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New Player Freeroll & Weekly €100,000 Guaranteed

Kurt — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:08:00 +0000

At PokerKings new players can get more then just a deposit bonus, they get to play in a €1,000 New Player Freeroll. The New Player Freeroll is held every week on Saturday at 18:00 GMT.

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2009 WSOP Heads-Up Recap

Giorgio — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:44:00 +0000

The Internet kid from Michigan takes down the 2009 World Series of Poker with 99, the same hand Phil rocked it with in 1999.

From all angles it looked like online poker player Joe Cada was in over his head today. All the time from the booth, Phil Hellmuth was announcing the kid's plays before they were even made.

Phil Hellmuth would jokingly say “Cada raises 2.5 million from the button” before the cards were even dealt - and then Cada true to form would raise the bet, from the button.

His play might have made sense had it shown results. But usually he’d bet, Moon would call, on the flop Moon would bet out and Cada would fold. We saw this again and again. And again.

And then, before we really know what hit us, Cada woke up and flipped the script.

Poker Tournament Strategy - Part III

LadyHoldem — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:38:00 +0000

In my last article, Poker Tournament Strategy - Part II, we touched on something I'd like to bring up again.

I've often walked into poker tournaments where that loud and boisterous fellow is bragging about being the sheriff. In fact, often times there are grinders there egging him on. Encouraging him to be the sheriff.

The reason for this is that the sheriff has a job in every game. Yes he steals a lot of pots, and even cashes now and then. He re-raises often when he thinks someone is bluffing, he's the guy that will call your bet just to keep you honest.

Hallelujah for him! We need his chips. He gets them by overplaying a small pair, or a weak ace, and then hitting some amazing stuff, and getting the nits to put all their chips in. Understand me here, he gets rid of the nits, and then he donks off his chips.

The point here is that we do not want to be the sheriff, he's going to play a big part in getting us into the money though. We want to wait until the sheriff has over-bet a few dozen pots, and hopefully taken a few people out of the game, narrowed the field for us, and we want to wait until we catch said sheriff, and smack him over the head with a big bag of NUTS.

European Championship of Online Poker - ECOOP V

Giorgio — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:38:00 +0000

Titan Poker has promised that this year’s European Championship of Online Poker is going to be better then ever. The European Championship of Online Poker also known as ECOOP is one of the most popular tournament series held online.

The ECOOP has grown tremendously since the first ever Championships were held in December of 2007. The first ECOOP was played over 10 days and awarded players $2,500,000 dollars.

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This year the European Champion of Online Poker is going to be awarding players $4,550,000 dollars in cash and prizes starting on November 23rd and finishing on December 6th with the Grand Final.

Players can compete in a variety of events including No Limit Hold’em, Limit 7 Card Stud and more. If you need to win your way into one of the events you can play in qualifying satellites at Titan Poker.

Montesino Poker Grand Slam

Kurt — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:19:00 +0000

With the holidays just around the corner almost everyone could use a little extra shopping money. Now is your chance to get that cash with a new promotion going on at Everest Poker.

In this promotion, Everest Poker hosts a series of online satellites to qualify for the €400,000 guaranteed poker tournament in the beautiful Montesino Casino in Vienna (Austria). Read below how you can be part of this amazing event and play against some of world's best poker players, including Team Everest Poker’s Voitto Rintala (Finland) and Cristiano "Lalanco" Blanco (Italy).

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Aussie Millions Satellites at Party Poker

Kurt — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:10:00 +0000

Party Poker is going to send some of their best players to compete in the 2010 Aussie Millions Main Event in Melbourne where the 1st place winner is going to be taking home at least AUS $2 million. If you want in on the action there are many ways you can win your way to Melbourne.

Party Poker Australia Ambassador Stewart Scott is the defending champion and commented:

"I’ve been playing at PartyPoker.com for five years. These great packages are an amazing opportunity for other players to play in this huge tournament. Claiming the Aussie Millions title has been the highlight of my career and I’d love to see another PartyPoker.com player take the title."

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Aced Poker Reload Bonus

Giorgio — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:54:00 +0000

If there is one online poker room that knows how to keep its players happy, it has to be Aced Poker.

Aced Poker has really taken the online poker world by storm with some excellent promotions and VIP treatment of all its players. Not to be done with an excellent 100% up to $500 First Deposit Bonus, it has now come out with a great reload bonus offer.

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For all those players who have already cleared the Aced sign-up bonus and have been waiting for a reload bonus, here is the perfect offer. For a limited period, Aced Poker is offering a new 100% up to $200 reload bonus.

Bwin $250K Guaranteed

Kurt — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:49:00 +0000

Every Sunday, it is time for the Champion Chip at Bwin Poker. The Champion Chip is the name of $250,000 Guaranteed NL Hold'Em weekly tourney, held at Bwin's online poker room.

The Champion Chip winner is assured of a huge payday of more than $50,000 on a buy-in of just $190+$10.

This tournament was a monthly affair until February this year, when Bwin Poker decided to make this a weekly event due to popular demand from its players. Now every week, approximately 1,300 to 1,500 players buy-in to have a shot at their share of the $250,000 guaranteed prize pool.

The Champion Chip Final starts with every player having 2,500 chips and levels are of 20 minutes each.

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PokerStars PCA Freerolls

Giorgio — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:44:00 +0000

Playing poker in the stunning setting of the Paradise Islands in Bahamas at the start of the new year 2010!

You guessed it right, it's the fantasy of any Max Poker Bonus visitor. In fact... it's any poker player's fantasy.

Everest Poker - Live The Dream Promotion

Giorgio — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:36:00 +0000

Launched in 2005, Everest Poker is a globally appealing online poker room that has attracted players from just about every corner of the globe (no US players). With 16 languages and multiple currencies to deposit and play in, Everest Poker has built a massive player base on the Everest Poker Network. Add to these offerings a series of valuable promotions, like the exclusive Live the Dream promo, and you’ve got a superior online poker room.

Everest Poker’s Live the Dream promotion is giving 200 members the chance to travel the world, playing the biggest live poker events around the world, competing against the fiercest competitors in the professional poker circuit. 200 players will qualify, but only 10 will celebrate the ultimate prize – a one year, $100k Everest Poker live event sponsorship.

Interested? Thought so! The next step is to learn how to become one of the 200 qualifying players competing for the top 10 positions.

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Poker Tournament Strategy - Part II

LadyHoldem — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:24:00 +0000

In her previous article, Poker Tournament Strategy - Part I, LadyHoldem wrote about early tournament play. In this episode she continues with middle stage strategies for poker tournaments.

Once you’ve reached say the 4th or 5th blind level, even just stealing the blinds now and then can add valuable chips to your stack.

Something to keep in mind is that picking up the blinds once per revolution keeps you even. Don’t dwell on it, or feel overly compelled to obsessively make a stab at the blinds every revolution, but do keep it in mind. For instance, say you’re hanging in, waiting to wake up to a decent hand. The play is soft for a bit, so you pick up a couple mini-pots, and then the next revolution a new player comes to the table and changes the tables dynamic.

Players seem to be in the mood to get their money into the pot. This new comer to the table is pushing, and your table mates are bored and enjoying the action. Feel free to sit this spell out, floating along on the chips you gained from earlier steals.

In fact, whether or not you’re able to snag a few pots during the slow periods, one thing you want to avoid when playing a poker tournament is premature pressure to act.

Many players realized they’ve lost all their ‘big chips’, or they’ve lost half their stacks, or for whatever reason they’re playing with less chips than they would prefer to be playing with at some point. As long as you’re holding at least 10 big blinds, just wait.

Wait for a hand, or your blind, an opportunity to set a trap, wait for a real hand. Don’t shove at the site of an ace. More often than not that action will send you on your way to the rail, quite prematurely.

Win the Million Dollar Hand at Party Poker

Kurt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:47:00 +0000

For those of you who are not aware, let Max Poker Bonus point you in the right direction: Party Poker offers you the chance to win $1,000,000 by playing your regular games of poker. You will automatically earn PartyPoints while playing for real money and with every 15 points you will receive a card for the Million Dollar Hand. If you manage to build a Royal Flush with these cards you will win $1,000,000. And this is not restricted to only the first player to succeed, it will be paid out every single time someone achieves it!

Of course we all know how hard it is to get a Royal Flush - Party Poker wouldn't give away a million dollars for a pair or three of a kind. However - while they may not pay you the sought after million dollar amount they do reward you for a pair, two pairs, a triple and so on. For example, if you manage to complete a Flush with these special cards, this feat will earn you an instant $100 extra.

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PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2010

Giorgio — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:54:00 +0000

When winter starts to chill your days, we dream of going away to somewhere sunny and warm. PokerStars is going to make that dream a reality for many winning players with the return of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA). This year’s PCA is going to be the best yet with more events then ever before and larger prize pools.

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Aced Poker Shootouts and Bounty Tournaments

Giorgio — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:03:00 +0000

Shootouts and Bounty Tournaments at Aced Poker are some of the most popular tourneys at the online poker room. These tournaments are played a bit differently than the usual freezeouts and re-buys; one reason many online poker players haven’t given them a try.

If you’ve never played an Aced Poker Shootout or Bounty Tournament, you don’t know what you’re missing. Shootouts are like multi-table sit’n’gos with specific rules of table consolidation. Bounty tournaments give players the chance to earn big cash from the very start of the tourney, whether they finish in the prize bubble or not.

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Bwin\'s Big Bounty

Kurt — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:37:00 +0000

If you always felt that you can take on some of the best poker players but you didn't want to invest a lot of money, the Big Bounty at bwin Poker is your opportunity. You can compete for your share of $100,000 in the Big Bounty Final which takes place every other Sunday. And if you don't want to pay the buy-in of $93+7 you may choose to qualify for the Big Bounty Final by playing either Sit&Go or scheduled tournaments. Your investment can be as little as $1+0.10 in order to play for $100,000 - that's quite a winning margin.

Also let's not forget why the Final is called Big Bounty Final - you will be able to knock some of bwin's poker players out of the tournament and collect a $100 bounty for each. Well, technically you will get the chance to do so - whether or not you are actually able to kick them out depends on you and your game. Be warned, these guys know what they do at the table. They have proven their worth in some of the world's biggest and toughest tournaments so if you think you are the shark in this particular fish tank, you may want to reconsider.

WSOP November Nine

Giorgio — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:53:00 +0000

When the World Series of Poker 2009 began, there were nearly 6,500 participants in competition for the title and the bracelet. Over a 12 day period, these players were eliminated from the competition leaving only a final 9 who were triumphant and are now ready to compete in the November 7th finals for 2009’s Word Series of Poker!

The grand prize for this year’s WSOP Championship is a mouth-watering $8 Million, and the final players, coined the November Nine will make sure that the competition heats up!

Party Poker World Open 2009

Giorgio — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:14:00 +0000

You might not have earned yourself a seat for this World Series of Poker Championship, but while the world awaits the outcome as the November Nine get ready to compete for the bracelet and grand prize just a few months from now; Party Poker has their own major event that players can look forward to try their luck again at getting a seat to play at another popular poker event. Party Poker’s 2009 World Open is set to take place in London starting October 11th and lasting 5 days in total where the competition is sure to be tight. While there are professionals set to play in the Party Poker event of the year, with Party Poker’s promotion players of all skill levels have a chance to compete in satellite tournaments that might just land them a prize pack and one of the 48 seats up for grabs in the main event.

Taking place already, are daily satellite poker tournaments that can qualify players to enter the next round; one of the semi-final tournaments that are also taking place daily from which 1 in every 10 players will be invited to play in the Party Poker World Open 2009. For the initial satellites, players can choose to play in one of the $3 Qualifier Speed Rebuy which are happening daily which will move players forward to the next round of the competition every time there’s a total of $75 in the prize pool. There are also daily Qualifier Speed Satellites which don’t give players the opportunity to rebuy, but could send more players to the next round with 1 in every 10 set to move forward.

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Poker Tournament Strategy - Part I

LadyHoldem — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 11:32:00 +0000

It has been some time since Max wrote his Sit&Go Strategy articles and they have been valuable information for quite a few of our visitors. And now the time has come to finally talk about strategy for multi table tournaments.

The beginning of a poker tournament depends a lot on what is already going on at the table. For instance, if you've sat down to a multi table tournament online where many players are all in every hand, you probably want to just sit back and watch the show for awhile. Even if you're dealt pocket aces, you want to fold here.

I know that seems like crazy advice, but the fact of the matter is that if you're playing at a table where maniac fever has taken over, you need to preserve your tournament life. That usually is only the case in micro stakes game and free poker games.

If you're playing at a bit higher stakes, you will still want to take it a bit easier during the lower blind rounds, getting in as many hands as possible, for the cheap price, but really playing the other players, paying attention to tells (there ARE tells whether you're playing live or an online tournament). A big part of these early rounds includes either drawing to the nuts and getting paid off big, or picking off some small pots and keeping your blinds plaid up.

This is also the portion of the tournament where you can really start observing other players. Be on the look out for players that make unusual bets, not the normal 3/4 times the blind amounts, as that's one sign of an inexperienced poker player. Also, pick out the rocks from the calling stations. Rocks play the big big hands, and often use the chat box to talk badly about players that call a raise with anything less than big slick.

It's really easy to put these guys on a hand when you're involved in a hand with them, and it's generally easier yet to bet them off a hand when they miss the flop. But we'll get into that later on.

The loose players or calling stations are easily identifiable as the guys that tend to see every flop, or even a large percentage of flops. Another player to look out for is a player that shows his hand, that's (1) a sign of inexperience and (2) free information for you.

Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam

Kurt — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Poker Players across the UK are gearing up for the Master Classics of Poker 2009 events which will kick off in Amsterdam. This event is one of the largest and most talked about on the European circuit.

If you want to participate in the Main Event of the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam but don't want to pay the impressive buy-in of €6,000+200, let Max Poker Bonus give you a pointer:

Estoril - Portuguese Poker Paradise

Kurt — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:55:00 +0000

For those of you trying to catch the last glimpse of summer the idea of going to Portugal and laze around at the beach surely sounds tempting, right? Well, let's make one thing clear: While bwin will offer you the chance to earn your trip to Estoril, Portugal, sunbathing won't be your main concern. For one thing it will be November (7th - 10th) and even the Portuguese beaches will not be crowded with half-naked people at that time of the year.

Also the reason for you to go there is to participate in one of Europe's greatest live poker events as part of the bwin poker team. Estoril is home to Europe's biggest casino and you will find out that this doesn't only show in the magnitude of the event itself but also the amount of money that you play for. With a buy-in of $1,400+$100 you can count on not only a nice prize pool but also fierce competition.

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$3,000,000 at BestPoker

Kurt — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:56:00 +0000

The Grand Series of Poker (GSOP) returns in style at BestPoker. The GSOP III can offer another increase in cash and prizes to be won and now you can be competing for over $3,000,000 in as many as 15 guaranteed tournaments that will be followed by the $300,000 Guaranteed Grand Slam. It doesn't matter whether you are a Texas Hold'em player or whether you prefer Omaha Hi/Lo. Fancy Hold'em 4 handed? Do you prefer No Limit Hold'em Deepstacks? The Grand Series actually open with a Deepstack tournament on September 27.

In order to compete at any of the 15 daily events (starting September 27 until October 11) you can either opt for a direct buy-in (ranging anywhere from $50+4 up to $500+25) or you may participate in the daily qualifiers. Once you secured your place in any of the GSOP III Events you will also be able to earn points for the Grand Slam Final Leaderboard that may earn you a much sought after ticket for the $300,000 Guaranteed Grand Slam Final. Of course if you win any of the 15 events you are automatically qualified.

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Win the Cup for Your Country!

Kurt — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:39:00 +0000

It is back. The World Cup of Poker (WCP) is being brought back to life on PokerStars and you can be part of your country's four men team. You can represent your country playing poker in the Bahamas and take your share of the $290,000 prize pool. This promotion is available for every PokerStars player no matter what, no matter where.

The teams will be made up by 4 players - 2 of these places will be automatically awarded to the top two of the Tournament Leader Board of each specific country while the remaining 2 will be determined by the National Team Decider Freerolls. If you manage to qualify for one of the prestigious spots on your national team you will be contacted by PokerStars via e-mail. You will have to confirm whether or not you wish to represent your country at the Live Grand Final in the Bahamas (but honestly, tell me one reason why you would choose not to).

After that each team will participate in the so called Regional Play-offs where the various squads will compete in Team Play-off Tournaments. The winning national teams of each of these qualifying tournaments will advance to the final stage, the Grand Final with a prize-pool of $290,000.

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Lovely Autumn at bet365

Kurt — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:15:00 +0000

While nature slowly but surely reminds us that another summer is nearly over and the days start getting shorter again, bet365 improves their promotions so you can get back to some serious poker playing after a lovely summer break. No matter whether you are interested in the Leaderboard Tournament that lets you play for big cash prizes each month or whether you prefer the very popular Jackpot Sit&Go Tournaments, bet365 offers all serious poker players a lot of incentives.

In September however a lot of these already nice promotional offers will be improved even more. Dedicated bet365 players will know and look forward to the monthly $250,000 Guaranteeds - in September (and we may give it away already, also in October) this tournament will be improved significantly. You will play for 4 times the amount. Guaranteed. And yes, the quick brains among us already know that this equals 1 million dollars!

And since a catchy name has always been the darling of promoters these tournaments are now known as the Monthly Million Tournaments. You may choose to either make use of a direct buy-in of $500+35 or instead opt for one of the many daily qualifiers starting with buy-ins of $1+0.10. It is up to you how you want to make sure to get your part of $1,000,000.

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Max Poker Bonus Top 20

Giorgio — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 11:42:00 +0000

In this blog post I am going to point out the top 20 things you can find on, or because of Max Poker Bonus. This goes from features on our own site, special offers up to the best poker strategy tips. You can see it as a summary of all things you can get through Max Poker Bonus and a reference to use our website.

Recent Poker Software Updates

Giorgio — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 09:54:00 +0000

Some of our recommended online poker rooms have recently released new versions of their poker room software. Bwin Poker for instance, they’ve released a complete new version, while Party Poker just released some updates and extensions, but worthwhile mentioning very much.

Finally! Big Meets Big!

Giorgio — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Whether it's the recession, whether it's the competition - there must be a reason but no matter what the reason is... it's about time!

PokerStars has finally introduced a new first deposit bonus!

The new bonus of 100% up to $600 can finally compete with bonuses offered by other online poker, and because of this we expect to see PokerStars to grow even bigger.

If you haven't played at PokerStars yet, then now is the time. If you have played at PokerStars, make sure to keep on reading, as they've also announced the biggest reload bonus ever. More about that below.

So, with a poker bonus that matches 100% of your first deposit up to a stunning $600 and numerous promotions, PokerStars has become one of most attractive online poker rooms for new players. Most important, the new incremental bonus is very easy to clear compared to the majority of bonuses! You only need to earn 17 Frequent Player Points per bonus dollar, thus 170 FPPs to clear one instalment of $10.

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Titan Poker Launches a Flash Client

Giorgio — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Today we received the joyful news that Titan Poker has finally launched a Flash client for its poker room running on the iPoker Network. Titan Poker's Flash client enables players to play poker in a non-downloadable gaming environment with exact the same features that can be found in their download version for PC.

As Titan Poker is currently the only online poker room on the iPoker Network recommended by Max Poker Bonus with a Flash version of their software, this is the first choice to play at if iPoker rooms are your favourite poker hangouts.

There is really no excuse why you shouldn't try Titan Poker anymore, but let's list all the benefits once again:

Welcome to the Club!

Kurt — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:04:00 +0000

Those among you who are dedicated and serious poker players will very likely keep a close eye on the various loyalty programmes offered by the poker rooms. You may recall that Titan Poker already simplified and improved their VIP programme in January. The improvements have been met with much praise from the players and Titan Poker in turn decided to improve the programme yet once again half a year later.

Since July 1st Club Titan has become even more beginner-friendly and also manages to reward their dedicated and advanced players even more. But how so? For starters the limit that is needed to advance to the second VIP Level has been lowered from 2,000 to 1,000 points which will be a welcome change for new players. A beginner will now be able to benefit from the advantages of a higher VIP Level much easier and sooner.

Participate in our Summer Survival League!

Giorgio — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:58:00 +0000

Unfortunately we had to cancel this promotion due to the lack of participators.

$63,000 for New Depositors at Titan Poker!

Kurt — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:00:00 +0000

All the poker rooms that we present on our website are truly first class. Titan Poker proves once more that they aim to top even their fiercest competitors - this time with a promotion that rewards new depositors in the month of May even more than usually.

Additionally to the already generously enhanced Titan Poker Bonus offer available when signing up through our site you will receive 5 free tokens to the monthly New Depositors Freeroll where you will have the chance to claim your part of $20,000.

The Race is On!

Kurt — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:37:00 +0000

This is just a quick reminder for those of you unaware of the great Rake Race offered by William Hill Poker Club exclusively for Max Poker Bonus players. Don't let the opportunity to earn an additional $300 while playing poker pass you by! By earning 20,000 points until the 31st of July 2009 you will receive a $300 bonus from William Hill - if you signed up through Max Poker Bonus that is.

Additionally all our players who reached at least 5,000 points will qualify for a $500 freeroll. So if you managed to collect 20,000 points that means $300 plus a $500 freeroll. You may want to read about the details on the Rake Race - in any case if you like playing poker on William Hill this is your chance to maximise your profit.

On your marks ... get set ... GO!

Phil Hellmuth

Kurt — Mon, 04 May 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Probably no one who shows any interest in professional poker at all will be able to avoid the name Phil Hellmuth. To be honest the U.S. American does his part to be omni-present in the media and has been named Poker Brat for his sometimes rude behaviour at the table. He knows how to market his image and even used his less than flattering nick name to his advantage - he is known for wearing an ice hockey jersey with the number 99 and his nick Poker Brat on the back, the front is covered with a huge Ultimate Bet Logo. He has been the figure head of Ultimate Bet for a long time now and stayed with the controversial poker room despite the so called Superuser Scandal (as explained in our blog post How Secure is Online Poker?) and various other inconsistencies.

Nico Behling

Kurt — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:38:00 +0000

Today we want to take a look at a player who is still new to the world of professional poker and not yet such an established name as a Chris Ferguson, let alone Doyle Brunson. Nico Behling, 23 years of age, hasn't even seen a third of the springs that Texas Dolly has and yet isn't one of the myriad of no-name poker players anymore. The young German from Jena managed to end up in the money at the WSOP 2007 (receiving $18,420 for finishing 43rd) and made sure that we would remember his name by narrowly missing the final table of the Aussie Millions Main Event in 2008. However he was compensated with 175,000 Australian Dollars (which equals approximately €88,500).

Magic Moments with bwin Poker

Kurt — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:24:00 +0000

Are you a poker player as well as a sports fan? Then you will love bwin's popular Magic Moments of Poker (MMOP) promotion that allows you to qualify for very special sports events like a "Train and Meet" with Real Madrid's superstars. You will receive VIP treatment at all MMOP events, be it the mentioned meeting with Real Madrid's star players, attending the start of the German Bundesliga as guest of the famous FC Bayern München or going to the FIBA 2009. But not only sports fanatics will find their favourite event on the MMOP list - the next stop will actually take you to the amazing PokerIsland, probably one of the most wonderful places to be playing poker at.

The mentioned bwin Poker MMOP package for PokerIsland doesn't only include staying at a luxurious mansion (and "luxurious" definitely is no exaggeration here), fascinating night-life and exclusive clubbings but also all sorts of trend sports activities at the wonderful beach, sailing boat trips - and let's not forget your participation in the MMOP semi-final being played in front of the cameras where you can prove yourself versus 6 opponents. Each of the already mentioned events will give you lots of extras to make sure you have a once in a life-time experience.

Doyle Brunson

Kurt — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Last time I wrote about my favourite poker player, a calm and analytical person - Chris Ferguson. Well, Doyle Brunson falls into the same category, regarding both his player personality as well as my personal admiration for him. He is definitely on my list of people I would like to meet and have a chat with, not necessarily poker related. I hardly dare call him an old man out of fear of sounding disrespectful - however he always is amongst the oldest players at the World Series of Poker (WSOP). And amongst the most successful.

The poker pro and author of numerous poker strategy books that are referred to as poker bibles among serious players is 75 years of age. He was born on August 10, 1933, in Longworth, Texas. He can look back on more than half a century of experience as a professional poker player. He was the first player who managed to win the WSOP Main Event in consecutive years, the first to earn more than $1 million playing poker, one of only 4 players to win the WSOP Main Event more than once, has won 10 WSOP Bracelets (tied for second place with Honny Chan in that category) and the first of 5 players so far to win a WSOP Main Event as well as the World Poker Tour Title. It should not come as a big surprise that he is one of the most famous poker pros and has been inducted to the Hall of Fame as early as 1988. And he doesn't show any signs of slowing down, let alone quitting the game!

Doyle Brunson used to be a very good athlete as he grew up in Longsworth, a small town with approximately 100 inhabitants. He had early success as a basketball player as well as long track runner and showed a lot of promise. However an accident while working forced him to wear a cast on his leg for 2 years and he had to abandon any dreams of a career in sports. From that moment on he concentrated on his studies and poker and found out that playing poker came very easy to him. After finishing his studies he realised that he could earn much more than his regular monthly salary in just a few hours of playing poker and decided to become a professional poker player.

8x Reload Bonus at BestPoker

Kurt — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:36:00 +0000

BestPoker currently offers a great reload bonus to their existing players and prove that they are an online poker room that cares about their loyal customers by making this a very good offer indeed. While the excellent BestPoker bonus for first depositors is a lump sum deal their reload bonus is actually an incremental one. And why is the reload bonus called 8x Reload Bonus you wonder? Because you will only need to earn 8 Playerpoints per $ of bonus.

For those of you already familiar with BestPoker you know that their first deposit bonus comes in several flavours and so does their reload bonus. You can choose between a reload bonus of 200% up to $100, 300% up to $300 or 300% up to $600. Why would you settle for anything less than the 300% up to $600 offer? Because the steps to clear the bonus will grow with the amount of bonus.

Visit BestPoker Now

While you will be able to clear the 200% up to $100 bonus in steps of $10 (80 Playerpoints) you will have to clear the next higher bonus offers in steps of $50 (400 Playerpoints) and $100 (800 Playerpoints) respectively. If you have already played for some time on BestPoker you should be able to estimate pretty well how many points you will be able to earn in the 45 days that you will have to clear the reload bonus. In case of the 300% up to $600 bonus offer you will have an additional 15 days, so all in all 60 days. But even if you fall short of clearing the whole deal you need not worry - that is the beauty of incremental bonus offers.

In order to qualify for the according reload bonus, simply enter bpreload100, bpreload300 or bpreload600 when you make your next deposit. Keep in mind, this is not a first deposit bonus but a current promotion by BestPoker to reward their loyal players on their next deposit.

Chris Ferguson

Kurt — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:21:00 +0000

Today I want to talk about one of my favourite poker players. Why does he have that status with me? Apart from his magnificent carreer as poker player I simply admire his personality at and away from the table. I don't think highly of people who believe they need to rely on psychological tricks by misbehaving at the table. Neither do I like it when people simply keep talking and talking in order to annoy someone else (don't get me wrong, a certain Daniel Negrenau is very talkative indeed, but at least he shows class and humour - Tony G however... well, let's just say he and I probably would not get along too well).

Chris Ferguson manages to dominate a table quietly simply through his presence and analytical abilities. I also have a lot of respect for his approach to the game itself. He claims that the money is not the most important aspect for him, he likes the challenge and primarily plays for prestige, honour and the satisfaction of having achieved something big when you are the last to stand up from the final table.

This is also the reason why he prefers playing tournaments rather than cash games. He once explained, "I just don’t like taking money from people after figuring out how they play. That’s just not my style. But once they put their money down for a tournament, it’s all over. Now, that money’s gone. I’m out to win the tournament. There’s something to shoot for in a tournament. More than money, I think."

Of course this is an easy thing to say considering his success so far: 5 WSOP Bracelets and 2 WSOP Circuit Titles - and all in all more than $7,000,000 of prize money won. That sounds like a whole lot - and it is. Especially considering that this is a man who stated in an interview that poker is just something he does for fun and he wants to make a living in analytics and the stock market.

Christopher Philip Ferguson was born on April 11th, 1963, in Los Angeles. His parents have doctoral degrees in mathematics, his father teaches game theory and theoretical probability at UCLA. Chris himself has earned his Ph.D. in computer science. His analytical background shows strongly in his game and works to his advantage. He has researched the game of poker intensely and the photographic memory that he is supposed to have surely helps as well. This man has his built-in Odds Calculator.

Qualify Online for the 2009 WSOP

Giorgio — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:33:00 +0000

Usually around this time in a year you can see a lot of World Series of Poker Satellites popping-up at most of the respectable online poker rooms. Therefore I decided to give it some attention in this blog post and shine some light on the most attractive ones from a selection of poker rooms you can find on Max Poker Bonus.

Meet Team Max Poker Bonus

Giorgio — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Now that we have grown to a significant website, in less than a year (as our first franchise, the German version launched in June of 2008), it’s time to officially introduce all the people involved with Max Poker Bonus.

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Max Poker Bonus is a lot more than just the site you’re looking at. We have franchises (sites that carry our name) in several languages, respectively German, English, Dutch – and soon also even French and Spanish.

There are a few people involved in getting these sites up and running – and even more important, keeping them up-to-date. Here below you can read some information about them and their responsibilities.

Kurt is the creative genius behind the Max Poker Brands. His excellent designing skills melt perfectly together with the special features on our sites. Yours truly, Giorgio, is the one responsible for all the development – from caching XML files to comprehensive server scripts.

When it comes to poker, we have Markus on our team, a.k.a. Max, who is the writer of all the strategy related content on Max Poker Bonus. He is a semi-professional poker player who competes both online and in live tournaments and offers us his insights and expertise as a player.

Of course all sites must have their own manager. Personally, I manage the Dutch site and all that comes around. Kurt’s job is to take care of the German site and both of us together make sure that our site for the United Kingdom stays in good shape.

Additionally, we’re more than happy to introduce a new member to Team MPB, as of past Friday. His name unfortunately must be kept confident for the time being (due to contract restrictions) but he brings a lot of experience from "the other side of the table" due to his employment as a consultant for several online poker rooms in the past. You can rest assured that all of us - especially you - will benefit from his vast experience and network. He will also be responsible for the French and Spanish Max Poker Bonus sites.

All of us work from our home-based offices, backed-up by our families. Some of us also have daytime jobs. Kurt and Max live in Austria, I live in the Netherlands and our latest team member lives on Gibraltar. As you see, we’re all over the world and very enthusiastic about poker!

We’re extremely excited about what we have managed to build up in such a short period of time. If you knew even a small part of our plans for the future you’d be amazed. Having such a varied audience brings a lot of opportunities. Soon we will introduce our membership section which will give members access to exclusive Max Poker Bonus features. This will also open the doors to special events that will only be available for our members.

King of the Hill at BestPoker

Kurt — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:05:00 +0000

For all those Sit'n'Go players amongst you who have not checked out BestPoker yet we would like to point your attention to a promotion called King of the Hill. This special tournament is aimed at SnG players and offers a unique structure that allows you to win money while advancing further and earning your tickets to the King of the Hill Final where the winner gets $2,500.

You can climb your way to the top by entering one of the 3 types of qualifiers - you can either choose to take part in Feeder 1 where you compete in a 20 seat SnG for a buy-in of $1+0.20 with the top 2 players advancing to the next round or Feeder 2 which is a 10 seat SnG for a buy-in of $3+0.40 which sees the top 3 players advance. While Feeder 3 has a higher buy-in of $20+5 you will be able to enter the structure directly at the last step prior to the Final if you finish first or second of the 10 players. If you come up third you will win another $20+5 ticket for the tournament.

Titan Poker Calculator

Giorgio — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:08:00 +0000

As of today, we're offering an enhanced deal to all players who choose to sign-up at Titan Poker through one of our links and make use of bonus code MPB150 when making their initial deposit.

You will now get the official Titan Poker Calculator for free (regularly advertised for $89.95), in addition to our already better than average Titan Poker Bonus of 150% up to $100. Technically spoken you'll get three deals in one. Three? Yes three! You will be able to play with a superb poker bonus and benefit from playing with the Titan Poker Calculator, as well as making additional profit because of the free poker calculator!

$20,000 Freeroll at Titan Poker

Kurt — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:42:00 +0000

If you make a first deposit at Titan Poker you will be awarded 5 tokens for the New Depositor Freeroll Satellites that will allow you to qualify for the huge $20,000 Freeroll. This tournament will be held at the end of each month at 20:00 GMT. And you can be part of it for free.

All you have to do is qualify in one of the already mentioned satellites. Each satellite gives away 50 seats for the $20,000 guaranteed freeroll so if you play it smart you should have no trouble reaching that goal at least once in your 5 attempts. If you are still new to poker, this is an excellent chance to practise your game for free. Also make sure to read up on our guide about how to play in satellites in our Satellite Strategy blog post.

Be aware that this promotion is restricted to new first depositors. If you consider signing up and depositing at Titan Poker make sure to check the details about our improved Titan Poker Bonus and how to clear it.

Open Season for Jamie Gold on Aced Poker

Kurt — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:30:00 +0000

Since Aced Poker managed to sign Jamie Gold he has probably become one of the most hunted online players thanks to the extra VIP Points that you can earn in Aced's Outs promotion. If for example you manage to beat Jamie in a heads up SNG you will receive an amazing 1,000 VIP Points as a bonus. But not only that, Aced also offers you a special opportunity to earn points as well as cash for knocking Jamie out of a tournament.

Each and every Sunday night Jamie Gold invites you to play him in a $1,500 guaranteed tournament for a buy-in of $30+3. As any poker player will tell you it feels great knocking people out of a tournament and taking their chips doing so. Well, knocking out a poker pro such as Jamie Gold is especially rewarding, both for your ego as well as your bank account. You will not only receive a sense of satisfaction but also a $500 bounty that is on Jamie's head. And of course 500 extra VIP Points for knocking him out of a MTT thanks to the Outs promotion.

Together with some of the other Tournament Outs you can find yourself earning a lot of additional VIP Points which in turn will help you advance in VIP levels and either clear your Aced Poker Bonus, use your points as buy-in for tournaments or to cash them in.

And for Windows Vista users the chances to beat Jamie Gold outside of the regularly scheduled tournament on Sunday night have recently increased considerably. No, there is no advantage for you when playing him but with Windows Vista you can now install a widget in your sidebar that will inform you when Jamie is online without having to have the Aced Poker client running. You will also receive information on upcoming tournaments, the Bad Beat Jackpot and much more. It may be just a small feature but it is the sum of those little details that help enhance the playing experience at Aced Poker.

Since its recent introduction it has seen a lot of interest from players - especially from those wanting to earn more VIP Points by making Jamie's online poker life miserable.

Points Race at William Hill

Kurt — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:19:00 +0000

The William Hill Poker Club offers a Points Race exclusively for Max Poker Bonus and our players. The idea behind this special promotion is to reward our players for all their support they have shown us so far and to give them the opportunity to earn some extra cash for being active and dedicated players on William Hill.

The promotion itself will start on the 1st of May 2009 and go on for a whole 2 months until midnight of the 31st of July 2009. In these 2 months all the points that you earn while playing poker at William Hill will be taken into consideration. Any of our players who pass the 20,000 points mark in these 2 months will be awarded a $300 cash prize to their player account. Of course you will keep the points and are able to use them to your discretion additionally to that reward.

Effectively this means that as a Max Poker Bonus player at William Hill you have the opportunity to clear $300 additionally while playing and thus clear these $300 at an even better rate than the William Hill Poker Bonus for first depositors. Let's assume you sign up through Max Poker Bonus, deposit $300 at William Hill and are thus eligible to receive a 100% poker bonus which equals another $300.

In order to clear the first depositor bonus you have to earn 700 William Hill Points per $10 (it is an incremental bonus). If you want to clear the whole bonus you will have to gather 21,000 points. Once you clear 20,000 points however you will already be awarded our special Points Race bonus of $300 as an extra bonus! 1,000 more and the entire regular bonus will also be yours. Effectively this means you can improve your first deposit bonus by another $300.

This promotion is indeed very interesting for both new and existing players at William Hill Poker. We advise you to make most of your William Hill experience by signing up through us and being eligible for this great event.

Even if you should not manage to clear the whole 20,000 points in the time-span mentioned you need not despair. For all our players who reach at least 5,000 points in this event there will be a $500 Freeroll (that includes all the players who managed to clear the 20,000 points).

Make sure to use our bonus code (600MPB) when signing up at William Hill - you may also want to read about our in depth William Hill Poker Bonus offer prior to signing up.

$10,000 Poker Bonus at Everest Poker!

Kurt — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:14:00 +0000

Everest Poker offers you an incredible promotion, the $10,000 Everest Poker Player Bonus Round 2 - and yes, you guessed right, round 2 implicates that this isn't the first time. This promotion has been offered for the first time in early March and due to the huge success now sees a revival.

What is it all about? Well, it is not a first deposit poker bonus, every player new or existing can make use of this bonus promotion. By entering the code MIDNIGHT2 you will participate. Participate in what exactly? Here we go:

Today, Friday, March 27, you will be able to use the Summit Points earned while playing (check our detailed Everest Poker Bonus info on how to earn Summit Points) in order to clear up to $10,000 (no extra deposit necessary). These $10,000 will for this purpose be handled like an incremental poker bonus. You will be able to clear the money in increments of $5 for 14.28 Summit points per $.

In other words, for every 71.40 Summit Points earned your poker account will be credited with $5 - up to a maximum total of $10,000. So, how much time do you have to make the most of this offer that sounds too good to be true? Ah, this is where the code you have to enter might give you a first hint: you will have until midnight today! This is a short term promotional offer from Everest Poker to reward their dedicated players as well as attract new players. As mentioned before, it is not the first and surely will not be the last.

While it may seem that this time span is not long enough to clear anywhere near the mentioned $10,000, do keep in mind that it is an incremental bonus so even if you only clear $300 until midnight you will keep them. While some high limit players may be able to clear most of the maximum amount (and some actually all of it) we strongly advise you not to change the limits you usually play at just to earn more Summit Points and clear more money. Always keep your bankroll management in the back of your head and play as you usually would.

This is just one of the many actions taken by Everest Poker to provide their players with more incentives to stay active. If you are not a player at Everest Poker yet, make sure to make use of our Everest Poker Bonus offers - and keep in mind, even if you read this too late to participate in this promotion, Everest Poker is surely not scared to have a few more rounds of their $10,000 Everest Poker Player Bonus promotion.

Make sure to receive info on these sort of short term promotions in time by subscribing to our RSS feed.

$4,550,000 at ECOOP!

Kurt — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:40:00 +0000

If you happen to be an established online poker player the term ECOOP will be well known to you and put a smile on your face. For those of you who are still new to the world of online poker: ECOOP stands for European Championship of Online Poker and the upcoming event is actually the fourth since December 2007.

The ECOOP IV is once again bigger and better and allows you to compete for your part of the imposing $4,550,000 that are waiting in the total prize pool. The first of the 14 events will be held on May 25 and each day there will be another tournament that allows you to win your part of the $4,550,000 as well as your ECOOP IV bracelet.

Now This is What I Call First Class Support!

Giorgio — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:36:00 +0000

This morning, when I was working on my part of the William Hill Poker Review, I had an extremely pleasant experience. I contacted William Hill through live chat to get an answer to my question, because I needed to find the hand history feature within the William Hill Poker software to take a screenshot. After about two minutes, an assistant called Warren contacted me and actually apologized for the long wait. Uhum... seriously, two minutes is not a long wait buddy!

Anyway, Warren actually made me deposit, even though I still had some cash left to finish my part of reviewing William Hill Poker, the latest addition to Max Poker Bonus and really didn't think about making a deposit. The deposit was well worth it, as I managed to get three tokens and an extra $20 on top of my $100 deposit. So for the time being, William Hill Poker is where I'll be playing online poker.

This totals a $100 first deposit bonus + $20 (which was added to my account just three minutes after I made the deposit) + three tokens (two freerolls and a satellite).

Thanks Warren from William Hill Poker, you've made my day!

I couldn't resist to copy the entire conversation and share it, so here you go:

$30,000,000 Spring Championship of Online Poker at PokerStars

Kurt — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:53:00 +0000

If you are an online poker player who is serious about poker or who at the very least wants a poker room with lots of activity and great tournaments, you will not be able to steer clear of PokerStars. On the one hand you will find an abundance of guaranteed tournaments and qualifiers for such big live events as the EPT and on the other hand the sheer volume of players allows PokerStars to frequently offer new and amazing promotions. One example for this is the current promotion Spring Championship of Online Poker that enables you to play for your share of staggering $30 million prize pool.

This is the time when most of you who do not play high stakes games usually start moaning that there is no way to get any of that money - not so with PokerStars' Spring Championship of Online Poker. Players of all levels will be able to earn their share of the amazing $30,000,000. You can compete no matter what limits you play. But how, you wonder, is this possible? Well, at each single scheduled event of this Championship there will be actually 3 different tournaments: one for low stakes players, one for medium stakes players and - you guessed it right - one for high stakes players. All in all there will be 22 events which equals 66 tournaments.

Poker in the Sky with BestPoker

Kurt — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:15:00 +0000

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play poker while hovering 150 feet above Stockholm? If your answer is 'yes' you are on the one hand a very interesting and strange person indeed (with a lot of fantasy) but on the other hand you have found the ideal online poker room with BestPoker. They offer you the opportunity to qualify for this extravagant poker experience and be one of the 10 players competing for the main prize, a stunning Kawasaki ER-6N.

$1,500,000 Race at Titan Poker

Kurt — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:10:00 +0000

In February Titan Poker offers you an additional $1,500,000 of prize money when playing cash games. Simply play your games as you would normally and take a peek at the $1,500,000 Race Leaderboard every now and then. If you end up being in the top 800 at the end of February you qualify for extra money - anywhere from $100 for being dead last up to an amazing $100,000 for coming in first. And all that while you played your usual ring games.

All that is part of the Million Dollar Race spectacle lasting until April 28th. Titan Poker thus wants to celebrate their new loyalty programme Club Titan that rewards active and dedicated players even more than before.

If you are not a Titan Poker player yet, the introduction of Club Titan makes this the perfect time to start benefiting from Titan Poker's new VIP programme. And when signing up through Max Poker Bonus you can also take advantage of our special Titan Poker bonus offer. Instead of the regular 50% bonus we offer you a 150% bonus up to $500 to get the most value for your first deposit. And since the Titan Poker bonus is paid in increments of $5 it even fits players who only play occasionally and who might not be able to clear a lump sum bonus.

New Loyalty Programme at Bet365 Poker

Kurt — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 00:15:00 +0000

Since February Bet365 Poker offers their customers a new loyalty programme that aims to be more transparent as well as more rewarding. Poker players will find it easy to understand the concept of the new system and the advantages - one of the more obvious ones is that with the new point system (you will earn the same amount of points per rake regardless of VIP level) you don't have to force yourself to play each month (we all get sick sometimes or want to take a break and go on a nice vacation) in order to stay at your current VIP level. You can simply take a break, come back and play your usual games and you will be back to your prior VIP level the following month without any point penalties whatsoever.

So to reiterate, every player earns the same amount of Merit Points for the same accomplishments. Fair is fair. In detail that means that each player will earn up to 10 points per rake and the buy-in fees will be rewarded with 15 points per $. Higher VIP levels are nonetheless a big thing as you will be able to take advantage of additional offers (like exclusive $1,500 freerolls or monthly luxury holiday draws) as well as better rates when converting your Merit Points to cash. Platinum Members will even be able to exchange their Merit Points for a WSOP package worth $16,000!

Advancing through the various VIP levels is quite easy and regular players will find that reaching Silver or Gold status is a task which is easily achieved. In order to become a member of the Platinum VIP level you will have to show your dedication and prove that you understand the game. And if you want to become part of the elitist Diamond Club you will have to be one of the big players. You cannot simply gather a certain amount of points to reach that level - the Diamond Club is an honour that can only be achieved through an invitation by Bet365. Once you get there however you will enjoy exclusive service as well as lots of benefits and special offers that will cater your needs and wishes.

If you are new to Bet365 make sure to sign up through Max Poker Bonus and secure yourself not only the impressive 200% poker bonus up to $600 - you will find details on our Bet365 Poker bonus page - but also the right to compete in one of the weekly New Depositor Freerolls for $1,000. And as if that wasn't enough, the top 100 of the weekly freerolls will qualify for the monthly New Depositor Freeroll for $2,000. Additionally there will be a Bet365 Bounty Player in each of these tournaments and if you are the one taking him from the table you will be rewarded with an additional $22 Tournament Token for use in the event of your choice.

The €100,000 Everest Poker European Cup

Kurt — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:37:00 +0000

We are proud to announce that Everest Poker has yet another great live event for their players. The Everest Poker European Cup (EPEC) where amateur poker players from Europe can qualify online and represent their country in the big €100,000 live tournament. And you can participate in the satellites for as little as 10 of Everest Poker's Summit Points.

The EPEC Live Finale will take place in the wonderful surroundings of Sardinia on the 9th and 10th of May 2009. The package that you will receive on successful qualification will be worth €1,100. That includes the €500 buy-in for the EPEC Live Finale as well as 3 nights of hotel accommodation and €300 for travel expenditures.

There will be country-specific satellites as well as European-wide qualifier tournaments until the end of March. So you have 2 months in order to qualify for one of the biggest live events for amateur poker players. Let Everest Poker treat you as a VIP not only in their poker room but even more so on Sardinia at the Chia Laguna Resort. If you are not yet signed up at Everest Poker make sure to make use of our special Everest Poker Bonus that allows you to receive up to 5 times the regular bonus. Take some time browsing our Everest Poker Bonus page before choosing which bonus offer you prefer as the 500% deal is a lump sum while the 200% will be paid in increments.

Million Dollar Mission at Bet365

Kurt — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:09:00 +0000

In February, poker network iPoker offers their players the Febonanza, a leaderboard event that rewards the 300 players who earn the most points in the course of the month with additional cash prizes in the value of $400,000. That by itself is already a very nice promotion - however Bet365 decided that their players deserve more and simply raised the bonus for all Bet365 Poker to $1,000,000 - and we have to admit, 1 million dollars does have a much nicer ring to it.

So what Bet365 will do is to pay you 2.5 times the payout that you would normally receive when finishing the month of February as one of the top 300 point earners. The only thing you have to do to qualify for that is to earn your points on Bet365 Poker. If you are a dedicated player on Bet365 Poker this turns the Febonanza into the Million Dollar Mission. A Mission Possible we believe.

However that is not all! At Bet365 you can also win an extra jackpot with every millionth hand played in February. If you participate in any millionth hand played you will receive a share of the Millionth Hand Jackpot (depending on the limit of the table up to $3,000) - and if you win one of these hands you will also get the whole jackpot sum for yourself. And there is still more to come: As a winner you will automatically qualify for the Jackpot Hand Super Showdown that rewards the highest winning hand with an additional $30,000 while the lowest winning hand will get a $20,000 bonus.

If you are a dedicated poker player you will find that playing at Bet365 Poker will reward you a lot in February. Make most of this opportunity and cash in on your poker games. Each hand counts. If you manage to put your name onto the leaderboard you will reap the benefits of Bet365's prize increase. As Bet365 Poker player you will earn a whopping $1,875 for ending up last while a regular player who ends up 26th of the 300 top players will still receive less money than you with his $1,500. If you compete in this leaderboard event in a different poker room, you only have yourself to blame. If you are not a Bet365 Poker player yet check out our Bet365 Poker bonus page and take advantage by signing up through Max Poker Bonus. And if you are already signed up at Bet365 - get playing!

EPT Deauville

Kurt — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:25:00 +0000

The European Poker Tour just finished its stop in Deauville, France, where they hosted 645 poker players in the splendiferous Casino Deauville. The participants got down to business and once the dense field of competition started thinning out the tension grew even more. One of the players to end the tournament early was no one else than the youngest WSOP Champion ever, Peter Eastgate from Denmark. He wasn't the only big name to finish outside of the money which shows how much the density and quality in international professional poker increases from event to event.

Keeping that in mind it doesn't surprise that more and more poker players who qualify online end up on the final tables of these tournaments. The winner of the EPT Deauville is yet another online qualifier. Moritz Kranich was able to win it all and take home €851,400. The German managed to beat Frenchman Arnaud Esquevin who was accompanied by 4 countrymen at the final table, Tristan Clemencon, Jonathan Azoulay, Bruno Launais and Thomas Delattre. Italian Andrea Bellini who was able to bring home €219,800 as fourth, and Jorn Walthaus (6th, €142,400) from the Netherlands completed the final table. Esquevin received €495,400 for ending up second and proved to be a fair loser when immediately congratulating 28 year old Moritz Kranich.

Kranich was actually the second oldest player at the final table which had an average age of just 24 years. The youngest poker player at this table was 19 year old Frenchman Tristan Clemencon who surely will be delighted about third place and €284,800 but maybe feels a bit disappointed at the same time knowing that he went into the final stage of the event as clear chip leader.

With another EPT online qualifier winning an event a trend that has been recognisable for some time now continues. More and more online poker players develop into strong and steady live tournament players and a lot of them are able to become poker pros. No matter whether you actually want to become a professional poker player or not, you still can enjoy the thrill and excitement of such a huge event as the EPT by qualifying online at Everest Poker or [go=http://www.maxpokerbonus.co.uk/tracker.php?id=15 show=http://www.bestpoker.com/] in one of their many satellites. The next EPT stage will be held from February 17th - 21st in Copenhagen - seize your chance to participate in the EPT Scandinavian Open.

If you opt to qualify for the EPT at BestPoker and have no poker account there yet, take the time to check our special BestPoker bonus deals in detail. There are a lot of variants and depending on your activity level and dedication you can choose the one fitting you best. And as unique service for our players we can offer far better conditions: You will need less points to clear the bonus no matter which offer you prefer and 2 of them even give you an additional 15 days to do so!

Titan Poker Bonus Just Got Better!

Kurt — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 10:36:00 +0000

We are happy to inform you of our new poker bonus at Titan Poker. After some talks with our partners at Titan Poker we are now able to present you with an improved 150% bonus up to $500! This new Max Poker Bonus deal enables you to gain three times the bonus that you would by signing up for the regular Titan Poker bonus (50% to $200).

Up until now we were able to offer a 100% poker bonus which already was a remarkable improvement over the regular bonus but we were not satisfied yet. Our name obligates us to strive for the best poker bonus deals for you at all times. We hope that you will make use of our new special offer while it lasts. We are of course continuously working on improving our existing poker bonus offers in order to always supply you with the best deals available.

You may choose to go directly to Titan Poker in order to take advantage of the 150% bonus or you may decide to go to our Titan Poker bonus page first to check out all the details. It really is one of the most customer-friendly offers in online poker: with the introduction of Club Titan it has become easier for dedicated new poker players to gather points. Furthermore you have 3 months for clearing your poker bonus and will get paid in increments of $5. It can hardly be any fairer and easier to clear a bonus.

How Secure Is Online Poker? - Part II

Kurt — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 11:58:00 +0000

In our previous blog post we touched the big cheating attempt at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Today we want to continue on the topic of cheating in online poker and ask ourselves a few questions.

How Secure Is Online Poker? - Part I

Kurt — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:15:00 +0000

This question poses itself to a lot of new and prospective online poker players but also every now and then to those amongst us who are online poker veterans. In an age where credit card fraud and other criminal activities are omnipresent in the internet one has to ask the question, why online poker should be any different. The thing is: it isn't.

Just like anywhere else there have been various accusations against specific poker rooms, some incredible incidents have since surfaced and tens of millions of dollars had to be paid in compensation to deceived poker players. The biggest and most famous incident so far was clearly the scandal that involved so called superusers - Absolute Poker as well as Ultimate Bet were the two poker rooms where players were cheated out of millions and millions of dollars.

The fraudulent action was practically identical as in both poker rooms so called superusers cheated in online poker games and made a huge profit at other players' expense. In both cases the deceived players got their money reimbursed but only after the players could gather enough evidence through their own research. These scandals showed that the U.S. ban on online poker caused companies like Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet to simply open some shady back doors. They registered their companies offshore and since then pay continuously for "official" licenses from companies that do not much more than simply sell them a seal that basically means nothing but feigns a false sense of security for players. When the superuser scandal became public everyone realised that these "official" control organs did anything but control the poker rooms in question and that they actually had neither the desire nor the possibility to prosecute anyone for their fraudulent behaviour.

EPT Caribbean Adventure

Kurt — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:44:00 +0000

And so the EPT paid a visit to the Caribbean once more. It is no big mystery why this stop of the EPT is so extraordinarily popular - on the one hand the venue is just wonderful (there are not many people on this planet who do not want to visit a Caribbean island) and on the other hand the winner receives a fantastic $3 million!! Yes, you heard me right the first time - we are not talking about a "mere" $3,000,000 poker tournament, we are talking about a $12,674,000 tournament where the winner takes home an incredible $3,000,000! The buy-in of $9,700 didn't keep 1,347 poker enthusiasts from participating in that extravagant tournament (you also had the opportunity to qualify online for example by playing satellites at Everest Poker).

Poorya Nazari was the lucky (and skilled) player who managed to turn his Caribbean Adventure into a Caribbean Dream and walked away $3,000,000 wealthier. The Canadian was able to beat the US American Anthony Gregg who can take comfort in knowing his bank account is up by $1,700,000. The young German Benjamin Spindler whose best result prior to the EPT Caribbean Adventure was a 10th place at the Austrian Classics 2007 (which earned him $1,138 back then) was able to end the tournament in 3rd position and received $1,100,000 for that feat. Maybe Alexandre Gomes is slightly disappointed ending up 4th - he still earned $750,000 but being the chip leader at the start of the final day he might have expected more. The Brazilian was taken from the table by Benny Spindler who had a Quad to beat Gomes' Full House which made the German a temporary chip leader.

The next stop of the EPT is Deauville. Starting on January 20th 700 participants will compete in the wonderful Barriere Casino. The buy-in for this tournament is a mere and laughable €5.000 - for those among us who still think that is a bit too much to pay for the EPT experience there is of course as always the option to qualify by playing Everest Poker's satellites. Make sure to check out our special Everest Poker Bonus if you aren't already a player so you can make most of your money (up to $500 bonus) when signing up.

Gentlemen - start your engines!

Kurt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Titan Poker invites you to participate in their Million Dollar Race - a race that will last from mid January until the end of April and that will reward Titan Poker players for their activity. In the course of the race dedicated poker players will receive cash prizes in a total of a million dollars. This spectacle celebrates the opening of Club Titan, a new programme aimed to reward loyal players more than ever before.

Club Titan is the new Titan Poker VIP programme that offers many rewards to new players as well as those who consider themselves to be professionals (and anyone between). Poker players will be able to earn up to several thousands of dollars each month depending on their activity level (Titan Poker even mentions tens of thousands of dollars - however you will probably have to be as close to being a pro as possible in order to achieve that). But for "normal" players like us even a mere $100 extra each month are very tempting.

The principle of Club Titan is simple: Titan Poker wants to give you as many incentives as possible in order to have you return to the tables as much as possible. In return they will award you with additional prizes and Titan Points (that can be turned into real money amongst other things). You will simply gather these points by playing your games. And the great thing: If you stay active and earn 1.000 points or more per month you will get additional points in the so called Loyalty Points Bonus. Effectively you will receive a certain percentage of points added to the points that you actually earned.

While there are still various different VIP levels you will earn the same amount of points regardless of your current level, which will be especially appealing to new Titan Poker players. They simply made it easier to gather points when still at lower VIP levels thus enabling you to level up faster. With each VIP level you will be able to profit from various extras and special offers. Titan Points will be awarded to all the participating players on a table as soon as there is a rake of at least $0.04. Of course you will also receive points for tournament fees. These points can be used in the shop or as buy-in for tournaments - you can also opt to cash the points in. It is up to you.

Our Max Poker Bonus tip: Check the table for cash rewards in order to see how many points will give you which reward and consider saving your points instead of turning them into cash as soon as possible. You will find out that for example cashing in 80.000 points will net you more money than cashing in 20.000 four times.

Update: Max Poker Bonus just closed an enhanced poker bonus deal with our partners at Titan Poker that allows us to offer you an even better bonus than before. As of now our bonus offer is an incredible 150% up to $500! Take full advantage of that special Titan Poker bonus while it lasts!

Sit&Go - Flop or Drop

Max — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 17:56:00 +0000

In my last blog post we took a look at position and starting hands - when should you play which hand and how. In today's post I would like to explain what we hope to see on the flop and how to play our hand from there. Please take into consideration that my whole Sit&Go strategy blog is geared towards micro limit SNGs as stated in my first post (Sit&Go Preparation). While some of the basic principles may be used in SNGs with higher buy-ins you will have to keep in mind that the game is very different at higher limits.

So we have decided to call or raise pre-flop. Our pre-flop raise will be an impressive one in the first few blind levels of our micro limit SNG. We don't simply raise to three or four times the BB but for example to ten times the BB. In our virtual SNG with the 10/20 starting blind level and our 1,500 chip stack such a raise thus would be around roughly 200 chips. Our general strategy aims to build up big pots even pre-flop. Whenever there is a flop we want to get the most out of our opponents. Therefore the blog title Flop or Drop - we invest chips in order to help the pot grow quickly.

Let's assume our pocket cards are QQ - according to our last article we will either raise (if we see no raise before it's our turn), reraise (if a player raises before us) or fold (if there are two or more raises). So our raise here would be 200 chips. But how high would our potential reraise be? That basically depends on the value of the first bet on the table - we will count all the chips in play and reraise to twice the amount or slightly more. So if a player before us raised the BB to 200 we will reraise him to at least 460 chips (200 chips + 20 BB + 10 SB = 230 chips, therefore twice the pot amounts to 460 chips). Our reraise must never be below the sum of our regular raise (according to our rule above) and the current pot.

Example: Pocket cards QQ, 10/20 blind level, a player raises the BB to 50 chips - we won't reraise to a mere 160 (50 + 20 + 10 = 80, 80 x 2 = 160) but our regular raise amount (200) plus the current pot (50 + 20 + 10 = 80), which equals a total of 280 chips. We will always use the higher amount when deciding which of our two rules to use (double pot or raise + pot). If the reraise amounts to more than half of our stack we can decide to either go all-in or fold our cards. Under no circumstances do you want to see two thirds or more of your stack on the table and then see an ace on the flop which pretty much hurts our QQ - at that point you'd already be committed and would have to play the hand to the end anyway.

Cash Game - Introduction

Bernd — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 21:55:00 +0000

I am often surprised that only a minority of poker players prefer cash games to tournaments. While both have their appeal I prefer cash games when trying to make money instead of playing some tournament. I do make most of them when it comes to qualifying for some live event as there is an ever increasing number of satellites nowadays that allow you to compete for a lot of money at huge events like the WSOP, WPT or EPT for the proverbial peanuts.

With all the focus on tournament play (be it multitable or Sit & Go) I feel the "original" type of poker, the cash game, is being somewhat neglected. Here you sit at the table and play for real money. Just as you see in every mainstream wild west movie. Fortunately however you don't risk staring into the barrel of an opponent's gun.

When playing cash games your aim isn't being the last player sitting at the table
nor is your evening over when you have lost all your chips (you can simply buy new ones) - it is over when you want it to be, either because you simply had enough poker for one evening or you have reached your goal (or - heaven forbid - you have squandered your whole bankroll). The chips that you receive when sitting down at the table represent the exact amount of money you used to buy yourself into the game. And the money you will receive when leaving the table is vice versa the exact amount of money represented by your chips at the table.

Be warned, playing cash games can be risky when you are new to the game and have not had any experience with playing for real money. I strongly recommend you play for play money first and handle it like playing with real money (even though some of your opponents may not do the same and play a bit wild) or play some tournaments, be it Sit & Go (I urge you to read Max' posts on Sit & Go Strategy even if you will not play SNG tournaments as you will find a lot of tips that are generally useful for new players) or multitable tournaments as you will simply pay the buy-in and the tournament fee and will not risk losing more money than what you invested in the first place.

International Poker Cup in Saalbach-Hinterglemm

Kurt — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:50:00 +0000

Do you want to play for your country in the International Poker Cup? Now you have the opportunity to compete in this exclusive live poker tournament from the 15th until the 18th of January in Saalbach-Hinterglemm, one of the most famous winter holiday venues in the Austrian Alps and fight for more than $100.000 while staying in the 5-star-hotel Alpine Palace and enjoying its comfort. And you can qualify for that event by playing on Everest Poker and winning a package worth $2,850 (which includes the $2,000 buy-in), everything included.

How can you qualify? There are several daily satellites on Everest Poker ($11+1 Freeze-Out and $3+0.30 Rebuy) that you can compete in and win a seat for the country-specific qualification tournaments as well as the "Last Chance" qualifiers that are open for players from all countries and are being held on December 14th and 15th. After a successful qualification you will be able to represent your country while competing against players from all over the world, from Brazil to China. A truly international event with the flair of the huge world of poker that you definitely will not want to miss out on!

Leaderboard Challenge Race at bet365

Kurt — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:03:00 +0000

With their Leaderboard Race Challenge 2008 bet365 offer you the chance to qualify for The Grand Final simply by playing regular cash games. The Grand Final will see players compete for a prize-pool of $130,000 which includes several European Poker Tour Packages worth $12.000 each. The winner of The Grand Final will receive as many as 6 EPT Packages (total value $72.000) and while the players ending up 4th - 10th will receive cash the ones ending in the top 3 also have the option to exchange their EPT Packages for cash if they so please (they will be bought out for 75% of the packages' worth - the winner for example would end up with $54.000 cash instead of the 6 EPT Packages if he decides he prefers not to compete in the EPT).

How can you qualify for The Grand Final? You will not have to compete in satellites or any qualifying tournaments, you will simply play your usual cash games at bet365 and be rewarded for the rakes you produce. Each week the 40 players who lead the list by accumulating qualifying raked hands will get rewarded with cash prizes. Additionally to that the top 5 players will receive a seat for The Grand Final. If one of these 5 players is already qualified he will be rewarded with an additional 3,000 chips for the final tournament up to a possible total of 9,000 chips! So it really pays off staying dedicated after you have qualified.

The Grand Final takes place on January 19th 2009, the qualification will end after December 28th 2008. And in order to give you a chance to be part of the final tournament even if you don't have the time to play each and every day bet365 holds a special tournament each week for the top 100 players where the winner gets rewarded with a seat in The Grand Final.

While this Leaderboard Race Challenge by bet365 is an excellent idea to reward cash game players for their activity and dedication we strongly urge you not to start playing excessively just because of that (or any other) promotion. Stay at your limits and play according to your personal bankroll, avoid playing on tilts or playing for too long in one session with your concentration waning. If you manage to be in a promising position in the leaderboard by playing your regular game you can still increase your playing frequency a bit. But it would be the wrong approach to throw your whole usual concept of poker over board simply for a promotion even if it is as tempting as this one.

The European Poker Tour (EPT)

Kurt — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:07:00 +0000

The European Poker Tour (EPT) is one of the most famous and biggest poker events next to the World Poker Tour (WPT) and the World Series of Poker (WSOP). Inaugurated in 2004 the EPT has annually staged several huge tournaments in various cities all over Europe. The tour traditionally ends with the big final in Monte Carlo each year. While the first year saw 6 stops prior to the final the current 5th season includes 10 different cities before meeting in Monte Carlo. Since last season the tour also includes a non-European stop that immediately became a favourite of the tour: a tournament on the Bahamas.

The EPT currently resides in Prague (December 9th - 13th) which means that we have reached half-time of season 5. The buy-ins of the tournaments usually are set at around €5,000+250, not really the kind of money your everyday amateur poker player is willing or even able to spend. This is why you will find a lot of really big and famous names at the various tournaments like for example the freshly crowned WSOP champion Peter Eastgate. The Dane who wrote history by becoming the youngest poker player to ever win the WSOP main event in 2008 is presently competing with other poker professionals as well as amateurs at the EPT in Prague.

Amateurs? Indeed... While a direct buy-in at a EPT tournament usually is too expensive for the likes of us (let's face it, most of us likely cannot afford to there is nonetheless a great opportunity to be part of it. Several online poker rooms offer the possibility to qualify for the EPT by playing satellites for low buy-ins. The recent EPT Warsaw for example saw the young German Nico Behling end up in second place, earning in excess of €200,000 - and he qualified by playing satellites on Everest Poker. This wasn't the first time for him, but the first time that he ended up in the money and then even at the final table.

While the EPT initially had a hard time coming up with the well-known names you can now find some of the best and most famous poker pros at the tournaments. And all the players that qualify for a tournament of the EPT through an online poker room and manage to find themselves in the money, maybe even sitting at the final table, will take away not only lots of cash but also a lot of experience and interesting meetings and talks with some of the big time poker players. Some even manage to acquire a good sponsorship deal in addition to their poker earnings.

If you ever wanted to breathe the same air as the world's most famous poker pros you now have a great chance of qualifying by playing one of the many daily satellites at Everest Poker, starting from buy-ins as low as $5+0.50 (we strongly recommend taking a look at how a satellite strategy differs from for example your regular Sit&Go strategy). You may also decide to directly compete in the Winner's Choice Tournament on Wednesday's where you can win one of the weekly $12,000 Everest Poker EPT Packages, the buy-in being $200+15 for that tournament. You can of course also decide to use your Everest Poker Summit Points instead of money for your buy-in, as usual.

If you do qualify for the EPT let us know and simply contact us. We are always keen to know how our players are faring and how they are doing. We of course also like to hear from you if you don't qualify, be it praise, criticism or simply a story about a great hand (or a bad beat) that you would like to share. We wish you a lot of success and luck playing poker!

Farewell PokerRoom, helloooo bwin!

Kurt — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:57:00 +0000

As some of you have already noticed we have discontinued to promote PokerRoom and instead added bwin Poker to our list of poker rooms. This was necessary as bwin decided to merge their PokerRoom and EuroPoker into bwin Poker. What are the consequences for existing PokerRoom players? Well, basically they are simply being moved to bwin Poker automatically and can now take advantage of many more offers and opportunities than before because bwin now finally focuses on one poker room.

While bwin Poker started out as a comparatively small brand and was not taken seriously in the beginning they managed to push their poker branch immensely at the end of 2006 and by now they are one of the best and biggest online poker rooms of the world. This was no easy task but one that has been done in an impressive manner and with a lot of planning and thinking.

The merger of afore mentioned poker rooms to bwin Poker equals more tournaments, more players, more money, more opportunities to qualify for various big live tournaments,... As a poker player you are guaranteed to profit, even more so when considering that bwin has become a huge brand offering online casino and sports betting as well (which you can all access from one account). Having a strong brand name like this allows bwin Poker to haul in very good deals (and if you keep in mind the international advertising you know that they think big indeed) and that in turn means even better offers for you as a player - be it qualifiers for the famous Aussie Millions or the monthly $750.000 guaranteed Grand Series.

One cannot help but end up wondering why bwin hasn't combined their poker rooms before. On the other hand it is better to do it late than never and when examining the development of bwin as a brand name, you must admit that the people responsible for management obviously know what they are doing. So make sure to make most of the numerous advantages offered and check our bwin Poker review to find out whether this poker room is for you. We have also listed the bwin Poker bonus offers that are available through Max Poker Bonus and taken a closer look at them so you can make up your mind which offer suits you best. As always we urge you to take the time and carefully consider which bonus to take as the best and highest bonus doesn't do you any good if you are not able to clear it!

Satellite Strategy

Bernd — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Today I would like to talk about satellites, a type of tournament that often gets overlooked or even ignored by some players. While it is true that you usually won't win any cash (there are a few exceptions that add some money) you should nonetheless consider taking the time to play them. Why? Well, the so called satellites (or qualifiers) are an excellent opportunity to qualify for bigger poker tournaments (possibly big live tournaments like the WSOP, EPT or Aussie Millions) without straining your bankroll too much. If you want to play in a tournament with a $500 buy-in this can really hurt your bankroll (depending on its size of course). In most online poker rooms you will find satellites for bigger tournaments which allows you to spend only a fragment of the otherwise required buy-in.

Let's stay at our example of the $500 buy-in tournament. A typical satellite for this tournament would be a $50 buy-in. Now the poker room will wait to see how many players sign up for the satellite and then determine how many seats for the $500 buy-in tournament will be made available. In our case you would normally get 1 seat per 10 particpants as this would equal a buy-in of $500 (10 x $50). Let's assume at our satellite there are 100 participants, therefore we are playing for 10 seats in the big tournament.

But why did I call this blog post Satellite Strategy? Does the strategy for a satellite really differ from a regular multi table tournament strategy? And if so, how? Well, you can argue that you should play a satellite just like any other tournament up until a certain point. The main difference is that in our fictitious satellite tournament 10 people will receive a seat for the tournament that we want to qualify for. And it doesn't matter at all whether you finish first, third or tenth! Therefore you will want to play it very safe as soon as you are getting close to the bubble and have a decent stack as opposed to a regular tournament where you will still want to increase your stack.

In our example, if you are currently placed 4th and there are only 12 players left, do try to avoid showdowns for big stakes. What good is an all-in with KK or even AA if your opponent with a bigger stack makes a call and hits a straight or flush? The result: You ended up outside of the top ten and failed to qualify (which was your only goal for that satellite to begin with). Better let others make that mistake and wait patiently for them to exit the satellite until there are only 10 players remaining. That is definitely the biggest difference between a satellite and a regular multi table tournament.

Personally I play aggressively at the beginning of a satellite in order to build my stack quickly so I can live off it in the final phase of the tournament. So from the start up until the middle of the tournament I play as I would in any other tournament - but the longer the satellite lasts and the better my current overall place in the tournament, the more careful and conservative my game. With the tournament reaching the final stages I weigh my position at the table more and more and usually will try to play only out of late position and usually avoid trying to steal the pot.

In short: At the beginning of a satellite simply play your normal game that you are comfortable with but the further the tournament proceeds the more you have to keep in mind that it really doesn't matter whether you end up winning it or ending up at the last position that still qualifies. Your only goal when playing a satellite is to end up winning a seat for the next tournament and preserve your bankroll doing so.

I wish you the best of luck!

When Pigs Start Flying

Kurt — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:57:00 +0000

Apologies for the title of our blog but currently we are looking out of our windows and waiting for the flying pigs. BestPoker offered us a wonderful Bonus Deal on top of our already existing exclusive bonus deal from October. And it has reached a point where we feel that any serious poker player simply cannot pass the offer.

As of December 2008 we can offer all Max Poker Bonus visitors an enhanced special bonus for BestPoker. Additionally to the already existing deal of needing only 8 Playerpoints instead of up to 11 per $ of bonus we are now proud and happy to provide you with an additional 15 days to clear the bonus, valid for our two most popular poker bonus offers!

What that means for you is that you will now be able to clear your poker bonus much more easily still. Here are the exclusive advantages for Max Poker Bonus players at BestPoker at a glance:

Sit&Go - Position and Starting Hand Requirements

Max — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:11:00 +0000

As you may recall my last blog entry covered the preparation for Sit&Go tournaments - so now let's get down to business. Let's deal the cards for our hypothetical SNG!

Our SNG starts and every player receives a starting stack of 1,500 chips. The blinds are being raised every 10 minutes and the first blind level is at 10/20 (that means a small blind of 10 and a big blind of 20 chips). This and the next blind level will mainly consist of us focusing on our opponents' playing style. Who hardly plays any hand if any at all? Who only plays from late position? Who likes to raise? Who hardly raises? Who keeps calling? Do we have a maniac (wild player who plays a lot of hands, raises a lot and possibly attempts many bluffs)? If we come to see a showdown who has played which hand and how? That is already a lot of information to be gathered and remembered and if it is too much at the beginning of your young poker career at least try filtering the players willing to play risky!

We will play a TAG style (as explained in my last blog entry Sit&Go Preparation). In order to effectively do so it is important to realise what position we are in. Position refers to where we are seated in regard to the Dealer Button (BU). With 10 players at a table you divide the position up as follows:

Sit&Go Preparation

Max — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:11:00 +0000

In my last blog entry I shortly introduced a special form of tournament poker, namely Sit&Go tournaments (SNG). Today and in the following blog entries I want to talk about things you should consider when trying to win money in SNGs. My main goal is to help the typical poker rookie being successful as quickly as possible. Therefore my guide will be aimed at low limit SNGs.

Taking a look at the payment structure of a typical SNG with 9 participants we will see that only the first 3 places will be paid (1st place 50%, 2nd 30% and 3rd 20% of the total prize pool) while the remaining players will end up with nothing at all. Wanting to be a winning SNG player in the long term we will have to make it our primary goal to be among the remaining last 3 players on the table. While this sounds like a very obvious thing to do, my experience taught me that a lot of players in the micro limits do not heed that and very few players actually approach their SNG game accordingly. As a thoughtful poker player you will thus be able to gather experience without risking a lot of money at the micro limit SNGs and you will more than likely have success very soon and quite easily. The key to success lies in the choice of playing styles. Here is a quick listing of the 4 main categories of playing styles:

More and more...

Kurt — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:13:00 +0000

Max Poker Bonus has been growing rapidly over the past months. Not only did we manage to bring new poker rooms to you by acquiring big names like PartyPoker and Everest Poker, thus having a total of 9 rooms on our site and being only 1 room short of the maximum amount of rooms that we want to present at any given time in order to assure you top quality instead of quantity. We also have been busy behind the scene talking about the final tenth poker room and have decided in favour of a very well known brand - details to follow once the talks have progressed.

As I have previously mentioned in our blog we were able to get a special deal with BestPoker enabling Max Poker Bonus players to clear their poker bonus much faster than usually. We have received a lot of positive feedback on that matter which of course in turn assured us that we are heading down the right road and will continue to put our efforts into negotiating new and better deals with our poker rooms for our visitors.

But that is not all. Additionally to our already well known Bonus Calculator and Poker Odds Calculator we also added another feature, the M-Calculator. This new tool allows you to immediately calculate your M-Variables according to Harrington and adjust your playing style depending on the zone you are in. For those of you not familiar with mentioned "M" - you will find an explanation with our calculator. In few words, you should adjust your playing style in a multi table tournament according to your stack size. Professional poker players do it so why shouldn't you? Of course there are more factors to consider but your own stack is the pre-dominant factor that determines what you can and should do.

We are of course constantly trying to bring you new features and information as well as poker bonus offers. You should make sure to use our RSS Feed in order to be up-to-date and informed as new things develop. We are looking forward to hearing from you if you have any concerns, questions or ideas. Simply contact us and we will get back to you.

May the poker gods be with you and steer you clear of bad beats!

Yes, No, Maybe So?

Bernd — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 07:35:00 +0000

I have been playing poker for several years now and all the TV advertisements caused me to switch to Texas Hold'em and also play online. Before that I primarily used to play the classic poker (5 card draw) in cash games. I also played some other variants but not on a regular basis. Generally not a good idea as you should concentrate on one version instead of trying to master 3 or 4 of them at the same time.

There are 2 main reasons for me succeeding despite that. On the one hand the amount of quality players was quite low when I started playing compared to now and you could be sure to find some easy prey on any given table. On the other hand I have always been a mathematics freak in school and poker invites you to put your mathematics knowledge to good use. I probably don't need to point out that back then I have calculated all the chances for each hand with enthusiasm (and pen and paper and lots of spare time).

I remember at one point simulating poker games for nearly a month (and I am not talking about a computer simulation - I simply dealt the cards for several non-existing players and tried to roughly evaluate my hand). Of course that method was somewhat painstaking and tedious and by no means perfect but nonetheless I managed to find basic values of various pocket card combinations (I had no specific literature on this topic nor access to the internet - even if I had I doubt at that early stage I would have found any useful information on poker odds).

This exercise brought a certain confidence to my game because my little "experiments" made me aware of the simple fact that a winning chance of 60% meant nothing else than statistically losing 40% of the time. Not the perfect condition to bet all my money unless I am forced to since according to the laws of mathematics I would lose it all 2 times out of 5. You will have to decide for yourself where the magic number lies for going all-in, I personally usually draw the line very clearly above the mentioned 60%.

So how can you determine the odds of you winning? Well, of course it helps tremendously to know the hand of your opponent. There are various ways to draw some conclusions if you have paid attention to your opponent and his actions (for 5 card draw the amount of drawn cards is of course a huge factor, but in general you should pay attention to a lot more - and I am not talking about blinking, humming, clearing one's throat and such). But even apart from my opponents' betting behaviour it is important to know my chance on getting a certain hand. What good is it that someone else only has a small pair if I don't even have that?

At the same time you should be aware that solely concentrating on your own hand can end badly. A good poker player "knows" the hand of his opponent. Take a close look at TV poker events. A lot of the time the remaining two players of a hand can guess pretty much what cards the other one holds. The poker pros usually guess correctly and that has to do with a lot of experience, instinct and intuition and of course the fact that they are experts in studying people before and during a tournament. While I am still an amateur in that area I already profit from that in most of the tournaments and cash games that I participate in.

Try this little exercise: whenever you have only one or two opponents remaining in any given hand that you play try to conclude what cards they hold and play accordingly. Whenever it comes to a showdown check whether you were right with your educated guess. Making yourself aware is the first and very important step. Even if you may have been wrong the first few times you will notice that you will be able to assess your opponents' hands better and better with time and eventually you will be able to avoid stupid losses - at least if you have the strength to fold a hand and accept the loss of the money that you have bet so far.

In order for you to practice assessing pocket cards I urge you to try the Poker Odds Calculator - use any pocket cards that you like and try to evaluate the odds for each in your head or from your guts and then look at the calculated odds. Once you manage to get a rough grip on that you will realise that your game improves dramatically. I promise!

Exclusive Max Poker Bonus Deal At BestPoker

Kurt — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:35:00 +0000

After long and very productive talks that mainly took place already at the CAP Barcelona we were able to seal an exclusive deal for Max Poker Bonus with our partners at BestPoker. The bonus offered by BestPoker is definitely one of the highest first deposit bonuses in the online poker industry - additionally to that they offer various different bonuses which enables you to choose the one fitting you best. Their bonus offers are all lump sum offers (you will have to clear the whole amount) and can reach an astounding 500% of your first deposit (up to a bonus of $1.200).

If you want to go for the already mentioned 500% bonus you need to collect 11 Player Points per $ - unless you sign up through Max Poker Bonus. If you use one of our links or codes you will be able to clear the bonus by collecting only 8 points per $ which means you will be able to clear your poker bonus with over 27% less Player Points! That is a big boost when it comes to clearing the bonus in time and makes the bonus much more attractive. The BestPoker 8 points deal for Max Poker Bonus players is available for all of our offered bonus variants.

Take advantage of our offer while it lasts - we currently have no deadline for it but it would be a shame if this great and exclusive deal should run out as some point and you missed the chance. We have worked on the details of this deal with our existing players and are very grateful to our business partners at BestPoker who were very supportive. Now we hope that this special poker bonus will appeal to our visitors as much as we believe it should.

Of course we are in constant negotiations with all our partners in order to make sure to continuously offer you such special deals as this one!

First Steps For New Poker Players

Max — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:49:00 +0000

Over the time I have infected a lot of my friends with my passion for poker. For that reason I have felt responsible for them and wanted to make sure they will be able to enjoy the game as much as possible which includes having success as soon as possible. More important than that however was to help them avoid losing a big amount of money with a bad hand due to inexperience and thus losing interest. After taking a close look at some new players' first steps I have soon come to a conclusion as to what I want to teach people who are new to the game of poker.

Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Stud, Razz, Five Card Draw - these are variants of poker. If a professional player is successful in just one of them he will be commonly referred to as One Trick Pony by his colleagues. However you aren't born a successful poker player and therefore should concentrate on one variant to begin with. We will decide to focus on the one that is most popular at the moment in order to find tables to play at any given time. That obviously makes Texas Hold'em the game to play. Texas Hold'em itself is played in several varieties, Fixed Limit, Split Limit, Pot Limit and No Limit. Based on the previous principle of going with the most popular game we will focus on No Limit Hold'em (NLHE). The final decision will be whether we want to play Cash Games (also called Ring Games) or Tournaments. I found out that for most new poker players Tournaments are more fun than Cash Games (additionally they are safer as you can only lose your Buy-In and the Tournament fee). And since fun is our main objective - even more so while still learning the game - we will play No Limit Hold'em Tournaments.

In my previous blog entry about bankroll management I mentioned a special form of Tournaments, the Sit&Gos (SNG). Buy-Ins for SNG Tournaments can range from a few cents up to several thousands of dollars. They don't have a time schedule but will commence once a certain amount of players have registered for the Tournament. This amount can vary from 2 up to a few hundred players. A very common variant are the Single-Table SNGs. You simply register at a Single-Table SNG which usually will consist of 9 or 10 players. The Buy-In is for example $5+0.50 and ten players are seated at the table. That means $5 will go to the prize pool per player which makes it a total of $50. 50 cents per player will stay with the poker room as the so called Tournament fee (the equivalent to the rake in Cash Games). Each player now receives a set amount of chips - once you lose all your chips (stack) you are out of the game. The SNG is over when one player has won all the chops at the table. The pay-out structure will usually be 50%, 30%, 20% for the top three positions which in our example would amount to $25 for the winner, $15 for the second and $10 for the third place.

Let's now look at a Multi-Table SNG in our next example. You are playing in a SNG with 45 participants. In this case this would mean 9 players per table on 5 tables. The Buy-In is set at $3+0.25, so the prize pool will be at $135. Again each player will receive the same amount of chips at the start of the Tournament and play commences. Once the first people start dropping out the remaining players will be re-seated every now and then in order to make sure the amount of players at each table will be approximately the same. At one point there will be 9 players left in the Tournament who will be seated at one table, the Final Table. Just like in the Single-Table SNG the Tournament will be over once one player has won all the available chips. Typically the pay-out structure for a Tournament like this would be $6 for the 7th position, $9 for the 6th, $12 for the 5th, $15 for the 4th, $21 for the third, $30 for the second and a nice $42 for the winner.

As beginner it can be a comfortable feeling to know that you will not lose more than a pre-determined amount of money instead of getting caught in a losing spiral in a Cash Game. This alone can (and probably should) be a reason to concentrate on SNG Tournaments early on. In the upcoming blog entries I will shed some light on what to keep in mind in order to successfully play this kind of Tournament Poker. I still enjoy playing SNGs very much and my results there have been very satisfying for a long time now despite my early mistakes due to a lack of knowledge. It took me quite some time to manage to get back to break even after a bumpy start into my poker life but now SNG Tournaments are part of a winning and fun poker experience.

And even though I run the risk of repeating myself: Poker shall be fun right from the start!

Bankroll Management

Max — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 11:13:00 +0000

In my first blog entry I promised to give you some tips to help you prevent having the same bad start as a new poker player as I had experienced myself. If I had made a plan how to manage the money I put aside for poker (my bankroll) in a sensible way I could have avoided a lot of anger and frustration later on. Looking back I can say that the careless and sometimes even reckless handling of my bankroll was the biggest mistake that I made in my young poker career. For that reason I would like to write something about Bankroll Management today.

Chris Ferguson who in the year 2000 was the winner of the main event of the WSOP decided to take an interesting challenge in the year 2006. He wanted to earn $10,000 in the course of a year without depositing even a single cent. First things first: he successfully completed his own challenge. The hardest part for him proved to be the many freerolls he had to compete in in order to get a handful of dollars to enable him to build a bankroll in the first place. In the course of this experiment Mr. Ferguson set up the following rules for himself:

I Am Max. How Do You Do?

Max — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:01:00 +0000

Hello, my name is Markus but most people simply call me Max. I am 34 years old and started playing poker about 2 and a half years ago.

Before playing my first hand I used to watch poker on TV casually. At first I was merely intrigued by the amount of money being at stake and changing owners so quickly. After a few broadcasts I watched more intensely and managed to reach some awareness of the rules of the game and the rank of hands as well as some general idea of odds and probabilities of poker. The game became more and more fascinating but I was yet to touch the cards and play a hand.

I owe it to a good friend of mine that I would eventually play my first hand in a real card casino because he persuaded me to participate in a NL Texas Hold'Em Tournament simply because we didn't have anything else planned that evening.

So after paying my €20 I found myself sitting at a poker table and quickly realised that it is so much more complicated to draw the right conclusions and make the right calls when you have no clue of your opponents' hands. So I decided to try and avoid simply handing my chips in nice portions to clearly superior players who outplayed me with ease on the flop on a regular basis and instead make big bets and raises with good pocket cards and subsequently go all-in if the flop didn't look dangerous or I hit it. At the time I had no idea that this was the basic idea of a short stack strategy.

To cut the chase, at the break I had taken six players from the table and found myself in the top five at the chipcount - and ended the game 4 positions away from the money ranks due to absolutely no experience in the game of poker. On my way home I kept thinking about how I could have won over €100 if I had simply survived four more players and if able to survive the remaining other 14 I would have won the tournament and taken home more than €2,000. And in the end it seemed quite simple getting into the top 20 (more than 130 players were thrown out before me). The game proved to be a fun experience and along the way you could earn quite a lot of money - no question, I will go on playing for sure!

So I decided to play tournaments in card casinos about twice a week and after some time I also started playing online. Sit&Go, Cash Games NL €0,50/€1, Tournaments, you name it. And I was able to cash in with some small successes like winning a Sit&Go.

After a bit more than half a year of regular poker I knew two things for a fact: I love the game and I am €2,200 in the red. :-)

So now I had reached a point where the game started hurting me financially, I had lost more than a month's pay check in half a year. I knew it couldn't go on like this especially seeing as the losses became bigger each week. Looking back I can claim to have made about every single mistake that a poker player can commit. I am not proud of it but neither am I ashamed - I simply didn't know better at the time.

Today however I do know better. I obey to rules that partly originate from professional poker players and partly from my own slightly painful experience. With another deposit of €70 and lots of discipline and patience and discipline and patience and ... I managed to win back the original loss of €2,200 after approximately a year. It was a slow way back marked by small but more or less steady winnings. There were the occasional bad streaks that sometimes seemed to last for an eternity but all in all I could see a trend for the better and never lost heart. The game still is tremendous fun and finally I can also enjoy looking at my bank account again. And that is - in a nutshell - the main essence of poker for me: having fun and winning!

And now I would like to help you, dear visitor of Max Poker Bonus, who maybe just made the first deposit, avoid such a bad start into the game of poker and give you some guidance and tips in my upcoming blog entries. I want you to be able to learn from my mistakes instead of making them yourself as this might prove to be expensive. Poker should be fun from the first hand you play!

A Game Of Experience

Bernd — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 14:18:00 +0000

When talking about poker a lot of people will refer to it as a game of skill, a game of chances, a game of odds and probabilities and sometimes even a game of pure luck - and while they are all right in their assumptions I personally believe that the most common mistake is to overlook the importance of experience in poker. This surely comes as no shocker but it is nonetheless widely overlooked. If you look at the number of people starting at medium to high limit games you cannot help but wonder whether you should feel sorry for them for losing so much money in such a short time or whether you should envy them for being able to afford to do so. If you are like me you are not able to afford to lose hundreds or thousands of Euros per night on a regular basis - if at all. Therefore I assume that you will take the same road as I once did and play for minimum limits.

While this may sound boring let's just consider this: do you honestly think that all the successful and professional players started playing for high limits? A new player is a losing player, simple as that. There may be the occasional exception where a spectacularly gifted person really starts winning straight away but I very much doubt that you or I know anyone who fits that description - even remotely. So I think it is safe to assume that none of us will be that Wunderkind Of Poker that the world has been waiting for. So do play on low limit tables and the smaller poker tournaments when new to the game - I can't emphasize this enough. Know your limits!

I know, I know... if you play at a 5c/10c table your poker life can seem pretty boring. What does it matter if I win or lose 50 cents? Maybe in a whole evening I will win or lose up to €10 or €15? So what? Well, keep these numbers in relation to the limits in mind and let's now have that example with a €5/€10 game. That would mean you would lose or win €1,000 or €1,500 in an evening of poker. And believe me - when you are new to the game you will lose more than you win at those medium limits. Why? Because at these limits you will meet much more experienced players than at the lower tables. There are quite a number of players actually counting on people to overplay their limits and they will have a great time helping you lift all the burden that money puts on you... I have been there on both sides of the table and I can tell you it is an experience you can really live without when you are on the losing end.

Once you are ready for higher limits you should of course seize the opportunity and elevate your game. Be prepared however to go down to lower levels again if your bankroll forces you to unless you want to lose all your money. The switch from low limits to medium and high limits can be a tough one. You will notice that the flow of the game is very different simply because a bet, raise or re-raise will weigh much more. In a low limits game with a pot of 40 cents a bet of 30 cents followed by a raise of €1 still is a low amount of money and a lot of opponents will call that raise as they don't really care about losing a few Euros that night. However a game with €400 in the pot and a €300 bet followed by a €1,000 raise looks very different all of a sudden. Bluffing suddenly becomes an art in the higher levels as you will pay a dear prize if caught on the losing end of it. I have noticed that at really low levels you will always find players who simply call just about anything as it doesn't matter anyway. So you will not be able to bluff as effectively as in higher levels. But there are many more differences.

You will notice at higher limit games that often there will be an aggressive player who pushes a lot and makes it very expensive to see the flop. If you haven't learned to assess and fold your hand accordingly you will hand over your money very quickly. Same goes for your style of play. While at lower limits you will usually not have to worry about changing your personal style you will find out that at higher limits people will start to read your game quickly - so unless you are prepared to change gears every now and then and do something unexpected (and no, going all-in with 27 pre-flop is not unexpected, it is stupid) you will be an open book in no time.

That's why it is vital to play at low limits first and learn about the game, learn to evaluate your hand, try to make an educated guess about your opponents' hands based on their behaviour, assess the situation in combination with the community cards and the probabilities of various hands, learn about your own strengths and weaknesses, be able to adjust your game styles, learn to avoid playing on tilt,... If you still want to start playing at €10/€20 tables from the very beginning of your poker career be my guest. Just make sure to drop me a note telling me which table you will be playing at, I really want to meet you.

Viva Max Poker Bonus

Kurt — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:17:00 +0000

So we have launched our UK version of Max Poker Bonus on Wednesday the 24th of September and are of course happy and proud parents of our latest baby. But September has been a very important and successful month for more reasons than that. The last weekend of the month has seen us attending the CAP Barcelona and striking some great deals that will benefit you, our partners and our site. A future which already looked bright has become even brighter after the CAP Barcelona 2008 and our existing and new partners have expressed a lot of interest and confidence in our project which we appreciate a lot.

We are proud to have the backing of some of the really big names in the industry and we will ensure that you as players will get the best deals and support so you can simply focus on playing poker. If at any time you have suggestions, ideas or complaints of any kind we will be more than happy to hear from you - simply contact us with anything that is on your mind (well, poker related if possible... although we might be happy for you purchasing that new car that you always wanted we feel that you should rather tell your wife about it even if you risk her asking you for a diamond ring afterwards).

As mentioned the CAP was very successful for us and our project and despite all the exhaustion of that busy weekend we will make sure to update a lot of info in the upcoming days as well as implement the last few missing pieces of the English site (payment methods and our glossary). In the meantime we encourage you to check out some of our other features like our already famous Max Poker Bonus Calculator, Poker Odds Calculator and our constantly updated Tournament List. Having said that we already have a lot more planned - people who know us from our German Max Poker Bonus website already know that this is never an empty promise and we will live up to it. Look forward to not only a full implementation of all the features already in use at the German version but additional features as well as some fine tuning on already existing ones in order to make comparing poker rooms, bonuses and other interesting information even easier and more accessible.

On a side note: another thing we learned in Barcelona was to cut down on our sleeping hours drastically and learn to sleep while commuting on the metro to and from meetings. We will try to perfect this to a point where we actually "anti-sleep" and will be able to get 28 hours of work stuffed into one day - our goal is not a 24/7 work ethic but to reach at least a 28/8.

A lot of our future plans have now become reality and we are of course very excited about that. We will not be running out of ideas any time soon (or ever) which for you means that there are good and interesting times ahead indeed. If you are serious about playing poker you have come to the right place. We will make sure to provide you with our Austrian semi-pro poker player's (who coincidently is called Max) blogs and tips that have already proven valuable to many other players. We are convinced you will like what you see and you will profit from our offers.