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.

It seems like more and more online poker rooms are adding online casino extensions to their poker rooms.  This may be in the form of a full blown online casino or maybe just a few online casino games such as mini roulette, black jack, video poker and some of the other more popular online casino games.  Titan Poker and PKR, two of the more prominent online poker rooms have launched full blown online casinos, while many other poker rooms such as Carbon and the rooms on their network have launched some sidegames that players can play if they get bored of the casino.  The casino not only brings in more money for the online poker room, but it also gives players more variety and choice if they just feel like gambling a little bit.  It’s actually surprising that Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, the two largest online poker rooms have decided not to branch into the online casino spectrum, but instead are focussed on providing players with the best online poker experience possible.

So What Is Cake Poker Doing in Regards to Casino Games?

Cake actually recently added some different games that are similar to online casino games, but they are played as an online poker format.  These games include tournament blackjack and Cake war.  The problem with these games is they require others to play them as well, but it doesn’t seem like there is much interest so its hard for the games to get off the ground.  Here is a brief overview of the games:

Tournament Blackjack

Tournament blackjack involves playing against other players so there is actually no house advantage.  Instead players must have more chips than their opponents after the final round of the tourney blackjack game.  The tournaments have a set number of hands and it is the goal to have the most chips at the end of the last hand.  Needless to say a lot of strategy can come into play making tournament blackjack a great alternative to poker.

Cake War

This is a Cake Poker invention and is a very interesting game.  Each player is given a bin of cards from 1-10 to start the game.  There are then 10 rounds where a dealer card is turned up in the middle of the table.  Each player then selects which card from their bin they would like to bet in order to try to win the card.  The highest card bet takes the dealers card, but if two players bet the same card they cancel each other out and the next highest card wins.  At the end of the tenth round, whichever players cards add up to the highest total wins the game.  This is another game that is played against other opponents, but it is moving towards casino games because it is a bit similar to casino war.

Cake Pokers Casino

In simple terms Cake Poker does not have an online casino and does not even offer online casino games.  If you are interested in learning more about online casino games click here.  Casino games are a lot of fun and can provide a great break from the thinking and strategizing of online poker.  Sometimes people just want to gamble and that is what casino games are great for.  It makes good business sense for poker rooms to offer casino games to their players, so I expect a shift in this direction very soon.

The Cake Poker Network continues to grow every day with many new rooms being added such as Doyles Room and Power Poker.  Each of these new Cake Poker Network skins brings in new players and this helps the network continue to grow.  The network is now the tenth largest poker network online and they will likely be moving up this list in the near future.

The Cake Poker network averages about 2000 cash games players and 4000 tournament players online at any time during the day.  At the moment there are 39 different Cake Poker network skins who all share players in order to ensure that the players at each one of these poker room can always find a game to their liking.  The main Cake Poker skins include BetUS, Cake Poker, Doyles Room, Players Only Poker, Power Poker, Red Star Poker and Sportsbook.com.  Each of the Cake Poker network sites not only share players, but they also share many promotions such as the gold card and gold chip promotions that are unique to Cake Poker skins.

The Cake Poker network will continue to grow over the coming years because the software is solid, US players are allowed and the major poker rooms on the network are committed to growing their brands and succeeding in the online poker industry.

Cake Poker is giving players a chance to party it up in style with celebrities, professional poker players and some playboy bunnies at Hugh Hefner’s playboy mansion.  Each prize package is worth $3K and includes $1,000 in travel expenses and spending money, $1,000 for the VIP Mansion event and $1,000 for the $50K tournament that will take place at the Mansion.

Satellites are running until June 20th with a $100 + 9 rebuy tournament on Sunday at 5:30pm EST.  There are $6 + $0.06 satellites into this rebuy event every day up until the 20th.

This is your chance to party it up in style with all kinds of celebrities and athletes in the legendary Playboy Mansion.  Use your VIP access to have the time of your life.  Not to mention all proceeds go to charity so even if you aren’t on your best behaviour you can still come away feeling good about yourself.

Also, if you win a prize package you can give the $1000 in spending money back in order to get a second ticket to the VIP event for a friend.  It’s nice to have a wingman at the mansion.

Sign up to Cake Poker today using Cake Poker sign up code “THE500″ to start winning your place.

I wanted to look at the Cake Poker bonus in a little more detail in order for you to see the benefits of signing up with Cake Poker sign up code – CAKEBC500.

As you know the Cake Poker bonus is a 100% matching bonus up to $500.  The bonus is released in $10 increments and you have 90 days to clear as much of the bonus as you can.  Also, to clear the bonus you must earn FPP’s, with each FPP being worth $0.06 of your bonus.

In tournaments you earn 7 FPP’s for every $1 you pay in tournament fees.  Since, each FPP is worth $0.06 of your bonus, for every $1 in tournament fees you pay, you earn $0.42 back in cleared bonus amounts.  This is actually quite high in the industry, as you can see by looking at easiest to clear poker bonuses.

Now in cash games you earn 1 FPP for every $1 in rake at the table.  This is the same whether you play 9-handed, 6-handed or heads up.  So as you can see the easiest and most economical way to earn FPP’s is playing at 9-handed tables because there are more players, so there is a greater chance of there being a large rake without you having to contribute anything to the pot.  If you play 9-handed and you are a completely average player in terms of aggression this means that you earn 1 FPP for every approximately $0.11 that you personally rake.  Which equals out to 9 FPP’s for every $1 you personally pay in rake.  As you can see for a normal player, cash games earn your more FPP’s per $1 that you pay to the house.  Also, for a tight player, cash games are definitely the way to go, because you will be earning FPP’s even if you are folding almost every hand.  If you earn 9 FPP’s for every $1 you personally contribute to the rake than you are earning $0.54 back in cleared bonuses for every $1 that you personally rake.  If you are a super tight player, this amount could be much higher, even possibly over $1, in which case you would be earning money without having to win any hands.