Poker bonus back in the days

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Mark | Poker and Life, Poker Articles, Poker Bonus

The story below is a recollection of my poker career since I started playing online poker in March 2005. The title is “Poker bonus back in the days” because when writing my story I truly started missing the good old bonus whoring days.

In 2005 I had already been sportsbetting online since 2004; I had this great system but that’s another story altogether….Anyway in 2004 only a few of the sportsbetting sites offered poker, but the poker bonuses were really good, and since I was already a certified bonus whore (this is actually a known term, so don’t be offended), I thought I might as well check out this game called poker.

I had basically no clue how to play poker, so I googled it (I’m pretty sure google existed at the time) and tried to learn the handrankings. I also started playing with play money at Party Poker. After a month or so I met up with my brother one evening, and we decided to make a real money deposit at Party Poker and instantly received our first poker bonus. I still remember the goose bumps when we were dealt our first hand.

Since we didn’t have a clue about position, how much to bet, pot odds and basically all other aspects of the game, we purchased the Texas CalculateEm poker analysis software and started playing 0,25/0,5$ Limit Texas Holdem. By doing exactly what the program told us to do, we turned our initial 25$ into almost 100$. I guess I have been hooked ever since.

I decided to start my poker career at Party Poker playing Limit Texas HoldEm with the Texas Calculateem analysis program, and deposited 480$ to receive the maximal poker bonus. I also registered for a Neteller account, which made it easy to move my poker bankroll from site to site. After playing the required number of raked hands, I cashed out from Party Poker and redeposited on another site to receive another signup bonus. I continued jumping from poker bonus to poker bonus for some time, slowly progressing to playing without Texas CalculateEm and finally to playing Texas Holdem No Limit.

Some of the poker bonuses were really good back in the days. I especially remember an Expect Poker bonus, where you received a 100$ bonus by depositing 400$. In order to cash out you needed to play 100 hands (hands, not raked hands…just hands).

I have made a list showing all my deposit, poker bonuses and winnings at the different poker sites I played at in my bonus whoring days. As you can see I was basically a break even poker player who earned his money bonus whoring.

Poker Account/ date/ deposit/ bonus/ Balance/ Profit without bonus

Party Poker xxxx 480 130 738,52 128,52
Interpoker xxxx 100 90 301,23 111,23
Party Poker 20-03 500 100 698,64 98,64
Pacific Poker 19-03 100 50 100 -50
Interpoker 02-04 100 100 142 -58
Noble Poker 16-04 500 150 929 279
Party Poker 23-04 500 120 641,35 21.35
Party Poker 15-05 670 100 741 -29
Pokerplex 27-05 300 150 479,95 29,95
Party Poker 06-06 600 150 718,53 -31,47
Eurobet Poker 22-06 200 25 220,5 -4,5
Prestige Poker 23-07 400 100 555,83 55,83
Nordicbet 28-07 203 50 258 5
Expect 28-07 407 100 519 2
Crazy Poker 03-08 100 50 172,5 22,5
Party Poker 06-08 500 100 645 45
Parbet 13-08 206 50 246 -10
Poker 333 14-08 400 0 406,39 6,39
Playgate 19-08 400 100 430 -70
LittleWoods 23-08 110 40 94 -56
PokerPlex 27-09 90 50 70 -70
Pacific Poker 29-09 167 0 167 0
Poker Plex 05-10 100 50 192,25 42,25
Party Poker 06-10 400 100 575 75
Absolute Poker 12-10 100 30 175 45
Sportingbet 19-10 300 0 168 -132
Party Poker 19-10 500 0 468 -32
Noble Poker 22-10 30 0 109 79
Nordicbet Poker 24-10 203 100 235 -68
Noble Poker 26-10 30 0 0 -30
Noble Poker 28-10 25 0 42 17
Poker Plex 03-11 100 0 96 -4

TOTAL:
DEPOSIT 8821
BONUS 2085
BALANCE 11334,69
Profit without bonus 428,69

Eventually I cashed out my entire bankroll to pay for a trip to Thailand and Cambodia with my brother and two friends. Great trip.

During my bankroll building days I also had some pretty good tournament results but I will save the story of my tournament poker career for another day (this post is already too long).

Well there you have it: My Poker Story. How does yours compare?

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