Hi everyone,i just subscriped to this site and first i want to say i think that this is a ton of value for its price.i play poker since about 3 years and my major problem was that ive never sticked to one type of game. i have tried everything from sitngoes, MTT, NL and PLO cash with decent succes but i didnt focus on a specific game too much. and i get easily bored!I like big action during my games, but because i am not the best multi tabler, i tend to be way too lose in my ring cash games when i only play 2-4 tables.so i found out that headsupSNG is the best game for me and i definately want to stick to it, work on my game, play only 1 table first and hopefully improve to the midstakes someday.now i have to ask you a few questions about a fresh, new start.1) which pokerroom can u recommend me? i play at stars atm but i would like to clear a bonus and get rakeback because i think playing micros on stars is not that good, but i might be wrong with that. the room should be mac-compatible as well.2) which rakeback affiliate can u recommend me?3)) i want to deposit 400-500$ at maximum and start with 15s. should i rather play 7s first? i am talking about turbo speed sitngo, not playing hypers for the start. i think i have more questions but i forgot them...i will post them when i remember again :P thanks and best regards,M.
1) Stars is fine, but look at Deal of the month on this page2) Deal of the month3) Depends if you are a winning player. You can play 15s with that roll, but maybe play a few 7s to get a feel for the game
I agree with crstn's advise. Adding to that:- Ipoker and Redbet are two options that smaller stakes players find satisfaction with in the heads up sng community.- The Deal of the Month page has some of the most popular and best offers, there are additional offers on the rakeback tab as well.- Also don't be afraid to move down from the $15s if things go bad. When you have 20-50 buyins in the lower stakes games, the most important thing for most players (unless the bankroll is easily replaceable) is to make sure you don't spend too long at too high of stakes if you are losing. You can move up as fast as you want within reason (15-30 buyins for a level), so long as you move down if you aren't winning and don't hesitate or feel like a loser because you ran bad over a very insignificant sample of games.If you have problems with the last point, just sharkscope some of the most successful players and zoom in over some of the 100-1k game samples and you can easily see that plenty often even the best players struggle over those types of sample sizes. Keep your expectations in check, when you get good and work hard the winnings will come, but if you're focused too much on the bottom line and you take your eye off of discipline and hard work, that's when you make it less likely that you'll succeed.
Hey thanks for all the answers,i decided to stay at Stars, using your deal of the month.unfortunately i still have an account at PS, so i have to write your support an e-mail is that correct?cheers,M.
You can spare your time on this one, Stars will never accept it. Affiliates are paied for bringing players to pokerstars. If you all ready have an account this means that you - obv. - allready knew pokerstars. There is no sense to share the profit with an affiliate, who did actually not affiliate at all. Also pokerstars is the sole market leader in online poker and therefore not even the biggest affiliates would have any possibilites of pressuring them.
Hi.
so does it make sense then to play at stars at microbuyins with STARs VIP system?
With decent volume at the 15s you can achieve Gold Star every month (google a bit to look what equivalent of rakeback that is). If you take bonus and rakeback at betmost you are doing certainly better than that (i think both combined are 70% rakeback)You can for example build a roll at betmost and then continue 30s on Stars.Games at betmost are a little more swingier imo because of the bigger blind increases imo.I played the micros and small stakes on both sites, and there is not much skill difference at those limits.
I have not played on betmost yet....but regarding rb: you should calculate carefully and not get blinded by big rakeback. After all, rakeback is a reduction of the rake. Therefore the question is: if i substract the RB, where is my rake smaller?Furthermore, the first deposit bonus on Betmost is really big (2000?) therefore I would recommend you not to sign up before you can clear it completely since it - otherwise - would be wasted, in my opinion.
Hi.
Well, I wouldn't say don't sign up if you can't max deposit. Just like you wouldn't only play on PokerStars if you can achieve SuperNovaElite.I think what you want to do is compare your options. Rake (after rakeback/bonuses), amount of games, softness of games, those are the three main variables. Stuff like safety of funds and software reliability would come into play as well, mostly in that the lower end of those are just not worth playing (bad software or risky sites) for non US players.
That might be right, Ryan, but surrendering 75 to 80% of a bonus is not just nothing ...if, maybe, in a couple of months you could clear much more? Or can you spilt the bonus in several parts (as you could on pokerstars)?
Hi.
yeah i see. i think betmost has no mac-client, so is there any other ipoker site that has a mac-client and is worth playing? personally my preferred variables would be rakeback, softness of games and security. the amount of games and the software wouldnt be that important as i intent to move to STARS anyways when im at the 30 level and cleared the bonus.best regards,M.
Barrin, yea of course if you can deposit 2k to clear a big bonus in a few months but can only deposit 1k now, it may be worthwhile to play somewhere else until you have that 2k, that could very well be true. I'm sure there are situations where people should deposit $500 and other situations where they should wait.iLikeMary, I'm not sure off hand which sites have Mac clients. If Redbet does not, I can get a WilliamHill sign up for you that is comparable to the BetMost offer (assuming William Hill has a Mac client).
@iLikeMaryi am not a mac user, but can't you use bootcamp to run windows on a mac?
Ye i guess i will have a look for bootcamp, although it wouldnt be my optimal choice and it could take me a while to find a windows CD.There are alot iPoker Browser-clients, as titan or 888 offers, but im not sure if PT3 or HEM works with a browser client.The only other real mac-client that works as a download i found, is carbon and black chip poker. has anyone experienced that? cheers
Black Chip and Carbon are US facing sites, so I wouldn't specifically recommend them to you as a low stakes player. You can play on sites in more stable regulated environments. Ipoker, even Ongame, but also PokerStars and IPN.Of course, some non US players do play on these sites, and if you're going to pick a US facing site, I'd recommend Black Chip over anything else, but do realize that most people consider US facing sites substantially less secure than non US facing sites (the market for trading funds is one clear indicator of this, US facing site transfers/cashouts on the public markets trade for 70-90% of their value, whereas you rarely see more than 5% on a non US facing site, and that 5% represents mostly a convenience fee/small fees coverage).
What are some of the reasons you recommend Black Chip over the other merge skins?
yea havent thought about that, i guess i will just grind my way up at pokerstars, get my old windows pc back in a few month (i am currently abroad) and clear the max. bonuses at other rooms then. this should make the most sense.thanks for all answers and opinions,cheers
Black Chip's VIP support (not general, the general support on most sites on Merge is run by Merge, not the skins) has been excellent, their promos are always at or near the maximum allowed by Merge and they haven't resorted to running deceptive promos or lying to players as some other skins have.