, you are going to have massive variance. If this is on Party, then the blind structure, combined with the starting stack size, combined with the skill level, combine to create an insane luck-fest. Over the long run, if you play solidly, you'll be fine. Short term, however...be prepared to lose ten in a row despite playing great. Sometimes you just aren't going to get cards.

A couple of things to remember:

1) When your stack is 10xBB or less, push or fold. Don't call.
2) Early on, try limping in with suited connectors like 76, 87, T9...it is nice to be able to see flops cheaply and these types of starting hands pay off handsomely when they hit.
3) The rake structure at party is horrible. A $1 fee for a $5 tourney means you are paying an arm and a leg just to play. Think of it in these terms - after a thousand of these, you have paid $1000 in fees for $50,000 prize pool. At the 10+1 level, where the play is pretty much the same, you would have paid the same in fees for double the prize pool. As soon as you can move up to 10+1, do it.

If you are unsure of some of your hands, use bisonbison's hand history converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi) and post them here for discussion or at the one table tourney forum at 2+2 (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=singletable). Also - I think I linked this the other day, but in case I didn't - this sit n go strategy guide (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=602767&page=&view=&sb=5&o=) is a good beginner's guide.

[Gary Gorski]

Thanks Subby - I read the SnG sg you linked for me the other day and that was helpful. I'm playing with such a small bankroll that I don't know if Im comfortable moving to the 10+1 and I don't play much ring - I did enough to get the bonus for my deposit but I like the tourney play especially since Im not reloading and going for more bonuses or anything.

I'll give your advice a shot on the 5+1 today - I think I need to be slightly more aggressive in the early level yet not to the point of stupidity like some of the players on there. (and yeah, its Party)