The overall leaderboard is also in effect, with the top 2 players from each of the 4 buy-in categories meeting in a $5k 8 player tournament on the 17th of January.  And lets not forget about the raffle.  Every time you win a sit and go during Sit and go madness you earn one raffle ticket towards the more than 1000 prizes being given away in the raffle. 

Just make sure the tournaments are labeled in green and multitable like a madman for your chance at some of this extra cash being given out by Full Tilt.  This is a great promotion for sit’n'go players who are used to multi-tabling.

Dec. 23 - 1:30pm EST - $3K guaranteed limit holdem - First place wins a bonus PSP-3000 and a Go!Cam.
Dec. 24 - 1:30pm EST - $5K guaranteed NLH - First place wins a bonus XBOX360 Elite System
Dec. 25 - 3:00pm EST - $5K guaranteed NLH - First place wins a bonus Playstation 3
Dec. 26 - 1:30pm EST - $10K guaranteed 6-seat NLH - First place wins a bonus iPod touch
Dec. 27 - 3:00pm EST - $100K guaranteed NLH - First place wins a bonus Nintendo Wii with Sports pack
Dec. 28 - 10:00am EST - $5K guaranteed 6-seat NLH - First place wins 2 bottles of Cuvee Cristal 2002
Dec. 29 - 1:30pm EST - $5K guaranteed PL Omaha - First place wins a B&W Zeppelin iPod speaker
Dec. 30 - 1:30pm EST - $5K guaranteed terminator - First place wins a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T700 Digital Camera
Dec. 31 - 10:00am EST - $5K guaranteed Speed - First place wins a bonus Sony PRS505S eBook reader
Jan. 1 - 3:00pm EST - $15K guaranteed NLH - First place wins a bonus Panasonic SC-PT860 DVD Home Cinema System
Jan. 2 - 1:30pm EST - $5K guaranteed Terminator - First place wins a bonus Sony BDP-S550 Blu-ray Disc Player
Jan. 11 - $5K Freeroll - Play in 3 or more Christmas Cracker tournaments to gain entry into this freeroll.  The more tournaments you play in, the bigger your starting stack for this freeroll will be!

So if you are looking for some more cool gifts for Christmas, PKR may have your answer.  I would only suggest playing in these tournaments if you were already planning to play some poker that day as the tournaments are not that great value, with only first place winning an extra prize.  However, if you do manage to outlast the field, you can take home some pretty sweet gifts.

If you don’t have a PKR account yet, be sure to get the best PKR bonus code around when making your initial deposit.

After you have used all the additional money the poker rooms gave you to try out their rooms, you have to look for other ways to gain an edge.  These can include rakeback, freerolls (such as the country freerolls at Full Tilt), overlay tournaments AND online poker room promotions.  Many promotions offered by poker rooms give money and prizes back to the players. 

For example, the Doyle’s Room bounty promotion gives players a free entry into their first bounty tournament, which is a value of $27.50.  On top of this players can earn extra bounty money from knocking out Doyle or his friends.  This all turns into additional cash being added to the tournament.

Another example would be Carbon Poker’s monthly rake race promotions, which are always the exact same with different themes, which kind of annoys me, but they are still giving cash back to the player.  Or even Full Tilt’s happy hour.  Full Tilt Points are basically cash because they can buy you into tournaments or purchase you Full Tilt merchandise. 

Poker series’ held by rooms almost always have extra prizes or a winners freeroll that gives back to the players.  For example the Cake Poker Reindeer Games promotion has added prizes for every tournament, such as 5 seats added to the $250K guaranteed, $5000 added to the prize pool, etc, not to mention the $20K Reindeer Games finals which the top 9 finishers from each event earn entry to. 

As you can see poker promotions are a great way to build your bankroll, because you can actually be at an advantage to the house.  Any time a poker room offers a promotion such as a money added tournament, a rebate or special bounties, you should try to take advantage of these offers, rather than just play regular tournaments where the poker room earns 10% of your buy-in.

A smart strategy would be to look at our bonuses page.  Try to clear all these bonuses while building your bankroll, which will give you a lot of additional poker funds.  Then come back and stay on the look out for new poker promotions that are coming up, that put the advantage back in your hands.  It’s all about continuing to build your bankroll by gaining an edge any way you can!!

Doyle’s Room

At DoylesRoom if you play on the Doyle’s Den tables, which are listed in green under the cash tables, you receive an additional 30% more loyalty points than at a regular table.  These tables are not visible to other players who play on the iPoker network through other sites, only DoylesRoom players can see these tables. 

The Doyle’s Den tables are the exact same as other tables, except for the increased Loyalty Points earnings.  An increase in Loyalty Points is great for the players, as this means, faster bonus clearing and more points which can be used to buy-in to DoylesRoom tournaments or converted into cash through the “Points for Cash” program at DoylesRoom.

The buy-in for the tournament is 2000 FTP and there will be many satellite tournaments running from now up until the 27th where players can satellite into the event for as little as 50 FTP.  I know this is the path I’m going to try to take, with my FTP total dwindled down after some recent Full Tilt clothing purchases you will possibly be able to find me in a 500 point satellite looking to play in this great value tournament 2 days after Christmas.

Just to add some perspective, a Full Tilt poker hat costs 4000 FTP points, so to play in a $100K guaranteed tournament is only costing about half of a hat.  To me, this is a hard decision, but that’s only because I desperately need a new hat.  But to most people this is an easy decision.  Go for the cash!

On the other hand, there is already 4500 or so entrants, with a max of 7000, so I have a feeling that this tournament will max out soon.  This means if you want to register you should do so very soon.  It also means that the 2000 points are worth roughly $14.  Now this makes the hat vs tournament decision a little bit harder, because $28 for a hat isn’t that bad.

So now I’m back to the question.  Hat or tournament?  Only because I have only 500 FTP I’m choosing satellite into tournament.  If I had 4000 points I would choose hat, but that’s just me.  The choice is yours and if you decide to play in the Holiday $100K at Full Tilt, I wish you good luck!

Value: Every Reindeer Game has either added cash, a bonus prize or an added prize pack, plus the opportunity to make the Reindeer Games finals.
Chance of big payday: There is over $50K guaranteed throughout the series.
Type of Promotion: Poker series with each tournament having an added prize or added cash.
Take Advantage: Definitely.  This is like Full Tilt’s FTOPS combined with added value tournaments, you get the best of both worlds.

Schedule
Dec. 18 - 9:30pm EST - 10 Gold Chips - 1st place wins a 50″ Plasma TV, 2nd - 10th win $100
Dec. 19 - 9:30pm EST - $5 Rebuy - Satellite to $250K Guaranteed with 5 seats added
Dec. 20 - 1:00pm EST - 1 Gold Chip - $5000 Guaranteed
Dec. 20 - 9:00pm EST - $15 NLH - 1st place wins a 50″ Plasma TV
Dec. 21 - 2:00pm EST - 2 Gold Chips Rebuy - Satellite to $100K Guaranteed, top 5 win
Dec. 21 - 9:30pm EST - $10 NLH Bounty - $5000 Added
Dec. 22 - 8:30 pm EST - $20 NLH - 1st place wins 2 Super Bowl tickets
Dec. 23 - 4:00 pm EST - Satellite to Irish Open satellite, 10 seats
Dec. 24 - 7:00pm EST - 1 Gold Chip - 1st place wins seat in WPT Caribbean Cruise, 2nd - 15th win $100

Play in any of these tournaments at Cake Poker.

Reindeer Games Final
The top nine from each reindeer games tournament will also receive a seat in the Reindeer Final.  This tournament will offer a $5000 grand prize and a prize pool of $20K total.  So with 10 reindeer games tournaments, that means the finals will be a $20K tournament with only 90 entrants.  That equals out to a $222 buy-in per person, if it was a buy-in tournament.

If you are thinking of signing up as a new player at Cake Poker, you should remember to find a Cake Poker Sign Up Code.  **Also for anyone looking to check out another poker blog I found this one today that is pretty solid.

Targeted: Anyone who wants some good old head hunting fun.
Value: No added value
Chance of big payday: The prize pool is $350K guaranteed.
Type of Promotion: Guaranteed Tournament
Take Advantage: If you are looking for a quality bounty tournament with the chance to knock out some big full tilt pro’s.

Details
The Sunday Brawl is a $350K guaranteed knock-out tournament with a $240 + $16 buy-in that is played every Sunday at 2pm EST at Full Tilt poker.  $200 from your buy-in goes to the prize pool with the other $40 going to the Knockout pool.  Every time you knock a player out of the tournament you earn their $40. 

You can keep track of your knockout totals in the knockout leaderboard located http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/sunday-brawl.  If you run the show and take out the most players in the tournament then you get entry into the next Sunday Brawl for FREE.

The most knockouts ever in a Sunday Brawl was 22.  This has happened twice, with congratulations going out to jman5j23 and jesseja777. 

If $256 is too much for you, which I’m sure is true for a lot of people, you can try to satellite into the tournament.  Full Tilt runs a ton of satellites throughout the week, so you won’t have any trouble finding one.

Targeted: Anyone who wants to the chance of a big payday for only $22.
Value: No added value
Chance of big payday: First place is almost $20K
Type of Promotion: Guaranteed Tournament
Take Advantage: If you are looking for a chance at a big cash from a small buy-in this is the tournament for you.

Details
The tournament is a $100000 guaranteed multi-table tournament with a buy-in of only $22, running every Sunday at 4:35pm EST.  This means that Full Tilt needs 5000 players in order to reach the guarantee!  There are many satellites running during the week, from as little as $0.60.

This is also a great chance to play some of your favourite Full Tilt pros for small buy-in as there are already 4 pro’s signed up for this Sunday, including Lee Watkinson.

Targeted: All players who are tired of hold’em and omaha and are looking for a new poker variation.
Value: No added value
Chance of big payday: Whatever you put in, determines what you can win
Type of Promotion: New Variation of Draw Poker
Take Advantage: If you are looking for an interesting draw poker game, where big hands are often present, then yes.

Details
32 Card Draw Poker is increasing in popularity across Europe and is now available to be played at Devil Fish Poker.  Only the top half of the deck is used, (7-A), which results in a lot more big hands such as full houses and quads.  All these big hands causes a lot of fast paced action, which makes 32 Card Draw one of the most exciting poker games around. 

There are some rule changes.  The ranking of hands is different than in regular poker, with a flush beating a full house and certain suits being more valuable for flushes than other suites.  There is also an option to offer to split the pot.  Also, (A,7,8,9,10) counts as the lowest straight in 32 Draw Poker.

Here are the hand rankings for 32 Card Draw:
1. Royal Flush
2. Straight Flush
3. Four of a Kind
4. Flush
5. Full House
6. Straight
7. Three of a Kind
8. Two Pair
9. Pair

Suit Rankings
1. Hearts
2. Diamonds
3. Clubs
4. Spades

Overview
32 Card Draw looks to be an exciting form of poker.  I’m definitely going to try it out this Thursday after I play my weekly Devilfish Bounty Tournament.

Details
Satellite qualifiers to the PokerStars Poker Camp are running now until December 27th.  The weekly finals take place Saturdays at 2:30pm EST.  You can win entry into these finals by playing the weekly satellite qualifiers or buy-in direct for $320.
The Poker Camp will be taking place January 5th and 6th at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas.  Greg Raymer will be leading the camp, which will focus on reaching the money in deep stack, multi-table tournaments.  All skill levels will be catered to and the main teaching tool will be live hand analysis.

Overview
PokerStars Poker Camp is sure to be a huge success, as the biggest online poker room knows how to teach and party right.  This camp will be amazing if you are lucky/skilled enough to win a seat.  Learning from some WSOP champions and other PokerStars pros will be worth a lot in your future poker games as well as a great story for your buddies.
Poker won’t be the only thing on your plate over the two days though.  You’ll also have the opportunity to soak up the sun on one of the best resorts in the Bahamas or check out how your favourite pro is doing at the tables of the PokerStars Carribean Adventure.  All in all this will be a great weekend, so I would suggest taking a few stabs at some satellites.  I know I will be.

If you are going to be signing up as a new player at PokerStars be sure to use a PokerStars Marketing Code.  Using a marketing code will ensure that you receive the $50 poker bonus that is available to new players at PokerStars.