The Truth about Online Poker and Poker Sites

Everyone who plays online poker should read this!  I take the four biggest lines of bull that poker sites try to feed you and expose them.

Truth #1:        Everyone Has the Same Deals.  This is really the most obvious truth.  Just spend a few minutes looking around the web you will confirm this!  Use a search term like “rakeback” or “poker deal” and it will be readily apparent.  Your search will turn up page after page of poker sites, mostly affiliate sites.

There are thousands of affiliate poker sites out there each one must somehow set themselves apart from the rest in spite of the fact that they all offer exactly the same poker room deals!

To set themselves apart poker sites offer incentives.  Some of these can be complex, such as point’s races to earn prizes or acclaim. Or they can be very straightforward, an automatic referral system, (referral roulette) for example.

When the publishers of these sites exclaim that they have the “best rakeback deals” or the “most generous VIP program” they are not lying.  There just hoping that you have just crawled out from under a rock and not noticed that all the other poker sites have the same “best rakeback” deal.

Truth #2:         Sign-up Bonuses are Mirrors and Flash.  To read the ads and banners of any poker room you’d think that there begging you to take some free money!  For the most part nothing could be farther from the truth.  Reading the details of these sign-up deals is not likely to clear things up very much either.  You see, I’m convinced that such text is designed to mislead you into thinking that the sign-up bonus is much easier to get than it really is.

In this article I’m not going to go into the gory details because they all work a little bit differently and also because I don’t want to do that much mind wrenching research!  Suffice it to say they all involve a formula that is based on how much you play and bet.  As you play parts of your sign-up bonus are released into your poker room account.  If you are a player who spends a few hours a week playing low stakes poker, you will see little or none of that sign-up bonus.  You just don’t play enough.

If you are going to be playing mid steaks or higher and are making a big deposit then I’d say you want look very carefully at the new deposit deal.  You will want to get the most you can out of it.  If you’re a low steaks player making a small deposit you’re going to get pretty much the same deal everywhere.

Truth #3:        Lipstick is put on Pigs.  Many poker sites claim that they offer rakeback on a room or network that does not offer rakeback.  They call it rakeback, but it’s not.  They’re just putting lipstick on a pig.

For example:  The merge network ended rakeback for new signups on 6/1/2011.  Yet you can find hundreds of sites that say they can offer you a rakeback deal on Merge!  What they are doing is calculating a players potenual rewards that can be earned via the rooms VIP program and presenting it as rakeback.  Totally bogus!  Since many players don’t play enough to get much out of these VIP programs.  If you read some details on the site some of them will disclose the “rakeback” is really rakeback via VIP.  However some don’t even tell you that!  They just let you figure it out all by yourself.  When you realize after a week that no rakeback is being paid into your account!

Truth #4:        You Do Not Need a Bonus Code or Sign-up Code.  Here I’m talking about signing up for a new poker room account.  I’ve never seen or heard of a room that does not give all new players there current new deposit/new player

 matchup deal.  Codes are mostly used for tracking and marketing purposes.  Sometimes you may need a code for a certain promotion or to chose between promotions.

Americas Cardroom is a new room (formally Doyle’s Room) that seems to be doing things a bit differently.  They are not playing the code game; in fact they have not published any codes!  I hope this trend continues as other rooms evolve.  It eliminates one layer of bull from the process!

What to Look For in a Poker Site.  The first thing to look for is life!  When was the site last updated?  Is there any life in this site?  If there is a forum when was the last posting?  Look at the poker rooms they offer.  Are they offering rooms that you know are not available such as Full Tilt?  It’s amazing how many sites still list rooms as available that were shut down by the DOJ on black Friday.  Stay away from these dead or almost dead sites.  How frustrating would it be to download and install a poker room on your computer only to be informed when you try to create an account that the room you’ve just installed no longer accepts US players!  You’d be surprised how often this happens.  Those are thousands of sites that still have those cute little US flags parked next to rooms that do not accept US players anymore!

  DOYLES ROOM REBRANDED 
  Doyle’s room has been sold and rebranded AMERICIAS CARDROOM.

Obviously with a name like that they are serious about attracting players from the US.  Press releases say that most deposit/withdrawal issues for US players have been resolved.

They do seem to be doing things a bit differently.  Affiliates are paid differently(less) for one thing.  Also there are no bonus or signup codes available.
Over the next few days I will install and play on this skin.  A full review will be forthcoming.