Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

Had an epiphany - turning down free money is bad! /sarcasm off

Going to clear my first bonus at PP starting tmrw. I'll be depositing $500 and withdrawing 3-350$ of it; I figure 150$-200 is plenty to clear the bonus playing 25nl.

Where I've never done this, I don't understand the whole raked hands thing; I'm assuming that it's every hand you are involved in(that meets PP's requirement for a raked hand), correct? Or is (my wishful thinking) it every raked hand as long as you are sitting at the table?

Question 2: how long should this take? I'll be playing extremely conservatively (I don't care if I break even, going to be nut-peddling for the most part, my goal is to get the 150$ cleared asap). Would it be faster at the 50nl tables?

Thanks in advance! Back to the search engine, trying to find an answer for this myself but haven't seen it yet....

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

NL25 6 max. Min raise any hand you play. Obviously, you will raise more than min with premium hands

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

NL isn't the best place to clear a bonus.
I'd reccomend playing multi full ring 1-2. You'll clear it in no time with less chance of a nasty downswing.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

You have to be involved in the hand not just watching - but you can fold pre-flop and still have the hand count. Assume that 60-75% of the hands will be raked. It will be faster to clear this by multi-tabling rather than going up in limits. Going up in limits only exposes you to potentially higher losses and the blinds eat away at your buy-in if you play ultra tight. The best recommendation that I personally received last week is to play the LIMIT tables when clearing a bonus. Your goal should be to break even or make a few bucks. The "prize" is the bonus. Don't lose sight of that. You see, I used to clear bonuses playing NL 25 and NL 50 and about busted my whole bankroll in a two hour bad run. I took a few days off, then began playing the LOW LIMIT tables and cleared bonuses on two sites this weekend with a little better than break even play. It's the best advice I have received. It worked so I am passing it on.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

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NL isn't the best place to clear a bonus.
I'd reccomend playing multi full ring 1-2. You'll clear it in no time with less chance of a nasty downswing.

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Actually it is. A higher percentage of pots are raked at the nl25 tables than at the 1/2 tables.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

At a full ring 1-2, most pots meet party's raked hand requirement, and you get credit for a ton of automatic folds that turn into raked hands.
Yes, its is true that more NL hands are raked, but playing NL to bonus whore is counterintuitive. It is accepting greater risk for the same bonus.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the idea of bonus whoring to have the least risk you can while clearing the bonus?

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

I'm with the Noodle on this one. You may have to play a few more hands with 1/2 limit BUT there is a lower risk of loss or bust at the limit tables. I would rather play a few more hands than take the NL risks. Basically I found this to be very true. If you take a bad beat at a limit table, you're out max $25 I think. If you take a bad beat at a NL table you will lose every dollar you have at the table. It's worse if and you happen to be up a few bucks before the hand because you lose it ALL. Like a poster told me last week, play the free rolls if you have a need to play NL. Stick to the limits to lower your risk when clearing a bonus.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I didn't even consider playing limit (and where most of my playing is in NL at 10-20 SnG's, I may still at least try the 25 NLs) but will certainly keep that in mind.

Is this something I can do in a week or less? I play a good 5-6 hours a night, and a 10-12 hour day on the weekend is easy (and more importantly, fun).

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

Well, the upside to 25nl is that the momos so willing to call that you could probably show a profit if you folded all hands worse than AKs...

If you are playing losing poker and rely on the bonus to push you into a winner you're probably still better off at the 25nl tables than at the 1/2 tables.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

yeah, very easily. bonuswhores.com says you should be able to clear about 10 bucks an hour on 1/2 limit tables full ring. so you could clear 20 just 2 tabling.

Melch

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Well, the upside to 25nl is that the momos so willing to call that you could probably show a profit if you folded all hands worse than AKs...


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There was a bot-related thread a few months ago about beating Party's 25NL. The stategy was:
- Raise 4xBB preflop for AA-JJ, AKs, AKo
- If re-raised preflop, go all-in
- Go all-in on the flop

Obviously this is a little overly simplistic, but beating those games IS pretty damn simple. I may not crush them consistently, but using that strategy (and limping with suited connectors and medium-small pocket pairs), I almost always break even or better throughout a bonus playing 4-8 tables. While watching TV, playing blackjack, eating dinner, surfing 2+2 and bw.com, etc.

Sure, you'll lose your buyin a few times at at table or two (AA vs KK, being outflopped by crap, yadda yadda), but you'll be up 2-3 buyins at the other tables. Also, you don't get those hands very often, and most of the time you don't see a flop. The swings really aren't that huge, if you are bankrolled for 20-25 buyins ($500-600), you should be fine.

Just don't try to get tricky. No sense fighting over pennies when they'll through dollars at you.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

I've always felt stick with your game while clearing a bonus. I play the 25 NL ring games, so I play those while clearing. I usually end up $100-$150 + the bonus. Even if I get down early off beats I just play my game and always get it back in the long run.

The 25's get raked quite often, as it only takes a $2 pot (4 player no raise) for a rake to occur.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

Great responses, thanks again. One last question:

Is there any way I can avoid that nasty 9% Neteller fee? 30% of my bonus is going to go right back to them(and more. I plan to clear the Absolute Poker bonus after this one)....

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

9% neteller fee????

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

if you have patience you can avoid the 9% because that is only for the instacash. If you are willing to wait 4-5 bussiness days it is free.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

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Your goal should be to break even or make a few bucks. The "prize" is the bonus. Don't lose sight of that.

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Actually, your goal should be to play the best poker you can. Winning $ will be a side effect of this. Aiming to simply play break even poker is wrong.

I would guess that you play micros and that bonus whoring is more important than improving at this point. I thought like that too once. But now I see that if I get better, these $100 bonuses will continue to become a smaller and smaller % of my total earnings.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

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I'm with the Noodle on this one. You may have to play a few more hands with 1/2 limit BUT there is a lower risk of loss or bust at the limit tables.

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This was covered somewhat extensively in some other posts. It is true that there is more variance in NL in each single hand , but overall, there is more variance in limit (assuming you're not a maniac or ultra LAG)

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

Excellent. Thanks for answering all of my questions, peeps. Hopefully I'll have another 460$ to add to my bankroll in a month or so (gonna do absolute/party/paradise) in bonuses alone. Add that to even moderate winnings and I can comfortably go back to the 22s (hell, by that time, maybe i'll get used to ring games [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

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Is there any way I can avoid that nasty 9% Neteller fee? 30% of my bonus is going to go right back to them(and more. I plan to clear the Absolute Poker bonus after this one)....

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That 8.9% is the InstaCash fee. You don't ever have to use InstaCash. InstaCash is a short-term loan at an incredibly high interest rate. Some sites will cover the fee, but I would just avoid it.

EFT from your bank account to Neteller (this takes a few days), then use a normal deposit from Neteller. If you change currencies, there is a 1.9% fee each way, but if you don't change currencies there is no fee for you to pay.

Re: Clearing a party bonus playing 25NL
 

a couple more thoughts on the issue:
1) I'm not at all against playing 6 Max NL, but do it because its your game, not to whore. The bonus should be treated as a bonus. (that really looks stupid in type, but I think you get the idea.)
2) Short handed tables are the last thing you want while bonus whoring. The more players there are, the more likely you are able to fold a free 7-2 and end up with a raked hand. In a perfect bonus whoring world, I'd want to play 22 handed (think about it), and then go back to a normal table after the bonus was cleared.