No mas

Today is the day I gave up bonus chasing. I think at this point in my poker career, it has become detrimental to my game to continue chasing bonus money. It has often made me play on sites I don’t want to be on, with little traffic, and in games I don’t want to play in.

I have been on the Poker Room network for what seems like ages. In reality it is about 2 months now. I was chasing a lot of big bonus money, but at what cost? I often found myself firing up the client and finding 1 table of $3/$6 and 1 table of $5/$10 going. Forget about table selection, I am lucky if I can even get a game going. I refused to play at the $2/$4 level because it does not clear the bonus as well. When I did get in a game, it was me and a bunch of rocks sitting around trading the blinds it seemed. Seen flop percents in the low 20’s was the norm. It’s not like I could just leave the table and find another one, because a lot of the times that was the only table. If there were multiple tables running, they also had seen flop percents in the 20’s.

I will say this, they had some awful players on that network. But when you hit a bad run, forget about it, you were toast. It’s hard to come back from being stuck when nobody comes with you on your premium hands.

So like the swallows returning to Capistrono, I have returned to Party Poker. The land of crazy players and no rakeback. Short term, this move will probably hurt me. I will miss bonus money and rakeback, no doubt. But in the end, I think the bad players and loose games will make up for it. It is 2:30 AM as I write this and Party has 23 full $5/$10 tables. Poker Room has 4, and it will quickly break up down to 2 in the next half hour or so. Table selection alone will be worth giving up bonus money.

I will still chase the occasional bonus of course. I like the Bet365 bonus and I will return to Poker Room for some good 7 or 9x chases, plus I still have some pending bonus money at HoldemPoker and Check N Raise that dont expire until February sometime. So I will be back, but it will be part time, hit and run stuff.

If you really want to see why I love playing at Party, observe this hand that I played tonight.

Hero picks up AA in MP3. Poster in MP2 checks, Hero raises. Button, SB, BB all call. Flop comes Ks4c2s. Check to hero who bets, SB raises, MP2 calls everyone else folds, hero 3 bets and SB caps and MP2 calls. Turn comes Kh. SB bets out. Great, I figure he now has 3 kings so I just call after MP2 folds. River is a blank, he bets out again. I just call. SB turns over 8h3h!!! What? I figured at least a busted flush draw and probably the 3 kings, but not that crap. That is why I like Party. It’s good to be home.

EDIT: Someone asked me on IM if I thought bonus chasing was stupid. No! In fact, I think it is a great thing. It is an essential part of a beginners game. Often, new playes are losing players as well. Bonus money can help keep them at break even, or even ahead of the game sometimes. I know plenty of players who play higher limits then I do who stil chase bonus money on a regular basis.