Written By: PokerBonusSource.com

Perks man, give me some perks! Tired of playing at the same old rooms, giving away rake and tournament fees with nothing in return? If you’re tired of making the poker rooms rich, and would like to get something for yourself for a change, it’s time to find a great bonus code and a new room to play at.

While all online poker rooms have some sort of bonus available to new players, some bonuses are better than others. In this article, I’m going to give you some tips on finding a great poker bonus, and a couple of bonuses worth considering. If you’re an experienced bonus hunter, scroll down the page for our current poker bonus recommendations.

The Basics - How a Poker Bonus Works

Think of a poker bonus like you would a brick & mortar casino perk. When you go to a casino and use your players card, you earn casino perks as you play. The same is true for online poker, except that you don’t have to hand anyone your players card. At online poker rooms, anytime you play, you automatically earn the online equivalent of casino perks. While a Vegas casino may give you tickets to see a show, an online casino can’t send showgirls through your internet connection (until hologram poker is invented anyway). So, online poker rooms give their perks in the form of cold-hard cash. If you earn enough bonus cash, you can hire your own showgirls anyway, so we’ll take the cash thank you.

To claim your bonus at an online poker room, most rooms use either a ‘bonus code’, ‘referral code’, or ‘marketing code’. What’s the difference between these terms? Nothing, they’re all the same thing. Cardspike Poker calls theirs a bonus code, while Full Tilt Poker calls theirs a marketing code. As an industry standard, during the new player registration process, each room will ask you to enter a code which will allow you to receive the bonus.

While some online poker rooms offer ‘reload bonuses’ for existing players, they tend to be few and far between. The most common and aggressive poker bonus that players can get is for new players who are making their first deposit. So, once you’ve made your initial deposit and cleared the bonus, it’s not a bad idea to go looking for a new poker room and a new bonus to earn.

The amount of bonus a player can earn is typically based on the amount he or she initially deposits. So, if X poker room is offering a 50% bonus, that means that they will match your deposit at the rate of 50%. So, if you deposit $100, the poker room will allow you to earn up to $50 in bonus. If the bonus is 100%, they will allow you to get a complete match, dollar for dollar.

Poker bonuses also have maximum dollar amounts they will allow a player to earn. For example, X poker room is offering a bonus of 50% up to $200. For a player to be able to earn the entire bonus, they would have to deposit at least $400. If that bonus is 100% up to $200 however, a deposit of $200 can earn you the full bonus.

Poker bonuses typically allow players a certain amount of time in which to clear their bonus. Some sites only allow 30 days to clear their bonus while others may allow 120 days. There are a couple of rooms that have no time restrictions for clearing their bonuses. Always find this information in the fine print before you drop a boatload of cash into a new poker room.

What Else do I Need to Know About a Poker Bonus?

Beyond the percentage and total bonus amount, poker rooms all have their own system on how players earn their bonus. While some rooms have very simple bonus clearing requirements, others can be very difficult to clear. While being a mathematical genius can be helpful in breaking down the requirements of many rooms, there is one general rule that every room follows. In cash games, the higher the stakes you play, the faster you clear the bonus. With that said, a player may need to play 100 hands of $.25/.50 fixed limit hold’em at one room to earn $1 in bonus, while they may only need to play 20 hands of the same game at another room.

Another important thing to know is that while some poker rooms pay their bonuses in a single lump sum, others pay their player bonuses in increments. From a players standpoint, it’s much better to go after a bonus that pays in increments. If you go after a bonus that pays in one lump sum, if you don’t clear the entire bonus before the expiration date, you will get nothing in bonus. By receiving your bonus in increments, you will get your bonus as you go.

Instead of writing a novel breaking down every room, I’m going to discuss two rooms that have bonuses I really like at the moment. Both of these bonuses are big, and the clearing requirements are very reasonable.

Full Tilt Poker Bonus

The bonus being offered by Full Tilt Poker is one of the best bonuses available. Using the Full Tilt Poker referral code TILTEDBONUS, players can get a bonus of 100% up to $600! When you combine that with arguably the best poker room online, this is a no-brainer for anyone who doesn’t already have an account here. Here are some of the benefits of the Full Tilt Poker Bonus:

• Huge bonus of 100% up to $600 - Use Full Tilt Poker Referral Code TILTEDBONUS during registration
• Reasonable clearing requirements, not a pipedream
• Paid in increments of 10% of your initial deposit, or $20 at a time, whichever comes first
• Good system for earning points for tournament play
• Full Tilt Poker has easy deposit options and a quick signup process, which means you can be playing within minutes
• Players can cash in their player points for tournament entries or use them in the Full Tilt Poker store to get some cool swag including iPod’s, computer gear, HD TV’s, and a whole lot more
• 120 days to clear as much bonus as you can
• U.S. players welcome

CardSpike Poker Bonus

At CardSpike Poker, players earn Gold Chips as they play. Play more, earn more Gold Chips. The more Gold Chips you earn, the more bonus money you collect. Using CardSpike Poker bonus code PBS500, players can earn a 100% bonus up to $500. CardSpike Poker is on the Cake Poker Network, so traffic is much better than most new poker rooms. Here are some of the benefits of the CardSpike Poker bonus.

• Huge bonus of 100% up to $500
• Poker bonus cash is automatically deposited into your account in increments of $10
• Reasonable bonus clearing requirements
• 120 days to clear as much bonus as you can
• Get a free entry into the $500 New Player Freeroll
• Easy deposit options, including credit cards
• U.S. players welcome

If you’re going to play, why not get some free cash along the way? Give one of these rooms a try and start building your bankroll today. See you at the tables!

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Written By: FeltPoker.com

Most people don’t think that an online poker forum can help them accomplish much. If this sounds like your view of a poker forum, there are a lot of things you’re missing. A poker forum and community can benefit a poker player in many ways.

One of the biggest benefits of joining a great online poker forum is the ability to discuss strategy with other players. Take a strategy that you use to an online poker forum and discuss it with your new friends. A few days worth of comments and discussion should give you a better view of the strategy. By posting these types of questions in a public forum, players can get multiple perspectives. This is a great way to get opinions on how to play a specific hand. Hand histories from online poker websites are easy to read and understand, so posting it on a forum and asking for analysis is great way to learn.

Online poker forums also offer players a great way to find special deals going on at different poker rooms. Beyond new-player deposit bonuses, there are also reload bonuses, monthly bonuses, weekly bonuses and Poker Rakeback plans. Members of online poker forums discuss these types of promotions, giving you this information all in one place. Instead of going from poker room to poker room looking for a great deal, you can find these promotions and discuss them with other members as well. All of the popular poker forums have people who want to know everything, and they can fill you in on the fine print. Poker rooms do a good job of hyping their promotions on their websites, but these forum guru’s will give you unbiased information on the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Being a member of a large poker forum can also give you access to better deals than you can get straight from the poker rooms. With lots of players to market to, poker rooms often negotiate better deals with forums to attract new players.

Poker rooms are constantly making changes to their software, tournaments and promotions. Being a member of a poker forum allows you to get current information about special deals and changes being made at different poker rooms. Whether you’re looking for WSOP satellites, a particular type of tournament, or a room with fantastic graphics, you can find all of this information on the better forums.

Poker forums are fun! They’re a great way to kill time at work when the boss isn’t looking, and they keep players up to date on everything going on in the poker world. When Mike Matusow loses a couple hundred grand playing online poker, you’ll hear all about it. If there’s a scandal going on, you can get all the details. If there’s a new player killing the game at your favorite poker room, you’ll know it before he takes your bankroll.

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Written By: ThePokerGrind.com

Tired of the same old promotions at your current online poker room? Want something new and exciting to go after? If so, go to Pokerstars and you’ll find a wide variety of tournaments, satellites, and loyalty based promotions to get addicted to! You didn’t think Pokerstars was the largest online poker room for nothing did you? Here are a few of the great promotions currently going on at Pokerstars.

100 % new player bonus, up to $50. The Pokerstars bonus isn’t the biggest bonus out there, but it has very simple clearing requirements that just about anyone can achieve. To earn the Pokerstars bonus, players only need to accumulate 10 x’s their bonus amount. So, if you deposit $50 or more, you are eligible for the full $50 bonus and will need to earn 500 Frequent Player Points (FPP’s). To register to play at Pokerstars, use this Pokerstars Bonus link and bonus code (aka marketing code) First2008.

The PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). Beginning on Friday, September 5th, this is a 33 event poker series with a guaranteed prize pool of $30,000,000. Yes, that’s $30 million dollars! Most of these events have direct buy-ins in the $215 - $530 range. There are two ‘High Roller’ tournaments, one of which has a $10,300 buy-in and a guaranteed prize pool of $2 million. This event runs on Sunday, Sept. 7th, and the game is NL Hold’em. The other High Roller tournament will be held on Sunday, Sept. 14th and has a direct buy-in of $25,500! Sound like a little too much for ya? No worries mate, players can qualify to play in any of the WCOOP events via Pokerstars satellites. Satellite tournaments start at just $5.55 or 500 Frequent Player Points. Players also have their choice of different types of satellites for the WCOOP. Pokerstars has satellites with large-field tournaments, sit and go’s, and also steps tournaments.

The WCOOP Main Event will be a 2 day tournament beginning on Sunday, Sept. 21st. The guaranteed prize pool for the main event is $10 million bucks! Click this link for more information on the Pokerstars WCOOP.

Pokerstars 2X. Want bigger prize pools in the guaranteed tournaments you play? Pokerstars is raising the ante by doubling the prize pools of many of their most popular tournaments. Not only are they doubling the guarantee in their Daily Fifteen Grand, Daily Fifty Grand and Nightly Hundred Grand, but they’re also doubling this weeks Sunday Million to $2 million! Sign up to play this Sunday, July 13th for your chance at the biggest weekly tournament prizepool anywhere online.

For new depositors, use the link above and bonus code First2X to gain entry into the 2X First Depositor Freerolls - plus the deposit bonus of 100% up to $50. These freeroll tournaments run twice daily and have a guarantee of $2,222. Players who cash in any of the 2X First Depositor Freerolls will also win a seat into the $22,222 grand final held on July 31st.

Pokerstars Turbo Takedown. For players who want a chance at big money with very little risk, the Turbo Takedown is the tournament for you. The Turbo Takedown is a $1,000,000 tournament held at 14:30 ET on the last Sunday of every month. Players can buy directly into the Turbo Takedown using 5,000 Frequent Player Points, or play in satellites that start at just 10 FPP’s. Here’s the coolest part - one in three players will make money in this tournament. Forget the top 10% like most other tournaments, you can practically donk your way into the money in this one! The top prize in the Turbo Takedown is a cool $100,000, second gets $60,000 and even 8th place walks away with $10,000. The player who comes in 4,001st place gets nothing but shame, but everyone who finishes in 4,000 or better gets $90! There isn’t any other online poker room that can offer something like this. If you don’t already have an account at Pokerstars…what are you waiting for?

This list of Pokerstars promotions could go on and on. They offer promotions for WPT, EPT and WSOP tournaments, as well as just about everything else you can think of. Pokerstars also has the best poker store of anyone in the business. Players can cash in their FPP’s for iPod’s, PSP’s and even a brand new Porsche! Check out our website, ThePokerGrind.com for more information and a complete Pokerstars Review.

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If you haven’t tried the BodogLife Poker room yet, do yourself a favor and keep reading. This is one of our favorite online poker rooms for several reasons.

First, the tables are loose! Don’t you hate it when you finally make the nuts and nobody pays you off? Fortunately there’s still a room where the donkeys outnumber the sharks, and that’s BodogLife Poker. This poker room is full of aggressive, fearless…..donks! You’ll find more obvious bluffs, calling stations, and newbies at BodogLife than anywhere else.

Secondly, the current BodogLife promotions are some of the best promotions going right now. New players at BodogLife can get a 10% up-front bonus, plus another 100% bonus on top of that! Although the BodogLife bonus only allows 30 days to clear, but accumulating points are very fast and simple. This isn’t a grinder bonus, it’s easy to earn bonus money. Players only need to earn 10 poker points per $1 in bonus. Points can be earned in cash games at the following rate:

For tournament play, players earn 3 points per dollar in tournament fee’s, so you’re getting back 33.3 cents out of every dollar in fee’s. Plus, players also earn 1 poker point for every hour spent playing at the BodogLife Poker tables.

BodogLife Mini-SOP: From now through July 3rd, BodogLife Poker is running a tournament series that mirrors that of the WSOP hold’em events…..with 1% of the buy-in! So, if the World series of Poker is running a $1500 hold’em event, on the same day BodogLife is holding a $15 Mini-SOP event. If the WSOP event is $5000, the Mini-SOP event is $50. If you want to bring home a little of the excitement of the WSOP, but can’t make the trip or the huge buy-ins, play in the BodogLife Mini-SOP right into your own home. These events include FL, PL, NL, 6 handed, and rebuy tournaments, just like the WSOP versions.

World Series of Poker Satellites: Thought it was too late to get into the 2008 WSOP Main Event? Well, it’s not! BodogLife Poker is still running WSOP Main Event satellites, starting as low as $1 - yeah, a buck! Actually there’s a variety of satellites and qualifiers to play in. If you prefer to raise the stakes and your odds to win a seat, you can play in qualifiers for as much as $250. Other buy-in levels range from $5.50 to $29, or players can use their poker points as satellite entries too. Have a chance at a Main Event seat for as little as 100 poker points, up to 1000 point WSOP satellites.

Players Choice: If the fed’s are looking for you and entering the United States isn’t an option, the World Series of Poker may be a bad idea. That’s okay though, because BodogLife Poker offers a satellite series called the Players Choice. Winners of the Players Choice $12,000 prize packages can choose between several tournaments from around the world to play in. So, instead of being forced to cancel your trip to the mother-in-laws house, you can still go to the bitches house and play in a great tournament! The BodogLife Players Choice series allows winners to choose from WPT, EPT, WSOP Circuit Events, as well as plenty of other great tournaments.

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