Info about the UB Bonus
In my last entry, I provided an overview of one of the legal US poker sites, UB. I discussed their player traffic and rewards program, but probably most significantly, I introduced the UB referral code. You need to have a UB referral code because that way you can grind out a helpful deposit bonus. The following entry will discuss how to clear this bonus because while it’s nice to think you’re getting some free money, it’s usually important to know what you’re getting into before you start the clearing process.
Here’s the simple info. The first thing you’ll do is get your computer to make a UB download. After you’ve got the software running, you have access to the cashier. When you make your beginning real-money deposit, UB gives you additional dollars equal to 111% of the money you put in, up to $1100. These bonus dollars are not yet yours to keep. In order to use your bonus dollars, you need to earn Status Points. This will need to be done by playing poker hands in real cash games, whether it be cash or MTT poker.
Now you will see how the UB bonus clearing works. For any 20 Status Points that you acquire, $1 of your bonus cash is given out. Any time you get 100 status points, you get a deposit of $5 into your account. If you make a beginning deposit of $1000 (and thus receive $1100 additional dollars), you have to pick up 22,000 status points to free the full $1100. One thing to keep in mind: there are only 60 days to clear all of your bonus dollars before you forfeit the ones that stay unreleased.
You might be asking how Status Points are accumulated? For tournaments, you win one status point for any $0.30 of entry fee (so in a $30+3 tournament, you’d get 10 status points). For ring games, you get Status Points according to the stakes you’re playing. This chart shows how the points are dished out:
No Limit
$0.01/0.02 - 1 point apiece per 15 hands
$0.02/0.04 - 1 point for each 10 hands
$0.05/0.10 - 1 point for each 10 hands
$0.10/0.25 - 1 point for every 5 hands
$0.25/0.50 - 1 point per 3 hands
$0.50/1.00 - 1 point for every 2 hands
$1.00/2.00 - 1 point for each hand
$2.00/4.00 through $5.00/10.00 - 1.5 points apiece per hand
$10.00/20.00 and higher - 2 points per hand
Limit
$0.01/0.02 - 1 point for every 20 hands
$0.02/0.04 - 1 point apiece per 20 hands
$0.05/0.10 - 1 point for every 15 hands
$0.10/0.20 - 1 point for each 15 hands
$0.25/0.50 - 1 point for every 10 hands
$0.50/1.00 - 1 point for every 5 hands
$1.00/2.00 - 1 point per 2 hands
$2.00/4.00 - 1 point apiece per hand
$3.00/6.00 - 1.5 points per hand
$4.00/8.00 and up - 2 points per hand
So, for instance, you’d have to participate in 22,000 hands of $1.00/2.00 no-limit poker within 60 days to clear the full $1100 bonus. If you’re playing lower stakes like $0.10/0.25, you’d need to participate in 110,000 poker hands. If you think that you can do this, then Ultimate Bet clearly proposes a lucrative bonus option for you. Something that should really help the lower stake players is that because you get the bonus in $5 increments, you can deposit as much as you desire and not really have to worry that you can’t earn the entire bonus. You might not get the maximum value, but some free cash is of course better than nothing.
Lastly, here is a word of caution: especially for the beginner player, the temptation to attempt to clear the extra cash faster by playing higher stakes is always present. Don’t lose sight of bankroll management! When you’re at low stakes, the UB bonus can be tedious to grind out, but attempting to gamble higher than your bankroll will allow will almost always hurt you more than it will benefit you in the end.
