Starting an Online poker account

There are a few things that you need to make sure that you do if you want to create an account to play poker online:

1.  Get referred by someone who already has an account.  This will get both you and the other person a referral bonus.

2.  Make sure you sign up for rakeback BEFORE you deposite any money!  raketherake.com is a good place to go for this.  Rakeback programs give you back some percent of the rake that you play to the site you're playing on back.  In the case of FullTilt for instance, you can get 27% of the rake that you pay back.  This really adds up if you play a decent amount online.  For instance, I have paid ~$4600 in rake to FullTilt so far.  If I had had the foresight to sign up, I would be $1200 richer.  Don't make the mistake that I did of not getting rakeback!

3.  Play at stakes within your bankroll.  This is basic bankroll management, but it is important if you don't want to go broke.  More on this in later posts.