I can't believe I'm thinking this...

[bozlax]

(Thanks, Dave, thanks a lot! Now you've got me doing it.)

...I might stop bonus whoring Party skins. I know, I can't believe it either, but bear with me.

My thinking to-date has run along the lines of:

1. I'm playing x number of hands, some percentage of which are raked, in order to get the bonus.

2. My winrate for those hands is augmented by (($bonus/BB of limit I'm playing)/(x/100)), e.g. if I have to play 2,000 hands at Party .5/1 to clear a $100 bonus, my winrate is increased by ($100/$1)/(2,000hands/100) = 5BB/100.

3. I accept that I play sub-optimal (when I say sub-optimal, incidentally, I mean less than the best I can play, not less than the best that can possibly be played) poker in order to clear the bonus in the necessary time-frame...being a stay-at-home-dad, it can be hard to play 2,000 hands in 7 days, without multi-tabling. (The obvious alternative is to multi-table higher limits as I did with the most recent bonus, playing 1/2 6-max to clear it in the requisite 3 days, with results that were, shall we say, less than satisfactory.)

4. I don't think it's worth playing for bonuses if you're playing above 1/2...maybe 2/4...due to the amount of the bonus relative to your BB.

5. I've only been considering my winrate in terms of (stay with me, here) the number of hands I have to play to clear the bonus.

I'm wondering, now, what if the poor-play effect leeches over into the hands folowing a bonus period? Even though I go back to 1 or 2 tables, am I still playing sub-optimally for some time after clearing a bonus?

Let's take the most recent example: I cleared two $100 bonuses by 4-tabling 1/2 6-max for about 5 actual days (forgot I was going away this past weekend!). Started well, finished badly, wound up about 65BB down from my play, so net 35BB up. It was around 2,200 hands, iirc, so my net winrate is around 1.6BB/100...not horrible, but not what I'm capable of if I can pay attention to the hands. Now, if I keep playing sub-optimally (say at a winrate of 1.3 or 1.4 instead of 2.5 or 3) for another 1,000 hands to shake off the "bonus clearing effect" then that hashes my net even more, even though I was net positive during both periods.

(Part of what brought all this to mind is that I've noticed Empire and Party increasing the number of raked hands necessary to clear and reducing the amount of time you have over the past couple of months, which is going to compound the effect by making you play higher limits and faster games to clear the bonus.)

Anyway, this probably isn't very clear, but I think short-term bonus whoring is retarding the advancement of my game, and so I'm considering giving it up. In future I will play some hands at Party, but generally will restrict my play to Paradise, Stars, etc., where bonuses stack, don't expire, and pay out as you earn them.

Thoughts?

[SCfuji]

deposit less

[J. Stew]

You could make a conscious effort to get back into your normal 'good poker-playing mentality' when you go from bonus clearing to normal play. I think if you're aware you're game is slipping that is good and you can correct it by being attentive to it. If bonus clearing is actually hurting your winrate, counting what you're clearing, that's obviously bad, but if you are having trouble transitioning between mentalities then you can sort that out I think.

[NobodysFreak]

[ QUOTE ]

5. I've only been considering my winrate in terms of (stay with me, here) the number of hands I have to play to clear the bonus.



[/ QUOTE ]

I just started whoring PP two months ago and in my first 3000 hands, I dropped 200BB. When my variance swung back, I was ready to marry the man that invented PP. Stick with PP, its very profitable.

[Fryguy]

Winrate isn't everything, especially on sample sizes that small. Variance is a bitch. I'm with poster number 3. After I got over an initial party swing (a variance that just happened to coincide with switching to party, and was probably related to other things as well as being a variance), I have found party to be ridiculously profitable. The 3 days of playing after the variance I was up over 40bb each day.

Party + bonus + rakeback (yes I know bonus and rakeback don't work well together, I just picture bonus as a short period of really high rakeback and it sorta works out) is an amazing combination. I get paid to play breakeven poker, and it's hard to not do much better than that.

Stick with it.

[jrz1972]

Another approach is to try to do more multitabling in non-bonus periods so you get used to it.

I always (whether there's a bonus going or not) 3-table whatever I'm playing. My monitor has too much overlap for me to handle any more than that, and if I'm trying to run 3 high-speed 6-max tables on Stars it can get a little hectic, but otherwise I am perfectly cool with this.

Like you, I'm 100% confident that my winrate would be higher if I just stuck to one table and really paid attnetion to reads. But it wouldn't be anywhere near 3 times higher; maybe 1 BB/100 tops. But so what? I have more fun when multitabling because I don't get bored, I reach "the long run" faster because I play way more hands per month than I would otherwise, and my hourly earn is much greater.

I'm not even sure how much this really retards your development as a player. Do I make mistakes due to a lack of reads? Yes. Do I occasionally make mistakes out of carelessness or misclicks? Yes. Do either of those kinds of errors have anything to do with my poker skills? No. If anything, I think one could argue that logging a ton of hands actually speeds up your development. (Admittedly, this is easy for me to say since I never plan on moving out of the micros, where ABC poker is all you really need anyway).

Just some thoughts.

[Marquis]

Am I the only one who typically runs better while clearing bonuses than when not? I play the same number of tables whether I'm clearing a bonus or not.

Unless you have a rakeback deal, it's always worth it to play for bonuses. It's essentially free money. And $100 is $100 no matter what limits you play at.

The less obvious reason that I like the bonuses is that they force me to play more. I wouldn't play nearly as many hands as I do if it weren't for all the bonus clearing. So not only do I make the extra earnings from the bonus deal, I also benefit from the earnings from all the additional poker I wouldn't otherwise play.

I agree with jrz that the extra hands you play do more to help your development than they do hurt. The more you find yourself in certain situations, the more training you get to recognize and deal with those situations. Practice does make perfect, after all.

[car ramrod]

what level do you currently play at? I play 2/4, but when I clear a bonus I go back and play some 1/2 6max. That game is so soft, that I don't feel I need to play my perfect game to beat it. Like JRZ said, if you are not used to multi-tabling, then you should ease yourself into it. Play the number of tables you feel ok playing. If you can't clear the whole bonus, deposit half and clear $50 instead of $100. Either way, its free money, and party is too good to leave.

[Taxmanrick]

For me, the bonus thing just doesn't work. I only play 1.5 hrs a day in the morning before work. Maybe a few more hours on the weekend. I built my bankroll with free money and 2 bonuses at Interpoker. But, recently, they upped the raked hands requirement. Besides, I got to where I was more concerned in the number of hands I was playing than the quality of my play. I moved up through Party .5/1 2-tableing to 1/2 1-table. once I get more comfortable at 1/2, I'll start to two-table. For me, this works and my bankroll continues to grow as does my game.

[Marquis]

Why not just make a smaller deposit as others have suggested if you're going to play the hands anyway?