For many online poker players, one of the most attractive draws to any online poker sites is the bonus offers that comes with memberships and deposits. While bonuses almost always come with strict guidelines and gambling rules, free money is free money. The importance of a bonus is entirely up to the player and the specific type of bonus. This article examines how different types of bonuses can be important to your style of play and specific poker needs.

Initial Deposit

Most poker sites offer initial deposit bonuses. These typically come in two forms; the single bonus or recurring bonus. With the single bonus, you receive a percentage of your first deposit as additional money. This can make a huge difference in the amount of time that you are able to play with any given amount of money. For example:

You estimate that you can play for five hours with $100.00.
You make the initial deposit of $100.00 into your favorite poker account.
The given website offers a bonus of 200% on the first deposit.
So, your deposit of $100.00 becomes $300.00.
Assuming that your original time estimate is correct, five hours of play has now become 15 hours.

So, with the above example in mind, your play time with the same amount of actual money has tripled without you depositing any additional funds. Obviously, frequent players find that bonuses make a huge difference in their online poker experience.

The recurring deposit bonus works in the same way but over a longer period of time. For example, some poker sites will offer four different bonuses of 25% on four recurring deposits. As all bonuses have maximum amounts, recurring bonuses can be important to players that want to make multiple deposits for more monetary potential.

Promotions

The best types of bonuses come in the form of promotional offers. They may come when a poker site member plays only one type of game (Texas Hold ‘Em for example) and the bonus is only applicable to that type of game. For players that prefer to play only one type of poker, these bonuses can be very valuable. In addition, promotional bonuses often have much less strict wagering requirements than deposit bonuses. Promotions can afford players with opportunities to make a great deal of money while playing online poker.

Another type of promotional offer comes when a player enters a tournament or special event. By far, these can be the most valuable bonuses awarded to a poker player. On one hand, they can assist in the payment of entry fees or buff up a player’s bankroll to afford them more money to use during the tournament. On the other hand, some tournaments subtract a large amount of rake from participants. If you think of the bonus as paying for the rake while your actual money covers the tournament bank roll, the tournament bonus can be absolutely essential.

Conclusion

So, yes, bonuses can make a huge difference for online poker players. In addition to awarding the player free money, they can act to extend play sessions without the risk of losing more money. However, always be careful to not establish big spender habits that may bleed into future non-bonus deposits.

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Ever since Annie Duke’s successful appearance on Celebrity Apprentice (she finished second place) it seems like the viewing public has been fascinated with the idea of being an online poker professional. It seems only natural that such interest has led way to the recent airing of a reality show featuring online poker professionals that details the aspects of their life and their career. Curious about this new comer to the reality television genre? Look no further as we have selected the most discussed, and perhaps the most interesting, information about one of the shows that aired in 2009. You can catch 2 Months, 2 Million on G4 on Wednesdays at 8:00 PM Eastern Time.

2 Months, 2 Million

This show began airing in August of 2009 on the G4 network. The premise of this show is revealed by the title. A team of online poker players have two months to accumulate total winnings of $2 million. The winnings must be made solely while playing online poker and the entire team uses the same bankroll. The show features the online poker professionals Jay Rosenkrantz, Emil Patel, Brian Roberts and Dani Stern. Although they play poker online, their Las Vegas house (10,000 sq. feet with a room dedicated solely to online poker with advanced computers and 50 inch televisions to show the games), allows them to experience the true high roller lifestyle. Even one of the earliest promotions for the television show portrayed the team of gamblers living it up at the Playboy Mansion.

Show Features

Glamour and riches are not the only aspects showcased on each episode. In fact, the poker pros featured on the show constantly give helpful advice to viewers about how to be successful with online poker. Techniques like “semi-bluffing” and “continuation betting” are discussed as well as bankroll and anger management techniques. One of the prominent misconceptions that the cast puts to rest is that online poker professionals (for the most part) cannot play live poker as well. They discuss how the most difficult online tournament is actually much more difficult than the most challenging live tournament. In the 3rd episode “House Wars”, viewers got a chance to see the poker team play live as well as play online.

Cast Bios

Dani Stern is the youngest player on the poker team at age 22. He grew up in New York and is one of the most competitive players on the team. He claims to have won and lost over $100,000 in a single day.

Jay Rosenkrantz has been playing poker since the age of 12. He went to school for screenwriting and operates his own poker advice company.

Brian Roberts claims that his first poker win was $100. He dropped out of school at age 16 and began sneaking into land based casinos at 17.

Emil Patel says that his life goal is to purchase a baseball team. He once went on a losing streak that totaled almost $1 million. HE began playing poker at New York University where he was noted as an excellent math student.

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Pacific Poker, established in 2002, is one of the oldest and most experienced online poker sites. It’s a member of the larger 888 Holdings online gambling corporation. The site’s traffic has increased dramatically in recent years, due to a revamping of their poker software and the addition of a few extra game types. At this time, Pacific Poker is not available to US customers.

Game Types

Players who are satisfied with standard poker game types will be happy with Pacific Poker. The site offers Texas Hold’em, Omaha Hi, Omaha Hi Lo, 7 Card Stud, and 7 Card Stud Hi Lo. Each day, a $20,000 guaranteed-prize pool tournament is held, along with smaller tournaments. Sunday features a $100,000 tournament with a $200+$20 tournament. Competition on Pacific Poker is generally quite soft, especially in Texas Hold’em games. Limit games are more popular here than on some poker sites.

Bonuses

Pacific Poker offers a solid 100% initial deposit bonus of up to $400. This bonus will take some time to enter your account; as you play more hands, the site will gradually deposit money into your account. The 888 Holdings franchise generally offers plenty of reload bonuses and promotions to hold your interest. Although their loyalty program is rather basic, the standard rules apply. As long as you regularly play hands on the site, you’ll accumulate Frequent Player Points and Bonus Points that can be spent on cash, or 888.com merchandise.

Software

Pacific Poker’s software used to be sluggish and laggy, causing a lot of poker players to look elsewhere for more stable poker action. Fortunately, the site has totally revamped their downloadable software, and play is currently fast-paced and crisp. The software’s graphics are intuitive and eye-catching. The poker lobby is easily navigable, with a great search feature that allows players to find the game types and tournaments they’re looking for. Multi-tabling is now possible, and avatars are more realistic. You also have the option of creating hot keys in order to speed up your game play. If you don’t use the Windows operating system, you can play Pacific Poker in your browser.

Service And Security

Some poker sites will only offer customer support via email, or by telephone with limited hours. Pacific Poker takes customer support more seriously. Free customer support is available around the clock through email, live chat, or telephone. Representatives are known for their professionalism. Most importantly, the site is safe and secure. You can rest easy knowing that your online poker bank account won’t be susceptible to hackers and scammers.

Deposit Options

Pacific Poker offers a bevy of deposit options. As with most poker sites, major credit cards such as Visa and MasterCard are accepted, though your credit carrier may sometimes cancel transactions you make to online poker sites. Fortunately, other options such as Neteller, Click and Buy, Paysafe Card, uKash, and Wire Transfer are readily available. Pacific Poker makes it easy to deposit and withdraw funds from your online poker account.

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Everyone loves happy hour. At Full Tilt Poker, they make every effort to extend this feeling to online gambling by offering a happy hour where you can earn double, or even triple, Full Tilt Points to sped on exclusive members only tournaments and loads of merchandise and apparel such as plasma televisions, laptops and logo jackets or hats. You do not need to do any additional work to earn these extra points. In fact, they appear in your account as if you had been earning the bonus amount all along. But how do you take advantage of this attractive promotion?

It’s Happy Hour Somewhere

After logging in to your account, take a look at the “Players” column on the game selection page. If there is a “smiley face” image next to the number of players at the table, the game is eligible for happy hour points. Normally, happy hour is designated to tournament games, but ring games are also frequently eligible for this promotion. So, if you are not in the mood for a long tournament, you can take advantage of the ring games. We also recommend you select the easiest poker tables.

Full Tilt Poker keeps a detailed schedule of when Happy Hour will be and you can access this schedule to check when your sessions should be. This is important as Happy Hour can be at different times on different days. For example, happy hour on Monday could be scheduled on Sit and Go tables from 1:00 to 3:00 PM. If this is the case, you will only win bonus points from 1:00 to 3:00 at a designated Sit and Go table. The following day, a specific tournament could be scheduled for Happy Hour from 3:00 to 5:00 PM. This may seem confusing, but Full Tilt Poker does this to make sure that every player, no matter how packed their schedule is, has a chance to take advantage of this promotion.

The schedule is intended to show players at what time during the day Happy Hour occurs. Full tilt Poker currently schedules Happy Hour during every day of the week.

Happy Hour Rules

There are some limitations that apply to Happy Hour. They are as follows:

You must play a minimum of one hand at a Happy Hour table to qualify for bonus points during Happy Hour.
If you continue to play at the same table after Happy Hour, the normal Full Tilt Point rate will apply to any points won after Happy Hour ends.
Only games selected on the schedule by Full Tilt Poker will be eligible for double or triple bonus points.

Other Bonuses

You can always see how many Full Tilt points you have earned by clicking on the “My Promotions” tab in the Cashier section of Full Tilt Poker. During some Happy Hours, you can use the extra points that you earn to qualify for other bonuses. Even if you have just started playing at Full Tilt Poker and are working on completing your introductory deposit bonus requirements, you will be eligible to keep all of the points and spend them immediately, regardless of the status of your monetary bonus.

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With poker tournaments so popular in the United States, it seems only natural that other major countries would want to jump on board. One of the most successful entries into the poker tournament circuit is in Russia with the Pokerstars sponsored Russian Poker Tour (RPT). This tournament runs quite similarly to the World Series of Poker and, of course, features some of the best poker players from Russia. Although it caters to poker professionals, the tournament is open to the public and all players from Russia have an opportunity to play in the big game every year.

Poker in Russia

Poker is considered to be a very democratic sport in Russia. The Russian Poker Tour is the largest poker tournament series in Russia. Every round of the tournament takes place in a different major Russian city with qualifying satellites in many major cities and online. Each round of the tournament is subject to a different buy-in amount and follows a different structure. This allows different play styles to excel in different rounds, making the tournament fair to everyone.

In 2008, the first round of the tournament took place in St. Petersburg and the Moscow was the featured city in May. Each round is subject to regulations dictated by the Sport Poker Federation. The results of the tournament are posted on the federation’s toll board.

Tournament Entry

You can choose two routes to enter the Russian Poker Tour. You can pay the direct buy-in for the tournament to play without having to qualify and automatically secure a seat in the televised tournament. If you do not have the money to cover the entry fee, you can qualify by playing in an online or offline satellite game and win your seat. By playing in a satellite game, you can pay a substantially lower buy-in or not pay one at all. This is a great way for amateurs to participate in the tournament without having to raise money.

Although all transactions are made in Russian Rubles, the main office at the tournament offers currency exchange services so your chosen currency will be accepted. One of the great features about playing in the Russian Poker Tour is that winnings are not subject to taxes. The Russian government will not take any of the money that you win after playing in the tournament. However, your home country may take taxes from the money once you return home.

Registration

If you wish to participate in the Russian Poker Tour, you must register either with the Tour directly or for a satellite using Pokerstars. You can use the link on our site to sign up at Pokerstars if you do not yet have an account and wish to participate. By using our bonus code and referral link, you can receive extra money to more than cover the buy-in for the tournament. We recommend that you use our link to sign up and register at Pokerstars to save money on the buy-in and receive extra bonus money to fund your tournament and, of course, training for the first round. To qualify easily, we recommend you play exclusivity at the easiest poker sites

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Fellow Pet Lovers,

If there were to be an ultimate animal species for poker, which one would it be ? In our opinion, the American Bulldog would be the best pick.

I mean, think about it… Who would want to mess with a bulldog at the poker table. I’d be on my guard if I were to give him a bad beat on the river. If I held 72 and cracked his aces, I would even considering running away.

The Bulldog could easily bite off your head and lead you straight to the emergency room. Although that would be awesome to see, it is not recommended obviously.

Other cool species for me would be a panda, a dolphin and a wise old rat. The Dolphin would be super smart and hard to play against. They could also collude with sonar if your playing at a table with multiple ones so it would be tricky for sure.

What would be the ultimate animal species for poker in your opinion ?

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It seems traffic has dropped for bulldog related key terms these last few weeks.

How could this be ?

Well, firstly, Bulldog has ceased to operate for a long time now, so maybe the word has gotten around.

In other news, you may know my brother is a dog trainer, and he has trained an American Bulldog recently.

What in an American Bulldog ? You can find out on these great sites

Bulldogs

Bulldog Information

Anyways, good luck at the tables !

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Bulldog has ended operations for a while now, but Bulldog Poker enthusiasts still seem to be plenty. Today, most of these players have relocated to Full Tilt Poker, or Ultimate Bet, two of the leading American Poker Rooms.

There are no short term plans to resurrect Bulldog Poker however. So It is safe to say that the Bulldog saga has ended for good. Although dogs playing poker have been immortalized through the series of paintings from Coolidge, dogs playing online poker is now something of the past.

Rest assured that we may see an operator take advantage of Coolidge again for online poker, but we have not heard of one yet. Originality of marketing should always be of crucial importance, so we have no doubts that BullDogPoker’s replacement will come in time. Most of the existing poker sites utilize some more traditional and uninteresting forms of advertisement that could benefit from say…a logo of a paw holding a mouse.

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Unfortunately, Bulldog Poker shut down operations a few years back.

Bulldog poker was one of the sickest poker sites, with cutting edge graphics and a healthy player base.

Bulldog is now R.I.P. So what options are left ?

Rest assured the options are plenty for the avid poker player. There a myriad of sites that allow you to try your hand at your favorite sport.

In fact, if you desire to become a semi-pro, times are good. Get started at any of the below:

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UltimateBet.com

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FullTiltPoker.com

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Aced.com

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CherryRedCasino.com

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PartyPoker.com

Bulldog Poker Strategy Tips

Never play against a Bulldog, he might bite. Seriously though, we recommend playing a TAG style (tight aggressive style). This is usually one of the most profitable styles, especially against weak players playing a wide range of hands.

Additional Resources on poker

Try Google, Open Directory Project, as well as Yahoo.

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