Games gone by

Recently I mentioned my early online poker days of bonus chasing. Truth be told, I made far more money off bonuses than off play of the cards. I was good enough to play even most of the time against other decent players and could take serious advantage of the occasional fish that would swim by. Except at Party. The schooling of the fishes there would often seriously kick my ass.

Back in the good old days, if you had the bankroll to sit $2/$4 limit, the mad skillz to break even, and the time to spend tedious hours four-tabling, you could easily clear $500 a month in bonus. In the glory days, when new poker sites were coming online at the rate of about one an hour and had tons of start-up promotional cash and no one on board who had a clue about a sustainable business plan, that monthly bonus rate could easily top $1,000.

Eventually, reality started to set in. Bonus amounts came down out of the stratosphere, clearance requirements moved up to a point that was sustainable for the site and near torture for the player, and a far less profitable (for the bonus whore) equilibrium was reached.

I still get email from a few of the sites I used to play but have now declined my action thanks to asshat Bill Frist pandering to what he thought was his constituency. (That worked out well in those mid-term elections, eh, Bill?) One such site sent me a message recently that they'd upped their monthly bonus to $200. This was one of the Cryptologic sites. I went to check it out.

It seems the good old days are back, at least if you don't live in the land of free and the home of the brave. Many of the Cryptos are now offering a $200 per month bonus. William Hill is also still offering their usual £5 per hour (for the first five hours) bonus along with a £100 per month bonus. The two bonuses clear in parallel.

There are eight of these sites offering roughly $200 per month in bonuses (some are in £'s, but the exchange rate makes it very close to $200), plus the additional £25 from William Hill for sitting there picking your butt for five hours. $1650 per month, and that's just the Cryptos.

The clearance rates on these bonuses vary a bit from site to site, but are in the range of 8x to 10x. The bigger problem is likely to be getting sufficient action. I just checked and there are 803 players online. Admittedly, it's the wee hours of the night in Europe right now, but that's still a pathetic number considering the population from which they're drawing. And, unless they've eliminated the micro-limit tables that got them in trouble in the first place, most of those players will be at tables where it's virtually impossible to clear the bonus.

So I guess it's good news, bad news. Great bonuses that will be almost impossible to clear.

Another decent night on The Quest. Up $1.75 bringing the bankroll to $44 and change.