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yo dawg, way to go with the late response.... you are a year too late

thats how i roll

is anyone making a lot of money on carbon poker like a decent living like 20k/yr consistently?
it is not as good as stars or what AP was or Titan.... are there any better sites open to US players like Cake?

I am wondering this also. If so, what stakes/number of tables/hours a week?

at FR NL10 everyone is 33VPIP or lower it seems, there are no fishes
and the HUSNGs are not soft, 9328 players online now at 10pm
is cake better or everleaf? maybe you can only make money on carbon if you are a highstakes player?

the hand strength display already raises the level of all the fishes

Cake Poker I believe is letting you use a HUD now because they have new owners. Also I think with Cake you can make online deposits straight into your account, however their minimum deposit is $500. Their support team is really good and answer your questions really fast.

I have cashed out several times, I consider them to be mostly reliable, although it can take a long time, once it took me about 4 months because processing was slow and the check bounced, so I had to order another.
Play @ your own risk tho

I can't get any value from bets, everyone is super suspicious vs me even though I was playing fairly loose at NL10. it seems like everyone is a reg there

Merge network (which Carbon is on) has been the most reg-infested network since Black Friday. I only play on there occasionally to practice playing tourneys, since they have the best MTT and SNG traffic. Cash is not very profitable.

Cake Poker I believe is letting you use a HUD now because they have new owners. Also I think with Cake you can make online deposits straight into your account, however their minimum deposit is $500. Their support team is really good and answer your questions really fast.

Do NOT play on the Cake skin. There are guys waiting 6 months for checks and then having them bounce. Just play on Lock Poker or Intertops (which are on the same network, Revolution, fortmerly known as Cake network); Lock has the best promos by a mile, and Intertops has super-fast cashouts (like a week). neither of those other skins have the $500 minimum, either, that is ONLY the Cake skin. cake is the absolute worst poker room in the US and should be avoid at all costs.

is cake better or everleaf?

Neither, they are both awful. Everleaf are confirmed scammers. They have not paid their US players after freezing their players' funds, including me.

See recommendations above.

If Cake and Carbon are both bad, what poker rooms do you recommend for U.S. players like myself...I played on Cake but have stopped.....

Merge/Carbon is by far the best option IMO. Reg infested yes, but just learn to beat reg's and you're fine...there is a difference between a good reg and a bad reg.

There seems to be so many different opinions on which is the best US room. For example, even if Carbon has a larger player base, there is no point in playing if you never can cashout. Especially if your check bounces as one of the users pointed out.

Is Lock Poker the best room to use? I thought it was on the Merge network...

Also, I had thought that playing poker online in the US was legal; I had heard this from a very reliable source who included a legal opinion. Is this true? By the way some people talk they make it sound like it is illegal or that the US DoJ will just kick the sites out and never reimburse US players of their funds.

There seems to be so many different opinions on which is the best US room. For example, even if Carbon has a larger player base, there is no point in playing if you never can cashout. Especially if your check bounces as one of the users pointed out.

Is Lock Poker the best room to use? I thought it was on the Merge network...

Also, I had thought that playing poker online in the US was legal; I had heard this from a very reliable source who included a legal opinion. Is this true? By the way some people talk they make it sound like it is illegal or that the US DoJ will just kick the sites out and never reimburse US players of their funds.

It's legal. It could even get legaler soon as Nevada is planning on opening they're own online poker rooms by the end of the year.

I know legaler is not a word because it has that red squiggly line under it

http://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-regulation/south-point-aims-to-be-first-to-offer-online-poker-in-nevada/

Lock (Revolution I guess) Poker and Merge didn't play nice (Merge cancelled one of Locks tournaments) so Lock gave them the finger, bought the Cake network, and stopped crediting player deposits:

http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room-news/deposit-problems-lock-lead-calls-boycott/

In all seriousness, I have money on both networks (Cake and Carbon). The traffic has jumped on the Cake/Revolution network since the Lock shakeup, but they seem to have more withdraw problems and longer waits than Carbon. I can't speak for the Lock skin as I never used them.

I would say stick with Merge (Carbon) but I expect the best US facing poker room to play on will change by the end of 2013. My advice would be, don't deposit more than you can afford to lose and be flexible if a better opportunity comes around.

It's legal. It could even get legaler soon as Nevada is planning on opening they're own online poker rooms by the end of the year.

I know legaler is not a word because it has that red squiggly line under it

http://pokerfuse.com/news/law-and-regulation/south-point-aims-to-be-first-to-offer-online-poker-in-nevada/

Lock (Revolution I guess) Poker and Merge didn't play nice (Merge cancelled one of Locks tournaments) so Lock gave them the finger, bought the Cake network, and stopped crediting player deposits:

http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room-news/deposit-problems-lock-lead-calls-boycott/

In all seriousness, I have money on both networks (Cake and Carbon). The traffic has jumped on the Cake/Revolution network since the Lock shakeup, but they seem to have more withdraw problems and longer waits than Carbon. I can't speak for the Lock skin as I never used them.

I would say stick with Merge (Carbon) but I expect the best US facing poker room to play on will change by the end of 2013. My advice would be, don't deposit more than you can afford to lose and be flexible if a better opportunity comes around.

Thank you very much for the info, that was very helpful. I live in California so the Nevada issue luckily doesn't affect me.

I will definitely avoid Lock if they won't even credit deposits. That being said, I guess Carbon is my best bet. I will be depositing a minimal amount since I am just starting, so is it even worth it to sign up for rakeback? How do I do it/should I do it through DC?

Also, I saw that banks aren't supposed to deal with online gambling sites. Is this correct? If so, does this mean I cannot use a Visa Debit card or Visa Credit card that is through a US bank (Wells Fargo)?

I will be depositing a minimal amount since I am just starting, so is it even worth it to sign up for rakeback? How do I do it/should I do it through DC?

Absolutely sign up for rakeback. You usually can't get it if you sign up without it and decide you want it later. DC has a fine affiliate. If you plan on ever taking advantage of their free subscription offer, definitely use them.

Also, I saw that banks aren't supposed to deal with online gambling sites. Is this correct? If so, does this mean I cannot use a Visa Debit card or Visa Credit card that is through a US bank (Wells Fargo)?

I had to deposit through western union. I think you still have to go through them but I'm not sure. I deposited the April after black friday. If you contact their support I'm sure they'll help.

Absolutely sign up for rakeback. You usually can't get it if you sign up without it and decide you want it later. DC has a fine affiliate. If you plan on ever taking advantage of their free subscription offer, definitely use them.



I had to deposit through western union. I think you still have to go through them but I'm not sure. I deposited the April after black friday. If you contact their support I'm sure they'll help.

I wound up signing up for rakeback, but I do not know if I can get the bonus subscription as well since I clicked on the bottom link (the one without the bonus for DC) on the rakeback site. I actually wound up just going ahead and depositing with my Visa credit card from Wells Fargo last night and it seemed fine, I just had to go through an affiliate and keep re-entering my info; in the end I did get the 20 dollars though. The weird thing is, my credit card never got charged; it may just be delayed since I sent it last night.

On an unrelated note, my first time playing poker online for real money wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be; to be honest I didn't have much fun. I've read a lot of Hold'em strategy articles, but since I was playing micro stakes I do not know how much of it I could use. It was weird, it seemed like almost every player at the table played tight aggressive or (to a lesser degree) tight passive most of the time. I did have one good moment when I hit a straight right off the flop and my opponent decided to make me go all in with his top pair top kicker haha.

I think I may just need to multi-table; I've practiced it a little with play money and I can do it decently well. I think it will also help me play better ABC poker in that I don't keep calling pre-flop with anything less than a strong hand (unless I have good position).

Also, I had thought that playing poker online in the US was legal; I had heard this from a very reliable source who included a legal opinion. Is this true? By the way some people talk they make it sound like it is illegal or that the US DoJ will just kick the sites out and never reimburse US players of their funds.

The US government is pretty much corrupt and makes the rules up as they go along, and not necessarily according to the laws, they know they can shake FTP/Stars down for money, and can extort money weather or not it is legal for them to do so, since the government has basically set itself up where it can break its own laws if it benefits them or if they think they can get away with it(illegal wire tapping, police brutality, fast and furious, the torture scandal, war criminal/ military dictator-style presidents like bush/obama, waco, drone strike assassinations, illegal wars, blah blah etc ad nauseum)

is Carbon the most profitable US room at lower stakes? is Cake any better? there's 11k traffic on now on Carbon but the games seem pretty nitty, very little action even in 6 max

I played on Carbon about a year or so ago and it stunk - $4NL seemed like $50NL was on Stars before Black Friday. Has that changed? I have the itch to play again, but if it's still bad, I don't want to get my hopes up.

There's a LOT going on right now with rumors of several Merge skins moving. One of the skins is BCP, which I know was one of the biggest skins giving huge RB deals (I along with several of my friends were offered them privately), so if this skin moves so will a lot of the big grinders, which will probably make Merge a bit softer, FWIW.

In any case, you may just want to wait on the sidelines until the dust settles and see what happens the next month or so before committing to a specific site.

BCP is definitely moving. The announcement will be made at any time now. It's hard to say what is going to happen with RPM and Hero. Unlike BCP both of those skins are in good standing with Merge. Some of the skins have been damaged by the poaching that was going on though. I think that it may have been the affiliates more than BCP that was guilty of much of the poaching. Yeah, they did target big grinders.

I still think that Carbon is the best choice.

It seems like one of the keys to having a good/softer site is a lot of players, right? If a skin was moving, wouldn't that be a bad thing? I already have some money on Carbon. I just thought the state of the games for American players was dismal and got frustrated and stopped playing. I was hoping maybe it got better while I was away, but logically I don't see why it would have.

Not necessarily, the absence of grinders is a lot more important than traffic. PPN for instance, has a piddly little player pool, and I am told it is extremely soft. Everleaf was also very soft, and it probably had the worst traffic of any US-friendly site prior to PPN.

The rumor is that BCP is going to WPN. Some people are going to like it, some people aren't. If you're playing any kind of decent volume, the atrocious software and BBJ rake is going to frustrate you (according to my stats, factoring in the additional BBJ rake I pay almost double in rake compared to other sites at 10 and 25NL). To make matters worse, HEM2 does not work with any skin on the Winning Poker Network, you MUST use PT3 or PT4 (and even those are buggy). So yeah, you may want to consider staying at Carbon or another Merge skin.