After you’ve learned enough about poker to be able to make a little profit the next thing you have to do is be able to get your money off of the site. Most players never get that far. They just deposit and deposit but the good players win and need to get their money off of the site.

Probably the easiest method to get money off of an online poker site is via EFT (electronic funds transfer). However this option is not available to everyone. It’s usually not available to US players or players who are citizens of countries where they’ve enacted laws to deter online gambling.

You can also request that the money be placed onto a debit card. This is usually an option that is available to you if you make a deposit with the same debit card.

You can also set up an account with an intermediary site which process the payments on your behalf. These intermediaries are often called E-Wallets. They’re a little like a bank in that you can make debit card and EFT transfers to them and then you go onto the poker site and tell them about your intermediary account and they’ll deposit your funds from there. When you cash out it works in reverse with the poker room depositing into your intermediary account and then you can withdraw the funds from there back into your bank account or they often will supply you with a debit card and you can get access to your money almost immediately.

PayPal is probably the best known of these intermediary type of companies. But PayPal does not process payment for gambling related activities for people in the US so this is usually not an option on many poker site. There are other sites like Moneybookers that provide a similar service.

You can also ask for the poker room to cut you a check. This obviously takes a little bit longer to get access to your cash but some people prefer this method. Recently there have been some problems with the checks issued by online poker rooms due to the fact the US has gone after the banks processing the checks and frozen funds. The poker room usually eats the loss but you should be aware of the risk of getting caught holding a check from a room that has had their funds frozen.

You can find out more about how to cashout and some Do’s and Don’ts of cashing out at CasinoFYI where they have a great article on the subject titled, “Cashing Out Gambling Wins“

The first piece of advice I give to people who want make a living playing poker is whether or not they have the personality for it. Unfortunately most people don’t. The most important thing you can have in your personal arsenal of tools is self-control and discipline.

If you want to be a “balla” and flashing cash and living a life of luxury you probably don’t have the right mentality for making a living playing poker. Some guys who have all of the flash will make it but most won’t.

Whenever I’ve studied people who have built up long-standing businesses they all have one thing in common; they don’t waste capital. They don’t brag about how much they’re making. They’re notoriously tight with their cash because they know every penny of capital is a penny that could be helping themselves more money.

Making a living playing poker is about discipline at the tables and with your bankroll. Many famous poker players’ biggest leaks in their games are what they do away from the tables. Many can’t resist the urge to gamble on sports or casino games. Some start living a lifestyle where a downswing will wipe them out.

And for professional poker players this can very difficult thing to manage. Poker players don’t have 401K’s, disability insurance, health insurance, and other benefits provided to them by the casinos. So it’s easy to think that one “get by” on a certain level of income but not have anything set aside for retirement or even skip on health insurance premiums when going through a dry spell at the tables.

If you want to become a professional poker player the first thing you need to realize is that it is a business. You should treat it like a business. That means learning proper bankroll management, diversifying your risks (making investments outside of poker), and keeping a cushion of cash should you hit a dry spell at the tables.

If you can do that you have a better chance at being a successful poker professional than many players who may be better than you.

Are you interested in getting rakeback [what is rakeback?] at the world’s second largest online poker site, Full Tilt Poker?

Most players who play to win know how to get the best rakeback deals. If you’re unfamiliar with rakeback it is when the poker room refunds a part of the fees you pay to play poker on their site. Depending on how much you play this can become a substantial amount of money.

For instance, if you generate $1000 per month in rake on Full Tilt Poker you can get back $270 of the rake you’ve paid in. Obviously the more you rake the more you get back.

In this article we’ll show you how to get rakeback on one of the most popular online poker rooms in the world, Full Tilt Poker.

First you’re going to need to find a good rakeback affiliate that you can trust to handle the rakeback arrangements with the Full Tilt. Rakeback Report is highly recommended as a rakeback partner because the site is run by someone who has worked at Full Tilt Poker and knows how to get great deals.

So head on over to Rakeback Report and sign-up for an account.

Once you sign up you can create what is called a tracker. The way you create a tracker is you go to the Full Tilt Poker Rakeback page on Rakeback Report and follow the step-by-step instructions for setting up your Full Tilt Poker account.

Step one will be to clear the cookies in your browser so you don’t accidently get your account associated with another affiliate.

Step two will be to download the software from Full Tilt Poker using a special link that they provide to you. This link will tell Full Tilt Poker that Rakeback Report has sent you so they can associate your play with Rakeback Report. You must also use a special code during the signup process that acts as a backup to the link just in case something strange happened when Full Tilt Poker read the link.

Step three is once you have set up your account on Full Tilt Poker and chosen a screen name you need to come back to Rakeback Report and tell them what the screen name is so they can associate your screen name with the reports they receive from Full Tilt Poker telling them how much rake you’ve generated.

That’s pretty much it. I guess a step four would be to play on Full Tilt Poker and generate rake so you can start earning your rakeback but that seems pretty obvious

So, if you’ve been thinking about signing up at Full Tilt Poker and would like to get 27% of your rake paid back to you follow the steps above and start collecting your cash.

In this article we’ll try to explain to you what a Rakeback Pro actually is. Following that we’ll take a look at the advantages to being a Rakeback Pro, the disadvantages of being a Rakeback Pro and finally we’ll cover what the poker community currently thinks of anyone who is a Rakeback Pro.

Rakeback is one of the best ways to increase your overall win rate when playing online poker. Getting a percentage of your rake returned to you always guarantees you a pay check at the end of the month and is a great way to turn yourself from a losing player into a winning player.

What is a Rakeback Pro then?

A Rakeback Pro is someone who plays poker with the sole intention of breaking even so they can cash in on rakeback. You’ll usually find these players are playing a very tight style and have a win rate between -1 bb/100 and +1 bb/100. They are not looking to derive their main profit from money they win from other opponents. They are looking to take their main profit from the rakeback they earn. As a result of this you’ll always find Rakeback Pro’s playing a super large volume of hands, often in excess of 70,000 per month, and playing a large number of tables at the same time. Sometimes up to 24 tables at once.

You’ll always find these guys playing either no limit Holdem or Omaha. They don’t play games like Razz poker, 5 Card Draw or Omaha Hi Lo because they can’t get as many hands in per hour.

It might well be a little boring and robotic but it can be very profitable and there are players out there who are doing it and making a fortune every month out of their rakeback.

Advantages to becoming a Rakeback Pro

One of the main advantages of becoming a Rakeback Pro is the fact that you don’t have to be as good at poker as you do if you are trying to earn your main source of profit from beating other players. As long as you break even or maintain a very small losing record as a Rakeback Pro then you will earn a good amount of cash.

Another reason quite a few players have turned themselves into Rakeback Pro’s is because it guarantees you a pay check at the end of every month regardless of if you win or lose at the tables. This is very appealing if you are a professional poker player.

Disadvantages of being a Rakeback Pro

The main disadvantage of being a Rakeback Pro is the fact that it can take a lot of enjoyment out of the game. You turn yourself into a multi tabling robot and there’s no way you have time to make decision on a deep thinking level. This is also the reason why most Rakeback Pro’s have either a very small win rate or a very small loss rate. You simply don’t have time playing 20 tables to make correct decisions as often as you would if you were only playing say 6 tables.

Another problem with being a Rakeback Pro is the fact that it doesn’t help you improve as a poker player and therefore you will struggle to move up the stakes. Your goal is simply to break even and cash in on your rakeback pay check. You don’t need to beat other players you just need to play a high volume of hands and this doesn’t help you progress as a player.

What does the poker community think of Rakeback Pro’s

Well of late it’s been somewhat of a hotly discussed topic. There are two main camps, as there are with most arguments, people who are Rakeback Pro’s and think it’s ok and people who aren’t Rakeback Pro’s who think it’s a bad idea mainly because it stops you improving as a player.

There isn’t hatred for Rakeback Pro’s in the same way there is for short stackers and the fact that it’s so profitable means it’s pretty hard for anyone to argue with. If you can make in excess $3,000 per month playing 70,000 hands of poker through breaking even and having a rakeback deal then what’s the problem?

One of the worst feelings for a poker player is seeing their bankroll flowing down the drain in the midst of a down swing. I’ve heard of players going on close to 50 buy in down swings over the span of just a week or so. This means those players would have lost over 5 buy ins in one day. If this player had employed using a stop loss strategy then they would have reduced that to only 10-12 buy ins. A stop loss strategy is when a player decides before playing that if they lose a set amount of buy ins they would quit for the day. This is a great strategy to apply to your game when you see yourself in a downswing. It is a lot easier to come back to the tables the next day looking to make 2 buy ins than it is to make 3 or even 4.

Confidence

When you are in a down swing you need to focus on keeping your confidence up. It is very hard to go through a down swing, but you have to realize that they happen and you need to make sure that you are playing your best game. You want to be confident in the plays that you are making in order to do so. When using a stop loss strategy you can start fresh the next day knowing that the last time you played you lost 2 buy ins. When you take the approach of attempting to get back to where you were at the day before it is a goal that is much easier to accomplish. When you do win 2 buy ins and get back to even for the previous day you can then set up a new goal in another 2 buy ins. This is a great way to build your confidence back in a down swing.

Minimizing Losses

When you are in a down swing you can drastically limit the amount of money that you lose by using a stop loss strategy. If you go on a 15 buy in down swing, which you will probably see, you can lose a lot of money drastically and begin to leak extra money and not realize it. When you use a stop loss strategy you can lose your 2 buy ins and then review what you did and learn more educating yourself. You will certainly be better the more you learn, which can be just what you need to help get you off of a down swing.

Winning

When you are winning buy ins and using a stop loss strategy you still apply the same rules with your strategy. Top poker pro Phil Ivey uses a 2 buy in stop loss strategy when he plays poker online. He has been seen winning 5-6 buy ins and then losing 2 and quitting. This is a great way to guarantee starting your next session off from winning money in your last session. You will see plenty of different poker sessions, so there is no problem stalling your play a little bit and applying a stop loss strategy to your game. It is a great way to stay away from the negatives!

Everyone knows that it is important to play very tight and aggressive. When you play passive you are representing weakness, which you never want to do in a hand of poker. The whole idea of the game is to take your opponent’s money, and it is very hard to do when you don’t bet. Since the point of the game is to get your opponent’s money playing passive is the very worst thing you can do in poker because it doesn’t make sense. If a hand is worthy of playing you should be betting with it to get value out of it.

Passive players can be a great source of income for any poker player. When a player wants to play hands and not get value from them on their own terms you will win a lot of money from them. You are betting when you have a good hand and they aren’t betting when they have a good hand. In the long run it is much cheaper for you to make it to showdown against their good hands than it is for them to see a showdown against you when you have a good hand. This means you win more money from them than they win from you. You are then +EV (expected value) against that player.

Isolating Limpers

Where a huge part of your income will derive from is isolating passive players who limp in early position. This tells the other players at the table that you have a good hand and you want to play so most will fold. The passive player has already told you that they want to play their hand by limping, so you need to make them pay more to do so. When you isolate limpers like this you are giving your hand a better chance at being the best. The more players that are in the pot the less likely you are to have the best hand at showdown.

Another great thing about isolating limpers is that you will always at least win the 2.5 big blinds. This is a quarter of the win rate you should be going for in every 100 hands (about an hour of play). When you are allowed this free extra blind it might not seem like much, but it is a big deal. When you are aiming for only 10 big blinds one extra blind is 10% of what you need to win at this desired rate. You steal a few more times and you have achieved your goal.

Be Aggressive

You need to be as aggressive as possible against passive players. These players play most comfortably checking down to the river to see if they have won or not. You need to punish these players by being extremely aggressive against them. It will pull them from their comfort zone which will encourage misplays from them and calling bets that they have incorrect odds to call.

You want to prey on the weak in poker. Passive players are obviously weak, so take advantage of them as much as you can. You will see a great increase to your win rate which should be rather satisfying when you check your bankroll.

To play a marginal hand is to play a hand that doesn’t have too much of an edge which means that it is a very small percentage of a favorite to play over the long run. When you play marginal hands you are also running into the problem of whether or not you know how to play the hand to get value from it correctly. There are a lot of players who start to learn about poker and begin to think that they have learned and know much more than they actually do. Do not be like these foolish players. Poker is a game that you must be completely honest with yourself about and surrender yourself to the fact that you are learning and there is much to learn. Even when you start to think you get the hang of the game and move to the next limit, you will see that the game then evolves and you will play a much more complicated game.

Stealing With Marginal Hands

One of the best ways to turn marginal hands into profitable situations is to steal with them. You can take a hand like 45 suited and turn it into a profitable hand against tight players in your blinds because you can steal with it so often. When you are called by these tight players you then run a small chance of flopping big hands or draws to big hands. Tight players are normally playing hands like top pair top kicker in which your straights and flushes dominate.

You have to learn to take advantage of stealing with your marginal hands. This is where your long term edge will really meet with your short term wins/loses. When you play a lot of poker you will see the long term earnings add up by playing these marginal hands. Make sure you are trying to get extra value out of them by stealing with your marginal hands.

Pocket Pairs

There are too many players who will play any pocket pair to the death. These are good players as well. They understand that they are only trying to hit a set on the flop, but they do not think about the odds involved in this. If you have a loose opponent raising on the button against you while you are in the small blind, you should really just fold pocket pairs instead of calling with them. If your opponent has 16-1 odds for their stack to win it is correct to make a call in attempt to mine a set. Your implied odds are much less when the opponent who is raising is more than likely only on a steal attempt and will never pay you off.

When tight players are raising against you in the above situation then you need to think about their stack size compared to the bet you have to call. Again the 16-1 odds mean that you should call. When the tight player is a short stack with only 16-1 or slightly over it is such a marginal call that you shouldn’t even bother. You will normally miss and get shoved on which loses much more money than you win in the long run against your tight short stacked opponent.

Marginal Hands Feed Rakeback

When you play poker and receive rakeback playing marginal hands adds to your MGR (monthly gross rake) which increases the rakeback you will receive. This adds even more value to playing more marginal hands. When you take into consideration if you are clearing a bonus and getting rakeback those hands account for much more than adding a big blind to your hourly win rate. If you aren’t playing with rakeback then you are missing out. Right now you can sign up for an account at Full Tilt Poker using our Full Tilt Poker referral code TRACKRB and receive a 100% on up to $600 Full Tilt Poker deposit bonus along with 27% Full Tilt Poker rakeback. This means that you will receive a free $600 cash and also earn close to one third of your monthly rake back.

When you first start playing poker seriously you begin in the micros. It is hard to beat the micro limits because the rake is so high as compared to the size of the pot. Rake caps out at $3 at most poker rooms and isn’t bad once you are playing the high micros and medium stakes games. You need to have the ability to play completely straightforward poker. This is the only way to do so and you have to ride out the variance.

The best way to combat rake in the micro stakes is to get rakeback. Rakeback is a special promotion that poker rooms offer to encourage players to play at their room. Right now when you sign up for an account at Fat Bet Poker using our Fat Bet Poker sign up code RAKETRACKER you will receive 50% rakeback! This means that half of the rake that is taken from you will be given back!

Play Tight

When you first start you want to play the strongest hands possible and work your way into playing the weaker more marginal hands. The better you are the more hands you will know how to play profitably. Playing tight means you are playing only the strongest of hands, which are the easiest to play. Once you learn how to play these strong hands in a straightforward manner you will be ready to open your range a bit.

You want to focus on playing these hands straightforward like stated above. You don’t need to get tricky when you have a great hand and try to slow play. You need to just bet with your good hands and fold your bad hands. With pocket pairs you can play from any position as long as you are getting at least 16-1 on your money against your opponent and if you think they actually have a strong hand where if it hits they will get it all in. You want to avoid playing pocket pairs against short stakes. You won’t win enough when you hit to account for the amount of times you won’t make a set.

Play Aggressive

It might seem kind of repetitive when you hear coaches and pros talking about playing aggressively, but it is because it is so important. Even if you think you have the mind frame of playing aggressively you need to constantly analyze your play to make sure you are completely taking advantage of being the aggressor as often as possible.

When you have a strong hand preflop bet or raise with it. When you make a strong hand you should bet with it. When you miss the flop continuation bet if it is not too draw heavy and if not then fold your hand. You should just play completely straightforward poker. There are so many loose maniacs and morons at the tables your best tactic is to just bet with good hands and fold with bad ones.

Don’t Bluff

There are far too many calling stations in the micros. Bluffing very rarely works and it isn’t a profitable play to make for the most part. There are tons of players who get carried away with continuation bets getting called. They think that they have to keep betting at it since they already started. If you miss with a continuation bet let the hand go. Once in a while double barrel if a good card comes on the turn, but try to avoid getting caught in hands due to a continuation bet getting called.

It is normal in the natural course of long term poker to see up swings and down swings. An up swing is when your bankroll goes on a big increase and fluctuates to where you win a lot of buy ins at once. A down swing is just the opposite in which you lose a lot of buy ins at once. This happens, just like when flipping a coin you will see large streaks of heads and large streaks of tails. This is the same for winning money in poker. This is a lot different for down swings with rakeback.

When you experience a down swing in poker it is normally detrimental to your game. Your confidence is down, you start to play scared for fear of losing more, and begin to think with winning hands “How are they going to suck out on me this time” or when you have KK you always think to yourself, “Here’s the pocket As that were dealt”. It is very hard on a player to experience downswings, but having rakeback can eliminate a big portion of what down swings do to a player, which is lose money.

Rakeback After Down Swings

Now it might be hard to think that your whole rakeback check is going to simply accommodate for what you have recently lost, but think about how much you would have without it. When you are losing these hands during your down swing you are still generating rake. This means that you are still earning a percentage of this in rakeback. You still earn the same amount of money each month in rakeback as you would if you were winning, or breaking even, so it is an amount that you can count on to be there.

Sometimes when you take a hard downswing you will have to move down in limits. This can be hard for players, but they normally tend to crush the lower stakes games and move back up rather quickly. When you do have to move back down you have your rakeback that you can count on to get you back to your previous limit in an instant.

Keep Playing

When you are on a downswing you need to be sure to not get discouraged. You will soon start to turn around and begin winning regularly again. When you aren’t playing you aren’t earning rakeback. Having a solid rakeback check coming in is a great way to help escape a downswing. When you stop playing because you are scared to lose you are guaranteed to win no money at all. When you continue to play you are working closer towards that point when your downswing is over and you are back on track. You are also building up that great rakeback check that will normally put you over the edge to moving back to your previous limit. It is important to move up in limits as fast as you can since you win more money at the tables and in rakeback.

For most beginning poker players it can be kind of hard to get the ball rolling because you don’t start the game knowing too much. You have to take time to build your poker education and to also gain play experience. You can lose quite a bit at the beginning when you are making the move from being a losing player to becoming a break even player. Clearing poker bonuses is a great way to aid your loses and keep your bankroll intact.

When you start playing poker you need to have a good plan to move from room to room clearing bonuses. Poker rooms offer free money so you should take it. This is the logical thing to do to help with building your bankroll.

Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker is first on our list. Full Tilt Poker is the second most popular online poker room in the world and has tons of fishy players at their micro stakes games, so winning will not be that hard. When you sign up for an account at Full Tilt Poker using our Full Tilt Poker referral code TRACKRB you will receive a 100% on up to $600 first time deposit bonus and you will also receive 27% Full Tilt Poker rakeback. Once you move to Full Tilt Poker you will probably start to see a large increase in your win rate because in the time that you make it here you should at least be a break even to slightly winning player. If you are comfortable playing with just your rakeback against the waves of fish then you can stay at Full Tilt Poker for a while and build. If you have a bad run here then you should try our next room.

Cake Poker

Cake Poker is a great poker room to start with because there are tons of fish at the lower limits. When you sign up for an account at Cake Poker using our Cake Poker deposit bonus code 33RAKEBACK you will receive a 110% on up to $600 first time deposit bonus and 33% Cake Poker rakeback. The rakeback and deposit bonus here are a great combination of free cash to use to support your loses when you are first starting to play.

UltimateBet Poker

You should only come to UltimateBet after you clear the bonuses at the above two rooms. This is so that you have enough to deposit to receive the full deposit bonus at UltimateBet Poker. Right now when you sign up for an account at UltimateBet Poker using our UltimateBet Poker bonus code RAKETRACKER you will receive a 111% on up to $1,100 first time UltimateBet Poker deposit bonus along with 30% UltimateBet Poker rakeback. As you can see this is a huge deposit bonus, so you want to be sure that you can clear the whole thing to reap the max benefits of this huge bonus.

Find a Home

Once you have cleared these bonuses you can continue to bounce around and clear some bonuses or you can do what most players do and pick one of the above rooms to deposit at again and start grinding, letting rakeback be your main source of income to live off of. It is not hard to start playing poker professionally. Get started today and get your hands on some free cash!