Poker Bonus Hunting

August 8, 2011 - admin - No Comments

Let's go bonus hunting!

Poker bonus hunting is the activity of hopping from poker site to poker site to clear sign-up bonuses and is also sometimes referred to as ‘bonus whoring’. Especially since Black Friday first deposit bonuses sky-rocketed among the poker rooms, which makes bonus hunting possibly a very profitable activity. In our article we will explain the benefits and the disadvantages of bonus hunting. Furthermore we will discuss when its optimal to hunt and when its better to stick to one site.

Benefits Poker Bonus Hunting

We can be short about the benefits of poker bonus hunting: $$$$. As said, poker rooms offer attractive bonuses to attract new players. Clearing these bonuses can get you a lot of extra money on your account. Even if you are a break-even player on relatively low stakes -say: 25NL- you can still make a good income from bonus whoring. Let’s go to an example for this:

Say you have time on your hand and are able to play 8 tables simultaneously. In this case 8-tabling the $0,10-$0,25 tables should enable you to clear $1000 in sign-up bonus a month. That’s 40 buy-ins extra! Most rooms on the iPoker network currently have 200% bonuses up to $2000. With these bonuses its not that hard to get $1000 in bonus one month. If we take the biggest iPoker skin Titan Poker as an example, we see that the first deposit bonus is released in $5 increments and you have 2 months to clear the bonus. If you play a lot of cash games it’s definitely possible to clear this bonus. When you are done, go on to next room: that’s poker bonus hunting!

Disadvantages Poker Bonus Hunting

It’s not only ‘Halleluja’ with poker bonus hunting. There are two disadvantages. The first is that switching sites often does not give you time to adjust to the regulars on a site. At the time you figured them out, you moved on to the next site. You can tackle this disadvantage by switching to rooms within a network. The aformentioned iPoker network has many skins, so you can switch rooms while still playing the same players. As an added bonus: You can pick new screen names with every skin so regulars can’t get a read on you, but you do get to know their tendencies! One thing: You of course lose the notes you have on players if you don’t use software like PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager.

The second disadvantage is the fact that it’s not possible to reap the benefits of VIP Programs. VIP Programs are loyalty reward programs and work the same as loyalty schemes in other businesses like the airline industry: the more and longer you play, the more benefits you get. You miss out on this, which is a serious disadvantage of poker bonus hunting.

Things to consider when hunting poker bonuses

It is advicable to bonus hunt when playing at least 4 tables at the same time on levels between $0,10-$0,25 and $0,50-$1,00. Players who play on stakes below 25NL will have problems clearing bonuses. Players on the 200NL+ levels will not see enough benefits from the first deposit bonuses to overcome the benefits of a VIP Program. The problem of not having enough time to get to know the regulars can be overcome by sticking to one poker network as long as possible.

Poker bonus hunting is the easiest for cash game players. Outside of the big sites and networks, Sit ‘n Go’s and tournaments are not running frequently enough to clear bonuses quickly. Also, you rake more per hour with cash games than with tournaments. On top of that, the variance in cash games is lower making it less of a risky business.

For the real bonus hunters, a good poker bonus is of course very important. MPC Poker arranged exclusive bonuses with many of the top poker sites. Our sign up bonuses are usually bigger than the ones you get on the site of the poker room itself. Go to our poker bonus page to check out the best ones. This will surely get you started with your new found ‘poker bonus hunting career’!

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