The Bonus Hunter, Vol. 5 – Party Poker

It's high time this column covered the largest poker site in the world, Party Poker has a fantastic signup bonus if you don't already have a Party Poker account or, if you have already signed up to the biggest site in the world, you will already know they occasionally have reload bonuses. Party Poker reload bonuses are almost always exceptional value and any serious bonus hunter will make sure they keep their ear out for when Party Poker is having another reload bonus period.

Party Poker has two initial deposit bonuses (you can only clear one of them):

- If you use the exclusive PokerNews code PN100 you can get a 100% to $25 max deposit bonus.

- The $25 bonus is ok if you are just starting out, but for serious bonus hunters, a better option is the 20% to $100 bonus using the exclusive PokerNews code PN100. You will require $500 to get the max bonus though.

After you sign up and clear your initial deposit bonus, you can also get a special 20% to $100 max IGMPay bonus. IGMPay is an alternative payment method and you must use the code IGMPay when you deposit to get the bonus. You can only do the IGMPay bonus once. Sometimes the IGMPay bonus isn't credited automatically, so contact Party Poker customer support if the bonus isn't credited to your bonus account in the cashier after depositing.

Clearing Rates:

The Party Poker initial signup bonuses clear at 5x raked hands per $1 bonus and the reloads are generally 7x raked hands per $1. If you deposit $500 for the full $100 initial deposit, you'll have to play 500 raked hands to clear the bonus. The maximum number of tables you can play at Party Poker is 10, so if you are a bonus hunting machine, you can clear the entire initial deposit bonus in under an hour. This is actually doable, but don't over-extend yourself. There is no point clearing a bonus if you play so many tables that you play poorly as you might lose more on the tables than the bonus is worth.

You can clear Party Poker bonuses on all games and limits, from 50c/$1 all the way up to $100/$200 if you wish. However, as always, the best game/limit to clear on is Hold'em $1/$2 Fixed Limit. Playing 1/2, you'll clear this bonus at around $9/hour/table for full ring and $13/hour/table for 6-max. Due to the higher raked hand requirement, the Party Poker reloads will clear at around $6/hour/table for full ring and $9/hour/table for 6-max.

Remember, nothing clears a bonus like 1/2 Limit HE!

One important point to remember – you need to clear Party Poker bonuses within 7 days of your deposit. You can always check your progress in the My Account section, which is updated in real time.

Quality of Games:

The games at Party Poker are some of the best online poker games in the world across all limits. Due to their massive player base and aggressive new player signup program, Party Poker has over 17 million players on their books and deals over 10 million hands per day. There is no other site with as many games running as once, so you always have great game selection options.

The low-limit games at Party are very soft the vast majority of times, but can tighten up a bit during reload bonus periods when lots of players flood back onto the site to clear the reload bonuses.

Other Important Info about Party Poker:

When bonus hunting, you should always be aware of extra value that might make one bonus more of a priority to clear than another. Here is what Party Poker has to offer:

• Player's Club Player Points – use these points for merchandise or Player's Club freerolls. Party Poker Player's Club points are not very valuable, but if you play a lot, the points can build and you might be able to buy something decent like an iPod. You lose your points if you don't play any raked hands in a month, though.

Party Poker online support is notoriously average. To save on costs, Party Poker moved the majority of their online support centre to India. The Indian support personnel will be very good in time, but in the last couple of years, the quality of support has dropped. This will improve though over the next few years.

Cashout times are very fast. Cashouts usually take between 2 to 5 hours to NETeller.

Strategy Tip 2 – Hand Selection in Early Position (EP):

Most of these strategy tips will be geared towards 6-max play, however they should be useful for full ring play as well.

In the strategy tip last week, we discussed increasing hand ranges if we are allowed to open-raise (first raise into the pot when it's folded around to you) in late position to try and steal the blinds. The vast majority of stealing should be done from late position, as position is incredibly important in all poker games, and especially in fixed limit poker.

If you don't have PokerTracker, you should get it immediately. It's only $55 and it's worth every cent. If you have PokerTracker, you'll be able to see that the vast majority of your profit is made from late position. Indeed, many break-even players would be winning players if they understood fully the negative impact of early position seats.

Generally, you need much stronger hands in early position. In full ring games, it's ok to open-limp (be the first limper or first person to just call after the blinds) sometimes, but in 6-max games, there is almost no situation where you would open-limp, with the possible exception being that of deception. However, you should be betting and raising so much that there is no need for deception with strong hands, so we can agree that you should only enter the pot preflop with a raise. But which hands are strong enough to open-raise with in early position? As with all questions in poker, the answer is, "It depends."

The range of hands you'll open-raise with from early position will really depend mainly on your post-flop skills. If you are weak post-flop or are a beginner player, there is absolutely nothing wrong with playing very tight from early position – only entering the pot with AK-AT, AA-88, and maybe KQs. This is very tight play, however, if you are weak post-flop, entering the pot with a raise with medium holdings can be very dangerous as you'll find yourself isolated by good players and outplayed postflop.

Intermediate postflop players can loosen their starting hand range from early position a little to include A8s and up, A9o and up, 66 and up, and some suited broadway cards.

Excellent postflop players will often raise with all sorts of holdings in early position as they play so well post-flop, they are able to show a profit with almost anything (at least the top 50% of hands anyway).

Once you are comfortable with postflop play out of position with a certain range of hands, you can start to experiment against certain types of players by opening your starting hand range up a bit and seeing how you go. Winning at poker is largely about doing what you're comfortable with, and slowly stepping out of your comfort zone to seek improvement. If you get too far out of your comfort zone, you'll be all at sea and your improvement will be, at best, stalled. And, at worst, you may even regress.

Good luck and play solid cards in early position!

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