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.

Ship it in or fold

You start with only 10 times the big blind and this means you should forget about calling and only be pushing all-in or folding.  If you get lucky and double up early to about 20 times the big blind you can start doing standard raises again, but be aware that most of the other players will still be either pushing or folding, which means your raise is still basically as good as putting all of their chips in.  Slow playing with this small amount of chips will not work because the other players will be just as likely to call an all in as they would a minimum raise.  The one exception for making a call might be in the small blind with a monster.  Calling in the small blind can often induce a big blind push because it implies weakness.

Play tight for the first couple levels

Since you start with only 10 big blinds you want to push with a good hand, at least early on.  There are 9 players in the tournament, which means you get to see a lot of hands in the early stages without putting in many blinds.  If players start going out and the blinds increase and start coming faster you will have to change the range of hands you will move in with.  A common mistake in these tournaments is feeling the need to push early and often.   Be patient for the first couple levels and only move your chips in with a quality hand.

Sign up for Full Tilt Poker rakeback now and receive 27% of each tournament fee back.

Use your position

Position is extremely important in this tournament structure.  You should be pushing hands from the button that you would have folded under the gun.  An example would be that (Ace, Nine) is an easy fold under the gun, but would likely be a push from the button with no previous callers.

Increase your range short-handed

As the amount of players remaining decreases your range of hands to push with should grow.  The fewer players remaining, the greater the chance that your hand is the best at the table.  For example, 9-handed (A,5) doesn’t look so great, but 4-handed it becomes much stronger.

Avoid the bubble

This is easier said than done, but a 4^th place finish is the worst position possible and they can mess with your head.  If the tournament is down to 5 or 6 players and you have a short stack, it’s time to start pushing from good positions with a wide range of hands and hope to double up or steal some blinds.  Don’t let yourself blind out.  6^th place prize money is the same as 4^th, $0.

You can find Full Tilt super turbo sit and go’s with buy-ins anywhere from $3.50 to $70 at Full Tilt Poker.

Sign up for Full Tilt Poker rakeback now and receive 27% of each tournament fee back.

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!