Even if you don't plan to play poker for a living or look at poker as a career, it's worth your time to make the early choices like you would be a pro at some point.
No-one says no to a free $100 right? Well I say "it depends" and show you when to say no to a $50 now to secure $5000 and more later. This one is true for both the new and old poker players alike.
But this is meant for new players, you who haven't played a hand yet online, at least not for real money. When I started out, I signed to the wrong sites (not all trustworthy) and I didn't know anything about the poker bonuses or rakeback.
So again I'll share something I wish I knew when I started playing online poker and continue the Beginner's Guide series while at it:
How-To Maximize Your Poker Earnings Potential?
1) Choose a good poker site to play in.
2) Sign to a poker site through trustworthy web site or rakeback Service/Affiliate, if applicable.
3) Maximize the initial deposit based on the offered bonus.
Even before you learn how to play, it is possible to miss these important steps.
Learning how to play comes later. First you must master these steps.
1) Choosing a good poker site to play in
It is in your best interest to choose a poker site which offers
a) enough traffic to keep the games going
b) low- (or high-) enough limits for you to play in
c) good loyalty program and/or rakeback through rakeback affiliate.
This way, you have options to make proper table selection and have secured the years to come with the rakeback or good bonus system.
2) Signing to the poker site through trustworthy web site
Here on Poker Wits, we only show links that help you. You can feel safe that we have done the research and don't link you directly to a poker site, which you could have rakeback instead.
Have you ever wanted to know why each and every poker strategy, news or training site and blog has banners and links to all possible poker sites? Because the poker sites give a bonus to these websites for bringing the players, like you, in.
But there is a catch.
If you click through those links, they get the rewards and you don't. Even if they promise you to send you $50, books or such, don't take it. You can have hundreds and thousands more later.
Because for most of the poker sites, there are services, which offer some of the money poker sites pay to them, back to you. The amount the web site gets back varies, but it's usually connected to the rake you generate while playing poker.
So in short, the rakeback service gives some of the rake you pay to the poker site back to you. To understand Rake and Rakeback in depth, you can find the details from the earlier post: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Rake, Rakeback and More.
For now, it is important to know and understand, that rakeback is good for you. Signing through direct link from non-rakeback site, typing/searching the address yourself or similar, means no rakeback.
The difference between no rakeback and rakeback can be anything from $1 to thousands, based on how much you play over the years.
With many major poker sites, like Full Tilt Poker and Betfair for example, you should ALWAYS sign through rakeback service, like http://www.raketherake.com.
This is the reason why we at Poker Wits does not link to these poker sites directly, but instead show you the right way, which is to get rakeback.
There are exceptions as some poker sites, like PokerStars, offer bonuses themselves and no service offers rakeback to them, so it "safe" for you to signup to PokerStars.com through non-rakeback site, like us. By signing through here, you keep the site running and enable us to bring honest and money-saving guides online in the future too.
Unfortunately, the "refer-a-friend" services on the poker sites have the same problem. If there is a rakeback available for that site, your friend is better off signing to a rakeback service like you did, instead of the "$50 for you, $50 for me" deal. Do your friend a favor and refer her to this web site and article instead, she'll thank you later!
Further reading: Everything You Ever Need to Know About Rake, Rakeback and More
3) Maximizing the initial deposit based on the offered bonus.
Some of the poker sites offer a bonus based on the initial deposit, and these range anything from $25 to $1500, even $2000 nowadays.
So in a sense, it is good for you to sign to a site which doesn't offer too big of a bonus for your bankroll at that time, so you don't "waste" a bonus by just depositing $50, when you could get the maximum bonus with $600 for example.
Maximizing the initial deposit based on the offered bonus, is not necessary for your 1st poker site, but if you decide to join and play on more than one site, it can be important later, at least as a great way to boost your early poker bankroll - so start small, but think big.
Further Reading: How To Boost Your Early Poker Bankroll with Bonuses
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