Hello FRuNL!
Unfortunatly the planned author of this COTW had to step away due to a conflict of interest, and so it fell to me. I hope I can cover adequately. Additionally, I want to make this thread the catch-all for all bonus/promotion questions and answers. As such, I will do my best to outline some principals of getting value from your poker site, but I'm hoping the community can stup up over the course of the week and add posts to this thread filling in the details and specifics for each poker site and each promotion. The COTW is what you make it.
I'm sure all the eggheads hear can't wait to figure out whether PokerStars or FullTilt gives you an extra .25% of "rakeback" at your stakes, and we'll get there, but before we do, I'd like to talk about some of the other things about poker sites that provide you value.
Security
PokerStars and FullTilt are the gold standard in this area, by the fact that they offer secure encryption key login options.
This isn't such a concern for most mocrostakes grinders. but once you start moving up, with it publicly known that you keep thousands of dollars online and google able to retrieve your anme, address, birthdate, etc., avoiding a low-probability catastrophic breach becaomes a legitimate consideration.
For more information on general security for poker players read the
Computer Security COTW.
Support
Need you account shut down because your drunk roomate is joyriding while you're away? Need a question answered before a tournement starts in 30 minutes? What happened to the other $200 in your account? Why haven't yourecieved that p2p transer the guy on AIM said he sent?
Having a competent support staff is another one of those things you might not think about until its too late. By all accounts PokerStars is the gold standard in this area.
Stability
Anyone who spends a lot of time playing poker on the internet should persure the Internet Poker forum (the Zoo) from time to time.
The place is littered with 1000-post threads ofsmall and shady sites shutting down overnight and taking everyone's money with them. Recently there was the Eurolinx deabcle, where overnight the principals in the complany disapeared and the site shut down and the players lost ALL their money. Eurlinx, despite the name, was open to American players and going back to 2005 or so had some of the BEST bonus/rakeback promotions anywhere. Its only because of luck (and ennui) that I didn't move some play there and lose money like everyone else. Turns out the incredible rakeback plus bonuses was unsustainable and they were paying them out with player funds.
Of course, there are no guarantees anywhere. But what value does stable history, large installed base, relative transparency hold? It could be quite a bit. OK, enough PS and FTP carwashing, moving on...
Withdrawals
Your money isn't worth much if you can't get it.
In this day and age when withdrawal avenues can be shut down from time to time, how many different options does your site have to withdraw? How reliable and how fast is it? Does it cost money to withdraw, essentially adding an additional vig on top of rake onto your winnings? How are exchangerates handled?
From what I've heard, PokerStars handles the last item quite well, giving you market-rate exchange rates and letting the money hit your account in your home currency thus avoiding fees and rates from your bank.
FTP withdrawals don't cost money, but do impact your MGR. Luckily only for a couple bucks in most instances.
Bank Wire withdrawals will usually be the most expensive form of withdrawing, with an unknown percent taken out depending on how many banks take a cut from the money while it makes its way to you. Its still often the best option for large withdrawals, as the time involved doing multiple cashouts to withdraw $10k+ can be a PITA.
Software
Does the site work with your tracker, allowing you to not only record results, but also analyze your play? Are there addon software packages that improve the sites playability such as TableNinja? Are the tables resizable or stackable for muass-tabling? How many tables can you play simultaneously? Are the controls, fast, easy, and clear? Is a lot of time wasted between hands reducing your hands/hour? Does the client crash often?
The fishiest games on the planet might not be worth playing if you can't access them, or you get disconnected frequently. For example, BoDog (which is widely considered quite fishy) restricts you to only 3 tables at a time. Through the years some clients I've used were barely functional. At the end of the day what is right for you is a matter of opinion, but calculating your rakeback to the neatest tenth of a percent is futile if the site holds you back in other ways.
Game Selection
What do you play?
The most obvious foactor in game selection is a qorum of players at your stakes; it doesn't matter if the site will let you play 24 tables if only 2 are running of your game. In this regard obviously the big sites have the edge.
But there's more to be considered than just the size of the the site. The big guys have all stakes down to .01/.02, but some of the smaller rooms have nothing lower than .05.10. The very worst players will always play the lowest game available, leading to what I call the "smallest game in the room" effect: the smallest game available in any given room (live or online) will always have a standard of play that is orders of magnatude worse than just one level up. If you are a 10nl players it might be worth your while to play at one of the sites where it is the smallest game in the room.
And there are ways the character of the games can influence the value you get from playing there. The promotions offered at FTP and PS reward
regular play, which leads to a lot of regular players. Rakeback and FPP make regs. Large first deposit bonuses, frequent reload bonuses, jackpot and high hand bonuses, all attract casual players and gamblers. None of that will be taken into account in your effective rakeback calculations.
Rake
What sense does it make to calulate the % of your rake you get back without paying attention to what the site is charging in rake to begin with!
For instance, before they changed their rake structure and added mocrostakes games, FTP charged 5% rake at 5nl and above, but 10% at 10nl, while PS was charging only 5% all the way down to 2nl. The rake at 10nl was eggregious at that time, and no matter what the promotions gave you it couldn't overcome the double-rake you were paying. Even now FTP takes rake in smaller increments than PS, which even at the same rake percent increases the effective rake you pay in nano-stakes games.
And those BBJ promotions I was talking about... there's a reason regs avoid them. Its a lottery that you will most liekly never see a cent back from, and for the most part its impact is an extra bb or so taken from every pot you win, which could reduce your winrate potentially as much as 2ptbb/100.
So be sure to look into the rake structure for the games you play and make sure its what you thought it was. Not all rakes are created equal.
"Hourly"
And this,
this, is what it all boils down to.
More than just a %, the true value of the site is the sum total of what kind of winrate you can achieve, how many table you can play, how efficently, after rake and minus risk, plus promotions, and into your bankaccount. At the end of the day the smart money is on maximizing your earn, not maximizing the portion of it that is free money.
Integrety
And one last note. Some sites, specifically the Cereus network (AP and UP) have been caught
stealing player's money. Are you likely to run into super-users and have your money taken is you play there? No, probably not. But at some point you have to take a stand and decide if you will take any edge available, or if you have limits of what kinds of people and sites you do business with. Will you stand with other players and agree not to line the pockets of those who wronged the player community? The choice is yours.
And now what you've all been waiting for! The deatils of each sites promotions programs!
Two Plus Two
lol
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