PokerSourceOnline Promos

Today I signed up for my first online poker account at PartyPoker (PP). PSO offers two ways to start a PP promo: Free Money (Instant Bankroll) or Free Poker Gifts .

Instant Bankroll is perfect for those who want to start playing for real money online, but don't want to risk any of their own money (or want to risk very little of it). PSO will give you $100 free to play with at PP. You get $75 up front, deposited into your PP account, to play poker with. After you play 1000 raked hands, you get the remaining $25 (rake is the house's cut of the pot - typically around 5% of the pot). You cannot withdraw any money until you reach 1000 raked hands. PSO also has promos with PP where you can deposit $50 to get $125 free (need 500 raked hands), or $100 to get $150 free (need 1000 raked hands).

I decided to go with the Free Gift promo instead, for two reasons: value, and play requirements. I chose the 300 pc Nevada Jacks ceramic chip set as my free gift (retails at $200, sells on Ebay for about $130), and combined with the PP 20% deposit bonus of $100 if you deposit $500, the value of the promo is about $230 (compared to $100-$150 with the Instant Bankroll promo). In terms of play requirements, this promo only needs 250 raked hands to clear before you get both your PSO gift and your PP bonus money. The only disadvantage of this promo (compared to Instant Bankroll) is that you need to deposit and risk $500 of your own money (although you can withdraw, for example, $400 right away and just play with $100 if you want).

After signing up and depositing $500 right away via Neteller, I went straight to the $0.50/$1 limit hold'em tables (minimum table limits for the PSO promo is $0.50/$1 limit or $25 no-limit). At these tables, the small blind/big blind is $0.25/$0.50, and the maximum bet is $0.50 for the first two rounds (pre-flop and flop), and $1 for the last two rounds (turn and river), with the number of bets capped at four per round. I chose to start playing limit hold'em instead of no-limit because the game is better suited for beginners - making a mistake will not cost you your whole stack. I finished the 250 raked hands requirement after playing for about five hours. I ended the night down about $30 at the tables - a bit of a disappointing start :( With the $100 bonus, though, I net $70, plus I've got the Nevada Jacks chip set as well, which I plan to sell.

Earnings-to-date: $70 + poker chips