Cake Poker has announced a $30,000 Gold Card Race that is beginning today and running until May 7th.  Each week there is $7,500 up for grabs in a weekly race.  Every week you can earn up to $200 depending on how many gold cards you receive that week.  The higher the gold card, the more miles it earns you in the race.  Whoever gets the furthest wins the race.  You should also note that the gold cards value gets multiplied by the stakes of the table you are playing at so this promotion is mainly for the higher stake players (who earn gold cards faster anyways), so if you are a low stake player you shouldn’t get too excited.

Race Dates

Race 1 – April 10th to 16th – $7500 up for grabs
Race 2 – April 17th to 23rd – $7500 up for grabs
Race 3 – April 24th to 30th – $7500 up for grabs
Race 4 – May 1st to 7th – $7500 up for grabs

Things To Keep In Mind

• You do not need to redeem your gold cards for the race.  If you earned a gold card you will be awarded that many miles without having to redeem it.
• You are able to redeem your gold cards for other promotions and this will not affect your race standings.
• If you finish within the top 200 of the race you will see a cash prize added to your account within 48 hours of the end of the race.

Who Wins With This Promo

The high volume, high limit cash game players have to most to gain from this promotion.  As mentioned above the value of the gold card is multiplied by the level of stakes you are playing at, so only high limit players will be able to win the top prizes in this promotion.

Even though this isn’t good for the lower stake players it’s a good way for Cake Poker to give back to the players that earn them the most money.

If you don’t have a Cake Poker account yet, you can sign up and join in on this promotion.  Click here to visit Cake Poker now and get in on the race.

Poker is an easy game to learn but requires love and dedication to master. Success at poker is the result of learning a number of skills and using those skills to be on top of the game. Managing your online poker bankroll is one such crucial skill that you must pay attention to or you will lose out ultimately.

Many poker players have ignored this important aspect of the game and paid a heavy price. Just managing your poker bankroll is not enough; in fact, it is important to build up your bankroll, only then can you hope to be a successful poker player and draw profit from your game.

What is an online poker bankroll?

In the simplest sense, a poker bankroll is the amount of money you would set aside to play online poker. For those who play poker for fun, a poker bankroll would be something like an entertainment allowance that would be utilized at the online poker tables. For the professional poker player however, a poker bankroll would mean the amount he would be willing to invest in order to improve his income from the game.

How much should my poker bankroll be?

This is the first question that comes to mind and the answer to that is not a simple one. It all depends on each individual and the situation he is in. Also, there are a few considerations to keep in mind when you decide on the amount of your online poker bankroll. We all have different needs which must be considered when building on an online poker bankroll. It is important to take into account the following points:

• Your long terms goals and the stakes you intend to play at.
• Your present winning rate.
• Past history and assessment of your poker playing skills.
• The amount of money required to tide over your daily expenses (which should be kept completely separate from your gambling money).

Being Conservative is a Good Strategy

When building your online poker bankroll, it is prudent to be conservative in your estimation of the adequacy of the amount. Not only does this provide little chance of losing the entire amount, you might even beat the game and emerge the winner. You also have the security of a healthy poker bankroll so you are not pressurized into making the wrong decisions while playing, which is great for your bankroll building goals.

While a conservative approach may well be the best course of action, each individual might base his bankroll requirements on four main components:

The Stakes:

Evidently, your bankroll requirement will depend on the stakes you play at. High stake poker games will require a larger bankroll as compared to low stake grinds. This holds true irrespective of whether you play cash games or prefer multi table tournaments or the game variant you play.

Game Format:

The type of game you prefer also influences your online poker bankroll. If you favor poker tournaments, you will require a higher bankroll as compared to cash games. In cash games, you can even start off with a very small bankroll and build on it gradually. On the other hand, poker tournaments, depending on the structure, would require you to start off with a comparatively higher amount. For example, a super turbo poker tournament would mean you should have your funds ready for numerous buy-ins.

Success Rate:

Obviously, if you win more games than you lose, your poker bankroll will build up faster. A successful player gets a higher return on his investment, especially if he plays tournaments. This indicates he can achieve greater profits within a shorter span of time, which in turn means he can set aside a smaller amount to build an online poker bankroll.

Comfort Zone:

While deciding the ideal online poker bankroll, you must consider all your income sources and available cash at your disposal and then make a decision as to how much of it you can comfortably spare to invest in your game. Obviously, the size of the poker bankroll will be unique to each individual depending on his or her situation. A substantial bankroll might prompt some people to play better while others might feel they become careless with large sums of money at their disposal.

In order to build an online poker bankroll it is important for the player to consider the above-mentioned aspects while keeping in mind his individual situation and requirements. Once the ideal bankroll amount has been arrived at, the player may then concentrate on managing his poker bankroll so that he can build upon it to play for higher stakes in the future.

 Cake Poker has a new promotion to help you kick off your 2013 right.  If playing less poker in 2013 is one of your New Years resolutions then you should click the back button now.  But if your resolution is to win more money at online poker by taking advantage of some great promos then keep reading (if you haven’t made either your New Years resolution then keep reading too).

Gold Cards Series 13′ is beginning on January 1st, 2013.  If you earn 2 gold cards at the cash game tables on New Years Day you will qualify for the Holiday Gold 8pm tourney, which has a prize pool of $2500 up for grabs.

You should also be looking to earn gold cards throughout all of January.  If you are able to earn 13 or more gold cards in the month you will qualify for a $13,000 guaranteed tourney taking place on February 3rd at 7pm GMT.  So if your New Years resolution is more poker you should have no trouble collecting the 13 gold cards and having a shot at some big cash money in the Lucky $13K Tournament.

2013 is going to be another great year at Cake Poker and this Lucky Series 2013 is a great way to kick off the poker playing year.

If you don’t yet have an account at Cake that doesn’t mean you can’t take part in this promo.  It just means that you are also eligible to receive the 200% first deposit bonus up to $2000 with the use of Cake Poker signup code SIGNUP600.

On a side note if you like to place other bets online in addition to poker I suggest checking out BetOnIt.org.  It’s a great website that explains how to bet on a wide variety of sports, casino games and more online.

That’s it for now.  Have fun winning money at Cake Poker!

Cake Poker is attempting to improve their social network reach by offering Cake Poker players who like the Cake Poker facebook page some great “fanrolls”, contests and prizes.  You can also keep up with any Cake Poker news such as reload bonuses or special promotions via your Facebook newsfeed.

Cake Poker currently has over 4900 likes on Facebook and are growing every day.  The last ‘fanroll’ was on the 20th of October with the prizepool being 5 tickets into the 2012 Battle of Malta weekly final.  These weekly finals regularly have a $20 +$2 buy-in with rebuys with one $2500 Battle of Malta prize package available for every $2500 in the prize pool.  So basically there was $100 in value in this fanroll and all you had to do to get the password was like the Cake Poker fanpage.

On the 19th there was also a fanroll with the same criteria.  Since the 20th there have been no fanroll updates, but this means that Cake Poker is due for another fanroll and you don’t want to miss out.  Like the Cake Poker Facebook page today to make sure you don’t miss out on any great deals in the future.

Cake is also going the twitter route with their social networking.  Cake mentions that they do not tweet that often, but when they do they are important.  So Cake won’t be filling up your twitter, except with important announcements you don’t want to miss.

So don’t wait, join the Cake Poker community on both Facebook and Twitter now.  Visit CakePoker.com for more info.

Cake Poker has announced a new online poker promotion that will coincide with the Euro 2012 soccer tournament from June 8th to July 1st.  This promotion uses a lot of words to make it appealing to Euro 2012 fans, but in reality it looks pretty much the same as most of their other online promos.  Let’s have a look:

From June 8th to 22nd you will notice four different Gold Champs 2012 daily satellites running throughout the day.  To enter these satellites you will need gold cards between 2s and 8s from any of the suits.  Each satellite will be dedicated to a suit and the top 20 finishers in each satellite will earn a ticket into that suits $5,000 freeroll, which will take place on June 23rd or 24th.

At the $5k “group finals” there is $5,000 in cash being awarded to the winners PLUS the top 50 finishers in each “group finals” will win a ticket into the $10,000 Gold Champs Finals which will take place on July 1st, the same days at the finals of Euro 2012.

Finishing in the top 50 of a “group finals” is not the only way to gain entry to the $10K Gold Champs Finals however.  There will also be daily satellites from June 25th to 28th where the top 10 finishers will advance to the $10k Finals.  These satellites require gold cards from 9s to Aces for entry.  This means that the total number of players in the $10,000 tournament will be 240, which equals an equivalent buy-in of about $40 per person.

Promotion Value

In total Cake Poker will be awarding $30,000 to players, but this cash isn’t completely free since you need gold cards in order to enter the satellite tournaments.  I would still say that using your gold card for this promotion would be of good use and if you are able to enter the $10,000 finals an equivalent of a $40 buy-in tournament is more than many players on Cake would be able to enter on a daily basis.

The other great thing about this promotion is that you will be able to watch Euro 2012 matches throughout the promotion!  I for one am extremely excited about the start of the tournament this coming weekend and this promotion starting at the same time adds another perk to the tournament!

To learn more about online poker promotions being offered by other online poker rooms or just reading some online poker news I suggest checking out Poker30.  It’s a great online poker resource that offers information about online poker bonuses from around the web, keeps you updated on online poker news and even provides strategy to help you become a winning poker player.

Cake Poker has announced that starting June 1st they will be completely altering their tournament schedule to bring players more guarantees, more tournaments and more action.  This revamp will include a $100,000 guaranteed tournament on Sunday, June 3rd to kick off the new schedule.  Sundays will also include a deep stack $75,000 guaranteed tournament.  Check below for all of the big tournaments of $7.5k guaranteed or more now available at Cake Poker:

Daily Tournaments

• $7,500 Guaranteed Deep Stack at 4pm EST with a $215 buy-in
• $8,000 Guaranteed at 6pm EST with a $22 buy-in
• $15,000 Guaranteed at 9pm EST with a $215 buy-in

Sundays is when the real tournament action takes off at Cake Poker. Here are the Sunday tourneys with at least $10,000 guaranteed:

• $75,000 Guaranteed Deep Stack at 4pm EST with a $109 buy-in
• $15,000 Guaranteed Deep Stack at 4pm EST with a $215 buy-in
• $10,000 Guaranteed at 4pm EST with an $11 buy-in
• $12,500 Guaranteed rebuy & add-on at 4pm EST with a $33 buy-in
• $50,000 Guaranteed Super Stack at 5pm EST with a $530 buy-in
• $15,000 Guaranteed rebuy & add-on at 6pm EST with a $60 buy-in
• $30,000 Guaranteed at 9pm EST with a $215 buy-in

To see the entire new tournament schedule you should visit Cake Poker and click on the Promotions tab.

On top of these guaranteed tournaments Cake Poker also has many other tourneys throughout the day such as non-guaranteed tournaments where the prize pool is simply how many buy-ins are acquired before the start time or satellite tournaments to some of the bigger tourneys or even live events.  For example, right now Cake Poker is offering satellites to the 2012 WSOP in Las Vegas, with satellites beginning at just $0.30 and a $215 main event final satellite tournament taking place every Sunday at 5pm EST to the WSOP main event.

Bounty tournaments are another staple at Cake Poker where a portion of each players buy-in becomes a bounty on their head.  You can usually find a bounty tournament online at Cake Poker every couple hours.

Then there are the freeroll tourneys and the gold chip or gold card tournaments where you can buy-in without any actual cash.  These are great tournaments to build your bankroll and can be very lucrative, especially some of the gold chip or gold card tournaments.

Cake Pokers Tournaments

The reality is however that Cake Poker’s tournaments are very small compared to many other online poker rooms.  If you are interested in learning more about some other poker rooms online check out Poker Rockets and read some of their reviews.  The reviews are very insightful and provide an honest look at some of the best poker rooms online.

It has been released that the Cake Poker network was bought by the owners of Lock Poker, which is currently a skin on the Merge Gaming network.  Lock Poker is planning to rebrand the Cake Poker network to Revolution Gaming.  This may initially sound like a step backwards for Cake Poker, but when you look closer at the deal it becomes apparent that this is the right move for all involved.

Lock Poker has grown tremendously over the past couple years and by their own admission they have “outgrown” the Merge Gaming network.  Acquiring the Cake Poker network allows Lock Poker to forge their own path to success, which they have shown an ability to do over the past couple of years.  Cake Poker will become a skin on this larger Revolution Gaming network, which will provide players with greater liquidity, a better tournament schedule and more other poker players with which to start games at various stakes.  Basically Cake Poker will be hopping on the Lock Poker train to success.

The Cake Poker network was in need of a new direction and this deal will allow Cake Poker to give up the reins and focus on their online poker room and moving to different markets outside of North America.  With Lock Poker heading the Revolution Gaming network Cake Poker will immediately be involved with the largest online poker network that accepts US players as Lock Poker claims to have 40% of the Merge Gaming networks players.

Lock Poker is also planning to run many more player friendly promotions and provide a higher rakeback percentage than their players were receiving on the Merge network.  The Merge network put the kibosh on the LOCKOPS online poker series last month and many believe that this pushed Lock Poker’s hand towards acquiring the Cake Poker network faster than they may have otherwise.

For both Lock Poker and all of the Cake Poker skins this is an exciting time and a good move for both the business and the players involved.  You can expect to hear much more on this for the next month with Lock Poker officially changing the Cake Poker network to the Revolution Gaming network on June 1st.  You can learn more about downloading either site at pokerdownload.co.uk a great site that provides detailed downloading information and interesting room reviews.

Cake Poker is currently one of the biggest and best online poker rooms for US residents so I thought it would be interesting to look at which card games in poker they offer and how many players participate in each one.

No Limit Texas Hold’em

No Limit Texas Hold’em is by far the most popular poker variation played at Cake Poker and every online poker room online.  Everyone understands Texas hold’em poker so I won’t get into the details of how the game is played.  There are generally Texas Hold’em cash games being played from the $0.02/$0.04 stakes up to the $2/$4 stakes at the Cake Poker tables.

Fixed Limit Texas Hold’em

Fixed limit Texas Hold’em is a variation of Texas Hold’em where players are only allowed to bet set amounts.  At Cake Poker you can generally find several $0.02/$0.04 fixed limit tables, with 1 or two higher staked fixed limit tables going at the same time ($1/$2 for example).

Pot Limit Omaha

Pot Limit Omaha is another fairly popular form of online poker.  It is similar to texas hold’em in that you are dealt hole cards and there is a 5 card community that everyone uses.  The difference is that you are dealt 4 hole cards and you MUST use 2 of them to make a poker hand.  At Cake Poker there are usually several pot limit Omaha games running at all times with stakes from $0.02 to $0.04.

Pot Limit Omaha HiLo

This variation of Omaha involves half of the pot being awarded to the high hand, with the other half of the pot being awarded to the low hand.  The low hand must by 8 high or lower to qualify as the low hand and win half the pot, otherwise the entire pot is awarded to the high hand.  The low hand is not affected by straights so a “wheel” A,2,3,4,5 is a very strong pot limit Omaha HiLo hand.  At Cake Poker you can find players at the lower limits from about $0.02/$0.04 to $0.50/$1.

In Game Options

Cake Poker keeps it fairly simply with the options you are given during play.  For example there is no option to straddle bet in a Cake Poker cash game.  A straddle bet in poker is when the person to the left of the big blind doubles the big blind before being dealt cards, which gives them the last action before the flop.  Cake Poker keeps it simple with check/raise/fold etc and auto post/auto muck check marks.

Overall Cake Poker is a great online poker room for US residents interested in playing Texas Hold’em or Omaha online.  Visit Cake Poker now to start playing and don’t forget to use Cake Poker sign up code SIGNUP600.

There is $100,000 up for grabs courtesy of Cake Poker this month in the $100k Points Race that starts today and runs throughout March.  If you are the most frequent player on Cake Poker in the month of March then you have the chance to win up to $7,500 (that would involve winning all four weeks and the overall month races).

How It Works

The frequent player points that you earn at both cash games and tournaments will be added to your total and you will compete against all other Cake Poker players for places on the Cake Poker points race leaderboard.

In cash games you earn 1 frequent player point for every $1 in rake that the table you are sitting at rakes and you earn 7 frequent player points for every $1 that you pay in tournament fees.

You can check where you stand on the weekly or monthly leaderboards by visiting the ‘My Account’ section when you are logged into the Cake Poker software.

How Much Can I Win

As mentioned earlier the top prize for each of the weeks and the monthly leaderboard is $1500.  The weekly and monthly leaderboard gives out exactly the same amount of cash, so there are basically 5 different leaderboards throughout the month that award the same cash prizes of online poker real money.  The top prize is $1500, 2nd is $1000, 3rd is $750 and so on right down to 350th spot on the leaderboard earning $15 in cash fro mCake Poker.

Strategy

So you want to get as many frequent player points as you can this month without breaking the bank and risking a ton of money.  The best way to do this is to play extremely tight on a bunch of Cake Poker cash game tables.  This means you should fold preflop the vast majority of the time, only playing on big hands that you have a good chance of winning.  Because Cake Poker uses the dealt method for distributing frequent player points even if you fold preflop you will still receive the same amount of points as the loose aggressive player at the table who is pushing the pace and upping the rake.  Playing extremely tight will also allow you to play more tables because you will not need to concentrate as much playing the flop, turn or river because you will usually be folding or pushing the action preflop.  This strategy may not be the most exciting for players who like to get involved in the hands, but if you are just interested in quickly and quietly racking up FPP’s this is the strategy you should employ.

Ready to start vying for that $1500 from Cake Poker this week.  Visit Cake Poker now to set up an account.  Be sure to use Cake Poker signup code SIGNUP600 to receive a 110% matching bonus up to $600 on your first deposit.

Bet365 is a top online poker room targetting UK and European players and I thought it would be the perfect room to continue our look at other online poker bonuses and compare them with the Cake Poker bonus of 110% up to $600.  Bet365 does not accept US residents, but for everyone from elsewhere in the world, this article could be very interesting.

Bet365 offers new players a solid 200% matching bonus up to $1000 on their initial deposit.  It is important to note that you are not required to use a 2012 Bet365 bonus code when signing up to receive this bonus.  The Bet365 bonus is placed in a pending bonus account and $10 of the bonus is released every time you earn an additional 1000 merit points.

In tournaments you receive 15 merit points per $1 in tournament fees and in cash games you can receive up to 11 merit points for raked hands.  If we just look at tournament fees this equals out to you earning $0.15 of your bonus for every $1 that you pay in fees.  This is much worse than the $0.42 of your bonus you earn for every dollar you spend at Cake Poker.

Bet365′s bonus expires after 60 days and any amount of the bonus that you have yet to clear at this point will be forfeit.  Cake allows 90 days, which also takes the Cake in this category.

So Bet365 only wins in the matching percentage and total amount that you can earn, however those categories only matter if you plan to play a lot in the first 60 days in order to clear the entire bonus.  If any amount of your bonus is not cleared then you basically should have played at Cake Poker instead.

This once again goes to prove that Cake Poker has a very solid first deposit bonus and all players who use Cake Poker sign up code SIGNUP600 will benefit from this fact for their first 90 days playing at Cake!