Online Poker Forum at Full Tilt Poker

Tiera Starr · Message Board Junkie Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 1827

I think people would think my bankroll management is lousy.

My Full Tilt bankroll has fluctuated between $10 and $60, but if I do go broke I'll have rakeback to give me a reload in the middle of the month.

I've been playing 25c/50c and 50c/$1 razz, though anytime the roll drops below $20 I cut out the 50c/$1 games.

And as for SNGs and small field MTTs, I'm using a 10% rule - so $55 is needed to buy into a $5+50c SNG, or $110 for a $10+$1 game (I've been trying to get there for the Wicked Cool series, but since I'm at $40 at the moment, I dont think I'll make it.) So far, I've only played a couple of $1 MTTs on Full Tilt, and yes I'm signed up for the Forum $1 weekly.

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However now I find myself looking at Pokerstars, and what is necessary to clear the first deposit bonus. Their loyalty point and rake structure is a little different to Full Tilts, and I find myself looking at their $2/$4 razz tables as the way to do it. It appears pots under $20 aren't raked, and those that reach $20 will be raked $1 earning me a loyalty point and contributing to clearing my bonus (unless the table only has two or three players, in which only 50c rake is deducted but I'm willing to forgo the loyalty point for half rake).

Pokerstars first deposit bonus requires one to clear the whole bonus in six months, or get nothing. So I need to carefully consider how much to deposit intially. They are offering a 10x bonus at the moment - which means that I need to earn 10 FPP per $ deposited to clear the bonus.

I have about $200 available for Pokerstars.

I considered the $5+50c SNG route, and determined that an estimate of 1 per day for six months (@FPP each) would yield almost 550 FPP, so I should be able to clear a $55 deposit bonus by this means.

However I would like to know how much of a bonus I would expect to be able to clear playing $2/$4 razz for about 2 hours each day - earning 1FPP for a $20+ pot, and nothing for a lesser pot. Also, I wont have rakeback to fall back on (created the account long ago) to avoid going broke, so my bankroll will be fairly tight. (I would expect to have to drop down to $1/$2 or less if my bankroll dropped below $100.) At $1/$2, a $10 pot is required to earn an FPP, so clearance rates should be similar, but any lower stakes I wouldn't expect to earn many FPP al all (if any).

Alternatively, should I wait for Pokerstars to offer a better bonus? There is mention of a 5x bonus on their explanation page. Does anyone know if they regularly have such an offer, or would it merely be information from an earlier time that is unlikely to be repeated?

fire_eyes_2k · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:07 am Post subject:

OK, so you're depositing $200 and you want to know what limits you should play?

2/4 of anything is a truly hideous idea. Thats only 50 big bets which you can lose pretty fast just due to variance. I'm currently playing 2/4 LHE on stars and I've had swings of -$170 and +$250 in just 500 hands. So distinctly BAD idea.

But I do know the rake/points system on stars pretty well, and if you play .50/$1 stakes then when the pot gets to $8, 40c is raked and you get your point. Currently you can earn a max. bonus of $50 on stars which I think you need 250 points and it clears all at once. At .5/1 level I'd say about 1 in 3 hands earns you a point, so 750 points and you have your bonus.

Thats 200 big bets which I still don't really think is enough, but I'm not going to convince you to go any lower than that.

Riddim · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 3:44 am Post subject:

Points on stars are quite easy to clear. I got close to 1900 points in about a month of playing almost exclusively .5/1 and 1/2 limit hold 'em, mostly 6max. You should easily be able to get the full $200 even if you only 1-table .5/1 6max and don't play all that much.

Tiera Starr · Message Board Junkie Joined: 01 Mar 2006 Posts: 1827

fire_eyes_2k: OK, so you're depositing $200 and you want to know what limits you should play?[i]

Almost, I want to know how much I should expect to clear with about 365 hours of play (six months at 2 hours / day), because if that would not clear 2000 FPP then I would need to then I would need to make a smaller first deposit so the bonus was at a level I could confidently expect to clear.

fire_eyes_2k: [i]Currently you can earn a max. bonus of $50 on stars which I think you need 250 points and it clears all at once.

I read 100% deposit bonus requiring 10x to clear - however it didn't state a maximum, so I foolishly assumed no maximum. I guess I'll have to email Pokerstars support to find out exactly what it is - and if there is a 5x clearance bonus, then that is even better.

Edit: I just looked at their page again and see that it is only $50 as you said. Oh well, 50 should be easy enough.

fire_eyes_2k: 2/4 of anything is a truly hideous idea.

You are probably right there. I just really liked the idea of no rake for the smaller pots. Reading the rake structure, it appeared to me that 1/2 and 2/4 would work to clear a bonus, but anything lower would be very difficult.

fire_eyes_2k: But I do know the rake/points system on stars pretty well, and if you play .50/$1 stakes then when the pot gets to $8, 40c is raked and you get your point. At .5/1 level I'd say about 1 in 3 hands earns you a point, so 750 points and you have your bonus.

Really? I watched a $1/$2 game for awhile, and only saw 1 hand exceed the $10 necessary to grant an FPP (25c rake at $5, 50c at $10), though I probably only watched about 15 hands, so it was a small sample size.

Riddim: I got close to 1900 points in about a month of playing almost exclusively .5/1 and 1/2 limit hold 'em, mostly 6max.

That sounds good. However I do need to ask how many hours that would have been (approximately).

Riddim · Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:37 pm Post subject:

Unfortunately I don't have any idea how many hours it was, because I rarely keep track of the amount of time I play for. Since I didn't have pokertracker back then I don't even know quite how many hands it was. 365 hours*100 hands/hour (if you play the speed 6max tables)*2 tables comes out to 73k hands though, so you should be fine. I think I only played about 10k hands or so in the month I cleared my bonus. Even if you'll be playing strictly .5/1, 7 times as many hands should make up for that and then some.

By the way, I'm glad you brought this up since it made me open the stars client and realize that they once again had the book of bluffs in their FPP store. I had planned on ordering it back in September when I played on stars, but when I reached 800 points it was gone so I waited until I got to 1k and bought ace on the river instead. Now they had it again though, and I could finally use most of the 892 points I had left on there.

Kloaked Spirit · Royal Flush Joined: 03 Nov 2005 Posts: 869

http://www.bonuswhores.com/poker-stars.php

According to this, you would average around $2/hr in bonus money per table hour played at the .50/$1 level. If you multitable the .50/$1, I'm certain you could easily clear the bonus in a short period of time without putting yourself at much of a risk of variance creaming you.

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