SnG players get no bonus respect...

[eastbay]

I am trying to clear an Empire bonus and it requires "500 raked hands". Apparently tourney vig helps you nil with this.

Any tricks to clearing one of these things before the cows come home? As long as I put money in the pot, it counts as a "raked hand", right? Hello limping station...

eastbay

[Daliman]

3/6 Holdem Ring
15% flops
Fit or fold.

[texasrattlers]

PokerStars has 5 or 6 rebuy bonuses a year and SNG play earns bonus points. It doesn't take me long to earn the required # of points playing $6 Turbos, so earning the required # of points from higher buy-in SNGs should be a breeze.

[Gramps]

I just cleared it 3-tabling 6-max games. You don't have to be in the hand, so long as there's money taken out of the pot, it counts as a "raked hand," so it doesn't take that long to complete (multi-tabling).

[Paragon]

You don't have to put money in the pot - you just need to be dealt cards. Afterwards you can fold or do whatever. The pot itself simply has to reach a certain size to be raked, and then it will count to your total. I just thoughtlessly 4-table $.50/$1 for ~2 hours while reading something /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[pshreck]

Play 7 stud. You put in an ante. As long as the pot gets raked (5 bucks or more) you get a raked hand, no matter when you folded.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I just cleared it 3-tabling 6-max games. You don't have to be in the hand, so long as there's money taken out of the pot, it counts as a "raked hand," so it doesn't take that long to complete (multi-tabling).

[/ QUOTE ]

Even if you fold preflop? And short-handed, duh, that's so obvious I didn't think of it.

eastbay

[Michael Davis]

You don't have to ante to get credit for a hand. In hold 'em, your blinds pay for your entire round of cards, so you get credit for raked hands even when you don't actually put money in the pot.

There are some rooms that figure this wrong, but it just shows a lack of understanding. The blinds are your ante for the entire round. Party gets this right.

-Michael

[Bremen]

I figured once you could fold every hand at a full table and still make money on those bonuses, assuming all the hands get raked. Of course not every hand gets raked, so I wouldn't try it...

[pshreck]

Are you sure? I could have sworn I dont get credit for every hand I fold in limit HE. In fact Im positive I have had like sessions of 40 hands and got credit for like 25 hands.

... um, now that I think about it, I didnt call or raise with 25 hands. Now Im confused. Im pretty sure all pots were raked too as it was 2/4.

As much as I have learned about poker over the past 2 years, I have no idea how to properly clear my bonus.

[Daliman]

NO SHORT HANDED!

I'm assuming you initially posted about this because you dont play limit poker. When playing SH, you are paying a higher % of the rake(since there are less of you), and you will be paying blinds 40-67% more often than in ring. SH is also a much harder game to play than ring for the uninitiated.

[pshreck]

[ QUOTE ]
I am trying to clear an Empire bonus and it requires "500 raked hands". Apparently tourney vig helps you nil with this.

Any tricks to clearing one of these things before the cows come home? As long as I put money in the pot, it counts as a "raked hand", right? Hello limping station...

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

This is pretty rediculous now that I think about it. I pay empire/pokernow about 500 bucks a week to play their SNG's. There is no reason I should have to play ring to get my 100 buck bonus. Hell if they give me credit for 1 raked hand for every 1 SNG (which is 2 bucks personally, thats one freaking big raked hand), I would have cleared it by now.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]

This is pretty rediculous now that I think about it. I pay empire/pokernow about 500 bucks a week to play their SNG's. There is no reason I should have to play ring to get my 100 buck bonus. Hell if they give me credit for 1 raked hand for every 1 SNG (which is 2 bucks personally, thats one freaking big raked hand), I would have cleared it by now.

[/ QUOTE ]

They must make more $/hand at the ring games.

Personally I think the SnG vig is outrageous. I don't see why someone with a few hundred million dollars doesn't open a 5% vig tournament site. You'd have every last SnG player there in no time.

eastbay

[pshreck]

In explaining to my parents why I was going to play tournaments full time, I also explained that if there happened to be a rake free site to open up, my income would go up about 25k for that reason alone.

I seriously cringe whenever I think about how much money I pay out to play in these damned things.

[Gramps]

Assumming the same player pool you have on Party/Empire...assuming...

...er...I mean I heard of this rake free site that ALL winning players should switch too...

I agree that the tourney fees are quite high, but for the pool of players Party & it's affiliates have recruited, in a way they've really "earned" those higher fees.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
Assumming the same player pool you have on Party/Empire...assuming...

...er...I mean I heard of this rake free site that ALL winning players should switch too...

I agree that the tourney fees are quite high, but for the pool of players Party & it's affiliates have recruited, in a way they've really "earned" those higher fees.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maybe. But you have to wonder whether they are burning through the pool unnecessarily fast. Reduce the burn rate and you probably net more dollars long term as people might accept $5/day to play for more than twice as long as they might $10/day.

eastbay

[Benholio]

Well, if you are signed up through a rakeback deal, bonuses are worth $0 to you. The only difference is that you get the bonus money right then, instead of at the end of the month when you would have gotten it as rakeback.

(bonuses are subracted directly from your generated rake totals)

[Daliman]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, if you are signed up through a rakeback deal, bonuses are worth $0 to you. The only difference is that you get the bonus money right then, instead of at the end of the month when you would have gotten it as rakeback.

(bonuses are subracted directly from your generated rake totals)

[/ QUOTE ]

Not true.

It counts versus your total amount paid, but is not directly taken from earnings back, i.e.

$2000 rake paid x.20 back =$400 back

or

$2000 rake paid-$100 bonus given=$1900 x .20 back =$380 back.

So, the bonus effectively is worth 100% of its value, minus your rakeback %.

[zephyr]

This will work just fine. A typical $100 bonus on party/empire takes 500 or 700 hands to clear. If you play .5/1 HE then you're paying .75 per round in blinds. For 500 hands thats 50*0.75 = $37.5, and for 700 hands that's $52.5. Typically at that level around 70% of hands get raked. So it costs ~$50 bucks in blinds for 500 hands and ~ $75 for 750 hands.

The only time I use these bonuses is if I want to expose someone to poker. I tell them to only play AA, KK, QQ, AK, and to play these hands weak tight post flop (fold to an overcard with KK, QQ. Fold if no A or K hits with AK, for AA if there is a 3 flush or 3 straight). Once the bonus has cleared they're almost always ahead.

Zephyr

[pshreck]

[ QUOTE ]
Assumming the same player pool you have on Party/Empire...assuming...

...er...I mean I heard of this rake free site that ALL winning players should switch too...

I agree that the tourney fees are quite high, but for the pool of players Party & it's affiliates have recruited, in a way they've really "earned" those higher fees.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have to disagree. Maybe we can credit Party for setting up a site where things move fast (atleast in SNGs and MTTs), which would be more fun for the fish/casual player, but thats about all the credit I give Party.

I always hope that the future of internet poker will be some juggernaut to come in and give us a rake free site, making its money off of advertising like everything else on the internet (hello Yahoo....). I don't think it is unrealistic at all, in fact Im confused why it isnt happening now. Party could tell potential advertisors... "at peak hours we have around 65k people spending money willy nilly, oh yeah, they constantly have their eyes staring at the screen and whatever is on it".

The problem is 65k people actually isn't a lot, I know. Lots of incredibly bad TV shows with low ratings, still have a lot more than 65k viewers.

If Party ever gets in the area where it has several 100k players at its peak time (maybe sometime in the next few years?) we will see advertising revenue come into play.

[skirtus]

I cant even fathom how much they drag in each day from the rake. They would sell thier children's souls to Satan before they give that up.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I cant even fathom how much they drag in each day from the rake. They would sell thier children's souls to Satan before they give that up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's about a million dollars a day. The idea that they would give that up for advertising dollars is beyond ludicrous.

eastbay

[pshreck]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I cant even fathom how much they drag in each day from the rake. They would sell thier children's souls to Satan before they give that up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's about a million dollars a day. The idea that they would give that up for advertising dollars is beyond ludicrous.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

There are lot of dotcoms making a ton more than a million a day on advertising dollars. I agree, currently internet poker isn't really doing the same things as those companies and not reaching nearly as many eyes. If that were to change, so would potential advertising dollars.

[skirtus]

If they are interested in ad revenue they will most likely sell ads and continue to generate enourmous rake. I got to see an advertisement while pumping gas today. The message scrolls across the pump display. They didnt give me a discount on my gas purchase. Any smart business will look to generate ad dollars. But I doubt we will see any benefit from this.

[CardMinger]

Dont know if this has been mentioned in this already but just to clarify...on Party hand are ONLY counted as "raked hands" for bonus perposes if YOU PERSONALLY have put money in THAT HANDS pot.

Thanks,
Kevin

[jezaja]

[ QUOTE ]
Dont know if this has been mentioned in this already but just to clarify...on Party hand are ONLY counted as "raked hands" for bonus perposes if YOU PERSONALLY have put money in THAT HANDS pot.

Thanks,
Kevin

[/ QUOTE ]

Not true if youre playing no limit. At the lowest level NL25$ you are getting 1 hand per dealt hand.

[FishBurger]

[ QUOTE ]
As long as I put money in the pot, it counts as a "raked hand", right? Hello limping station...


[/ QUOTE ]

Somebody probably already answered this, but at Party, it counts as a raked hand as long as
(1) you were dealt into the hand (you weren't sittin out) and
(2) the hand produced a rake.

You don't need to contribute any money to the pot, you just need to be dealt into a hand that eventually produces a rake. No need to limp for the hand to count as a bonus-clearing hand.

BTW, At Stars, SNGs count for clearing bonii.