Getting Paid to Play

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am playing at a new site this month. The site that I am playing is a Prima site called Battlefield Poker. I've never really played on Prima before. Maybe a tournament or two in the forum challenges. I ,like a lot of people signed up to get a free $10 with no deposit on one Prima site in my early days; but that obviously didn't last too long. Actually, I still do have about $65 on that site; but have never deposited so I can't withdraw now. One of these days, I will get to it.

Anyway, I had another short and sweet session last night at Battlefield. As I realize these type sessions are not normal, it is still pretty fun to post. Here they are:

38 Hands (13 minutes)
VPIP (basically flop% w/o BB): 31.58
PFR (preflop raise): 15.79
AF (aggression factor): 6.0 (yikes)
bb/hr (big blinds per hour): 149.23
w$wsf (won $ when seeing flop): 64.71%
wsd (went to showdown): 41.18%
w$sd (won $ at showdown): 71.43%
Net $ won: 194.00

So that is an amazing $376.50 in two days on only 129 hands (or 45 minutes). You just gotta love those numbers. I'm obviously liking Prima these days; but at the same time, as everyone knows, I know all about variance... both positive and negative.

Which brings me to my subject of today.

If I knew then (when I first started playing online poker) what I know now, there are many, many things I would do differently. I dove blindly into poker after seeing Moneymaker do his thing in 2003. I didn't know that sites actually gave bonuses to sign up. I didn't know anything about rake or rakeback. I just wanted to play.

Fast forward to present time and the number one thing that I believe every online poker player should be doing (at any level) is getting paid to play. Of course, that can mean chasing bonuses; but as you know that can become a grind. Believe it or not, it makes you play differently. Either dropping down levels to get in more raked hands or maybe it is just player tighter and hope others get the pot up to get a raked hand. Or perhaps you can use services like pokersourceonline and vegaspokerpro to get merchandise which is also great. I have done this myself.

But the best alternative and much easier way to do this is to sign on through some big affiliate that is offering nice rakebacks. What is rakeback, you ask? Rakeback is simply getting part of your rake that you pay in the ring games or tournaments paid back to you. How does getting back 25-40% of your rake paid back to you sound? Well, that is what you can do.

The affiliate that I would like to make everybody aware of is ThisIsTheNuts . One of the main reasons I chose them was that I believe that this site is affiliated with Pat and company over at Poker Tracker. Anything that I can do to help those guys out, I will do. Anyway, like I said, this site pays you to play. Well, maybe you think that you have to play obscure sites with low traffic to get this rakeback. Not true. Here are the sites that that promote with the proposed rakeback percentage:

Battlefield Poker (prima): 35%+
Bet Holdem (prima): 35%
Sun Poker (crypto): 32%
Interpoker (crypto): 32%
Absolute Poker: 28%+
Ultimate Bet: 28%+
Empire Poker: 30%
EuroBet (pokerroom now): email for rates
Full Tilt Poker: 27%
Doyles Room: 25%

So, as you can see, there are plenty of choices to make. Obviously, we all know about Party and their stance against rakeback and PokerStars does their own thing as well (VPP points). So the easy choice seems to pick one of the above sites and give it a try and see if you like it. Not that is a big deal; but in the 129 hands that I have played on Battlefield, I have earned a rakeback of $12.17. Boy, that seems like $1 for every 10 hands I play... not bad. Another nice thing about Battlefield is that the Rakeback is credited right back to your poker account via your poker client. You can't get much easier than that. The rakeback stats are updated daily and can be seen via the poker client or over at ThisIsTheNuts.

Let me try to put in more absolute or monetary terms. Let's say that you are a 1/2 Limit holdem player and you play maybe 1000 hands a month. You could add about $24 a month to your bankroll. Maybe you do play a little more... Let's say you play on average 100 hands a day. You could add $60 a month to your bankroll. One more.. Let's say you are 3/6 SH player that plays 100 hands a day on average. How does $150 a month added to your bankroll sound? Doing it this way, you never had to track how many raked hands you are playing as we all do when we are bonus chasing. This is good for every poker hand that you play.... forever.

So, give it some thought and take a look at ThisIsTheNuts. You won't be disappointed. They have over 3,000 players so they definitely one of the big players. I have put a banner and link over to the right. And if you are feeling a little generous, please use referral code of "will wonka" and I get a small percentage as well (2.5% - 5%). This, of course, does not lessen the amount of rakeback that you get... it is just an additional perk that these guys do... which is another reason that sets them apart from the rest.

-------

And finally, if you haven't answered the poll question of the week, please scroll down and vote. This weeks question is regarding ring play and whether you play full ring or shorthanded or both.

Thanks..

Peace!!!!