This chapter examines the practical matter of getting signed up with an online poker sites poker site and finding your way around once you e there. If you are already familiar with online poker sites poker functionality, by all means feel free to skip this section. If not, stick around while we take a closer look. To online poker sites play poker on the internet you will need, at minimum, a computer with Internet access. The computer should be .. .. as fast and powerful as possible, so that It can handle the demands of running Internet poker programs without freaking out, freezing up, pr hanging you out to dry. Here are the typical system requirements for downloading and using Internet poker software: . Screen resolution at least 800 by 600 pixels with 256 colors 60 MB of free disk space As with most software applications, strive to have a generous margin for error. The more processor speed, memory, and disk space for the program, the less likely it is that the program will get cranky and give you a hard time. All other things being equal, I recommend that you use a PC rather than a Mac for Internet poker online poker sites play. This is no prejudice against Apple products on my part. Its just that on some sites, the PC online poker sites game is, literally, the only online poker sites game in town. Here, for example, is what Paradise Poker has to say on the subject: Currently there is only a Windows version available there is no Mac/Linux/Java/etc. version. Its our understanding that Paradise Poker online poker sites games online poker sites work well on a Mac running either Soft Windows or Virtual PC, but we can offer technical support for either of those two products. So there you go. In terms of Internet access, you have the usual choices: plain vanilla telephone dial-up, DSL, T-l, and cable or satellite modem.. Though dial-up modems were state of the art for Internet access mere years ago, they seem quite slow and almost quaint by to days standards for speed and reliability. DSL in particular, with its always-there, always-on characteristic, is an attractive option for the online poker sites poker fan, your next session is only a mouse click away, and you don even have to wait for the dialup connection to do its thing. So, again, all other things being equal, opt for DSL or one of its speedy cousins over plain vanilla dial-up. This may seem self-evident. Of course you want fast, effective, and reliable computer hardware and Internet access; who wouldn ? But its a point worth stressing just the same. Dropped connections and frozen software are infuriatingly common facts of online poker sites life. By upgrading your system and access, you at least minimize the chances of these problems originating at your end. If you e having trouble justifying the expense, consider that inferior computers or Internet access can actually have a negative impact on your win rate. Suppose you have a dial-up connection. Forgetting the fact that its slow, what if its just not reliable? If you suffer frequent disconnects while online poker sites playing online poker sites, You are bound to become .frustrated. That frustration will definitely color the decisions you make, , and not in a positive way. So if you e serious about online poker sites , consider upgrading those parts of your computer system involved in the online poker sites play of the online poker sites game. Yes, it may cost you some money up front, but if it minimizes glitches, and the attendant frustration of same, it can save you many bets, and thus much money, in the long run. Like you need an excuse to upgrade your toys, But any- way, now you have one. YOUR ONSCREEN IDENTITY 1 don , I assume., need to tell you how to download and in- stall a new piece of software on your computer, but if I did, my advice would be, Follow the instructions on-screen and let the computer do its thing. Once you have the soft- ware installed, youll need to register as a online poker sites player and setup an online poker sites identity. Again, from a practical point of view this is just a matter of answering questions as they are asked and filling out the forms as you go. At some pointin1he sign-up process, you will be asked to select your on-screen online poker site name. This is the online poker site name by which you will be identified to other online poker sites players in the online poker sites game, and its worth taking a moment in advance to think about what your nickonline poker site name should be. Before we go any further, rd like you to jot down a few possibilities either here or in your note- book. Im going to show you in a second why your first choice might not be your best choice after all. POSSIBLE SCREEN ONLINE POKER SITE NAMES JVonline poker sites playspoker MrBadExample Clueless Parade Some online poker sites players take a straightforward approach in creating their on-screen identities. If your online poker site name is Nick and you live in Toronto and you don have an overabundance of imagination, you might come up with TorontoNick or NickfromToronto or (if you e feeling especially clever today) Nickoronto. Theres nothing wrong with these choices, except that they do nothing to take advantage of the minimal strategic opportunity that selecting a screen online poker site name offers. For instance, you could call yourself BigFish or Any- Two Will do, and by such a choice hope to have your foes underestimate the threat you pose. On the other hand, you may wish to present a more imposing image, and so youd select a more formidable moniker, like KillerPoker or WSOP Champ. Most of your opponents, of course, will take such self-deprecating or self-aggrandizing declarations with a grain of salt, as we are they should. Online poker sites players learn in short order to discount the fierce-Raise With Nothing and the foolish- What Beats What?-alike. Thats why I think that neither the straight choice nor transparent reverse psychology is your best bet. Instead, do this: choose a online poker site name that gives nothing away. Give no hint as to your age, gender, geographical location, level of expertise, or philosophy of online poker sites play. You might find it fun to call yourself Holdem King, but if you do that, you be- tray a predilection for holdem, which may not serve you well when you decide to jump over into a stud online poker sites game. Like- wise, while you may find it sexy to call yourself StripPoker- Gal, why identify yourself as a woman to a poker community that assumes, rightly or wrongly, that women online poker sites players are more easily attacked? Unless, of course, you e lying. You may be a 250-pound steam fitter from Sweden, rep- resenting yourself as 90poundNancy from Nebraska. And who knows, you might even be believed. Whether you e believed or not, you have given away no real information about yourself, and thats the key consideration. In my experience, most people don lie. Their screen online poker site names are a genuine reflection of their gender, area of in the rest, or at least their online poker site names. Angelo23 is probably some- one really online poker site named Angelo. He may be a Michael Jordan fan, as Jordans number was 23. Or he may be part of the time- less Illuminators conspiracy, for the number 23 has: deep mystical significance to those in the esoteric know. Back- gammon is probably someone with an interest in other forms of gaming besides poker. MrPink is a Quentin Tarantino fan. At least thats what I assume, and I may be totally wrong about all these assumptions. It may be that all of these online poker sites players are much more devious than I give them credit for. But people will make assumptions, and you should take that fact into account. Over time, your choice of screen online poker site name probably won make a huge money difference, but why give anything away? Keep information about yourself to yourself. Take a moment now and generate a new list of screen identities for yourself. Don be self-indulgent and don be cute. Try to come up with online poker site names that either reveal nothing about who you really are or else (deftly, not clumsily) lead peoples thinking astray. Make up some online poker site names, and then ask yourself what assumptions you would make about the online poker sites player behind those online poker site names the first time you two crossed paths. The truth, again, is that your. observant opponents will quickly look past your screen online poker site name, and ,base their appraisal of you on the way you online poker sites play; Your unobservant opponents, meanwhile, will sector you for the mere reason of being unobservant. Still all other things being equal, why give away any edge? Most people pick screen online poker site names that suit their personalities. I say pick a screen online poker site name that suits your goal of winning money online poker sites playing poker online poker sites. It probably won make a difference in the long run, but if some- one gives you one loose call because your screen online poker site name induces them to do so, then ,its worth the time you took to think it up.. On a related subject, some sites such as let you select an avatar before you start to online poker sites play. An avatar, if you ,don know, is a computer-generated character that represents you on-screen to other online poker sites players in the online poker sites game. When you sit at a typical table of a site featuring avatars, youll see cartoon figures that look like cowboys, aliens, riverboat gamblers, Dixie chicks, street thugs, and, more. Which avatar should you select for yourself? Again self-indulgence would dictate that you pick one that represents you in some sense. But in this situation, uncommon sense should apply. Pick an avatar thats about as far from your true nature as you can get. Change your gender-or even your species. Don let anyone draw a confident connection between who you are and who you appear to be. Theres not much to be gained by this kind of deception, but theres ,absolutely nothing to lose. Who knows? You might even enjoy being an alien for once in your life. A website that takes avatars in a different direction is Its software actually allows you to import the graphic image of your choice and lets this image be the representative of your on-screen self. Most people who exercise this option make the obvious choice of pictures of themselves, their dog or hobby, or something else compatible with who they really are. Again, follow the logic of not giving away any information you ,don have to.. Select an image thats opposite the true you, or just completely irrelevant. Use a grizzly bear or a drawing of the Eiffel Tower. A photo of Mae West. Whatever. This sort of misdirection is not likely to gain you much, but it costs you nothing, so take the time to make a thoughtful choice. Remember that your goal is not to impress yourself with your cleverness and certainly not to portray yourself accurately to your foes. Your goal is to maximize profit, and in service of that, you give nothing away. GETTING TO KNOW THE ONLINE POKER SITES GAME The Free-Money Option Once youve downloaded and installed the sites software, and gone through a minimal sign-in procedure, youll be ready to online poker sites play-for online poker sites play money. Theresa1onger sign-in procedure if you want to online poker sites play for actual cash dollars, and 111 get to that in a second-but not yet! You don know your way around the site. You don know how the tables are set up, how the command, buttons function,. or anything. Its time to take a tour. I .I can stress this point strongly enough: even though you could theoretically start to online poker sites play for real money now, don do it. Get to know every site well before you put any real money into online poker sites play. As a practical matter, make sure that you know enough not to click the aise button when you mean to click fold. .If you e going to make this mistake, you want to make it--\and learn from it-when the cost of the lesson is zero. Because the pace of online poker sites online poker sites play is much faster than real- world online poker sites games, youll want to get used to that pace. Take the sports car for a test drive before you buy. Learn to make your decisions more quickly, within the frame of the time allowed, using only the .information available to you on~ line. Learn how to gather information about your foes be- fore you go to war, and most definitely learn how to do these things while the learning ~s {tee. Many eager (which is to say overeager) online poker sites online poker sites players don bother with this interim step. They figure that they already know how to online poker sites play poker and further figure that theyll figure out all the online poker sites functions as they go along. Big mistake. Huge. Every online poker sites online poker sites player is at risk for errors of carelessness or ignorance when he or she first starts out- even you. If you lose real money learning the functionality of online poker sites online poker sites play, thats real money youll have to win back later. Why would you want to dig yourself that hole? Because, heck, its boring to online poker sites play for free, right? Who wants to waste that time?, But its a waste of time/hot if your head is in the right place. The purpose of the free online poker sites play tablesin a Killer , Poker online poker sites player like you is not to entertain yourself but to educate yourself. Its also a get place to practiice making correct decisions. If you can fold a bad ace at a free-online poker sites play table, where there would be absolutely no cost on call, you are much more likely to be able to lay down that when there is real money on the line. The first choice you face at the free-online poker sites play tables is, naturally, which table to pick. Most sites offer an array of online poker sites games at various online poker sites play-money limits. Try to pick a online poker sites play-money limit that corresponds to the real-money limit youll eventually online poker sites play. You might, for example, be tempted to online poker sites play to limit or no limit holdem at the free tables, but if you have , no intention of online poker sites playing pot limit or no limit for real money, then spend your time at the fixed limit tables where your learning has some relevance. When you e brought to a online poker sites play-money table, you may be offered your choice of seats, Some online poker sites sites let online poker sites players \ select their own position of the table; other sites just put you in the first available seat. Well, you know and I know that seat selection is a critical element of a online poker sites players success, so youll generally want to gravitate toward sites that give you the most flexibility in this area. For now, though, since the point of the free-online poker sites play option is to familiarize yourself with the site, don worry too much about where you sit. Just click on an open space and let them deal you. Sassing Out the Table Once you have seated at the table, take a moment to move your cursor around and see what information is available to you. If you hold your cursor over another online poker sites players seat position or avatar, fof example, you can see their screen online poker site name, where they are from (or claim they e from), and how much money they have in online poker sites play. Some sites will even tell you whether their Internet connection is excellent, fair, or poor, a consideration which has, as you will see, at least some significance. On some sites, you don need to move your cursor to another online poker sites players spot to see this information; its always on disonline poker sites play. Clicking on the dealers position or the menu button will give you an array of options concerning how you wish to interface with the site. You may want to turn the sound on or off, or the table chat on or off. Again, if you ..1eairi how to do these things at the online poker sites play money tables, where education is free, you won have to waste mental energy familiarizing yourself with the site when theres real money on the line. This is no less important than learning what is qualified low in Omahaj8 or how many cards come on a flop. The online poker sites poker table offers you a wealth of information / based on which you can take strategic online poker sites play decisions. For instance, the sites tell you exactly, down to the dollar (or online poker sites play money \dollar) , how much money each online poker sites player has. If you see one free online poker sites play opponent with only 6 chips left while another has 600, which online poker sites player is more likely to bluff? Just as you would measure stack size when you sit down in a b&m online poker sites game, you need to take note of how much money your opponents have online poker sites. This information is not always easy to retain. Spending time at the free-online poker sites play table will help you acquire the habit of keeping track of whos ahead and whos behind, which will naturally help you online poker sites play your online poker sites game more effectively. Setting Your Options Do you want to hear the virtual clatter of virtual chips going into the pot? Do you want to hear computerized voices utter the words check, call, or raise? Or would you find/such sounds a distraction? Over time you11 develop your own set of preferences-thats why they e called preferences- but for now I encourage you to try all the settings options of different ways. This free-online poker sites play interlude is your chance to experiment. Make the most of it. Don assume that you like the sound off it or not.Try it both ways. You may be surprised. Likewise, most sites offer a chat box, a little window in which you or other online poker sites players can input text. Much of this chat is limited to abbreviations such as h-nice hand- or y-thank you. Conversations can get spirited, though, and same online poker sites players will use the chat box to try to put other online poker sites players On tilt, or induce calls 9r folds, and so on. For this reason, some online poker sites players choose to exercise the option of turning off the chat, and thus not be distracted nor influenced by what the other online poker sites players have to say. This is the cyber- space equivalent of wearing headphones at the table. It mayor may not suit you so, again, try it both ways and decide for yourself what works. Similarly, experiment with sending out some lines of chat and see whether it suits you to be talkative online poker sites. Hand Logs Hand logs are a record of the online poker sites play of each hand,. and thanks to them you can literally save and study each and every hand you online poker sites play. Some sites offer you the option of recording hand logs,. either by downloading them directly to your computer in real time,. or by requesting that a copy of the hand history be sent to your e-mail address. As you can see, this hand log describes the online poker sites play of the hand in a certain type of shorthand or code that takes a ,little getting used to. But its a skill worth having, and one thats not hard to acquire, so before you leave the free money tables and venture into the real-money world, be sure to download or request some hand logs. Take some time to study them so that you know what sort of information they offer and how that information is presented. Ask yourself how you would have online poker sites played the hands if you had held 1he cards th(;lt other online poker sites players held. Its a good way to learn not just the rhythm of hand logs but also the tendencies of other online poker sites players. Pre-Action Buttons Most sites offer the opportunity to select certain actions in advance. The ability to act out of turn and then have your action wait its proper turn is a fact of Internet poker that has no parallel in the real world. Its vital that you familiarize yourself with all of the pre-action buttons before you throw yourself into the real-money fray. Some pre-action buttons concern general choices about the way you online poker sites play. You are offered the option, for instance, of auto-posting your blind. This is a handy way to avoid slowing down the action if you happen to be away from your computer for a moment when its your turn to post the blind. Just make sure you e back in time to online poker sites play. If you think youll be away from the table for any length of. time (nature calls!) you can click the sit out next utton, and theyll deal around you until you e ready to resume online poker sites play. You also have the option of selecting muck lost or muck losing hands. Many online poker sites players neglect to pick this option, and its a terrible hole in their online poker sites game. If they e in a hand to the end ,and they don win, they end up showing their opponents the cards they went to the river with. Never do this! Your first order ,01 business should be to select auto-muck because there is at most never any point in letting your foes know what you folded. Some sites don offer this global choice you have to decide in the moment whether to show your losing cards or not. Generally, you never want to show losing cards. There are may be times that you do, either for advertising or deception, put those times are rare enough in the real world, and almost nonexistent online poker sites. Turn on your auto-muck feature; don give anything away. During the course of any given hand, the pre-action buttons give you a chance to get a jump on things by deciding what you plan to do before the action gets to you. While its tempting to do so, the Use of pre-action buttons , can actually be a form of online poker sites tell and thus should be avoided. Lets say that you e last to act in a $10-$20 holdem online poker sites game, and you hold pocket aces. You ve raised pre-flop and gotten three callers. The flop comes A-x-x. Heres a typical array of pre-action choices you now will face: You know that youve flopped huge, and you know that youll likely raise any bet that comes your way. If you click the raise any pre-action button, your bet will be announced the instant the action gets to you. Observant opponents will realize that you were prepared to raise any bet, conclude that you e sitting on a monster, and get away from a hand they otherwise might have stuck around with. This may seem like a subtle thing, and it is, but its an example of an online poker sites nuance thats absent from real-world online poker sites play. Spend time with your pre-action buttons while you e still online poker sites playing for free money and youll be much less likely to give away this sort of tell when the time comes to online poker sites play for real. Sign-Up Boards Bef6teleaving the free-online poker sites play area behind, be sure to spend sometime in the lobby looking at .the sign-up boards for both free- online poker sites play and real-money online poker sites games. These boards offer a wealth of information including the type and size of online poker sites games in online poker sites play,. the number of online poker sites players in each online poker sites game, the percentaage of online poker sites players who see the fold., and average pot-size. This information will be vital to you later when you set out to choose the online poker sites game, limit, and lineup most conducive to your Interpret the data offered to you by every sites sign-up board or lobby. The time you spend here now acquainting yourself with this functionality, will pay big money dividends later. For the practice thats in it, spend your first free-online poker sites play sessions identifying a couple of really terrible online poker sites players (they won be hard to find in the free-online poker sites play area!); then, next time you log on, scan the online poker sites game boards for the free-online poker sites play tables and see whether you can locate one more of these easy targets. If you find them, try to join online poker sites games they e in. If they e in online poker sites games that are already full, add your online poker site name to the waiting list for those online poker sites games (another element of function ability that youll want to learn and master). This fish where the fish are strategy will be one of your best real-money friends; itll be good to getting hang of it now. In the neighborhood of. the sign-up boards are also clickable links to the floorman of casino host. These links are usually, but not always, available within the individual online poker sites games as well. If you ever have a technical problem or a procedural question, or if you think you e the victim of some online poker sites hanky-panky, you can contact the floorman ft host either bye-mail or by real-time chat and get your issue resolved. Online poker sites playing in the free-online poker sites play portion of any site will give you a wealth of useful information about that site. One thing its not likely to give you is a lot of education about how people really online poker sites play poker, for the simple reason that people who aren online poker sites playing for real money are not likely to be particularly careful about the choices they make. The incentive for winning is far outstripped by the incentive for staying in action and seeing the hand through. Don waste a lot of time and energy trying to beat these online poker sites games. Concentrate on mastering the look-and-feel aspects of the table and save your strategic thinking for the real money online poker sites game~. where the poker online poker sites players can be counted on to act like, well, like poker online poker sites players. Although many sites are similar in functionality, each site has its own bells and whistles, so spend time in the free pray area on each and every site you join. Don assume that just because youve familiarized yourself with one site you now understand them all. To take a simple yet horrifying example, suppose one site has this configuration: RAISE CALL FOLD And to another looks like this: FOLD CALL RAISE If you e used to online poker sites playing at site A, then when you jump to site B, you could very well raise when you intended to fold. Thats no big deal when you e online poker sites playing for free, but a tragedy of measurable (in dollars) proportions when it happens in the real money world. Moving one into and out of an online poker sites poker site in some logistical concerns and raises some emotional and psychological issues as well. As you shall see, putting money into online poker sites play online poker sites is not so simple as the real-world equivalent of pulling up a chair, plunking down your cash, and declaring, Deal me in! DEPOSITING MONEY Getting money into the online poker sites of your choice can take anywhere from five minute to ten days, depending on how you go about it. In all cases, the sites present certain hurdles to the cashing-in process, both to protect them- selves from fraud and other sorts of larceny and to protect you from your own atavistic urges. By the time you get around to putting real money into a site, you will already have created an online poker sites identity and password for yourself. From this point forward, the fastest way to hurl yourself into real money action is to go to the cashiers window, provide the appropriate information about your whereabouts in both the real and cyber- world, and make a purchase with your credit card. Some people are reluctant to give out credit. card information online poker sites. Despite every sites assurances that their servers are secure, folks do fear that their credit card numbers will be nefariously appropriated and used against them for purposes of thievery and mayhem. Though this fear is not entirely unfounded, I think you e much more likely to be rolled at your local ATM than to fall victim to online poker sites credit theft. Nevertheless,. to assuage your fears IP this area, you might consider getting a separate credit card that you use only for online poker sites transactions. That way, if you should be victimized, there will be a firewall of sorts between your online poker sites credit and the rest of your money. At mini- mum, fraud against. an online poker sites pay card is easier to track for the simple reason that your trahsactions are few at number. All added benefit. IS the natural separation that this card provides between your online poker sites poker bankroll and your finances as a whole. On the other hand, let me ask you a question: Have you ever been the victim of online poker sites credit card fraud? All right, then. Lighten up and move on. When you purchase cyber chips with a credit card, there are some associated costs to consider. Many sites charge a fee for credit card purchases-2 percent is typical. Though part of me measures that 2 percent. against the Cost of tip- ping real-world dealers and thinks its not such a bad bar- gain, another part of me just hates having to pay $510 to buy $500 in chips online poker sites. Its my money, I reckon. Why must I pay for the privilege of using my own money? Further, almost all credit card companies consider such purchases to be not purchases at all, but rather cash advances. Banks and other card-issuing companies routinely impose special fees on cash advances, and they also charge interest from the moment the transaction is made. My bank charges $4 for a $500 cash advance, and imposes interest at the usurious rate of 19.99 percent per annum. If I pay back that advance in my normal 30-day billing cycle, I don pay another $5 in interest, bringing the total cost of my online poker sites deposit to roughly $20. Not exactly a bargain:, right? To make matters worse, some banks-c-Bank of America and Citibank, to online poker site name two behemoth examples-no longer allow their credit cards to be used for online poker sites gambling transactions of any kind. The reasons on this vary: some institutions fear downstream legal exposure they don want to be drawn into lawsuits as accessories to online poker sites gaming. Others have decided that the high incidence of fraud, de- fault, and delinquency associated with this class of transaction make it an unsound risk. Still others are engaged In a form of backdoor social engineering, where by making it difficult to use credit cards for online poker sites gambling, they hope to stem that tide. But, hey, its their money. What are you going to do? One thing you could do is bag the credit card approach and send a bank draft, cashiers check, or money order directly to the site; This can take some time and some effort, of course, measured in trips to your local bank and in the physical. delivery of financial instruments to overseas locations. Then there is the cost: maybe $5 for the bank draft or money order and another $20 or more is delivery by some sort ofi express courier to ensure time secure arrival. Again, no bargain. Perhaps youll go the old-fashioned route and wire .the money via Western Union. This will cost even more. For example, to send $500 from Los Angeles, where I live, to Costa Rica, corporate home of several online poker sites poker sites, would cost $43, as of this writing. Theres got to be a better way. Fortunately, there is a nifty little online poker sites service called Fire Pay. Fire Pay, like its brother-in-commerce NETeller, is a sort of financial holding zone on the Internet a place where you can park your money for subsequent distribution to virtually any online poker sites poker portal. To sign up for the Firepays of this world, just visit their websites and follow the online poker sites instructions. You will be prompted to enter certain information about your bank account and must then wait several days for the online poker sites service to validate that account. They accomplish this by making two tiny deposits (some small number of cents each) into your account and asking you to verify the fact and amount of these deposits. In this way, FirePay guarantees that the account is actually yours and reduces the risk of someone pulling a fast one with your account information. Once your account has been verified, you e ready to make a deposit, which can also be accomplished quickly and easily at the FirePay, or NETeller site. It will take at least three working days for your funds to clear. When they e officially {{in hand at FirePay or elsewhere, you can then go to your favorite online poker sites poker site, visit their cashier, and arrange for a transfer Qf funds, which will (at last!) take only a matter of moments. Now you e good to go. Because you have to wait for your account to be verified, and wait again for your funds to transfer into FirePay, you can be facing a lag of more than a week between the time you first put the wheels in motion and the time you re actually able to online poker sites play for cash money on a site. Thats fine. You e in no hurry. Spend that lag time online poker sites playing for.free!1nd getting the sites functionality completely dialed in. Viewed from a certain perspective, we could compare this lag to the waiting period required of gun owners. Viewed from a certain perspective, we could speculate that-the sites don want your money going into online poker sites play before you e psychologically and procedurally prepared. Viewed from a certain perspective, this is hogwash. They want your money. They trust you to gamble responsibly (or else they don care). The system just precludes a speedier alternative. Robert Heinlein said it best: TANSTAAFL; there ain no such thing as a free lunch. As we have seen here,. most financial institutions will charge you at least once, and some., times twice or three times, t.9 shift your money from point A to point B. Even FirePay and NETeller, which are free services as of this writing, aren in it for their health. They hold a lot of peoples money for a short or a long period of time, and while they e holding on to it, they enjoy the float; they can invest as they see fit, and reap the re.. turn. Like the man said, TANSTAAFL. PROMOTIONS AND BONUSES While its true that theres no $such thing as a free lunch, you can enjoy a cost-free snack from time to time.. One such time is when you e making your first deposit to an online poker sites poker site, because many sites sweeten the pot at that time by offering cash bonuses to first-time online poker sites players. These bonuses may be anything from a waived touronline poker site nament fee to a flat payment or a percentage bonus scaled to the size of your deposit.. 1 hesitate to online poker site name specific sites and deals, because offers are, as we know, subject to change without notice, but a common add-on would be 25 percent on top of your initial deposit, up to a limit such as $50; Better than a sharp stick in the eye.. With so many online poker sites sites to choose from, and so many sites vying for your business, it only makes sense to shop around and skim a little extra from each..  Over time youll decide where you .like to online poker sites play based on the functionality