Before Christmas, I signed up on Full Tilt with an intial deposit of $50.00 on pokerlistings.com. The were offering a free copy of Texas Calculatem (odds calculator) and 100% matching bonus, in my case $50 which could be earned in $5 increments. The nice thing about FT is that they pay incremental bonus points, so you can earn them in all ring games. Each 5 cents in rake = .05 bonus points. The bad thing is that in this game there is a 10 % rake.
Using the Texas Calculatem program in many cases (or at least referring to it) has been helpful for me. I have loosened up my game considerably, (I had previously been VERY TIGHT).
After almost 2300 hands and $35.00 in bonus money I now have profited a bit over $20.00. Without the bonus money, I would be down $15.00. Estimating that I have won about 250 hands, I would guess that I have donated about $75.00 of my winnings to rake.
Games with a 10% rake will kill you. All small games have a huge rake. It is not until you get to the large games which cap the rake at $3 a hand (Maybe a $400 pot) that is becomes more fair.
Winning money in a small game is very very hard in the long run. Without the bonus money, I think it would be nearly impossible.
I would love to hear comments from others.
Neo
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