I left off my poker bankroll building at the end of January 2005. I had capped off a very successful initial 3 months at playing poker considering that most players who win don't start winning right away. Apart from a short spurt at Party when I had no clue what I was doing, I quickly learned the ropes to make myself at worst a break even player at the low limits. Part of learning the ropes, I forgot to mention that I took some of my intial PSO points to order an amazon gift card which I used to purchase 4 poker books to ramp up my learning of the game. These books, in particular "Small Stakes Hold'em" would be my biggest learning tools over the start of my poker career.

Early in February, my first PSO referral points came in worth $65 - apparently one can make a decent amount with some simple referrals!

At this point, PSO launched the PokerNow rake rebate plan. At the time, PokerNow was a skin of Party Poker (it has since been absorbed, and I'm not too sure if it even exists anymore). This was a great deal since I was now serious about online poker and could use a regular paying PSO points influx which were just about as good as cash. I deposited $100, worked through my deposit bonus and by the time the rake rebate plan collapsed due to Party Poker's insistence, I cashed out $273 and had earned another $60 in PSO points for rakeback.

I started my next promotion at Golden Palace poker on March 2, 2005 once again depositing $100 and getting started. I dabbled a little with no limit play, but for the most part, I stuck to my limit game and went through the raked hand requirements at golden palace. At the end, I cashed out $303 to my brand new neteller account which I had finally decided to start up since I didn't want to have to deposit anymore money through my credit card. Plus I received yet another $60 worth of PSO points for the promo!

From here, my poker exploits no longer simply followed the PSO promos around. There was some harder to complete promos to do, but I was also interested in building my bankroll, so I would jump around a little bit. Before I created my neteller account, I started a frequent flopper rakeback plan with Ultimate Bet through PSO. This would be a recurring site for me because when I didn't have a current bonus to work on, I would return to UB to do generic bonus and PSO points. From here on, I will probably need to go month by month ... so I'm going to wrap up my Feb-April months in a table here and be back with part three of this series in the next little while!

PokerNow rake rebate: +173 + $61 PSO points Golden Palace Poker: +$203, $60 PSO points Referral Points: $85 PSO points Absolute Poker (2 deposits): +$129 Ultimate Bet: +$80 + $22 PSO points (rake rebate) Total Winnings: $585 USD + $228 PSO Points

Sum of total winnings to this point: $1086 USD + $3490 CAD + $390.50 PSO points + 1000 chips

Stay tuned for the next three months or so!

Heraldk