One of the most common traps any new player to a poker site can fall into is not maximising the chances that they have to increase their starting bankroll.
In this article, we’ll take you through exactly how to ensure you get the most for your money, while increasing the chances of you increasing your bankroll at one of the top UK poker sites: Sky Poker.
So if you are starting your time on Sky Poker with a modest bankroll and want to take steps to ensure that your cash lasts you longer, or even increases thanks to your sharp skills at the poker table, then read on for five top tips to keep your bankroll snowballing.
Remember, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can join Sky Poker today and receive a 200% New Player deposit bonus, £20 free plus £1,500 in free tournament tokens today by clicking here.
1. Maximise your New Player bonuses
When you join any poker site nowadays, you are often bombarded with a number of tempting offers to get you to sign up, deposit some cash and play. Sky Poker certainly offers UK poker players one of the very best deals at present, with new players receiving £20 completely free to try aspects of the site, plus a 200% first deposit bonus up to the value of £500 and entry into £1,500 worth of freeroll events.
It is very easy to lose sight of these bonuses when you have signed up and have your first taste of playing poker for real cash, but it is worth trying not to. Often many of these offers, particularly the First Deposit Bonus, are time-dependent and if you don’t realise them within a specified time limit (in Sky Poker’s case, 30 days), then you lose these benefits.
To realise your bonus, you will need to spend some of your bankroll in order to release the cash, so if you have put money into your account to get yourself a nice bonus, you need to then play through this cash in order to access it within the time limit.
So, you’ve joined the poker site and got yourself the bonus, now you need to cash that bonus in by spending some time at the cash tables. That can prove to be expensive, but not if you carefully target which tables you play at (which we’ll explore a little later in the article).
2. Redeem all of your £1,500 worth of free Tournament Tokens
Another great way to maximise your initial bankroll is to fully participate in all the free tournaments that you are given access to as a new customer. In Sky Poker’s case, new players are given a free tournament token into a £500 guaranteed freeroll event, as well as 500 Sky Poker Points, which can be redeemed on the site for free entry into 50 £20 Guaranteed freeroll events.
It should be immediately apparent as to why you should maximise the opportunities to play in these tournaments. In effect what they offer is a chance to play for real cash, without risking a single penny of your bankroll. It really is a no-lose situation, as if you are knocked out then you have lost nothing cash terms, however if you finish in a paying place, then you get cash added to your bankroll.
The good news is that while the First Deposit Bonus may be time dependent, your 500 Sky Poker Points are not, so you can play in the £20 Guaranteed freeroll (or other freeroll events) at any time.
You really can’t lose with these free tournament tokens, at the very worst you’ll emerge with a great deal more experience of tournament poker play that will make you a better and more capable player than you were when you first began.
3. Follow your site on Social Media and gain access to more free events & promotions
You may think that joining a site like Sky Poker is the best way to gain access to high quality poker at a reasonable price and it certainly is that. However, you can maximise your promotions and gain entry into specific other free tournaments by following your chosen poker room on Social Media.
Increasingly, rooms like Sky Poker and Bet365 Poker are using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to promote awareness of their brand, promotions and big events and as part of that promotion, they will offer their followers codes to enter special freeplay events with cash and/or prizes to be won.
All it costs you to take advantage of this is a follow on Facebook, Twitter or both. So make full use of this and you’ll gain access to a few extra events over the course of the year.
4. Target low stakes/ high win percentage games
So you have exhausted all the different ways to maximise free events, and now it is time to start playing for real cash, both to win and also to release your New Player bonus. How can you ensure that you don’t burn through your bankroll in record time, leaving your account looking like three duck eggs? (0.00)
The key to this is to target those games which you can (a) afford to play and lose withing significantly damaging your bankroll and (b) which offer you a better chance of winning than other games available on site.
Fortunately, Sky Poker offers a number of games that give new players a much better chance of winning each time they take the table.
Target Sit & Go games such as Double Your Money (DYM) games, where the final three out of the six players at the table initially, will double their money. In this game, you don’t have to win thousands of chips to remain competitive in the game, just avoid being eliminated in 6th, 5th or 4th place at the table.
When you are getting confident at DYM, why not move onto 50/50 games? These games are very similar in that the top 3 out of a table of 6 are all paid out, however how much you receive in winnings is dependent upon your final chip stack at the table, with the more chips you hold meaning the more cash you receive.
When you are winning regularly in these two games, try the Six-Max games, where only the top two at the table receive a prize. This may seem smaller odds, but they are considerably better odds than entering a tournament with 30-3000 people and trying to bank a prize there.
By targeting games that statistically weigh more in your favour more often than participating in tournaments a lot of the time, you increase your chances of adding to your bankroll with regular wins, significantly. Just remember, to play to the cash limit commensurate with your bankroll, so if you only have £20 to spend, play at the lower (60p, £1.15) tables, rather than the £16.50 table.
5. Play as many lower cash limit tables, tournaments and games as you can
One of the revelations of poker that new players discover very quickly is that no game of poker is the same as the other. The skills you enhance playing in Double Your Money games are different to those that you may need in tournament play, or at the cash tables. What works on a 50/50 table may not be so productive when playing at a cash table.
As such, it is important that you expand your full repertoire of poker skills by playing at as many different low stakes games as you can, rather than simply sticking to the games that you prefer. By all means, as a beginner, play more of the DYM, 50/50 and Six-Max Sit & Go games to build a bankroll, but don’t do so exclusively. Spend a little of your cash playing at the lower stakes cash table and buy into a tournament or two.
You will soon discover that playing in these events quickly emphasises how many different skills you need as a poker player. For example, playing in a Bounty Hunter tournament encourages more aggressive play to take out your opponent and earn more cash, whereas a traditional tournament only requires you to limp into the prize places (if you can) in order to win some cash.
So while focusing on the games that give you a better chance of building your bankroll, remember to develop your whole range of poker skills and if you do, you’ll be a better and stronger player in all types of games and a much improved poker player within a very short space of time.
Looking for more great tips to make the most of your Sky Poker play? Read our guide to the newly-revamped Sky Poker rewards scheme.
