Can someone explain rake rebates and bonus whoring to me?

[teddyFBI]

Sorry for the relatively naive Q's (and if you'd rather just refer me to an external site that explains these concepts, that's cool too). I've been playing online for about a month now at UB and Party. Can someone explain rake rebates and bonus whoring to me? (or tell me if my understanding is correct)

1. Bonus whoring: is this simply the concept of consistently making redeposits at various sites to get redeposit bonuses, playing enough hands to clear them, and then withdrawing the cash immediately thereafter, only to start the cycle all over again? I opened a Neteller acct, but it says that withdrawals and deposits can take 4-5 days to process from your bank account (if I want the immediate EFT option, it charges a 8.9% fee!)...doesn't this time lag make bonus whoring less convenient?

2. Rake rebates: I have to admit I'd never heard of these until I started trolling this site a few days ago. But from what I've read online, it appears that if you sign up to a site saying that a specific person referred you, you can get 2 or 3 cents per hand played credited back to you? (not from the poker site, but from the referrer site, right?). If so, that would be huge, as I've averaged about 1200 hands played per day in the month that I've been playing online...(yeah, i'm hooked; UB told me that I was the 12th highest volume player on their site last month)...does that mean that I can get hundreds of dollars per month back if I were to do a rate rebate program??
One problem: I'm already a member at UB and Party...is it too late to sign up for a RR program??

(Lastly, I'm curious about how in the hold'em forum on this website, people who post make the nice little summary of the hands they played: i.e. Hero bets, CO calls, etc.; surely they don't type that all out by hand...is there some program that makes it for them?)

[namknils]

I think you have a pretty good idea of what these things are. For bonus whoring you are essentially right, however I don't think people take money from their bank accounts to do the whoring, they just build up their bankroll and use that. Deposits are instant from Neteller to any poker site, and withdrawals are usually within a day depending on the site it was withdrawn from. So essentiall yes you can go to this bonus site (http://www.bonuswhores.com) to see what sign up bonus' are available, and then when you are done collecting the signup you can usually keep track of what reaload bonus' are going on by checking in on this forum. Also bonuswores.com does now keep track of realoads on their homepage.

As for the rake rebate programs, you probably already have 20 PM's waiting for you. I'll let them explain it to you b/c they are competing for your business (they get part of your rake too).

Here is a web page (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi) that you can use to convert your hands to be readable on this site, bisonbison wrote this converter.

-nam

[MicroBob]

yes...namkills is correct (although, i am hoping that there aren't 20 affiliates who would spam this guy with PM's).

particularly on his points on correcting some of your concepts of bonus-whoring.

i just keep some extra cash in my neteller account. when a bonus pops-up somewhere i jump on it.
you don't have to pull ALL your money back from your neteller into your bank account....just take a little bit for your bank account....but keep your neteller funded.
obviously, this assumes you have enough spare cash lying around to be able to afford to keep $1k or more in neteller.


also....you don't have to clear the hands requirement before withdrawing your funds (at most sites).
you can deposit, they credit you with the bonus-dollars that are 'in limbo' waiting to be cleared, and you can withdraw the money immediately if you like.

this allows you the flexibility to deposit somewhere else to collect their bonus-dollars.

the past couple of weeks...i was pretty much moving the same $500 or $1000 from site racking up bonuses at each. i would withdraw the funds to put in another site, sometimes without having played a single hand.
now i have to go back and hit these bonuses one at a time.


UB is a prime example for me and most bonus-chasers because they have been offering so many reloads this year.

when one of them comes up, i'll deposit....and i can withdraw immediately if i have to.
most of the bonuses are for $100. right now i have $465 in bonus-money stocked up on UB waiting to be cleared....but my account balance there is less than $100. after i clear off my bonuses at other places i'll get to work on clearing the UB bonus-bucks. i know of at least two poaters on the 2+2 forums who have over $1000 in bonus-money at UB alone just stockpiled up for the day that they actually feel like clearing it.
UB bonuses take a bit longer to clear than other sites..PLUS, the bonuses have no expiration date....that's why many of us are a bit lazy in getting around to clearing them (along with the fact that the players there are a bit tougher).

however, it should be noted that they have a lot of stuff going on today as part of their 3rd anniversary so perhaps the games will be a bit fishier over there this afternoon.
AND, you might be chosen to win an autographed copy of Phil's book...which is incentive enough for anyone!!!!


this past week, i finished off bonuses at pokerroom and pokerstars.
bonuses i have stockpiled waiting to be cleared include another bonus at pokerroom, 3 bonuses at absolute totaling $400, another reload at party, and the $465 in bonus-money at ub.

the 2 that i cleared plus the bonuses i have yet to clear add up to about $1600 in bonus-money.


keeps me pretty busy, and i'm not even taking advantage of the monthly bonus at intercasino and other crypto skins....YET. i'm just adding one site at a time.


finally....go to bonuswhores.com (i'm not affiliated with the site...except for being a reasonably satisfied browser and customer there).
those guys give decent reviews of the sites and the bonuses you should be looking into.
some of the material isn't updated....but you can find additional good info in the forums on bonuswhores.com. there was a thread recently by someone asking about how a beginner should go about bonuswhoring (or somehting like that).