Bonus Clearing Strategy
Bonus What?
So you have signed up at one of the major online cardrooms like Full Tilt, PokerStars or Party Poker and you made your initial deposit. Hopefully you deposited enough to get the maximum bonus (for example at Full Tilt you need to deposit $600 USD for the maximum bonus dollar amount which, conveniently enough is 600 bonus dollars. Now you have your work cut out for you. You will need to play a large number of raked hands to clear the bonus. In the case of Full Tilt again they will put cleared bonus amounts in actual dollars into your player account $20 at a time.
For the purpose of clearing your bonus these recommendations are for playing Limit Texas Holdem. If you are a stud player it will be easiest to clear your bonus with Texas Holdem because of the number of live ring tables going and because you can perform the strategy described below almost robotically and still make money. If you are an Omaha8 player then substitute the Group 1 hands from Low Limit Omaha in place of the starting hands listed below.
The Strategy
The clearing strategy we recommend has three main points:
- Very tight starting hand requirements (tighter than you've ever played! -- explained below)
- Multi-tabling (at least 4 tables going at a time) to clear the bonus faster
- Very strong pre-flop aggression (you will always raise or reraise any hand you play up to the cap preflop)
Very Tight Starting Hand Requirements
Here are all the hands you will play.
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Yes you read that right. Only pairs TT through AA and AK (suited or unsuited).
Naturally this is far too tight for maximum expectation but it does put you in almost every hand you play with a preflop advantage (which you should push with as many raises as you can preflop) and it also makes it much easier to play on four or even six ring tables at the same time because you will be folding 95% of the hands you receive.
After the flop you should remain aggressive and continue to bet even if you only have ace high. Keep betting until you are raised or until the showdown. If you are raised with no pair or an underpair (you have TT and there is a KQ on the board) then you should dump your hand against most opponents.
Multi Tabling
In order to clear your bonuses in a reasonable amount of time you are going to have to play on more than one table at a time. Fortunately this is very simple on most cardrooms. Fult Tilt, PokerStars and Party Poker all have the ability to resize their tables and automatically tile them to fit your screen. UltimateBet provides an option called "Miniview" which turns the poker table into a small rectangular bar. On a large screen you can probably fit about 14 to 20 miniview tables! I do not recommend multitabling to this extent though. If you are new to online play then start with two tables and when you feel comfortable making your actions in time with those (which should be very simple using the starting hands above) then move up to three and then four. If you are more experienced you may want to try five or even six tabling to clear your bonuses at the maximum rate.
Also this strategy is designed for full ring games. Do not try to use these starting hand selections on 6-max tables or you will be eaten alive by the blinds.
Choose a Limit
The higher the limit you play the faster your bonuses will clear, so you should play at the highest reasonable limit you can. A common benchmark for poker bankroll is 300 big bets, so if you deposit $600 in your poker account you have a decent bankroll for a $1-$2 limit holdem game. Since these starting hands are extremely conservative you can probably get by with a bankroll of 150 big bets so you should be able to multi-table at a $2-$4 game with a $600 deposit. If you drop below 100 big bets you should move down a level.
Naturally if your initial deposit is lower than $600 then you should play in an appropriate game. We definitely recommend buying in for the an amount that lets you claim the maximum number of bonus dollars since you only get a first-time deposit once!
Choose a Table
For purposes of bonus clearing you want to play at tables where the percentage of players seeing the flop is between 25 and 40 percent. If the percentage is lower than this you won't make enough money on the hands you play to beat the blinds you'll lose and the rake. If you pick a table with a percentage higher than this then you will have excessive variance and may deplete your bankroll if you encounter an especially long run of bad beats.
Where are These Bonuses?
You may want to check out our Bonus Code section to view the current online cardroom bonus offers for first time depositors.
