First big deposit

Okay I'm looking to make my first big deposit (freerolls weren't doing it for me) and I was looking for a recommendation for a site to play on deposit bonuses, rake, and whatnot considered.

What do you mean by big? What stakes/games are you looking to play?

If it were up to me, I'd probably start on Carbon/Bodog/Absolute. Those sites are generally softer, and their smaller traffic won't be a big issue at the microstakes. I'd deposit like 100$, grind that up to $600-$1000, and then max out the deposit bonus at one of the big sites.

Absolute is very hard to clear bonuses.

Wherever you deposit look at the requirements for a raked hand.
Many sites now a raked hand will require a pot of at least $5, so higher stakes tables.
Partypoker used to be the Easiest to clear bonuses and they had good bonus tracking on the site. Not sure now though as not US friendly anymore.

Fulltilt would be my second choice. Have cleared bonuses there without a problem, also good bonus tracking on the site.

Pokerstars would be another consideration if you could get into the reload freerolls, see other thread.

Just make sure you will be able to make the required raked hands to clear the bonuses before you deposit.

Good Luck and Good Games!

I was thinking $200 and grinding out some 10NL.

200 is nice but that gives you 20 buyins at 10 nl. I am no expert but you may want to look into some articles on here about bankroll management. I have lost my roll not adhering to the br management suggestions good luckthough.. I personally have been on full tilt and ultimate the tilt clears bonusus but only has a onetime bonus. Ultimate has a lot of reload bonusus but are harder to clear.....

I am guessing he wants to know where/about,who has the best bonus deal?,I really dont know but consider a site that maybe has a depositor freeroll also,on top of any bonus.I heard pokerstars is having a bunch of reload freerolls this month too,but havnt looked into it.So consider these things and do your research homework.Good Luck.

That's not a big deposit lol. Fishies from 1c/2c all the way up until $50NL

Deposit the max... for the bonus.

Ask about "rakeback". I had never heard about it until too late to try to get some. It has something to do with the poker room giving you back some money that they "rake" from the pots.

Maybe some of you guys that know about this can fill him in.

Well I would, but I'm not exactly rollin or anything, so I'm just trying to get the best value.

Bodog will be tough. 10NL has a max rake per hand of $0.10 which translates to .1 points. You need to hit the max rake to get any points at this limit. To get the 100% bonus you will need 2,000 points. Thats 20,000 qualified hands in 30 days. Time playing will help as you get 1 point per hour. But you will have to play a ton of 10NL to max the bonus and you cann't multi-table more than 4 tables. On the plus side, the 10% of the 110% is paid immediately.

I suggest review all the poker rooms. For their Pros and Cons. Like cash out problem would be no.1 on my concern about selecting poker room. Just my two cents hope it helps.

Full Tilt in my opinion is the easiest to clear. How comfortable are you with multi-tabling? You want to try to get in as many hands as possible. The rake from every table helps you out. And if you want to you can sort the rooms by "Avg. Pot" the higher it is (within your limit) the quicker you can clear it but surely its a table full of extremely LAG. $200 can clear pretty fast on FT.

The problem with multi-tabling is simply the inaccuracy of the resulting play. Because the poker site is always making money, the rake will always make up for whatever bonus payments you may be receiving. That said, you may be able to get away with having the other people at the table who are getting more involved in hands pay the price of your bonuses; however, this requires being very tight yet still avoiding losses from the blinds.

I prefer multi-tabling, and I don't think it makes my play bad, I just won't make too many moves, just playing a TAG game, looks like FT is my best option, I might just wait till I can deposit for the max bonus though, since I only get one shot at it.

What???
I agree with nothing said here at all. If you are a good player and can multi table you will make more money per hour than just playing one table. You will also clear your bonus quicker by earning more points per hour. So what is the inaccuracy of the resulting play??? What are you talking about???

Avoiding losses form the blinds??? Do you play poker at all? are you talking about trying to clear a bonus without playing poker at all?? I don't get what you are trying to say.

It would depend on how big of a deposit you are looking to make but I would suggest bodog if you are looking for soft games with lots of weak players, but there are not as many options for tournameents and cash games, if you are looking for lots of tournament and cash tables options as there is always something going on 24/7 on that site