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 Bet365 bonus code when signing up to receive this bonus (this is also sometimes called a Bet365 referrer code).  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!

PokerStars is by far the largest online poker site in the world, now that Full Tilt Poker has gone offline.  Poker Scout has PokerStars with an average of 26,000 cash game players online at any given time, which is far more than the 740 averaged on the Cake Poker network.  That doesn’t even take into account the tournament players.  For the reason that PokerStars houses about half of the total online poker population I wanted to take a look at their bonus and compare it in some ways to the Cake Poker bonus.

PokerStars Bonus

PokerStars offers new players a 100% matching bonus up to $600.  This offer is still available for the first 3 deposits that a player makes up to the maximum $600 bonus (90 days to make the 3 deposits).  Like all poker rooms, the bonus is initially placed in a pending bonus account and the player must play in tournaments and cash games to earn points in order to clear the bonus and have it released.  At PokerStars VPPs are earned by playing in cash games or tournaments.  You earn 5.5 points for every $1 that you pay in tournament fees or contribute in rake to a cash game pot.  Every 17 points you earn gets you $1 of your bonus.  This equals out to about $0.32 of your PokerStars bonus being cleared for every $1 that you pay in fees or rake to PokerStars.  The bonus is paid out in $10 increments and you have 6 months to clear your bonus and any amount that is not cleared after that time will be lost.  You must use PokerStars marketing code 2012 STARS600 in order to qualify for this bonus.

Comparison

The 100% matching bonus up to $600 is almost exactly the same as the 110% matching up to $600 that Cake Poker offers, except that PokerStars allows the first 3 deposits made in 90 days to qualify to receive the bonus, which gives the edge to PokerStars in that category.

The Cake Poker bonus is paid out in $5 instead of $10 increments, which is a little bit better and when looking at the tournament fees (because Cake pays out points differently in cash games) Cake has the edge because you clear about $0.42 of the bonus for every $1 paid in fees, as compared to $0.32 from PokerStars.

PokerStars gives 6 months to clear the bonus though, while Cake only offers 90 days before the bonus must be cleared.  This is twice as much time and for slower casual players will likely result in almost twice as much bonus.

Overall, the PokerStars bonus has some qualities that are better than Cake Poker, but their clearing requirements are slightly more strict.  I would suggest playing at both sites and getting as much bonus money as you can!

Remember that each site accepts poker bonus codes.  The Cake Poker sign up code is SIGNUP600, while the PokerStars Marketing Code is STARS600.

New Deal Poker is a new skin on the Everleaf Online Poker network, which is a very small online poker network, but it is known for housing a lot of fish at the lower limits.  This article will take an investigative look at the New Deal Poker Bonus, including looking at the size of the bonus, the matching percentage, the clearing requirements and the expiry.

New Deal Poker Bonus

New Deal Poker is currently offering all new players the choice between 4 different online poker bonuses based on the type of player they are.  Let’s get started looking at these bonuses.

100% up to $100 – Use bonus code NEW100 to receive this bonus, which is primarily for more casual players.  The bonus is paid out to your player account in 10% increments, with each $1 being earned when you accumulate an additional 15 PokerPoints.  PokerPoints are earned by playing in New Deal Poker cash games and tournaments.  You earn 10 PokerPoints for every $1 that you contribute to the rake or pay in tournament fees.  This means that when earning your bonus you are paying $1 in fees for every $0.67 of your bonus.  This is a very good ratio as compared to other online poker rooms that average around $0.30 of the bonus for every $1 you pay in fees.  This bonus has a 30 day expiration period, after which the remaining bonus amount is lost.

100% up to $200 – Use bonus code NEW200 to receive this bonus.  The difference with this bonus is that you must earn 17 PokerPoints for every $1 of your bonus.  That means that you receive about $0.59 of your bonus for every $1 you pay in fees.  You are given 45 days to clear this bonus.

100% up to $300 – Use bonus code NEW300 for this bonus.  The difference here is you must earn 19 PokerPoints for every $1 of your bonus.  This equals out to you receiving $0.53 of your bonus for every $1 that you pay in tournament fees or contribute in rake.  You have 60 days to clear this bonus and it is also paid out in 10% increments.

100% up to $1000 – Use bonus code NEW1000 to receive this bonus.  With this bonus you must earn 30 PokerPoints for every $1 of your bonus, which equals out to you receiving $0.33 of your bonus for every $1 that you pay in fees.  You are also given 60 days to clear this bonus.

Which Bonus Should I Choose

The bonus you should choose depends on how much you expect to play in the next one or two months and how high of limits you plan on playing.  Obviously if you plan on depositing $100 or less you should go with the 100% up to $100 bonus because you wouldn’t be earning more at any other bonus offer anyways and with the 100% up to $100 bonus the clearing conditions are the most player friendly.  After that you have to ask yourself how much you are willing to initially deposit and how much you are going to play.  Then you can decide which is the biggest bonus amount you can earn in the time frame given.

Cake Poker is one of the few remaining rooms that accept US players and it’s biggest competition would have to be Carbon Poker, which is the biggest poker room on the Merge Network, which is currently the largest online network allowing US residents to join.  The Merge network is the 8th largest poker network in the world, but with Americans needing a new place to play the entire network, but Carbon Poker in particular is growing very fast.  This article will take a look at Carbon Poker, including the Carbon Poker bonus, some of their better promotions and what kind of tournaments and cash games they are offering.

Carbon Poker Bonus

The Carbon Poker bonus is currently a 100% matching bonus up to $600.  The bonus is initially placed in a pending bonus account with $5 being released every time you earn an additional 375 VIP points.  VIP points are earned at Carbon Poker cash games and tournaments, with 10 VIP points being earned for every $1 contributed in cash game rake or paid in tournament fees.  This equals out to you earning approximately $0.13 of your bonus for every $1 that you pay in fees, which is a very low ratio compared to other online poker rooms including Cake Poker.

Carbon Poker Promotions

Carbon is always offering new promotions every month to provide added value for players.  This month Carbon is offering an 10% instant reload bonus, which is great for players because the bonus money is automatically added to the account and ready for use.  There are also other promotions that run all the time such as the monthly charity tournament, the quad pyramid promotions (flopping quadruple 5′s earns you cash), the royal flush bonus and of course the refer a friend.

Tournaments

Carbon Poker also offers the biggest tournaments of every online poker room currently accepting US players.  Carbon guarantees over $4,000,000 in tournaments every month and the biggest weekly guaranteed tourney is the Sunday $100,000 guaranteed at 3pm EST.  It’s a great tournament and you can win tickets into that huge tourney in a lot of different ways.

Cash Games

The most common cash games are of course no limit hold’em games, but at Carbon you can also find some other poker varieties.  The no limit hold’em cash games get as big as $50/$100 blinds, while the Omaha cash games generally fill up to $3/$6 and the stud, draw and other games generally stay at the fairly low limits with empty seats.

Overall Carbon Poker is a great option for online poker players in the United States who aren’t interested in playing at Cake Poker.  Try a Carbon Poker download and test out the room for yourself at the play money tables before making a deposit.

It’s most poker players dream to win a live tournament and at Cake Poker players have the opportunity to do just that.  Cake Poker is currently hosting satellite poker tournaments to both the Super Poker Event of Europe 2012 and the Irish Open 2012.  Each of these tournaments are high profile events where poker players striving to make a name for themselves can do so.  Qualifying for either event is straight forward, you just have to qualify through one of the poker satellites available at Cake Poker.  Learn more about each event below:

2012 Super Poker Event of Europe

This tourney, dubbed ‘Super 2012′ is expected to be the biggest poker event to ever occur in Europe.  There is expected to be over 4,000 players participating in the tourney that will take place in Dublin, Ireland on February 25th and 26th.  The tourney has an estimated prize pool of  €1.2 million and this is from buy-ins of just  €300.  The tournament plays down to a final 8 players on the 26th, but the final table takes place at a secure location on March 31st with all of the action streamed live on the internet.  This is a great tournament for players hoping to get noticed.

Cake Poker is giving players the opportunity to win  $1000 prize packages, which include the  €300 entry buy-in and  cash to help with travel and accommodation expenses.  There are still two Super Poker $1000 Final satellites that you can participate in (January 15th and February 12th).  Each of these satellites has a $50 buy-in and awards as many $1000 prize packages as possible.  There are also 3 smaller buy-in “step like” satellites that you can participate in if you don’t want to shell out the $50 for one of the finals.

Visit Cake Poker Now!

2012 Irish Open

The Irish Open will not have as large a player pool as the Super Poker Event of Europe, but the buy-in and prize packages are much larger.  The buy-in for the event is  €3500 and the prize packages being awarded by Cake Poker are for $6000, which includes the event buy-in plus spending money for expenses.  The Irish Open is set to take place in Dublin in early April at the Burlington Hotel.

You can win the prize packages every other Sunday in the Irish Open $6K Finals, which are $200 + $15 tournaments where at least one package to the Irish Open is guaranteed.

Both of these tournaments are going to be high profile tourneys that could launch a player into poker stardom.  Visit Cake Poker now to start attempting to qualify for the events and be sure to use Cake Poker sign up code SIGNUP600 to receive the 110% matching bonus up to $600!

Cake Poker has added the “Cake Exchange”, which allows players to buy and sell gold cards in an easy to use, stock market environment.

Access It

To access “The Exchange” you first need to download Cake Poker 2.0, which is the latest version of the software.  Then you simply have to log into the Cake Poker client and click on the “Exchange” button in the left sidebar.  This will take you to playerxe.co.uk, which is the Cake Poker gold card exchange website.

Use It

In “The Exchange” you have the option to buy or sell Gold Cards, as well as look at various trends that have occured in the exchange.  It is important to note that there is a 10% administration fee that is charged as commission on every sale, so you should really only be selling your Gold Cards if you never intend to use them.  Also, all Gold Cards purchased on The Exchange can only be used to buy-in to Gold Card tournaments, they cannot be used for any other promotion.

In the bottom right of the Exchange website you can which Gold Cards are needed for upcoming Gold Card tournaments and the lowest selling price that is available at that time.  You can also place buy and sell orders with specific time frames, which makes the Gold Card Exchange very similar to actual stock markets.  There are really only a couple Gold Card tournaments a day, so buying cards for tournaments that don’t take place for a while is kind of useless.

This Gold Card Exchange is an interesting addition to the Cake Poker experience, but I wouldn’t suggest using it a whole lot.

On a side note, if you’re from the UK, you should check out this great new UK poker website I stumbled across.  It has a lot of great information regarding online poker for players from the United Kingdom.  The Betfred Poker bonus is one they really push because it’s apparently worth £1250.  Might be something to check out if you are British.

For those of you interested in other online poker bonuses in order to build your bankroll should really take a close look at the Everest Poker bonus option.  Everest Poker offers all new players a $200 welcome bonus for making their first deposit at Everest Poker.  That’s right, there is no matching percentage.  A deposit as little as $10 will still receive a bonus of $200.  This post will investigate the offer further and see just how great the bonus offer at Everest Poker is.

Everest Poker Bonus Code

In order to receive the $200 bonus you must use Everest Poker bonus code WELCOME into the bonus section of your Everest Poker account within 14 days of creating an Everest account.  This is the best poker bonus code you can find online because it comes directly from Everest Poker, which guarantees that the bonus will be paid.

Everest Poker Bonus Clearing

Your $200 Everest Poker bonus starts in your Everest Poker bonus account and it is converted into real money by earning SUMMIT points playing at the Everest Poker tables.  For every SUMMIT point you accumulate you clear $0.06 of your bonus.  The $0.06 is immediately added to your account.  There is no waiting to accumulate $20 worth of SUMMIT points before seeing any of your bonus.  The bonus is cleared in small $0.06 increments which should keep a steady flow of bonus cash headed to your account.

Earning Summit Points – Cash Games

Summit points are earned based on the number of seats at the table (but not the number of participants).  Then the amount earned depends on the amount raked during that hand.  Here is a quick overview:

Summit points per $1 raked

2-handed table: 3.5 SUMMIT points
6-seat table: 1.4 SUMMIT points
10-seat table: 1 SUMMIT point

Max Summit Points

2-handed table: 3.5 SUMMIT points
6-seat table: 4.2 SUMMIT points
10-seat table: 3.0 SUMMIT points

From this the best way to clear your Everest Poker bonus at the cash game tables is by playing very tight at 6-seat or 10-seat tables.  If for every $1 raked, you contributed $0.10 at a ten-seat table then you receive $0.60 of your bonus for every $1 you contribute to the rake.

Earning Summit Points – Tournaments

You earn 8 SUMMIT points for every $1 that you pay in tournament fees at Everest Poker.  This means that every $1 you spend in tourney fees at Everest you earn $0.48 of your bonus.

Conclusion

The Everest Poker bonus is one of the best bonuses in the online poker industry because you receive the $200 bonus regardless of your initial deposit amount and the bonus is very easy to clear.  In fact if you played very tight at a 10-seat table you could likely clear the bonus while contributing less than the bonus amount to the rake.  This could be a very positive expected value venture for players that can succeed while playing tight.  Try it out and see if you can make some extra money for your Cake bankroll.