[dark_horse]

When I'm actually playing for money (read:no bonus) I'm playing 3/6 6max on Party. I know short handed games are where the money's at right now. But given the nature of PokerRoom's rake and the nature of the bonus, I'm afraid playing those 5max tables will be less profitable overall. For those that don't know, PokerRoom's rake structure is a bit weird. It increases in very small increments, instead of the standard $1 threshold that sites like Party and Stars employ. What this means is more rake for the house, especially in short handed pots. Given that you play more hands in short handed games, and the rake is tougher on PokerRoom's short handed games, you see it's not very attractive. Plus, the Euro $600 bonus requires a certain number of points to accrue, not a certain number of raked hands. That means the bigger the rake per hand, the more points you accrue (and the smaller the rake, the fewer the points). So if you play short handed, you will clear the bonus faster. But you'll also pay a lot more rake. However if you play the full rings, you'll play fewer hands, and will be involved in a smaller percentage of the pots that have a nice sized rake. Hence, I'd rather play on a tightish worse full ring game than a more profitable (and swingier) short handed game - for bonus clearing purposes.

Make sense?

The only upside to all this is that, as someone already mentioned, you'll find players playing higher than they should in order to clear the bonus faster. Of the bonus clearing population on PokerRoom, that's probably where most of the 5/10 profit will be coming from.