ducky
08-01-2003, 12:32 AM
For the July 4th holiday, Paradise Poker offered a 20% buy in bonus up to $100. Additionally, PokerStars was offering a 20% bonus up to $120. What started merely as a means to score a quick $220 turned into a major bonus whore tour. The first stop was Paradise.
Paradise is my favorite site as far as software is concerned. It's stable and it has one feature not found by me anywhere else. The notes show up when you hover over the other player's oval! Why haven't the other sites copied this?
Paradise has revamped its bonus requirements. The requirements are now 1000 raked hands must be dealt for the full bonus. (Before it was 100 hands with a $1 rake.) Additionally, the cashier screen has been updated so that your bonus progress can be tracked. One improvement to the bonus is that you don't have to play all the hands to get your bonus. Every 100 hands releases $10 of the bonus.
To get a raked hand, you need at least a $5 pot (and a 25 cent rake). My goal was to churn out the 1000 hands as quickly and "riskless" as possible so I could go on to PokerStars and start working on that bonus. My game of choice here was the $.50/$1.00 7 stud game. They have a zero ante and with good game selection, you can get a high percentage of raked hands dealt.
The 7 stud games were (are) incredibly weak at this level. You can fairly consistently manipulate it so that you can play it shorthanded or multiway depending on how you want it played with your hand. So you can consistently get into a situation where you have a big pair vs one or two other smaller pairs (or whatever other crummy draw they want to play).
One good strategy was to keep betting and betting until 7th Street and then check. So many players will now bet their pair of sixes and that's just another buck for the duck. But like all forms of poker, you need to keep track of your players. You need to bet into those calling stations.
One thing you can never do is lay down your hand on the river when you get raised. The hopless bluff raise on the end seems the staple of the online world.
Anyway, playing two games at a time, in 3 days I had the 1000 hands, scored the $100 bonus and made $79 extra from the poker action.
Paradise is my favorite site as far as software is concerned. It's stable and it has one feature not found by me anywhere else. The notes show up when you hover over the other player's oval! Why haven't the other sites copied this?
Paradise has revamped its bonus requirements. The requirements are now 1000 raked hands must be dealt for the full bonus. (Before it was 100 hands with a $1 rake.) Additionally, the cashier screen has been updated so that your bonus progress can be tracked. One improvement to the bonus is that you don't have to play all the hands to get your bonus. Every 100 hands releases $10 of the bonus.
To get a raked hand, you need at least a $5 pot (and a 25 cent rake). My goal was to churn out the 1000 hands as quickly and "riskless" as possible so I could go on to PokerStars and start working on that bonus. My game of choice here was the $.50/$1.00 7 stud game. They have a zero ante and with good game selection, you can get a high percentage of raked hands dealt.
The 7 stud games were (are) incredibly weak at this level. You can fairly consistently manipulate it so that you can play it shorthanded or multiway depending on how you want it played with your hand. So you can consistently get into a situation where you have a big pair vs one or two other smaller pairs (or whatever other crummy draw they want to play).
One good strategy was to keep betting and betting until 7th Street and then check. So many players will now bet their pair of sixes and that's just another buck for the duck. But like all forms of poker, you need to keep track of your players. You need to bet into those calling stations.
One thing you can never do is lay down your hand on the river when you get raised. The hopless bluff raise on the end seems the staple of the online world.
Anyway, playing two games at a time, in 3 days I had the 1000 hands, scored the $100 bonus and made $79 extra from the poker action.