Online Poker Tells

March 11, 2009 by  
Filed under Build Your Bankroll

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.

7 Reasons to Play at Full Tilt Poker

February 23, 2009 by  
Filed under Build Your Bankroll

1.        Huge Player Base

At Full Tilt Poker you can find games of all varieties and types to suit your liking at any time of the day.  There are also scheduled tournaments running every few minutes with very large player pools.

2.       Initial Deposit Bonus

Full Tilt offers an initial deposit bonus of 100% up to $600.  This bonus is one of the best in the industry and is also one of the easiest initial deposit bonuses to clear.

Get this bonus by using Full Tilt Referral code THEFULLTILT, or by signing up for Full Tilt Poker Rakeback.

3.       Happy Hour!

You can earn double or triple full tilt points by playing in cash games and tournaments during select Happy Hours throughout the day.  Happy hours are a great way to build your FTP collection and can really help you complete other Full Tilt promotions such as gaining Iron Man status.  Check out the Full Tilt Happy Hour schedule.

4.       Full Tilt Pro’s

Full Tilt has hands down the most poker pro’s playing at their site.  You can play in games or tournaments with some of the most well known players in the world including Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius.  This can also help your poker bankroll because if you bust out a Full TIlt pro in a tournament with 30 or more players you win the buy-in of the tournament back up to $200.

5.       High Stakes Action

Full Tilt has the highest stake action online.  You can often see Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan battling it out at $500/$1K tables with pots getting as high as $500K some hands.

6.       Big Guarantee Tournaments

Full Tilt runs a new FTOPS series every few months, where the best Full Tilt players and many Full Tilt pro’s try for the big payouts.  Some of the big weekly guarantees include the $750K Sunday Guarantee, the $200K Double Deuce (Buy-in for only $22) and the daily $50K guaranteed fifty-fifty.

7.       27% Rakeback

Full Tilt is the biggest poker room online that offers rakeback.  PokerStars has the biggest player base, but does not offer players anything back in terms of rake.  The fact that Full Tilt, a huge poker room, still offers rakeback to its players sets it apart in the online poker industry.

Get Full Tilt Poker Rakeback now.

What is Rakeback?

February 17, 2009 by  
Filed under Build Your Bankroll

In order for you to understand what rakeback is, first you must understand rake.  Rake is the amount of money that the poker room takes from the pot in cash games and the fees that pay for playing in tournaments.  In cash games the rake is usually a small percentage of the pot, and is only taken when the hand requires a flop to be dealt.  Rake is essentially how the poker rooms make their money and to be honest, they make a lot.  Many players pay thousands of dollars a month in rake.  For example, a typical cash game player who plays four $0.25/$0.50 no limit hold’em tables at a time, for a couple hours a day would pay over $1080 a month in rake!

Poker rooms can calculate your rake contribution using either the dealt or the contribution method.  In the dealt method the total rake is split evenly between all the players dealt in the hand no matter how much each player contributed to the pot.  Whereas, with the contribution method, the rake is split up proportionate to the amount of money you contributed to the pot.  For example, if you contributed $40 to a $100 pot and the rake was $3, then the amount of rake that is counted as yours would be $1.20.

Rakeback is rake that is refunded to the player.  Most online poker rooms offer to give back a percentage of the rake they take from the player if they sign up through a rakeback provider.  The typical rakeback offer is around 30%, but can be higher or lower depending on what room you are playing at.  A few examples would be Full Tilt rakeback offering 27%, Cake Poker rakeback offering 33% and PKR rakeback who offer 30%.  Continuing with our example, if the typical player who raked $1080 a month played at Cake Poker and received 33% rakeback, he would receive about $356 of the rake he paid during the month back as a refund.  That is a huge chunk of cash!  Especially for a low limit player who only plays a couple hours a day.

There is absolutely no downside to rakeback.  The only reason some players don’t receive it is simply because they don’t know about it or they already have an account at the poker site they want to play at.  In order to receive rakeback you have to sign up as a new player to the site through a rakeback provider.  If you already have an account at the site, then you are not eligible to receive rakeback at that site.  One way to combat this is to open up a rakeback account at a new site or sometimes if you email the poker room about your dilemma they will be able to help.

I would strongly advise signing up for rakeback.  When you receive your first refund at the end of the month you will be extremely glad you did!

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