Friday, February 03, 2006

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.

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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!!!!

11 comments:

cmitch said...

Will - How are the NL games at Battlefield? Especially the 1/2 and 2/4 SH NL.

I noticed their rakeback a while ago, because it was so high, but never signed up for the site. I was figuring that it would be a new site with an extremely large amount of tight bonus/ rakeback chasers that give no action. Any thoughts on this? Are the cash game tables linked to other prima sites? (prob not?)

Maybe that is why you had such great stats last night. EXTREMELY high aggression factor coupled with very high W$ when saw flop makes it sound like no one was calling you down unless they had great hands.

WillWonka said...

Yo Cmitch,
To tell you the truth, I have not looked at the NL games. I will do so tonight.

Yes, all prima sites share the same player base as far as I know.

The AF was way out of whack. Like I always say, the drawing hands have the best potential for the monster pots.. My draws hit last night... plus they called down everything. For some reason the mucked hands then on PAHUD didn't work all the time so I'm not sure what they had. I know Prima is taking that feature away; but it had worked earlier.

One time though, I was called down with the guy only having K high.

Buffalo66 said...

Hi Will,

I posted about 2 months ago about my experience with Bayou poker. It's a poker room skin that gives you bottomless 200% bonuses released as 50% rakeback. Rakeback earned is released to your account every 24 hours directly from the poker site, no middle man.

With their point program you earn additional cash, making it 61.5% rakeback total. Unless you are propping, I haven't seen anyone else who can beat this deal.

Jordan said...

Thanks Will. I never did rakeback before, but thanks to your insight, it'll be my next bonus promo. See you at the battlefield.

TripJax said...

very insightful...i know about rakeback, but have never used it as I play more SNG's and MTT's. but i really dug the post.

WillWonka said...

Buffalo, Thanks for the comments.. Sounds good... I'd rather my rakeback not be tied to my bonuses...I would have to look at the rakeback from points to see what was up.

TJ... Most sites give you rakeback on your tourneys. I even just got a message from Absolute where they are going to start counting the tourney fees for their rakeback.

High.. hope to see you there.

Anonymous said...

Why not just prop and learned to play shorthanded Will. When you prop you get 100 % rakeback. Love your blog. But you forgot that option. I have propped as well as chase bonuses. Propping you get paid per hand. All you have to do is be the one of the first six to sit down. If you are interested will. Send me an email bphoops2003@yahoo.com

WillWonka said...

Hart,
You may be right; but propping isn't for everybody. While I love short handed games, I'm not the best Heads Up player. It is something that I am working on.

There are many opportunities out there; everybody just needs to pick what is best for them... and rakeback on your general play should be where everybody starts.

CC said...

I don't want to sound like some sort of infomercial prop, but I will: "Will, am I really missing something here? Should I make the plunge into rakeback? Is there any downside here?"

WillWonka said...

CC,

I'm not sure that there is any downside. Maybe that you already have accounts in sites that have any real traffic.

I have made nearly 2K in rakeback since Dec 2004 so it is definitely worth it.

Anything that pads the bankroll can't be bad.

Just go to your Games Tab in PT and look at all games and then divide by average players and then multiply by some rake % (you can use 25% as a baseline) and then you can tell the amount of rakeback that you could potentially earn.

Different sites calculate Rakeback differently; but this will give you a general idea.

This post wasn't to pad my bankroll as I would only get 2.5% (5% if you use Battlefield) if you used my referral code. This post was for anybody not getting paid to play.

So if you haven't tried some of these sites, it certainly can't hurt. For the most part, they give daily status reports on their website so you can tell right away if it is going to work for you.

masterp said...

rakeback is a must if your a new to a site Im make like 400 a month off my rake

Who links to my website?