Hey Bobby--

My 2 cents on the matter, or perhaps an even more dimunutive denomination of currency, is that you should not play in a shitty game just to get a bonus. See, bonus whoring is aptly named. What is it that thier namesakes, actual whores, do? They make money in an ostensibly easy way, but at what cost? Playing boring breakeven poker in crappy games where everyone there is trying to pinch pennies in the same way. Now i havent played on the cryptos at all, so i dont know, but i would never play in a rock-garden type game, no matter what the bonus was- because even if you can break even or win a little, + the bonus, there are much better games out there that you can win alot more in, and learn alot more in, were you just to forsake the bonus-crutch...

Well, bonus whoring has other benefits though - like playing in a game that you are not as familiar with to a) help improve you diversability and b) help improve your winrate in other areas.

I think the Crypto Stud tables are some of the juiciest around. Even without a solid strategy, but with a good idea of odds you can do quite well there and since you have a cushion even if you do poorly - you can cover a lot of losses from beginner mistakes. Instead of playing break-even poker at a game that is not good to get a good bonus, play good-enough poker while learning at a game you want to learn.

Of course, not everyone wants to expand into other games - and so this argument will always fail in light of those individuals.

/d

I do the Crypto bonuses every month. All told 7 now that Littlewoods has added their monthly bonus back. (WH, Interpoker, PokerPlex, TotalBet, UKBetting, RitzClub, Littlewoods = 375.00 in bonus money). You can do all of these in about 10 hours total if you are willing to 5 table. So that is 37.50 per hour or ca. 19 Big Bets per hour which is pretty damn good. So are the tables a little tight at times yes but I have never failed to clear a pretty nice chunk of change in addition to the bonuses for my efforts. I generally play them around 3 EST-8 EST because the Europeans seems quite a bit more loose than the US players. I would also play in the 2nd and 3rd week of the month if I were just playing there for the bonuses because the rockiest of the rocks generally play the first or last week to claim their bonuses.

Also if you have the bankroll I would look at the 12 GBP games as they tend to be quite a bit looser than the 12 US games.

So yes I still whore them but I try to get it done in a 2 day parcel and be through with it for the month so I can get on into greener pastures.