Wherever I play poker, I hear constantly two words „rake back” (commission return). Rake back includes the return of the part of your commission (usually20-40%, but it can be much more) that will be paid back to your account. It is a good solution if you play average or big stakes. However, if you prefer playing on lower limits the best solution is to collect the vouchers. Looking for new vouchers is of special importance to me, because thanks to this strategy I could resign from my job and start playing poker professionally.

The money I earned by collecting vouchers, enrolling for different tournaments and reloading vouchers on thousands of internet websites make it possible for me to get an average “salary” of $24/h during the first year of my “professional” career. It is definitely more than many hard working people can normally earn. Although vouchers’ hunting is not an easy task, with time it becomes just an everyday routine. Additionally, by vouchers hunting you can learn many new things and improve your strategy. I have started vouchers’ hunting two years ago with an investment of $100 and after a year my capital was sufficient to play for average stakes (5/10 and 10/20). Then I started to invest even more in rake back, because its value significantly increased my welfare.

However, as long as you play lower limits you do not have to be concerned about rake back. First, you should see to the vouchers you may collect. Their value can be very high, so it is really worth to collect them. At the end of this article, I will compare the value of a rake back with this of a voucher. However, let us first start with basics.

The best strategy to get a nice voucher’s value:

You can get a voucher playing almost every limit with exception of micro-limit. However, the best way to get a voucher is to play Limit Holdem $1/$2 6-max. You can unblock a voucher playing Holdem without limit; however, it is not so advantageous like playing with limit.  Of course, the more you play the faster you will be able to unblock the voucher. In this way your earnings increase. In Holdem, you may play multi-table games with more players than in short – handed games.

However, the more players sit by a table the less deals can be played in an hour, what lessens your chances for earning a lot of money.  The more deals in an hour the better the chance to get a voucher. The best limit to play poker is $1/$2, although you can get some vouchers playing only $0.50/$1 limit. However, the $1/$2  limit is usually better to get the full quote of voucher.

To be a good vouchers’ hunter you should concentrate on improving your skills in short - handed Limit $1/$2 games or in multi-tabled games. In the end of the first year of my career, I was able to play ten tables simultaneously with six players each table to win a Party Poker reload voucher. You will see how fast your skills will improve. However, do not exaggerate at the beginning- choose the number of tables you are able to handle with at the sae time. If you have the impression that you could play one table more do not hesitate. Just try! After a while, you will see how easy it is to play many tables.

Expected earnings:

You may hunt the vouchers and by that earn a lot of money, even if you do not win deals. To show you how to make even more money playing multi-tables, each table with six players we will introduce some mathematics. If you are a 2bb/100 player with the limit of $1/$2, you will earn $4 per 100 deals. A hundred is an average number of deals if you play with six persons by the table. However, if you play five tables simultaneously, you can earn up to $20 per hour, not including the voucher’s value. Using Party Poker as an example, we know that the voucher for entering the game amount to $100, with conversion rate of 7, what gives us 700 deals.

This number, 700, is necessary to come up to the value of 100. Therefore, as you can see, it is a lot of work. Overall, you need approximately 3 hours to get the voucher. It means that you earn no more $20/h, but $50/h. It is rather complicated mathematical calculation, but it helps you to understand the importance of vouchers. If you want to hunt vouchers efficiently, you should come to the earning of $50/h. However, you will not earn that money as long as you do not learn playing five tables’ game with six other players with the limit of $1/$2. It should not take too much time, to learn it.

Of course, not all vouchers are equally profitable, and it is not always possible to play five tables simultaneously. Party Poker is a good business, if you want to earn a lot of money. Because of these obstacles, you will earn around $25-$40. However, it is not bad, either. Finally, you will ear more than a professional player, who plays limits, 15/30, although you invest only $1/$2.

Bonuses’ hunting versus Rake back

According to the statistics coming from the programme Poker Tracker playing $1/$2 stakes I paid $180 commission’ fee in less than 3000 deals. Standard rake back amounts to 25%, which gives only $45. If I wanted to get a voucher with conversion rate of seven, I would earn approximately $300-$400 after the same number of 3000 deals. It brings you to the simple conclusion that vouchers are more profitable than a rake back.  

Short explanation: the example above is not reliable. The number of observations does not allow coming to this conclusion.  This example should just help you to understand that vouchers’ hunting is always better than rake back. You do not have to think about rake back, as long as you do not play 5/10 or 10/20 stakes.

I wanted to add that in those 3000 deals I had 4.5bb/100, what was a great result for me, even playing $1/$2 6-max. However, even if I had worked on a conversion rate of 10, I would not have earned more from vouchers than from an authentic winning of deals.