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[TheHammer24]

I posted in this in the zoo, and guess that the questions applying to rakeback could be better answered by you guys.

Well rakeback finally fell through with my affiliate and I, and I was going to try to explore other rooms that would be more EV+ for me to play at the 2/4 level.

Pokerroom seems like the logical choice. My questions are:

1. Can you have an account at BetonBet (Or whatever the other room is that offers RB) and Pokerroom?

2. If not, or even if yes, what is better: To clear a big bonus on Pokerroom or to take rake back on BetonBet?

3. The rake is bad, I understand, but can it be overcome to make it more profitable than Party w.o RB?

4. Is the play comparable fishiness with Party 2/4?

Thanks in advance,

Well I must have screwed up my first response to your message because I don't see it here. Try #2 and a caveat, while this is my first message on these forums I've written quite a bit about this on the BW forums. Oh, and I'm also a fan of the poker network skins but I don't work for any of them nor have any tie to an affiliate. I'm a poker hobbyist at best, just a well informed one.

1. Can you have an account at BetonBet (Or whatever the other room is that offers RB) and Pokerroom?

Yes, they don't care and you don't have to worry about signing up on different computers or anything like that.

2. If not, or even if yes, what is better: To clear a big bonus on Pokerroom or to take rake back on BetonBet?

Short answer, clear a big bonus on PR (or Hollywood). I read elsewhere that bonus whoring is for little girls so I'll offer this is a rebuttal or at least an explanation of why it can be better than rakeback in some cases.

PR and it's skins use a new system where poker points are accumulated at a rate of .07 pts per $.10 in rake. The PR bonuses that are 7 pts per bonus $1 work out to %100 NON-contributed rake (you only need to be dealt cards). Hollywood poker has been offering large reloads every couple of months for up to $1000 at a rate of 15 pts per $1 which is about 47% rakeback.

The highest rate of CONTRIBUTED rakeback I've seen at BoB is 40% and you have to generate $7000 in rake a month to qualify for that (I guess some deals may vary). I don't want anyone to PM me about which affiliate I used, I'm not trying to give business to or take business from anyone. As far as I know, Pokernetwork rb gnerally does not work the way it did/does on the former party skins and only counts rake where you contribute to the pot (and is counted against your MGR). I've generated about $110 in rake clearing about 1200 points playing 2 or 3 tables of fullring 5/10 LHE and if I wanted to I'd make 20% rb when that number hit $200 in rake ($40). Comparatively I'd get $100 for 1500 pts at Hollywood (oh, and BoB charges a deposit fee for most methods unlike PR and Hollywood). The decision was easy for me since I don't play enough to ever run out of bonus $ (2-4 hours a day).

3. The rake is bad, I understand, but can it be overcome to make it more profitable than Party w.o RB?

I've always won at much higher rates on PR and it's skins than Party, so for me yes. The rake isn't that much higher and it's capped at $3 for big pots. But I've read that mediocre players did very well at Party playing as many tables as possible as quickly as possible hoping to do a little better than break even and relying on rb for their profits. That's not the way I play so I can't offer a comparison.

4. Is the play comparable fishiness with Party 2/4?

Yes, the play at the 2/4 level on Party and on the poker network skins is about the same though I'd say it was a bit tighter on PR. There are a lot fewer tables on PR and skins so it can be a little rocky at times but at least you get to see flop%. The fact that there are fewer tables means the bad players can't hide from the good ones. I don't use pokertracker yet so I find the note taking features, particularly the colored dots, particularly helpful on PR and skins when choosing tables. And from personal experience, the level of play from 2/4 to 5/10 is pretty much the same (the best clearance rates for the bonuses come at the 3/6 and 5/10 levels but 2/4 is still pretty good).

I've read that rb is available for hollywood so if you want to try the best of both worlds, give them a try.

[TheHammer24]

Thanks a lot. If you continue to put effort into your replies as you did that one, you will get a lot out of this forum, and your presense will be much appreciated.

I see you reccommen bonus over RB. Hollywood does offer both. How does the simulateous clearing of a bonus affect your MGR. FWIW, I did not have RB at Party and I do not have much expierence with the rules concerning MGR.

From second hand information I've reviewed, whatever bonus you've cleared in a month counts against your MGR on BoB and I'm fairly certain the same is true for Hollywood (but my second hand info might be wrong). It does seems to be rare for a poker site to give players bonuses and not count it against their MGR (Absolute is the only one that comes to mind).

I don't have rb on Hollywood (too quick to whore the signup bonus to worry about rb) so I can't say for sure and I'm only in the first month of my BoB rb deal. I just checked BoB and I have about $163 in rake for 1230 points worth of play (there must be a reporting delay I wasn't aware of). Their figure doesn't reflect the $100 sign up bonus I cleared so I don't know what will get reported to my affiliate (at least it's positive even if I haven't generated enough to get a cut). There's supposed to be a way for me to check my rake figures with my affiliate but I either screwed that up somehow or I don't have any figures yet because the rate gets set based on per month rake. I haven't named the affiliate (and won't for whoever else reads this)so I guess it's ok to post %.

Step 1: $0 – $200 = No rake back
Step 2: $200 – $400 = 20%
Step 3: $400 – $1000 = 25%
Step 4: $1000 - $4000 = 30%
Step 5: $4000 – $7000 = 35%
Step 6: $7000 + = 40%

So basically I'm not getting squat in terms of rb, but I got the $100 bonus and the $729 I won the old fashioned way above my $500 deposit. These results aren't typical for me but damn I crushed those games (and just had to share)! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[TheHammer24]

[ QUOTE ]
From second hand information I've reviewed, whatever bonus you've cleared in a month counts against your MGR on BoB and I'm fairly certain the same is true for Hollywood (but my second hand info might be wrong). It does seems to be rare for a poker site to give players bonuses and not count it against their MGR (Absolute is the only one that comes to mind).

I don't have rb on Hollywood (too quick to whore the signup bonus to worry about rb) so I can't say for sure and I'm only in the first month of my BoB rb deal. I just checked BoB and I have about $163 in rake for 1230 points worth of play (there must be a reporting delay I wasn't aware of). Their figure doesn't reflect the $100 sign up bonus I cleared so I don't know what will get reported to my affiliate (at least it's positive even if I haven't generated enough to get a cut). There's supposed to be a way for me to check my rake figures with my affiliate but I either screwed that up somehow or I don't have any figures yet because the rate gets set based on per month rake. I haven't named the affiliate (and won't for whoever else reads this)so I guess it's ok to post %.

Step 1: $0 – $200 = No rake back
Step 2: $200 – $400 = 20%
Step 3: $400 – $1000 = 25%
Step 4: $1000 - $4000 = 30%
Step 5: $4000 – $7000 = 35%
Step 6: $7000 + = 40%

So basically I'm not getting squat in terms of rb, but I got the $100 bonus and the $729 I won the old fashioned way above my $500 deposit. These results aren't typical for me but damn I crushed those games (and just had to share)! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

MGR is usually: Month Rake - Bonuses cleared = MGR

I will just assume that thats the case here.

My rakeback offer at BoB is the same as yours or 30% flat, I'll obviously take the thirty percent flat rate.

So i guess my final question is: Would you reccommend the huge 10000 dollar bonus at Hollywood or the small fifty dollar one, assuming I'll also get rb.

The huge 10k bonus just recently went from a 15x bonus (or 13.5 since the last 1k comes at 0x) to a 20x bonus (18x same deal) according the the BW webpage. I reviewed Hollywood's info on their own site and the 500% 1k bonus still clears at 15x and they've offered reloads every month or so at the same rate (500%, 1k, 15x), so that might be the way to go instead. You could always try the small $50 bonus to see if you like the site but I don't know how much
rake you'd generate in the process to see how that works out.

I reviewed a lengthy thread on the internet bonus forum here and you might want to verify things with your affiliate because there may be two ways your MGR is calculated at Hollywood: From DavidC in his My Experience at Hollywood Poker thread
<font color="blue"> Firstly, there appears to be two different affilliate deals:

The old deal is:
-players are attributed their MGR somehow
-neteller deposits are subject to a 7% charge, which is subtracted from MGR
-bonuses are subtracted from MGR as they're paid (not as they're earned)

The new deal:
-Players are attributed their MGR
-No deposit fees
-Bonuses removed

Because of this, it's actually possible as an affilliate to get a player who generates NEGATIVE rakeback, which is charged against the rakeback of your positive players!!

----------------------------------------

In the new affilliate agreement, players are attributed rake as follows:

At the moment a pot is raked, everyone who is still in the hand gets attributed for an equal amount of rake.

For example, 5 people fold preflop at a 0.5/1 game, 5 people stay in. The pot is raked $0.10, and each of the 5 players is considered to have paid, as an individual, $0.02 in rake.

2 players fold on the flop, the pot goes up to $4. Another $0.10 more is raked, and three players are each attributed for $0.03 more in rake.
-------------------------------------------------
</font>

It looks like either way the rakeback you'll be getting will come from the 53% that isn't covered by the 15x bonuses but this is contributed proportional rake as David describes (bet hey, every little bit helps). I don't know how likely it is to actually generate a negative MGR but under the scheme I had at BoB I wouldn't be seeing much if any rakeback money personally. Since I like Hollywood I might see if I can get rb somehow (though I already have an account there) but I'm going to check my BoB stats after the month is up to see if I'm likely to piss off an affiliate by generating a negative rake (I'm pretty tight).

Oh, btw, I've been told that there is a trick that lets you 8 table at Hollywood if you want to. You can get on 4 tables normally through the waitlist feature but once you have four going you can get four more if you stay on the other wait lists since the tables pop up automatically. I can't track that much at once and I don't like playing that way but it's an option for a high volume player.

You might want to check out David's full thread but I haven't figured out how to link other threads to my replies yet.

Since we're talking about poker network skins I thought I'd pass this along. According to the BW forums Pokerroom is offering a 40% $200 max reload bonus at 10x (and they have a concurrent point trade in deal for additional bonuses). The bonus code is SLAYER. Must be a Halloween thing. Looks like I'll be delaying my Hollywood chase for a bit. I love skin vs. skin competition. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]