US Poker Blog

Happy New Year! I hope you have had a great first half of January so far. If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to use US friendly poker sites, you are in luck because UBOC 6 has arrived. Included in 2011’s UB Online Championship is 29 exciting events including the Championship Event with a $1 million guaranteed prize pool. 29 people will receive an exclusive UBOC watch, and there is even a Tournament of Champions for the winners of UBOC 2010. If you have considered using flash Texas Holdem, there is no better time than now to give it a shot!

January 16th is when things kicked off with the NL Holdem Deep Stack event for $530. If you recently watched a poker video regarding Omaha and were itching to put your new knowledge to use, you didn’t have to wait long since the first PLO event was yesterday. If you like heads-up, you have Event 13 to look forward to, but register as soon as possible because it won’t be possible to register late for this tourney.

To play in a small field with a giant prize pool, check out the High Roller event on January 23rd. You will find the largest prize pool in the Championship Event, though, which has a $1.05k buy-in. If you are inexperienced on the best US poker sites and find that these stakes are way out of your bankroll, you will have several chances to satellite into the events. Step satellites start as low as $0.10.

Another solution for players new to the top Texas Holdem sites is Mini-UBOC. This series mirrors the UBOC events but the buy-ins are much smaller. These tournaments give you the chance to experience the thrill of making a big final table in UBOC without having to risk a large chunk of your bankroll.

Some people have been waiting all year for UBOC, so don’t let this opportunity slip away. If you prefer an Apple computer, you do not have to worry since they made Ultimate Bet for Mac. Good luck winning one of those championship watches!

This was going to be another article about a pro that supports UB, but today Annie Duke announced that she and UB are parting ways. I will, however, still dedicate this article to her since she was such a prominent UB figure for so long, and also because she still openly advocates US friendly poker sites.

Among the most famous lady poker players around today, Duke earned a World Series of Poker bracelet 6 years ago playing Omaha Hi-Low. She was born in New Hampshire with her sister and brother, Howard Lederer. Lederer is actually a Full Tilt download advocate.

Duke’s career with UB started in 2000 and, as stated earlier, ended today. She’s done quite well since she started playing professionally, since she has won over $4 million playing live poker in casinos for USA players. Her highest finish in the WSOP ME was 10th in the year 2000. To make it more impressive, she was pregnant with her third kid at the time! She’s cashed in the WSOP an impressive 37 times for $1.1 million in total cashes, and in 2004 she won $2 million in the WSOP Tournament of Champions. Earlier this year she was the champion in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship for $500k.

Aside from the fact she’s a woman, there are a lot of other reasons Duke is famous in the poker world. In 2004 she tutored Ben Affleck, and then he proceeded to win the California State Poker Championship. It is safe to say that her tutoring was better than any poker video he could have obtained! She was the first poker player to talk on the Colbert Report, she’s appeared on the show 1 vs 100 three times, and she appeared on Deal or No Deal one time. She was even a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in 2009 where she placed 2nd behind Joan Rivers even though she raised three times more in donations for Refugees International, her charity of choice.

Duke proudly supports online casino gambling and player rights. She has a huge problem with the rule that people are not permitted to have logos on their clothes during certain televised live tournaments. In one news article regarding the topic, she is quoted as saying, “We are not even slaves. We’re people paying to pick the cotton.” There’s no doubt that Duke has taken advantage of the fact she’s one of a few women in the game, but she disagrees with the fact that women have their own exclusive tournaments. In her words, “Poker is one of the few sports where a woman can compete on a totally equal footing with a man, so I don’t understand why there’s a ladies only tournament.” Because of this, she refuses to receive hands in women only events.

Annie Duke does a good job representing poker as a whole. When people see her on TV, it encourages them to play on the best US poker sites. Everyone deserves to participate in one of the most competitive games around!

A very famous professional poker player that encourages you to use US friendly poker sites would be Phil Hellmuth, a UB representative that has gained and kept fame due to his World Series of Poker accomplishments and outbursts at the tables. Hellmuth was born in 1964 in Wisconsin where he went to University and eventually learned to play poker. Today Hellmuth has two sons with his wife, Kathy, and they live together in California.

You wouldn’t think it, but people are encouraged to use Ultimate Bet for Mac when they find out that UB’s most prominent spokesman holds so many outstanding records. It’s just amazing to find out that he has earned bracelets in 11 WSOP events, the first won when he was just 24 years old in 1989 and the most recent one won in 2007. He has the record for cashing the WSOP (75) and the highest number of final table appearances (41). He has won a total of $6.1 million in the WSOP, good for 9th on the All Time Money List. It’s interesting to note that Hellmuth has yet to win a World Poker Tour (WPT) MTT in casinos for USA players even though he’s made the final table 3 times. In WPT tournaments he’s cashed 11 times and he has $691k in total winnings. All these accomplishments caused him to be brought into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2007.

While Hellmuth’s tournament success certainly allowed him to become a famous figure in the poker world, he is probably most well known for his antics and tantrums at the tables. Maybe his success has gone to his head a bit because he truly believes he is the best online poker player in the world, and it takes little more than a suck out to have him raging. In the past he’s directed his outbursts to those who benefit from his bad luck, insulting them with childish names and calling them stupid. In 2008 during WSOP he got a penalty because he kept harassing someone after he showed the table that he’d caused Hellmuth to fold a hand preflop with suited rags. His personality and countless shenanigans have earned him the honor of being called “The Poker Brat”.

Leave it to Hellmuth to make money off his nickname, though. You can actually buy clothing or merchandise at www.PokerBrat.com, and if you want to get into his head, you can read his thoughts in the book titled Poker Brat. He is the author of several books, actually, and he has even made the occasional poker video and mobile phone game. He writes about interesting hands in a newspaper column called “Hand of the Week”, and he writes in blogs for both UB and CardPlayer. And with several TV appearances and coaching gigs, it’s clear that Hellmuth is cashing in at more than just playing cards.

Online players, especially American players, get tons of information regarding Full Tilt or PokerStars, but it’s really important to not overlook UB’s site. Join Hellmuth at the tables and earn a deposit bonus if you haven’t already done so. If you strive to one day be as successful as Hellmuth at poker, the best way to practice is by playing in online poker rooms. Be sure to read my first couple entries for more information about the benefits of playing at UB!

To date we’ve gone over the benefits of US friendly poker sites, the UB referral code, how to clear the bonus, and details about their VIP program, RAI$E. Today I intend to talk about tournament poker at UB, particularly the UB Online Championship (UBOC) series. The fourth UBOC was hosted at the start of this year, and over a two week period, 12 events took place.

The players that decided to download free poker at the start of the year definitely benefited from being able to clear their bonus during the tournament series because they were able to play for a total prize pool of over $4 million. However, you weren’t left out if you couldn’t afford the large buy-ins because UB offered Mini-UBOC, a series that had the same events as the regular UBOC but had much smaller buy-ins.

Because UB is among the top Texas Holdem sites there were a lot of Hold Em events, but the folks in charge ensured that UBOC also featured several different types of poker. There were two Pot Limit Omaha events, three mixed game events, and one HORSE event. Hold Em players got to choose from standard full ring games, rebuy events, short handed tournaments, and even a heads-up contest. There was also a special prize to earn: a watch was given to each event’s champion to commemorate the big victory. Most online poker rooms give these special gifts to their winners to to make it similar to the World Series of Poker events.

You could buy-in to events from $109 to $2,600 while event guarantees ranged from $30k to $1 million. Tournament poker pros such as Annie Duke and Brandon Cantu participated by hosting the events, just like the Full Tilt Poker download does with their FTOPS events. The largest first prize won in an event was $361k which was won in the Deepstack No-Limit Hold Em 6-max tournament. That’s a lot of money!

With poker growing more and more every day, you can be assured that UBOC should only get better and better. It might seem like forever before the next series is announced, but at least it will give you time to make that UB download if you haven’t already done so. If you would like to know why you should try Ultimate Bet for Mac, please check out my previous articles for reasons explaining why it could benefit you to do so. Until next time, good luck at the tables!

Welcome back! This time I intend to provide details on the VIP program on UB, one of the largest US friendly poker sites. Previously I said that you receive Status Points to earn your deposit bonus, but you’ll also be eligible for so much more than that because of the RAI$E program. As an overview, the VIP program has five levels and the highest levels receive the best rewards. Unlike with the Everest Poker download, you are automatically a member of the program when you join UB.

Level 1, where you start off, makes you an Ultimate Member. Ultimate Members receive some benefits such as a periodic reload bonus and entries to freerolls. You’ll also have the option to refer a friend to the site and earn an additional $75 bonus. These little extras are great as freebies, but as with the VIP program on the PokerStars download, you should definitely earn Status Points sooner than later. This is because being an Ultimate Member is pretty disappointing when you compare it to higher levels.

If you earn 50 Status Points in one month, you become an Ultimate Player. Level 2 allows you to keep the Ultimate Member perks such as the refer-a-friend bonus, but then you get a few extras. Number one, you get an UltimatePoints multiplier that multiplies the number of Status Points you are provided by two so that you can accumulate points faster. Similar to the points you collect when you download Full Tilt Poker, you can use your Status Points at the UltimatePoints Store for some goodies If you decide that you want to save some points up for something special in the store, you also have the option to play UltimatePoints tournaments to try to win even more Points.

You become an Ultimate Contender at 500 Status Points, and Points can now be redeemed for up to $50 cash per month. If you have played on PokerStars, you will see that they have cash bonuses that are similar to this. Your UltimatePoints multiplier raises to three and now you can buy special items from the store that you didn’t have access to at Level 2.

To reach Level 4 and become an Ultimate Legend, you must earn 2,500 Status Points per month. You must play several hands to reach this level, but you will agree that the benefits do well to reward the best online poker players. Not only does your UltimatePoints multiplier increase to four, you get an extra 10% off in the store to boot. The amount of cash you can receive for Points increases from $50 to $250. Furthermore, Ultimate Legends also have access to a VIP host, a personal concierge, and exclusive freeroll entries. You might even be invited to participate in a special auction or you’ll be given a special VIP treat.

For the greatest benefits possible, you’ll need to become an Ultimate Icon. You’ll need to earn 10,000 Status Points per month on this poker flash site, but the work will be worth it. First off, you receive a multiplier of five for your UltimatePoints and you are able to get up to $1,000 per month for your Points. For account balances over $1,000, you receive a 9% interest rate on the money. If that isn’t enough, UB will ask you to represent them by playing in tournaments around the world such as the WPT! You should find it pretty tough to get perks superior to these in other flash compatible casinos. You are required to earn an average of 10,000 Status Points for 6 months before you become an Ultimate Icon, and then you need to maintain this average to remain at Level 5.

UB offers this VIP program to say thanks to the people that play there all the time and to entice new players to play at UB. It’s important to realize that reaching Level 5 is extremely difficult and time consuming. If you strive to reach Level 5 as a low stakes player, you’ll probably need to concentrate all of your playing time at UB so that you can earn the maximum number of points. You might not have time to download Roulette if you want to become an Ultimate Icon. If you can reach the top level, though, you’ve seen that it’s well worth it.

For my first entry, I offered an overview of one of the US friendly poker sites, UB. I talked about their player base and VIP program, but probably most significantly, I told you about the UB referral code. If you use a UB referral code, you can obtain a very generous deposit bonus. Now I would like to teach you how to clear this bonus because it might not be as easy as when you cleared your Bingo codes.

Here’s the basic info. The first thing you’ll do is get your computer to download free poker from UB’s website. After you’ve got the software running, you have access to the cashier. When you make your beginning real-money deposit, UBPoker gives you bonus dollars equal to 111% of the currency you deposited, up to $1100. These extra funds are not yet released. In order to use your bonus dollars, you need to earn Status Points. These points are almost the same as VPPs from the PokerStars rakeback program. You receive Points by receiving hands in real cash games, whether it be ring games or tournament poker.

These next paragraphs describe, in detail, how the bonus clearing works. It is very similar to when you use a Full Tilt Poker bonus code. For a group of 20 Status Points that you get, $1 of your bonus money is let go. 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 need to acquire 22,000 status points to release the full $1100. There is one problem, though: you are only allowed 60 days to clear all of your bonus dollars before you forfeit the ones that stay unreleased.

The next question is how do you obtain these Status Points? For tourneys, you win one status point for any $0.30 of entry fee (so in a $30+3 tournament, you’d receive 10 status points). Like many money poker sites, the Points you earn in ring games depends on the stakes you play. Here is a chart to help out:

No Limit
$0.01/0.02 - 1 point per 15 hands
$0.02/0.04 - 1 point for every 10 hands
$0.05/0.10 - 1 point per 10 hands
$0.10/0.25 - 1 point for every 5 hands
$0.25/0.50 - 1 point for every 3 hands
$0.50/1.00 - 1 point for every 2 hands
$1.00/2.00 - 1 point per hand
$2.00/4.00 through $5.00/10.00 - 1.5 points per hand
$10.00/20.00 and higher - 2 points apiece per hand

Limit
$0.01/0.02 - 1 point for every 20 hands
$0.02/0.04 - 1 point for each 20 hands
$0.05/0.10 - 1 point for every 15 hands
$0.10/0.20 - 1 point for every 15 hands
$0.25/0.50 - 1 point for every 10 hands
$0.50/1.00 - 1 point apiece per 5 hands
$1.00/2.00 - 1 point per 2 hands
$2.00/4.00 - 1 point for every hand
$3.00/6.00 - 1.5 points for every hand
$4.00/8.00 and up - 2 points apiece per hand

So, in essence, you’d have to participate in 22,000 hands of $1.00/2.00 no-limit poker within 60 days to be able to clear the full $1100 bonus. If you’re playing lower stakes like $0.10/0.25, you’d have to see 110,000 hands. When you think about the bonuses on the best US poker sites, this actually isn’t too bad. The good news is that because you get the money in $5 allotments, you can deposit as much as you want and not really have to worry about being unable to clear the bonus. You might not get all of it, but some free money is always better than nothing.

And finally, I’d like to end with some caution: especially for the beginner player, the temptation to try to earn these extra funds quicker by gambling with higher stakes is always present. Do not forget your bankroll management! At small stakes the UB deposit bonus is more tedious than any Roulette bonus, but trying to gamble higher than your bankroll can handle will almost certainly hurt you more than it will aid you when it’s all said and done.

Welcome to my new blog! You will quickly learn that I am a huge poker fan as that is pretty much all I will write about. I live in Canada, so I mostly play on US friendly poker sites. Today I am going to tell you about UB and go over their rewards program and player base.

UB’s VIP program releases your UB bonuses while also granting you additional rewards. The “RAI$E” points system allows you to collect points which get you bonuses for reloads and for the month, just like some of the other download free poker sites. If you reach the most exclusive status level by earning 10,000 points per month, you receive the best cash bonuses, discounts on store merchandise, 9% interest on account balances greater than $1,000, and even trips to live poker events! You don’t get 9% interest for leaving your money in a Fulltiltpoker download! Climbing the status ladder can yield some fantastic benefits.

Like many other poker sites, UB isn’t blessed with the same traffic as the PokerStars download, but there are still a number of players to be found at the site. The CEREUS Poker Network is the third largest in the world, due largely to the fact that it’s still one of the best US poker sites. Whether you play ring games, heads-up tournaments, or multi-table tournament poker, you’ll find a bunch of tables if you play small or medium stakes. One slight problem is that if you’re looking for some high to nose bleed stakes, sometimes you might be waiting a while for some action.

Altogether, if you’re wanting to play a bunch of poker hands at low to medium stakes and you don’t need free poker no downloads, UB is one of the best online. Grind out your deposit bonus, earn tons of Status Points, and you’ll be rolling in the dough playing the games on UB in no time!