Betfair’s official statement says:

It is important to note that Ongame is a rakeback-free network, so any players acquired as of today (July 12th) will not be eligible for rakeback deals but will instead automatically benefit from our loyalty scheme, once we migrate, known as the Betfair Player’s Club. Existing players however, will remain on their current rakeback deal.

Betfair Vs Ongame Traffic

Betfair is currently ranked #16 on PokerScout.com for traffic. Moving to the OnGame network will offer Betfair players more liquidity, wider game selection, access to some sick network wide promotions and some massive MTTs. Players will also be able to play using both a Mac or a PC.

New Betfair OnGame Promotions 12th-26th July

As you would expect poker and sports betting giants Betfair are laying on some promos so that all of their players have an incentive to grind on the new network

• $60,000 Points Race (AKA Rake Race) -Players simply need to grind and accumulate points (based on their play) to get to the top of the points leaderboard. $60,000 is up for grabs with $10k for the winner. A great additional bonus for playing this month.The race runs from 19th of July until 8th of August inclusive
• Free ‘SnG Step 2′ Tournament Ticket – Enter three sngs between 12th and 26th July and claim a free Sit-and-Go step 2 tournament ticket.
• 50 Free Seats to the $200,000 Guaranteed – Betfair are giving away 50 free tickets to their new Sunday Major tournament the $200K Guaranteed. On the 4th of August players can win a free tickets by earning earn 1,000 Betfair Points from the 12th -26th of July to receive a free entry to our 50 Seats Giveaway Tournament.

The End for Rakeback?

Could this be another indicator of the demise of poker rakeback deals? More and more poker rooms are moving to sites which off poker loyalty programs / poker VIP programs as opposed to flat rakeback payments. As of March 1st this year, online poker room FullTilt Poker announced a maximum of 3% commission for all new rakeback affiliates – saying in no uncertain terms that they don’t want rakeback players. The big daddy poker site, PokerStars doesn’t offer rakeback (instead they offer an interesting VIP Program), and rakeback isn’t permitted on the iPoker network either. It seems the poker industry is fed up with handing over rakeback to winning players and wants to focus on rewarding the low and mid-stakes grinders, to keep them from going broke, and of course to keep them raking, keeping the poker sites eco-system healthy and alive.

Visit Betfair Poker

Discuss Betfair’s move to the on the OnGame Network in our Betting Forum.

The Irish Masters is a No-Limit Hold’em freezeout tournament, with a buy-in of €1,500 + €150, hosted in the CityWest Hotel, Dublin (host venue of the last two Irish Poker Open events).The Irish Masters event will run for for three days, from October 24th – 27th, and is expected to attract the best Irish and International poker players.

“The Sole Survivor promotion really spiced up this year’s Irish Open”, said Paddy Power, Communications Manager for paddypowerpoker.com. “We are thrilled to launch the IWF Sole Survivor by guaranteeing three seats to the Irish Masters main event in this Sunday’s mega satellite. It’s never too early to grab your seat and stake your claim as our next Sole Survivor!”

Weekly super satellites ($200 + $15 freezeouts) to the Irish Masters start online at Paddy Power Poker on Sunday May 17th, with a variety of small buy-in feeder satellites running daily.

A three tickets g’teed Super Satellite will run on Sunday May 10th at 9.00pm. Feeders to the Super Satellite will run daily from Wednesday May 6th.

Download Paddy Power Poker to qualify for the Irish Poker Masters, and for a shot at winning the extra €20,000 live sponsorship deal.

Discuss this article in our Poker Forum

Resources

• Official Paddy Power Poker Site
• Paddy Power Irish Poker Open Sole Survivor Promo

What all poker training sites have in common is that they offer you the chance to learn by watching the BEST online poker players playing in the biggest Multi-table tournaments in the world, as well as sit-and-go tournaments, cash games (of all types and limits). Some of the instructors are so good they can make more than $1,600,000 in ten days!.

Content is presented in a in a variety of formats:

• Poker Training videos recorded live (with commmentary)
• Analysis of games using hand-replayer
• Videos on effective use of statistics, poker tools & Poker Trackers and calculators
• Forums (ask a pro, post a hand-history for analysis)
• Professional Poker Player Blogs give insight into the life of a professional Poker Player
• Poker Training Articles

The instructors on the poker instruction sites are online (and live) poker professionals with impressive rankings and cashes under their belts of hundreds of thousands of dollars on average. Some Instructors have World Series of Poker bracelets, and all of the instructors generally play or have played in the biggest poker games live and on the internet.

Top Poker Training Sites

1. Deuces Cracked : The #1 site for Cash Games from micro limits to $200/$400, with excellent videos covering SNGs and MTTs.
2. Cardrunners The original Poker Training site- offering hundreds of videos spanning all disciplines and varieties of poker.

What types of poker is covered?

Most of the Poker Training sites try to maintain a good balance between cash and tournament instructional content – expect most sites to cover tournaments, SNG’s and MTT’s, however many sites have a selection of videos on non-hold-em games such as Omaha, Omaha hi-low, and 7-2 lowball – with expert commentary from the instructor – explaining the thought behind
every action.

Some sites are geared more towards cash-game play than tournament play – however our Poker Training Site guides below will help you find the poker training site which suits your needs.

Why should I join a Poker Training Site?

With membership to the poker training sites, you can learn from and interact with the best online poker players in the world, and you can learn and be entertained by hundreds of poker training videos by a variety of successful players with different styles.

Most sites grant you access to private forums in which you can post hand histories / videos of your games for analysis by the pro’s. You can join in exclusive private tournaments and leagues and win fat prizes, all for a small monthly fee.

Instructional Poker Sites Reviewed

• Cardrunners Review

A bonus whore will usually only return to one of the poker rooms they have whored if they are given a reload bonus (equivalent to added rakeback for a month), or if the poker room is particularly soft.

Bonus Whoring Considerations

• Rakeback: If you can get rakeback and clear it at the same time as your deposit bonus, you are getting more than just rakeback.
• Bonus Release Rate: When unlocking bonuses, it is desirable to get the lowest possible irelease rate to unlock your bonus – or at least a reasonable rate. Raking $50 to clear $10 in bonus is not-unreasonable.
• Multi-Tabling: It’s often essential that you can multi-table with ease to hit the targets required to unlock your bonus. Desirable features on a site which you may bonus whore on are: traffic, pokertracker / holdem manager support (to track bonuses/raked hands etc).
• Rake Races: Rake races offer the potential to win additional prizes as you grind, depending on the amount of rake you generate and your position in the leaderboard during the promotion. Some sites run monthly rake races. Visit Rake Race and sign up for the mailing list for monthly rake race promotions.

Where to Get Poker Bonuses

Many poker sites offer especially larget poker bonuses and rakeback to savvy players through dedicated sites. Remember that you should always make a suitable first deposit to ensure you are eligible for the maximum permitted bonus when you join a site for bonus whoring. Check out our resources below to get you started.

Poker Bonus Whoring Resources

• Bonus Whoring – Guide to bonus whoring, featuring the best poker deposit bonuses and Poker Loyalty Program Schemes.
• Poker Loyalty Program – Poker loyalty program site, offering loyalty and deposit deals for sites on iPoker, OnGame, Fulltilt, Boss Media, PokerStars and more.
• Rakeback – Rake360 Rakeback offers rakeback and VIP deals for most online poker rooms, deposit bonuses, and a selection of juicy rake-races.
• Rake Race – site offering rake-race information and mailing List,
  keeping you up to date with new rake-races.

Discuss Bonus Whoring in our Poker Forum

The series will run from the 1st of October through to the 10th. Paradise Poker will also be running a €10,000 Freeroll on 10th October (with a paltry 10 raked hands needed for entry). Make sure you don’t miss out on this sick value!

Resources

• Paradise Poker – Official Paradise Poker web-site
• Boss Media Rakeback – 30% Rakeback at Paradise Poker

The series will run from October to November and promises to deliver some sick prizes for Celeb Poker Players.

Nine Lives – Nine Chances to Win
Forget the WSOP “November Nine”… CelebPoker is offing you 9 weekly €5,000 freerolls. All you have to do is cash in one of the nine events to win your seat in a €100,000 freeroll!

The €100k Freeroll is limited to 900 players and will run on the 7th of December at 17:30 GMT.

Why play a Freeroll
WSOPE winner Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad started out playing poker freerolls in order to get a bankroll together to play in online tournaments with buy-ins. After winning $9 from a freeroll, and never depositing on a poker site, Annette has run her online banroll up to $1,500,000 in online tournament winnings to-date. YOU could be the winner of the €100,000 freeroll – who knows where it will lead you! Editor’s Note, CelebPoker is now on the iPoker network. Check out PokerVIPProgram.org for iPoker Rakeback equivalent VIP Deals.

€150,000 Freeroll Series Schedule

Bubble Consolation Freeroll
If you bust out less than 51 from the money in any of the the qualifier freerolls, you are STILL A WINNER!. In this case, you will win entry into another €5,000 consolation freeroll event!

Resources

• Celeb Poker VIP Program – Information on the CelebPoker iPoker VIP Program

Virgin are adding £1000 in bounties as well as a generous £5000 to the prize-pool, in addition to some other sick prizes (e.g. a trip to Las Vegas for the recipient of the worst bad- beat during the main event) the following prizes…

Virgin Poker Festival London, Main Event information

• €150 2 day, deep stack main event.
• £5000 added to total prize pool.
• £1000 of added value bounties.
• Bad Beat prize of return flight to Vegas.
• Three added value, low stakes side events.
• Wii Bowling, Bar Promos + Heads Up Challenge against the Virgin Poker Team!

There will be no direct buy-ins for the London Virgin Poker Festival. All players must qualify online. The value of one seat is €150. Qualifiers for this Festival are now up and running on Virgin Poker . Here is how you can gain entry to the London Poker Festival:

Virgin PokerFestival Schedule

Virgin Poker Festival 2 Day Deep Stack: £150 two day, deep stack main event (£5,000 added to prize pool) and £1000 of value added bounties

- Bad beat prize of return flight to Las Vegas
- Three added value, low stakes side events
- Wii Bowling, bar promos and heads up challenge

How To Qualify

There will be no direct buy-ins permitted for the event. All players must qualify online.
There are 3 standard ways to qualify

* Festival Weekly (€15 + €1.50): Every Sunday at 19.30 (BST). 1 seat for every 10 players.
* Festival Satellite (€1.65 + €0.15): Everyday at 20.30 (BST). Win a seat to the Festival Weekly tourney.
* Festival Super Rebuy (€7 + €0.70): Every Thursday at 20.15 (BST). 1 rebuy allowed when a players has under 500 chips + 1 add on after 60 minutes.

Your Exclusive chance to qualify for the V-Fest
UK Gambling Forums members can qualify via an EXCLUSIVE 1 Seat added satellite:

UKGamblingForums Poker VIP Vfest sat [1 VFest seat gteed]
Site: Virgin
Buyin: €10+1
Date:Sunday 6th September
Structure: 15 minute blinds
Time: 7pm

Discuss The Virgin Poker Festival In our Poker Forums.

Resources

• Sportwetten Oddset – betting Information

Rake is how poker rooms make their money. That is the money that the poker rooms deduct from every pot. Usually the rake is a couple of percent with a cap at around $3 at the highest limits. There is also rake on tournaments, where the large portion of the buy in goes to the prize pool, and a little fee goes to the poker site. The poker rooms make huge money from the rake the players contribute with. It is not unusual that a single player pay $3000 to the poker room every month, and that’s just one player. A poker room with more than 10,000 active players earns quite a lot of money to say the least.

What is Rakeback?

Rakeback is a refund to the poker player.. Poker players receive a percentage of the rake they pay to the poker room. A normal rakeback offer is between 25% and 40%, but sometimes players can get an even better offer. If you receive 35% rakeback, and rake $1000 one month, you will get $350 back. The more you rake, the more you get back. Some sites offer what they call a “poker VIP Bonus“, which to the player is equivalent to rakeback.

How do I get rakeback

If you want to get rakeback you have to sign up at a poker room through a special link (which lets the poker room know that they must give you rakeback (as normal players do not automatically get rakeback). Some sites offer multiple rakeback deals (e.g. Poker Rakeback Deals. All of the poker site links on this page entitle you to rakeback when you join the poker room.

A referring rakeback site earns a couple of percent of your total rake back, but the major part of it goes back into your bankroll.

Some of the poker variations are better suitable for a rakeback deal. If you play shorthanded poker, you are involved in more pots, and therefore pay more rake (and can potentially earn more rakeback). If you play at more than one table at the time you also play more hands, and pay more rake. When you are involved in a lot of pots you should definitely play with rakeback – otherwise you are really throwing away a LOT of money unnecessarily.

There is no downside to rakeback – you will earn a lot of extra cash, or save cash depending on how you look at it. Just do it!

Rake Races

A rake race is a competition to rake more money than anyone else on a particular poker site in a given timeframe. Rake Races either count the number of hands you rake, or the value of the rake from the hands which you have played.

Rake race leaderboards pay out 20-50 people usually, sometimes even the top 100 raking players are paid.. so there is plenty of incentive to play (however just like a tournament payout structure, the bulk of the money to be won is at the top of the ladder). The prizes are lucrative, with some rake races paying up to €30,000 to the winner!

Top Rakeback

Rake Race Information

• Rake Race Strategy
• Rake Race
• Best Rakeback