Flippin’ Sweet

Haven’t been playing too much poker here over the last few days. Too much going on, I’m afraid. I did, however, take advantage of the latest PokerStars bonus to come around, this one associated with the upcoming World Series of Poker.

A couple of months ago I wrote about how pleasantly surprised I was to discover how simple it was for me to use eChecks to deposit over at PokerStars. Since Neteller went away (for us Yanks), I had basically stopped even paying attention whenever online poker sites advertised promotions for deposit bonuses. I knew technically I could still deposit money if I wanted to, but just didn’t want to go through the hassle of sending a paper check and/or going through other hoops to do so.

But in February, PokerStars had its “25 Billion Bash” promo and I managed to set up the eCheck option for myself. Ran into a little bit of difficulty then because there’s a limit on how much one can deposit the first time around, but with that now behind me I was able to go ahead and take full advantage of this new promotion.

This one is a 20% reload bonus up to $120. So if you deposit $600 (like I did), then earn the requisite VPPs (or base FPPs) -- which in this case is 2,400 -- you get yr free moneys. You also have six months to clear the bonus, which’ll be no trouble for me. Even though I’m not playing all that much, I imagine it’ll only take me a month or two to get there.

If you’re reading this today and haven’t gone for the Stars bonus yet, there’s still time -- it lasts until 23:59 Eastern time tomorrow (April 30). The promo code is “09series.”

I’m remembering when I mentioned that Stars promo a couple of months ago I discussed it after the end of the promotion period, thus prompting our favorite reader, “anonymous,” to chime in with a Napoleon Dynamite-like comment about my failure to consider others might have wanted to hear about the promo before it expired. So here’s hopin’ I’ve afforded everyone adequate lead time on this one.

Why did I decide to write about the promo sooner this time? Why do I do what I do? Because I feel like it. GOSH!

Actually, I got a kick out of that comment, but it does bring to mind the recent efforts by a blogger who calls himself the “Quality Desktop Pundit” to offer a critique of some poker blogs. Some readers of this blog might have followed how that went, and I’m not going to rehearse it all again here. To summarize: the QDP made a not-so-quality generalization about a particular poker blogger -- one who happens to write one of the better, more consistently interesting poker blogs around, I’d say -- thereby drawing the ire of many of her longtime readers.

The tête-à-tête has settled down, I think, but not before the QDP suggested that “the variety of topics at her blog could be increased” and asked if she “could... please do more posts about” other topics than the ones about which she writes. A little bit like when someone complained over on the Poker Grump’s blog about the “Guess the Casino” posts. The Grump had a good reply to that complaint, as I recall.

We’ve been over all of this before, I think. I read a ton of blogs daily, and it has never once occurred to me to suggest to someone writing a personal blog that he or she should write about something other than what he or she chooses to write about.

If we were talking about a magazine or newspaper to which you subscribed -- i.e., which you paid for with yr own cabbage -- well, then, I think it is valid to complain if the content ain’t what you thought you paid for. But personal blogs? Criticism is fine, but editorial suggestions? Buncha whistling in the dark, I’d say.

Meanwhile, go get in on that Stars promotion, why dontcha? And then go work on your skills. You’ll never get a date without skills. You know, nunchuck skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills....

American Vendor

Part of that PokerStars 25 Billion Bash promotion this past week included a bonus for depositing. Stars doesn’t offer those that often, and this one was quite generous -- 25% up to $250. In fact, the site was calling it their “Biggest Ever Reload Bonus.”

When I heard about the offer, I reacted pretty much as I have to all bonus offers since Neteller shut its virtual doors to us Americans.

That is to say, I didn’t react at all.

I’ve told the story a few times here how I started playing online poker back in late 2004. Like just about everybody who played then, I moved my initial roll to a poker site (Stars, actually) using Neteller. I started with the minimum deposit of fifty bucks, broke even for three months or so on the penny tables, then began winning some and pretty soon had built up to a couple of hundy.

Looking back at my log book, I see that I had $232.33 in my Stars account when I made my first withdrawal -- a hundred bucks’ worth. Basically followed that pattern for a while there early on, taking out a hundred every time I got back up to $200-250 or so. As those who remember Neteller know, you first had to move your money from the poker site to Neteller, then another step was required to move it from Neteller to your bank account.

Stars was my only site until 2006 when I finally opened an account over on PartyPoker. That was about the time I became familiar with deposit bonuses and how lucrative they could be. Unlike Stars, Party offered such bonuses constantly -- it seemed like every other month. I started keeping a few hundred over on Neteller to have ready whenever one of those came up.

And they were so easy to clear, too. I can’t recall exact details, but it seemed like it only would take an afternoon to claim the $20 or $40 or whatever Party was giving me for depositing. Once I cleared a deposit bonus, I instantly would withdraw the money I had deposited back out of the site.

I eventually got a Full Tilt Poker account, too, and took advantage of their deposit bonuses when they came around as well. Then came the UIGEA and the exit of Neteller, and I basically stopped doing the deposit thing altogether because of all the added hassles.

That’s why I didn’t react to the recent Stars offer, instead shrugging my shoulders and thinking, well, this was yet another way Americans are playing at a disadvantage thanks to our bass ackwards legislators.

It was after a short spell of reading some folks on forums chirping about the promotion -- expressing unfettered glee at all the free moneys they were enjoying -- that I decided to look again at deposit options available to me over on Stars. There aren’t many, but this eChecks thing looked fairly simple to use.

The way the 25 Billion Bash deposit bonus went, one stands to earn 25% of whatever one deposits up to $1,000, meaning the maximum one could get would be $250. One has to earn a certain number of VPPs to clear the bonus -- I believe it is 20 VPPs for every dollar. Not too hard to do.

I ended up exchanging several emails with PokerStars support in an effort to figure out how I could best take advantage of the offer. (As is always the case with Stars support, they were very helpful and accommodating.) There are limits on how much one can deposit via eChecks if one has never used it before. Long story short, I was only able to deposit $200 before the promo period ended yesterday, meaning I will be earning a $50 bonus once I accumulated the needed VPPs. Having now made my first eChecks deposit, I’ll be able to take better advantage of such offers with Stars whenever they come up again.

As far as I can tell, the process of using eChecks to deposit was super smooth. And a bit of an eye-opener. Things may well change between now and December 2009 when banks will be required to follow the UIGEA regulations that were published in November 2008 and went into effect on 1/19/09. But for now, depositing online doesn’t seem to be that big of an issue for Americans. Not to Stars, anyhow.

Hell, now that I think about it, depositing is even easier than before (no Neteller = no middle man). And in my experience, withdrawing has always been a breeze, too.

Gonna have to stop thinking myself as an American to whom all the online poker options are not available. At least until December, anyway.