Are you Poker Savvy?

Hi there Poker Bankroll Builders!

Today I have 1 question for you: Are you PokerSavvy?

I am, I cleared the Carbon Poker Bonus in 4 days, read on for details.

One of the biggest tools online poker players have to build their poker bankrolls is sign-up bonuses. But at PokerAdore say "That's not enough, I want more!". And that's just what you get with PokerSavvy. Not only do you get the best poker bonus, but you also get cashback and sometimes even rakeback too!

PokerSavvy is a poker rewards site. As an incentive to sign up to online poker rooms through them, they offer you points which can be exchanged for cash or prizes. They have some of the most amazing deals we've seen. Just check out the one below!

Carbon Poker Deal
100% First Deposit Bonus ($5 for every 375 points)

$50 Bonus for using Neteller as a deposit method (Must clear 1,500 points to withdraw)

$75 cashback (Only need 750 points!)

35% RakeBack

Here's me having cleared the bonus:

My Results:
Deposit $600

Points Earned: 1,545.19
I only cleared 1,545.19 points. Why? Because you only need 750 points to completed the Cashback bonus of $75. But I also deposited with Neteller, so clearing the 1,500 points allows me to cashout the $50 Neteller bonus too!

Points Earnings: $145

$50 for clearing Neteller Bonus
$75 for clearing PokerSavvy Cashback offer

$20 of deposit bonus cleared ($5 for every 375 points)

Rakeback Earned: $76

Earned $76 of rakeback at the same time whilst collecting my points!

Poker Winnings/Losses:
I am sad to admit that I actually ended up losing $42 whilst chasing these bonuses. This was mainly due to quite a few bad plays on my end and some really bad luck in the few tournaments I played.

Final Results:
Deposit: $600

Bonuses: $145

Rakeback: $76

Playing: $42

Cashout: $779
Increase in bankroll $179
Time Taken: 4 days

Analysis of my results

So what's to learn from all this?

Firstly, there is no need to clear the whole deposit bonus. Clearing the deposit bonus can be time consuming and dangerous. In fact, since I played a losing game, the deposit bonus earned wasn't even covering my losses! ($20 deposit bonus cleared less the $42 playing losses. $22 in losses!). Because of the great cashback and Neteller bonus, once I cleared these bonuses, my bankroll boost was plenty!

Secondly, the cashback, rakeback and Neteller deal is what really boosted my bankroll! Not my poker play. I played a losing poker game, couldn't clear the deposit bonus and still ended up on top!

Next, the minimum deposit for this offer is actually on $25! So why did I deposit the max? So I could play higher table limits and clear the bonus faster! Time is money, the quicker you clear the bonus the sooner you can move on to the next offer!

RakeBack. Rakeback is an incredible bankroll booster whilst playing poker. Just with rakeback alone I would have been in profit! If you're serious about playing online poker full time, make sure you have a great rake back deal from the poker room, the advantage it gives you is enormous! The carbon deal is amazing because of the rake back offer. There are very few like it, take advantage of it before they change their mind.

Set your goals, complete, get out! Remember, the goal is build our bankroll, not gamble! As soon as I cleared this bonus I was gone! My bankroll has been boosted by a tidy sum of $179, about 30%. Good work for 4 days of play.

Interested in this deal and many, many more?

Just visit PokerSavvy to see what they have on offer.

Got questions for me? Please visit our Facebook page and post a question in the discussion tab!
http://www.facebook.com/PokerBankrollBuilders

My Story - in a nutshell

So, I finally decided to write a post on my personal blog! It's been here for a while - but it is oh so empty :(.

Who am I? My name is Taj London. I consider myself an advantage player. (Someone who uses mathematical knowledge to gain an advantage in games). I know that I'm not the best out there, but I'm good enough to be a +EV player. That's a winner in laymans terms!

The beginning. My career started in late 2006 when I discovered some great sites giving away free money to play online poker. I decided to give it a try as a bit of a laugh. The first site I joined was YPC. At the time they were pretty new, but are still going and getting stronger every day. They gave me $50 free to play at Absolute Poker, with a $50 pending bonus. I wasn't too good at poker in those days, but due to some miracle, I managed to not only clear the bonus, but was a few hundred dollars in profit too! Unfortunately, I lacked any bankroll management skills in those days and lost most of my profits. I ended up banking out a measly $72 after about 3 weeks of play. Still, something was better than nothing.

Training. The real beginning of my career came when I discovered another site called PokerStrategy. They were offering a free $50 bankroll at Titan Poker along with a $100 pending bonus. But there was a catch, I had to complete a poker course first and pass their quiz.

Boy am I glad I took that quiz. I learned about stating hands, bankroll management, going up and down playing limits. Their strategy is solid and essential for any player seriously thinking about poker as a career. There's no fun without fundamentals! And no money too!

It took me a whole 4 weeks of playing low level limits to clear my $100 bonus, but the experience was invaluable. I banked out $237 in the end. A nice boost to my poker bankroll!

Claiming All Bonuses. I spent the next 6 months finding every free poker money offer I could. You can find a list of them here: FREE POKER MONEY OFFERS. Over this period I ended up building a poker bankroll of over $3,000. Impressive you say? Actually no. I should have done 4 times as much. I remember winning an invitation freeroll of $2,000 (that's first place prize money!) and only cashing out $300 of it! I was still a bit of a loose player in those days and like to chase my loses to my expense. But I can't complain really. $3,000 from scratch over 6 months! No complaining.

Bye Bye Poker, Hello Blackjack! Fast forward to early 2008. The movie 21 came out and I saw it. A friend and I became excited about how cool it would be to swag casinos out of millions of dollars by playing blackjack. You can read some of my blackjack stories here:http://confessionsofacardcounter.blogspot.com/. During this period I didn't play much poker. Blackjack was being quite successful for me and I managed to turn my $3,000 into nearly $10,000! And that includes spending $6,000 on myself as treats!

Bye Bye Blackjack, Hello Poker! Let's face it, playing blackjack is tedious and boring. I was onto a good thing, making a little here and there over time, but it was a slow process. Streaks were sometimes scary, and overall a very lonely experience. However, one good thing that did come out of my blackjack experience was my discovery of live poker games!

Going offline. After a few hours of blackjack where I'd had a good streak and was up about $500, I was wondering around the casino and found some people playing poker. I found out they were having a tournament and asked if I could join. Entry was $200. Since I was up already in blackjack, I decided to give it a go. The tournament was semi-decent for me. I lasted until the final table (only started with 2 tables), but was not close to finishing in the money.

After the tournament they had a cash game, NL Texas Hold'em. I sat in with $200. The next few hours were a vivid blur. After a slow start, I quickly started to figure out my opponents. These guys were aggressive players, but very loose. I just had to wait for a good hand and let them do all the betting. Admittedly I got some lucky hands, the one I remember best was sitting in big blind with K2. Flop dropped 2 kings. I smooth checked, someone raised and I only called. Turn was a 2! I hit full house. My went all in. Turned out he had pocket dueces! Poor guy had no outs. I walked away from the night winning well over $2,000. My biggest one night win ever!

Of course, winning is addictive and I was back for more the following week. I couldn't believe how easy these guys were to read. Tight player, loose players, aggressive, call stations. They were all there. There are a couple of very good players there too, but the rest of them are what I call gamblers and thrill seekers. A number of old gentleman who've made a few million in their careers and are not too bothered about losing a few thousand in a night. I guess it helps when you've got a pretty smile ;).

Over the last year I've won about $28,000. Have had some big losses thrown in there, but I'm up every month. I know that I couldn't have done this online, there's something about being able to see your opponent and getting a read on their style. I've played a few tournaments too, but I'm down on those :(. My advantage is greatest in low stakes NL hold'em. I say low stakes, because some of these guys play enourmous games ($100,000 can easily switch hands in an evening), but the stakes I play are high enough for me.

And that's my story to date. I'm no poker protege like young Tom Dwan, but I'm good enough to hold my own where I play.