3 posts / 0 new
Last post
spidey1978's picture
Beginner Introduction and Question on worthwhile rake

Hi Guys,My names Joe or Spidey, I'll answer to either.I'm brand new here and to HUSNGs in general. I was a winning player at ST SnGs a few years ago but had to cash our for personal reasons and didn't play for a couple of years - came back and have been trying to master FR NLHE but am at best breakeven at the micros.Recently moved my bankroll to Unibet (microgaming) as there was a deal where I got free Tilt breaker software only to find the FR NL tables empty. D'oh!! Every closed door is an opportunity though right? The opportunity I had was the chance to try some new games and the one I tried was HUSnGs - I truly had no idea what I was doing butcame up against some real fishes (even fishier than me) and was able to win a large proportion of my first few games. After that I decided to look up some strategy and happened upon this site through 2+2 and decided I'd take a look at the videos and have become a standard member here but since becoming a member I have ran bad/played bad and not having the same joy I had to begin with. (Loving the videos though just need to start internalising all the great concepts).And finally, I get to my question today. I will probably be looking for coaching soon as I love the HUSnG format and think it could be the game for me but before I get on to questions about strategy I wanna check I am not throwing money away by staying at Unibet.Firstly, the rake. At the moment I am playing the €5.50 where .50 is the rake. So pretty high from what I can gather BUT I get 30% rakeback PLUS I have a FDB which means I will get €100 bonus after €530 rake (which is equivalent about 20% rakeback) - so in total I am getting nearly 50% rakeback BUT I am not guaranteed the €100 bonus as I'm not sure I'll rake enough in the time limit unless I move to the €10+1 game. On the plus side the competition seems pretty soft (if only I knew how to exploit them).So after much waffle, my question is am I just wasting money by playing HUSNG here and would I be best moving my BR back to Stars where I currently have the BR to play $3.50s probably moving up to the $7s quickly on a reasonable run. (Also the structure is strange at Unibet - 10 hands at each level going 10/20. 15/30, 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, etc.)Anyway as I said this will probably be the first of many questions but before I wade in with strategy questions and coaching I want to make sure I am playing somewhere I am not just giving money to the poker room.Thanks in advance for your replies.Spidey/JoeP.S. "I'm sorry for the length of this letter, but I didn't have the time to make it shorter."

RyPac13's picture
Stars is a good idea, also at

Stars is a good idea, also at IPN (Redbet is our offer there on our Deals Page), the rake is 5% there and you get 30% rakeback (with the deposit bonus it becomes 50% rakeback), so you're paying 30-50% of .50 cents instead of 50% of $1 in the best scenario for you at Unibet.Our iPoker deal might also interest you, but it's tough to go wrong playing on PokerStars if you find it suits you best, it's the largest and the rake is a competitive rate (the iPoker and IPN sites offer one advantage: softer players, which is a nice advantage, but PokerStars is larger and has better software).

spidey1978's picture
Thanks for getting back to me

Thanks for getting back to me Ryan - seems that Unibet has to go - think I will give Stars another shot - if I can beat it there I can beat it anywhere. Thanks again.