After waiting about a month, I got my $50 no deposit bonus through YourPokerCash to play at Full Tilt Poker.   I had already received a $50 no deposit bonus through YPC to play at Ultimate Bet, which only took me about a week to get, but I had lost that money, and I wanted more action. 

I’m not sure why it took so long to get the bonus money to play at Full Tilt Poker; it was only supposed to take about 7 business days.  Everytime I would write to YPC I would get an immediate response from them saying that my request was being processed and that it should only take a few more days, thanking me for my patience.  

I’m not upset with YPC for the delay.  In fact, I think that YPC is a great site if you’re interested in no deposit bonuses, because I eventually did get the money to play in both online poker rooms, over $100, and their email support is excellent.   So a shout out to YPC! 

Full Tilt is a pretty decent online poker room.   I’d even consider playing at the site with my own money.  Their smallest stakes for NL Hold’em is $0.05-0.10, which is my speed.   Not only did they facilitate the $50, I would get additional $$$ (increments of $5, up to $50) after playing a certain number of raked hands.   In the end, I had earned an additional $20 through this mechanism.   I never had to wait for a table at Full Tilt, and the graphic interface with avatars is pretty straightforward. 

I did lose all the money I was given to play at Full Tilt, but I know why.  I was playing poorly, way too aggressively, overplaying too many hands, sitting down at a table with only $4, when I should have started with $10, chasing flushes and open-ended straights when the pot odds were not in my favor.  I was doing all the things that I have told my readers never to do when playing at these stakes. 

I finally started playing tightly when I had about $20 left.  But it was really too late.  The damage was done.  I did make an amazing little comeback when I was down to my last two dollars, working my way back to about $25, with the help of those $5 extra bonuses I mentioned above, and I fluctuated between $20 and $10 for several days.  But I couldn’t hold on, and about 30 minutes ago I lost it all. 

Of course I’m bummed when I lose it all.  But in a way I’m kind of glad that it’s over.  I kind of felt as if I was losing control, playing way too many hours, getting really upset when someone called me a “donk” after he beat me, and not getting any of my work done.  My 11-year old daughter asked to play with me near the end,when I only had a few dollars left, and I told her in annoyed tone to stop bothering me, for which I now feel guilty.  I was felt a little like Tony Soprano in the episode of Sopranos called “Chasing It” which focused on his gambling problem.   

Last night I lost all my no deposit bonus money that I got to play at Ultimate Bet, an online room that Phil Hellmuth plays at.  Through YourPokerCash I got $50 to play on the site.  In addition to this $50, which I received in my UB account after about 5 business days, I was eligible to earn additional money for just playing, $1 for every UB point, up to $50.  I had earned about $8 from this source.  So my total losses from UB were about $58. 

What did I learn from the experience?  Not much.  I started off playing at the $.25-$.50 no limit tables, not because there weren’t smaller stake tables – there were – but rather because I thought that I was better than I was.  I was quickly disabused of this thought.  So I guess I learned something after all.  I’m either bad or rusty.

Although I was up at one time, this was short lived, and in a matter of a couple of days, I had lost everything, except for about $0.73.  I took this money to the $0.01-$0.02 no limit tables and started playing my old tight game, the one I’ve written about in previous posts.  In a few days, I took this pittance and turned it into a little less of a pittance, over $6.  But last night, I was playing at a table with a couple of aggressive players, and I got carried away.  I lost half of my hard-earned money – $3 – and decided to move to a different table, at which I lost most of it when my full house lost to a higher one. 

I have $0.07 left in my account, not enough to play at any of the tables.   It was fun while it lasted.  I’m now waiting to see if get a similar sort of no deposit deal with Full Tilt, sponsored by YourPokerCash.  I can’t wait.   

Check out this site called YourPokerCash.  It has some inviting no deposit offers for poker.  I’ve signed up with two of the four free offers, one with the online poker room Ultimate Bet and the other with the online poker room Full Tilt.  They are both open to US players.   If I’m approved for either bonus, then I get $50 from the site, and if I play a specified number more hands, I get an additional $50.  As far as no deposit bonuses, you can’t do better than this.  

I’m sure I have to play a zillion hands in order to withdraw any money from either online poker room, but it still beats other no deposit bonuses from other online poker rooms, such as RiverFlop, which gave me $5 as a no deposit bonus, and which I lost in record time.

One thing is annoying about YPC.  In order to be eligibile for any YPC offers you have to register with them, and this involves taking a picture of some sort of ID with your face on it and you have to take the picture of it next to a numerical code that YPC gives you after you register.   Then you have to upload the photo to their site.  This part of the process is a slight pain and made me a bit suspicious (Why do they need an ID?  Why can’t they just have a pic of my face?), but you can do what I did and block out any information on the ID that indicates where you are from.   If I should get any bonus money from either online poker room, and YPC says that it takes about 5 business days to be approved, then the amount of work in taking the picture will be a small cost and well worth whatever annoyance that I experienced.

 So for you people out there who love poker but don’t love using your own money, check out YourPokerCash.  And if you know anything about their site let me know.