The Race: $750,000 in Cash Prizes on the Merge Network

This really is a MONSTER race! During September, Carbon Poker, PlayersOnly, PokerNordica and RPM Poker are giving you the opportunity to race your way up to a total of $15,000 Extra Rakeback!

They will automatically track your VIP Points that you earn between September 1st – 30th. Each point you earn moves you up through 10 levels of prizes. As you go from level to level, you win more and more cash.

But once you reach a prize you start from zero again and must speed your way through all 10 tiers to win over $15,000 in real cash. Prizes will be paid in real time, so as soon as you reach a level, you get the prize.

Granted, there are only 10 top tier prizes and you would have to rake $33,308 to get $15,000 in total but we know some of you will make it quite far. And even if you can only rake $77, you are still looking at a 42% total rakeback return

Maximise your returns with The Race in September, and claim your share of $750,000.

* Each individual VIP point earned will only count towards one prize level at a time.

NB 6.5 VIP Points = $1 in Rake and Fees

Terms & Conditions apply – please choose a link below

PlayersOnly T&Cs

PokerNordica T&Cs

RPM Poker T&Cs

SIGN UP AT PLAYERSONLY

SIGN UP AT POKER NORDICA

SIGN UP AT RPM POKER

First of All: What is rake?

When you play online poker, the poker site takes a small amount out of each pot, which is called rake (the house cut). This is the fee you pay to play on the site. The rake is only a small percentage of each pot, which is why most players never think about it. However, when adding up the thousands upon thousands of pots an average player is involved in, this becomes big money. Although poker in its essence is a zero-sum game, a player can be better than most of their opponents but still lose money overall because of the rake.

What is rakeback then?

By representing a larger number of players, Best Rakeback Offers and Rakeback Partners are a force that poker sites are taking into account. Thanks to this, we can negotiate more favorable terms. We receive a portion of the rake that our referred customers generate. A vast majority of this sum is then given back to you - our customers!

This is the procedure that is called rakeback. In addition, we also give back through rake races or freerolls, to maximize the reimbursement to the players on networks or individual poker rooms that are restrictive on rakeback offers.

How is rakeback calculated?

There are three methods for calculating rakeback, and the different poker sites use one of the following when rakeback is calculated. Your rakeback will be roughly the same regardless of which method is used.

Dealt Cards

Your contribution to the rake is determined by the total rake in a hand divided by the number of players in that hand. So if the rake in one hand is $3 and you were six players who were dealt cards, your rake contribution is $0.50 (3/6=0.50). This is regardless if you win the pot or not.

Average Contributed

Means that you must have put money in the pot to be allocated to rake. The rake is then distributed evenly between all players who have contributed to the pot.

Weighted Contributed

Means that you are dealt rake in proportion to how much you have contributed to the pot.

Which method is best for you depends on your playing style. Tight players are favored by the "dealt cards" method, whereas loose-aggressive players are better off with the contributed methods.

The site summarizes your rake contribution from all the hands that you participated in during the current period and adds it to your gross rake. From this sum bonuses you receive are generally deducted to decide your net rake. The result is your rakeback.

Here's an example: Say you're playing with 30% rakeback. Your gross rake for the period is $1,000, but you have received a $200 bonus, so the net rake paid is $800. You will receive 30% of this amount in rakeback, i.e. $240. As you can imagine, any player who knows this would never play without rakeback ever again!

Rush Poker is played fast and fun, for sure. But is it profitable? For those of you who have lived in a cave the past few months I can tell you that Rush Poker is a new variation of poker at Full Tilt Poker. It removes all the dead time and gives you constant action throughout the session.

The reason is that as soon as you muck a hand, you are switched to a new table with new opponents and immediately get a new hand. In other words, this game is full of action and very entertaining, but it does not necessarily mean that you should make it your default game.

Before you abandon regular poker game and jump on Rush Poker, you should at least weigh the pros and cons.

Pros

1. Hands per hour: At a regular holdem tables, you will be happy if you reach 80-90 hands per hour in live play maybe 30. But in Rush Poker, you will easily reach 250 hands per hour, depending on how fast you are! As you play more hands, you also get more good hands, hands where you can take advantage of your advantage. In addition, you will generate more rake and thus more bonuses and rakeback, which for many players is a big part of the profits.

2. No history. You are moved to a new table with new players every time you fold. By playing against new opponents each hand makes it extremely difficult for opponents to read you. The advantage you can use in different ways. If you want to play only a pair of aces or kings, your opponents will probably not detect it. If on the other hand, you three-bet each time you hold the button or small blind, the same applies there.

3. It's fun. The main advantage of Rush Poker is that it gives so much action and entertainment. It makes grinding less boring, and the entertainment factor attracting. Being able to get into more hands in the fish is a good thing. The only problem is that it can be difficult to identify who the fish are.

Cons

1. No history. It is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage is that you as a skilled player have advantage of being able to read opponents. You notice them and figure out how they play and use the information against them. When you change the table each hand makes it impossible to identify the opponents. You have to treat everyone equally and play ABC poker with decisions that are generally healthy. If you are better than your competition, you are forced to Rush Poker to give up some of your advantage.

2. Tilt factor. Because you play so many hands per hour you go also to more bad beats than normal. Add the fact that many players will turbo fold and wait for aces or kings, so it will feel as if bad things happen all the time. If you can not control the emotional side of poker and have a tendency to go on tilt you may have problems with Rush Poker. It's even easier to tilt when you can play 1000 hands per hour on four tables.

3. It slows your development as a poker player. Perhaps the biggest drawback to Rush Poker is that it can impede your progress. If you are satisfied with the rakeback grind and make a decent profit of $ 1 / $ 2 Rush Poker is sovereign. But if you want to level up and become a better player, Rush Poker is not a good alternative. In order to succeed at higher levels, you must develop your ability to read players, and to use your readings. In Rush Poker, you learn to treat all players equally. But if you try to treat everyone equally in between levels you play out your poker cash pretty quickly.

Rush Poker is a great game and can be really, really fun to play. But you must know what you want out of poker before you decide to go over to Rush poker full time. So, use this list of pros and cons before you decide whether to play Rush Poker full time or not!

The simple answer for this type of question is "it depends". Obviously someone who plays $0.10/$0.20 no-limit holdem once a week won't get as much rakeback as one playing $5/$10 pot-limit Omaha for five hours a day, and then there are all those poker players in between.

Thankfully, there's a very easy way to figure out approximately how much you will make on average using our rakeback calculator. The results you get from the calculator are not exact - you have to factor in things like hands per hour (table speed) and your playing style. If you are a loose and aggressive players who frequently splashes the pot, you will automatically pay more rake and hence get more rakeback (not necessarily a good thing, just a fact).

Still, the numbers you get from the rakeback calculator provide a pretty good average and should  give you a fair estimate of how much you can make on average.

How to Use the Rakeback Calculator:

It's very simple and straightforward.

• Select your game type and stakes - you can select from shorthanded NL or FL holdem. Unfortunately heads-up tables and Omaha games are not available. Both poker variations are notoriously hard to calculate due to huge differences between playing styles. However, as a general rule all heads-up poker games and most Omaha games pay more rake - and get more rake back.
• Tables: this is the number of tables that you play actively at the same time, on average.
• Hours: How many hours/day you play on average.
• In the rakeback dropdown menu, select what rakeback deal you have or are signing up for.
• The results are delivered immediately!

Remember, that if you haven't played with rakeback before, the sum you're getting can be considered money lost on every poker session without rakeback. It also points out how big a difference you can count on when getting a better rakeback deal.
Again, these are no exact figures, but reasonably accurate for most players.

If you haven’t tried Poker Nexus or FatBet Poker, here’s the lowdown:

Poker Nexus is a relatively new poker network consisting of ten independent poker rooms at the time of writing. There are not that many active players yet and most of the action is at the low- to medium level no-limit holdem tables. The fixes-limit tables see very little action, so if this is your game of choice I would probably wait a while for the player base to grow. Those are the negatives of the network, so you shouldn’t be surprised when you don’t see PokerStars-level traffic at the tables.

Now, on the positive side is that the NL holdem tables usually have a very interesting players/flop percentage. All the way up to €2/€4 No-Limit Holdem, the p/f percentage is usually about 50%, and occasionally in the 60s. These days it’s rare to find this kind of loose action even in the smallest games in other poker rooms. In fact, these kinds of “beginner games” at reasonably high levels are exceptionally rare even at the largest poker sites.

The best part of Fat Bet Poker though, is the excellent 50% rakeback deal. The rakeback amount is determined by FPPs (Frequent Player Points), but it’s a much uncomplicated system. Rake $100 and you get 500 points, which award you $50 back. You don’t need to be inventive at Fat Bet Poker – a sound tight-aggressive style will earn you nice profits at the end of the day even without rakeback. Try Poker Nexus and FatBetPoker today and get <a href="http://bestrakebackoffers.net/PokerFatbet.html>50% rakeback</a> before the network starts restricting the promotions of its individual poker rooms.

Poker is indeed a skill game, but you have no doubt discovered that your earnings fluctuate dramatically across shorter periods. It's not until you've played thousands of hands that you can determine with any certainty that you are a winning or a losing poker player. The margins in online poker have also become slimmer, as the general awareness of poker strategy has increased over the years.  And this is just one reason why losing hundreds or even thousands of dollars to rake each month is no longer acceptable.

These days there are very few professional or even intermediate players who consistently play without rakeback. It just makes no sense. Why would you be playing at one poker room "for free" when you could be playing at another room that gives you cash in hand for playing. Sure, they may be offering a decent bonus, but you would get the same bonus even if you were signing up with a rakeback offer.

It's really a shame that more players haven't discovered rakeback. Essentially it lets you win more money when you are doing well and cut your losses when behind. Every month that you continue to play without rakeback is a month when you aren't winning enough - or losing too much.

Even absolute beginners benefit from rakeback. Or actually they benefit a whole lot more. Let's face it - when you are just learning the game you are very rarely a winning player, but there's still no reason whatsoever to lose more than necessary. With rakeback you could be taking away twice as much money as you would otherwise from your poker game, or break even when you would normally be in the red.