Best Low Limit Poker Sites

When it comes to building your online poker bankroll you have to start somewhere and usually that somewhere is the low limit tables at an online poker room.  Every online poker offers low limit tables, but only the biggest rooms have enough players to fill the higher limits.  But this means that when you are playing at the lower levels you can basically choose from any online poker room.  And in general it is better to play at the smaller rooms that only offer the lower limits until you build a big enough bankroll to move rooms.  This is because generally the smaller rooms have more casual and fishy players who are just there for the freerolls or the bonuses.  I also suggest playing at online poker rooms that branch of from well known online sportsbooks.  This way you get all of the sports bettors and gamblers who may not be poker regulars, but enjoy gambling and being in the action.  This post should help players at the lower limits find the best poker site for low limit players to start building their online poker bankrolls.

BetOnline.com

Bet Online is primarily known as an online sports betting site, but the have made a strong move into the poker world in the last year.  The low limit tables fill up easily and from what I’ve heard the competition is very weak.  Bet Online is also one of the few remaining online poker rooms that still accepts US players, so if you are an American they are one of your only options.  Visit BetOnline.com now…

PKR.com

PKR is another solid low limit poker room that has fairly weak competition.  PKR does have a sportsbook, but as the name suggests, it is primarily and online poker room and the majority of people who signed up for the site did so to play online poker.  If you have any familiarity with PKR at all you will know it is a 3D poker room that acts a lot like a video game, with characters showing emotions at the tables with a lot of fun options and actions you can do.  My theory is that the players at PKR are there more for the fun and the excitement of the video game like atmosphere, than actually winning the poker games.  PKR is a great place to start building your online poker bankroll at the lower limits as long as you can stay focused on the poker and don’t get too distracted by all of the bells and whistles.  Visit PKR now to start playing…

These two poker rooms are great examples of things to look for in a low limit room.  There has to be reasons for fish to be at the low limit tables and in these cases BetOnline.com’s reason is the sportsbook players moving over to the poker room, while PKR’s reason is the video game like atmosphere for players just looking to have fun.  Another popular reason would be the amount of freerolls held on the site (more freerolls generally translates to more fish).  Understand why fish are at the low limit poker tables and try hard not to become one of them!

The Fishiest Poker Site For US Players

I’ve been reading a lot of forum threads recently about easy/soft poker rooms that still accept US players.  The consensus seems to be that BetOnline.com is by far the fishiest poker room online.  As with many online poker rooms that stem off from a busy sportsbook there are a lot of players on the site who are only there to get their gambling fix, while waiting for some better action to bet on at the sportsbook.  The poker players at Bet Online are almost all newbies and you won’t find many professionals simply because the site is still relatively unknown to online poker players and the limits aren’t high enough.

Why Is BetOnline Fisher than Other Poker Rooms Associated with Sportsbooks

The reason that Bet Online is fishy, while the sportsbooks associated with other top bookies like Bookmaker.eu, Sports Interaction, Bet365 or 5Dimes.com are not as easy is because Bet Online set up their own online poker network.  This means that all of the players sitting at your table online are from Bet Online.  This is in contrast to many other sportsbooks, where the poker rooms are on a large network such as the iPoker network, where there are many high quality poker players already playing.  At Bet Online it’s almost all fish who are new to poker and are trying it out because they are already signed up at Bet Online.

BetOnline.com

BetOnline has grown tremendously over the past year and is now known as one of the best places for American sports bettors and poker players.  BetOnline is one of only a few gambling sites that have remained available to the US public and this has allowed the poker room to reach a size where there are many games to choose from and a decent variety of cash game stakes.  Bet Online is a great site, with a solid reputation, where you should feel comfortable playing poker and having money online.

Bet Online Poker Bonus

BetOnline rewards loyalty in their bonus structure rather than just trying to find new players.  Every single deposit you make at BetOnline.com over the course of your online poker playing at the site will receive a 25% matching bonus.  There is a minimum deposit of $50 to qualify for this promotion and it is important to note that credit card deposits only qualify for a 15% bonus.  The maximum bonus per deposit is $900 and there is a 6-time rollover requirement with each bonus.  This means that you must wager the deposit 6 times in order to be able to cash out the bonus.  On top of this matching percentage you also receive 200 promo bucks for every $50 that you deposit.  These promo bucks can then be used to enter any of BetOnline.com’s guaranteed tournaments!

Read a full BetOnline review at SportsBetListings.com.

Big Weekly Online Poker Tournaments

I really enjoy playing multi-table online poker tournaments.  The more entrants and the bigger the prize the better.  This post will look at some of the biggest weekly tournaments hosted at some of the best online poker sites.  I make some of these tournaments part of my weekly schedule and if you enjoy these type of tourneys I suggest you do the same.

Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt is my favourite poker room to play large multi-table poker tournaments.  Full Tilt offers great tournaments all week long, but there are a few each week that I thoroughly enjoy and hate to miss.

$200k Double Deuce

This tourney takes place every Sunday at 4:22pm EST.  There is $200,000 guaranteed and the buy-in is only $20 + $2!  First prize is at least $30,000 every week, which is quite the return on a little $20 investment (150000% return).  The $200k prize pool implies that around 10,000 players will enter.

$750K Sunday Guaranteed

$750,000 is up for grabs every Sunday at 5pm EST.  The buy-in for this event is $200 + $16 and there are many ways to enter this tourney without paying the buy-in (satellites, Full Tilt Points, etc.)  This week the prize pool is being doubled to $1.5M so March 6 is as good a time as any to win this tournament.

The Sunday Brawl

Here is another fun big money tournament at Full Tilt Poker.  Play begins at 2pm EST every Sunday.  The buy-in is $200 + $16 and $40 from every buy-in becomes a bounty on the players head.  The remaining amount goes to the prize pool, with $350k guaranteed every week.  If you happen to get the most knockouts you will also gain a free entry to next weeks Brawl.

Poker Stars

Sunday Million

This is the largest weekly tournament anywhere online.  $1M guaranteed every Sunday with the tourney starting at 4pm EST and the buy-in $215.  This is the biggest and baddest online poker tournament you can play.  To make matters even crazier this coming Sunday, PokerStars is making the prize pool $5,000,000 and guaranteeing $1,000,000 to the winner of the big event, plus the champion will bring home a Lamborghini Gallorado LP560-4!  Definitely check that out if you can.  Winning $1M from an online tournament sounds good to me.

Final Word

Full Tilt and PokerStars have some of the biggest and best weekly online poker tournaments available to players.  If you are looking for poker sites with the best mtt tournaments look no further than these two industry giants.  The PokerStars Sunday Million this coming week is going to be huge and I suggest everyone check it out!

Easy Poker Sites

The quality of players you are seated against will have a huge effect on the size of your bankroll at the end of an online poker session.  For this reason it is smart to try to play the majority of your poker at poker sites that have the reputation of being “easy” or “soft”.  This article will look at some easy poker sites and also give you a few tips as far as what to look for when it comes to figuring out if a room will be soft prior to signing up and making your first deposit.

Freerolls

One thing that will draw new players (noobies are usually soft) to an online poker room are the freerolls offered by the room.  These freerolls will come in two different forms and each are equally as important for nabbing some fish.

1. Freerolls funded by the poker rooms – These freeroll usually have very large player fields and give out a relatively small amount of money.  It will be hard for fish to build their bankroll up high enough through these type of freerolls alone, but if they play enough and get lucky enough they could have the cash available to blow it all away at the $0.25/$0.50 tables where you could be waiting.

2. Freerolls funded by poker forums/poker communities – These freerolls are usually password protected and have a much higher prize pool to entrants ratio.  It would not be uncommon for a $100 pot to have only 25-50 players entered.  These players will often be slightly better than the freeroll whores that don’t even belong to poker forums in order to enter these lucrative freerolls, but these freerollers will have more money in their bankrolls to lose.

The only problem with freeroller fish is that they can likely only amass a large enough bankroll to play the $0.25/$0.50 stakes maximum or some $10 tournaments.  If you go higher the fish will really weed out, especially the ones that don’t like to deposit.

Deposit Methods

If it is very easy to get money onto the site then the site will usually be softer because more individuals will be able to deposit easily.  Sharks and professionals will have the connections and the know how to get money onto just about any site they like, but fish (aka casual players) may not want to put in the hastle if depositing isn’t extremely easy.  So be on the lookout for poker sites that allow a wide variety of deposit options, such as ukash poker sites, visa poker sites, etc.

Poker Rooms attached to Sportsbooks

Poker sites that have their poker room attached to a prominant sportsbook, that is well recognized in the industry often provide soft poker games.  The sports bettors, who may not play a lot of poker, will play for fun on occassion when there are no solid sports to bet on.  These sports bettors will need their gambling fix and because they already have the poker room funded they will proceed to lose their money (sometimes at high limits).

Soft Poker Sites

Some poker rooms that are known for being soft include Carbon Poker (lots of freerolls), Bodog Poker (sportsbook players), and Everest Poker.

Player Base for Various Poker Sites

This post will take a quick look at some of the more popular online poker betting sites and see just how many players are playing cash games or tournaments online at peak hours.  The more players playing at the poker room, the more options you as a player will have for game variety, stake and tournament size.  Poker Scout is a great tool to see how much traffic each online poker room had on any given day.

The biggest three online poker rooms are PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Party Poker, so we will take a look at these three first.

PokerStars

PokerStars averages around 30,400 cash game players online at any given time during the day.  At peak hours the cash game traffic can get up close to 50,000 people online.  On top of these cash game players there are usually around 180,000 tournament players playing in about 8000 PokerStars tournaments at any given time during the day.  PokerStars has continued to increase its player base over the past month and it looks to continue to grow into the future.

Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker, on the other hand, usually has around 90,000 total players online, which includes an average of about 18,000 cash game players and 72,000 tourney players.  Over the last 6 months Full Tilt has grown by a greater percentage than PokerStars and looks to grab a larger marketshare from PokerStars in the future.  The development of rush poker by Full Tilt will likely grab more of PokerStars players over time.

Party Poker

The next biggest online poker room is Party Poker, but there is a huge drop off from the big two players.  Party Poker averages around 20,000 total players online at a given time and about 5,000 of these players enjoy cash games.  Party has seen a slight increase in players over the past six months, but this is levelling off.  Party Poker seems to be becoming just another one of the smaller poker rooms that can’t compete with the big two.

UB/Absolute Poker

UB, previously known as Ultimate Bet, shares players with Absolute Poker and even after cheating players and rebranding in order to try to gain a new identity these websites are quickly growing together and their merge has allowed for more games on the Cereus network that they are apart of.  This in turn will continue to bring in more players looking for an alternative to Full Tilt and PokerStars.  The network currently has about 11,000 players online at a time with 2,500 of these being cash game players.  Time will tell if these poker rooms can play fair and gain a larger market share from the top rooms.

Building your bankroll can be greatly helped by clearing online poker bonuses at various websites.  These big 5 sites are great options for those of you interested in building your bankroll through bonuses because there are lots of games to be played and the bonuses are actually very player friendly.

Poker Sponsorship For All Poker Players

Online gambling today is one of the greatest online industries in the world, with literally thousands of successful websites in the business, catering to the needs of tens of millions of different users. There are many different types of online gambling websites, ranging from online poker rooms (which are literally in the hundreds, they are quite possibly the most wide spread type of online gambling websites on the internet), online casinos (while they are not as entertaining as real live casinos, they can still offer quite the thrill), online sports betting websites (which have totally revolutionized the way we bet on sports; you can now track a game while it’s being played, and you can even bet on a game during the course of the match), and online bingo halls (which still have the charm and appeal of the bingo game while adding the possibility of a big win), and even other types of websites, like third party websites which provide very useful services (like reviewing the online poker websites, presenting the latest offers and bonuses). Out of all of these types of websites, you can be sure you will find one type to your exact liking.

A great example of one third party service that has recently appeared on the market is actually one of the most original ideas that the online gambling industry has seen in a very long time. Buy-in Bank is a special kind of website that brings bonuses and promotions to its members. Usually, sites will offer you rake back deals, or other similar promotions, which is great – but the market is already filled with this to the top. Buy-in Bank does something very different: it offers direct buy-ins to some of the world’s greatest live poker tournaments. There are already a lot of different tournaments from all over the world to choose from, tournaments such as the World Poker Tour, and other tournaments which will take you all over Europe and Asia.

Basically, how Buy-in Bank works is this: you create an account with an online poker room through BIB, and it can be almost any major online poker website – just remember to check if Buy-in Bank is connected with that particular online poker site before signing up on it. After that, it’s smooth sailing. You just play poker as you normally would, and you will start earning Grinder Points. You can use these grinder points to buy into some of the best live tournaments in the world. And you’ll win without even making an extra effort, you just have to play.

Through Buy-in Bank you can even get a poker sponsorship and represent the website in live tournaments. In exchange, every aspect of your professional poker career will be taken care of, and you’ll get the chance to join the Buy-in Bank team.

The website also features a Strategy section, where you can brush up on your poker skills. This section will take you through every single aspect of poker, from live poker to online poker, and from the very basic tips and tricks (suitable for most beginners) to the more advanced pieces of information that any average player should own.

Buy-in Bank will also launch an online poker league, which is available for all Buy-in Bank members. The league is set to begin later this year, and until it does you have a green light to sign up. By taking part in this league, you have the chance to win a $3,500 Sponsorship package, or some of the smaller prizes, such as mini sponsorship packages and a lot of grinder points.

All in all, Buy-in Bank is one of the best ideas that the online poker world has seen in quite a while. You should take up on their offers early on!

Online Poker Bankroll Managment

One of the biggest mistakes many online poker players make is not managing a bankroll properly.  They play games that are too high for the amount of money in their account, and often try moving up levels to chase losses.  If you find yourself constantly reloading your account, then this article is for you.

What is a Bankroll?

To understand the basic fundamentals of bankroll management, you should first understand what a bankroll is.  A bankroll is money that you keep separate from your other money for the sole purpose of playing poker with.  You can either leave this all in one site in the poker site’s online cashier, or you can keep this money stored in an e-wallet such as Moneybookers if you plan to use this money at various different poker sites.

Common Bankroll Management Guidelines

Depending on what type of game you play, you will need to have a bankroll that is a certain number of buy-ins or big-blinds at the level you are playing.  Here is an easy to follow reference for managing your bankroll:
No Limit Cash Games – The common rule for no limit cash games is you should have at least 20 MAX buy-ins for the level you want to play.  So, for example if you were playing $2/$4 NL Holdem, you should have 20x the $400 max buy-in, or $8000.
Limit Cash Games – Limit games require a much smaller bankroll than no limit.  The basic rule of thumb for limit games is you should have 300 times the big blind.  If you wanted to play $2/$4 Limit Holdem, you should have 300x the big blind of $4, or $1200.
Sit and Go’s – If you prefer playing Sit and Go’s (SNGs) then you should have at least 40-buyins for the level that you plan on playing.  For example, if you want to play $10 SNGs, you should have at least $400 in your account.
Multi-Table Tournaments – Since Multi-table tournaments have much larger fields and there is a lot more variance involved, you will need to have a lot more buy-ins than playing SNGs.  On the other side a single win in a multi-table tournament could mean a huge boost to your bankroll.  A safe amount would be to have 100 buyins for the level of tournament that you want to play.  For example, if you want to play $5 MTTs, you should have at least $500 in your account.

Moving Up and Down Levels

As you grow your bankroll, or as it starts to shrink you will need to move up and down levels.  After all, if you are not winning consistently playing $5 tournaments, then you should probably drop down a $2 equivalent to focus on improving your skills first.  On the other hand, if you are consistently winning at your current level and you now have enough of a bankroll to move up a level, don’t be afraid to try the games at the next level to continue growing your bankroll over time.  Typically there is not much of a difference in opponents moving from 1 level to the next, but if you try jumping multiple levels you may be faced with a much different game.

Conclusion

Bankroll Management takes a lot of discipline to practice properly.  More often then not players will play games beyond their bankroll due to things like tilt, stress, or boredom.  Always be sure to play with money that you can afford to lose so that the actual dollar amount you are playing for doesn’t distract you from playing your best poker game.  Getting things like rakeback or a free bankroll are also great ways to get your bankroll started, so look into these also.  Study up as much as you can about the game, and in no time you should be making decent money playing poker online!

What is an Online Poker Bonus?

Almost every online poker room offers an initial deposit or sign up bonus in order to entice new players to sign up at their poker room.  These bonuses vary in matching percentage and size, but a typical bonus would be Full Tilt’s 100% up to $600 bonus.  The bonus is meant to be seen as free money for the player, but in fact the money is not usually given directly to the player, but is instead kept in a pending bonus account.  That being said online poker bonuses should still be taken advantage of when possible because they effectively reduce the amount of money you pay to the poker room for the duration of the bonus clearing requirements.  Just make sure you read up on some poker site reviews in order to understand each bonus thoroughly before depositing.

How Do You Clear the Pending Bonus?

In order to release the bonus from your pending bonus section of your online poker account you will usually have to earn some form of frequent player points.  For example, at Full Tilt Poker you must earn Full Tilt Points.  Your bonus is then released either in increments such as $10 or $20, or as a lump sum after you have cleared the entire bonus.  Full Tilt, for example, releases your bonus in increments of 10% of the total bonus or $20 increments.  To earn the frequent player points that are needed to clear the bonus you simply have to play in cash games or tournaments at the poker room.  For example, at Full Tilt you earn seven points for every dollar that you pay in tourney fees and each point you earn clears $0.06 of the bonus.  Most poker rooms will also make you clear the entire bonus within a certain amount of time.  For example, at Full Tilt you get 120 days to clear as much of your bonus as possible, but at PKR you have 60 days and if you don’t clear the entire bonus in this time the whole amount is lost.  In simple terms clearing a poker bonus is easy.  All you have to do is play at the site and the bonus will clear itself.

What to Look for in an Online Poker Bonus?

Apart from the obvious size of the bonus the most important thing you can look at when it comes to an online poker bonus is the clearing conditions.  A bonus with player friendly clearing conditions will clear much faster and you will have your bonus money much quicker than at a poker room that offers a difficult to clear bonus.  In order to figure out if the clearing conditions are good you should find out how much of the bonus each frequent player point earns and then see how many points you earn from tournaments and cash games.  For example, at Full Tilt Poker a point is worth $0.06 and you earn 7 for every dollar you pay in tournament fees.  This means that for every $1 you pay to the room you clear $0.42 of the bonus.  This is a good ratio and if you can find a poker room with a ratio of $0.40 and up the clearing conditions are friendly, but if the ratio is below $0.30 the clearing conditions are bad.

Conclusion

Poker bonuses are great for players because they reduce the amount of money lost to the poker room.  The size of the bonus matters slightly, but the main criteria for determining if a poker bonus is solid is the clearing conditions.  The better the clearing conditions the more money you save.

Minimize Your Poker Losses or Maximize Your Poker Winnings

At least once in a pro poker player’s career, after analysing their game they will find they should be making much more profit. There are two ways to make more profit, minimize your losses or maximize your winnings. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but you will only be able to focus on one of these factors, so which do you choose? You will only ever see people bragging about their winnings on poker forums, hear about how much professionals won on television and most profitable players plastered around poker sites. You will hardly ever see players talking about minimizing their losses, or strategy to do so. Winning a huge pot is much more exciting to talk about then making a superb fold which saved you a few big blinds.

Get 33% Cake Poker Rakeback Now!

When minimizing your losses, it will mean playing much fewer hands. Remember in no limit poker, any chips you save will be worth double that if you double up. For example, you are playing $1/2 no limit and sit down at the table with $200. You call a big blind on the first hand and then fold to a raise. Your chip stack now stands at $198. You are now in the small blind and it folds to you. You and the big blind exchange bets and end up all-in. You win the pot and your chip stack now stands at $396, when it would have been $400 had you not called that big blind of $2.

Of course that example is not accurate, as rake would have been taken etc. But it still puts into perspective the amount that is there to be lost at no limit if you constantly limp into pots with mediocre hands. If we continue from the last example, you limp into 20 hands and do now win one pot. If you now go all in you stand to lose $80 just from the hands you limped in with. That is 40 big blinds to a $1/2 player, which is a huge amount of money to be throwing away each session. This is why you will often see players constantly reloading after each hand.

In turn, minimizing your losses will eventually lead to your winnings becoming maximized, which cannot be said if you reverse the statement. If you maximize your winnings, it doesn’t affect how much money you lose, as you may still be limping into as many pots as you used to. Therefore you must start off by minimizing your losses, despite how attractive it is to win huge pots and brag about them, it will lead to you becoming a much more profitable poker player.

Online Poker Tells

In online poker you don’t have as much information as in live poker to determine whether your opponent has a strong hand, but there are still some things you can look for when it is your opponents turn to act.

• In general if a player thinks for a while and then decides to raise he is not bluffing.  The player likely thinks they have the best hand and they were deciding how much you would call.
• In limit poker a quick raise preflop will usually mean the player has top pair.
• In limit poker a quick call with two flush cards on the flop will usually mean a draw.
• If a player raises very quickly it will generally mean they are either bluffing or have only a moderate hand.

There are many other tells that are unique to individual players that usually have to do with the amount the player bets or the time it takes the player to act.  If you can watch these two things and find some tendencies of certain players you should be able to beat them consistently.

Get rakeback now and test out some of these online poker tells yourself.

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