The current Blackchip poker code, open to US players, is a 150% match on your first deposit, as opposed to the standard 100%. This means that to get the $750 maximum bonus, you don’t need to deposit $750, only $500.

And if you think that looks appealing, at 5 Dimes the bonuses are exponentially higher. The welcome bonus at this site may only be 50%, but you get it three times, not just once, on your first 3 deposits. And the potential maximum is increased tenfold, with $2,000 available from the first deposit, $1,000 from the second deposit and $2,000 again from the third deposit.

Since welcome bonuses are only awarded once, when you first join a site, it pays to be prepared ahead of time before you join, armed with the right referral code for the best possible welcome bonus currently available to you. The Blackchip Poker Bonus for example, is for a 150% match on your starting deposit, up to a maximum bonus of $750.

Shinepoker.com aims to provide you with the most updated referral codes available for each of the best poker sites online.

As with many similar programs offered at other poker sites, the Bet365 Poker VIP Loyalty Rewards Program divides players into 5 different tiers, each with increasingly more valuable rewards and benefits. Every player starts off at the bottom tier and works their way up the ladder. The tiers of the Bet365 VIP Loyalty Rewards Program are: Bronze VIP, Silver VIP, Gold VIP, Platinum VIP, and Diamond VIP.

One of the nicest rewards the program offers is Points to Cash, giving cash bonuses to players in exchange for points. The amount of points it takes to earn cash varies from tier to tier, with less points required at higher levels to earn equivalent cash bonuses.

The first way to know if you can trust online poker site reviews is if they categorize their rankings based on different criteria and evaluate each of those criteria individually, including giving both praise and criticisms when they’re due. Online poker site reviews that give general praise for every quality of a site aren’t very helpful. But if a review tells you, for example, that a particular site has great bonuses and promotions but not a lot of competition at a stakes level that you’re interested in, that tells you information you can use.

Cake Poker satellites into the 2010 English Poker Open will run at 4 pm ET every Sunday. At each of these, at least one English Poker Open prize package will be awarded worth $7,000 that includes the $5,000 + $350 buy-in into the 2010 English Poker Open Main Event, $1,650 cash for travel and hotel expenses, a ticket to the private English Poker Open Welcome Party on September 10, and an Official Team Cake gear pack.

The English Poker Open is a perfect opportunity to sharpen your skills for late September’s World Series of Poker Europe. The guaranteed prize pool at the 2010 English Poker Open is $1 million.

Daily $3.30 English Poker Open Satellites and $5.50 Satellite R&A (rebuy and add-on) tournaments seed players into daily $27 English Poker Open Semi Finals which in turn seed players into the weekly $268 English Poker Open $7K Final in which Cake Poker awards the actual prize packages.