Well I’m still waiting for my ‘free money’ as promised by one of the online poker site promotions. The premise of the system is the need for online poker sites to sign-up new members to play at their sites. In order for sites to sign-up new members they offer a variety of sign-up bonus for new members (as well as ‘reload’ bonuses for existing users).

The promotion that I’m following starts at Poker Source Online (http://www.pokersourceonline.com/) and offers new members who sign-up with Party Poker $75 free and once you meet certain release requirements (playing 500 raked hands) they will deposit another $25 in your account. Obviously I’m skeptical about the process but decided I have nothing to lose and in the end it would be fun way to start my bankroll. The initial setup is a bit cumbersome as you need to setup various accounts etc. but not too painful.

So, here I am, a week later and still waiting for my email telling me I have my initial $75 to play poker with … who know, will it ever come?

Looking further ahead, the process talks about how you should play very tight in order to meet your release requirements before moving to another other poker rooms and slowly (but surely) building your bankroll. All this is fine but it begs the question …. At what point do you simply stop the process and actually do something with the money?

With that in mind (and beings I’ve had time to think while I wait for my email!!!), I’ve decided to layout my goals in terms of bankroll and levels of play. There are many places you can find information about what your bankroll should be for various levels of hold’em (you can search any of the linked sites I have put on my page and they will give you some info), here is what I’m going to use as my guide …

Big Bet = 0.50 Bankroll = $100
Big Bet = 1.00 Bankroll = $200
Big Bet = 2.00 Bankroll = $400
Big Bet = 4.00 Bankroll = $800
Big Bet = 6.00 Bankroll = $1200

These are guidelines and I may adjust them once I get going a bit. That being said I will likely start at the 0.25/0.50 limit games and try to progress per the above chart. And just so I say so now, I have no expectations that this initial $100 will get me to $1200 – but what fun would it be if I didn’t have something to shoot for!!

The other element that I will no doubt pursue is playing in as many freeroll tournaments that I can and maybe even some small buy in tourneys that have nice payouts.

As stated above, all this hinges on the infamous email … lets hope I get it today or tomorrow so I can start my quest.
Until next time … AA up