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Eric Baldwin

If you’re looking to download free poker but you can’t decide between all the US poker sites, I’ll introduce you to Eric Baldwin, another UB representative. The 27 year old poker player has had great success with tournament poker since he turned pro. He was born in WI, so it makes sense that he went to the University of Wisconsin for a Psychology degree with a minor in Mathematics. He currently lives in Las Vegas.

Baldwin sometimes plays tournaments on the best US poker sites, but he became famous due to live poker where he has over $3 million in cashes. He won a bracelet and $522k back in WSOP 2009 in Event 34, a $1.5k buy-in. He did quite well in this year’s WSOP as well, although he did not win another bracelet. He had his best cash in the Main Event where he placed 59th and received $138k in return.

This young tournament star can also be found playing the big WPT events. In late 2009 he won an event in the Five Diamond World Poker Classic for $256,660. In August 2009 he placed 3rd in a Legends of Poker event, and in 2008 he won Event 2 in the Five Star World Classic Poker Classic for $148,860. I wonder if Baldwin ever makes a free slots download to get his mind off the pressure of playing tournaments?

Since he is a UB spokesman, Baldwin spends the rest of his working hours on top Texas Hold'em sites. According to Baldwin, the main difference between online and live games is that online games are much more aggressive preflop. He tries to earn most of his chips without showdown when he plays online in comparison to live where he will attempt to see many pots multi-way and win chips that way.

Baldwin was the Card Player 2009 “Player of the Year”, so he is obviously doing something right when it comes to poker. When you first get into money poker sites, be sure to go through all your options. An Everest Poker download has some good features, but as you’ve seen from my previous articles, UB is a great site too.

Brandon Cantu

Brandon Cantu is yet another member of the UB team that would encourage you to download free poker from the UB site. After Cantu learned to play poker in Washington from his grandfather, he got dealt hands in Oregon casinos. He currently lives in Las Vegas since he can easily get to casinos for US players there.

Cantu got the idea to become a professional player in 2006 in Vegas once he won over $750k for 1st place in a WSOP event. An interesting fact about that bracelet win is that it was his very first major tournament. It certainly wasn’t his last, though! He has done quite well in US poker rooms. Where WSOP is concerned, he won a second bracelet in 2009 in Event 48, a PLO tournament, for $228,967. His PLO win came a few days after a 2nd place finish in Event 39. He earned an impressive $403,951 in that NLHE event. His best showing in the Main Event was 2 years back when he was 20th for $257,334.

He also has three cashes in the World Poker Tour including his first WPT title in the Bay 101 Shooting Star championship for $1 million. In that tournament he also busted 6 bounty players good for $5k a piece! As such, he got the nickname “The Bounty Hunter”. It would make sense if the six people he busted during that event wished he played flash Texas Holdem for a living instead!

Cantu’s live tournament cashes add up to over $3.4 million. He is also a UB pro, however, so it’s natural to be curious about his results in online casinos for USA players. It might be surprising to find out that he doesn’t play on money poker sites that often – he definitely prefers live poker. When he does play, though, it’s obviously mostly on UB. His UB screen name is “brandoncantu”, and he enters MTTs and high stakes cash games.

If you asked Cantu how you can see better tournaments results, he would tell you to be more aggressive. If you aspire to challenge him in the WSOP one day, you definitely shouldn’t download free casino games. Instead, make an account at UB and start practicing your tournament game!

Tiffany Michelle

Looks like it’s time for another blog entry! I’d like to discuss another promoter of the UB bonus, this time Tiffany Michelle. Michelle went pro a mere 4 years ago, but she has quickly risen in popularity due to her tournament success (plus being easy on the eyes doesn’t hurt, either). She broke the record for the biggest tournament field ever conquered by a lady after finishing 17 out of 6,844 in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. Since she wore a UB patch during her WSOP run, she’s pretty much been endorsing the UB bonus since 2008.

The 25 year old female player was born in Los Angeles. She went to school at UCLA where she finished a theatre program, and she has acted on a few different TV shows like ER and The Amazing Race. Her resume also features song writing and a beauty pageant win. She was quick to seek further attention after she discovered cards on US poker sites. Sirius Satellite Radio featured her as a host for WSOP coverage, and then PokerNews hired her to host tournaments.

Michelle can be seen playing tournaments of all stakes on her UB download. While she likes bounty tournaments the best, she’s also partial to deep stack events. Because she prefers deep chip stacks, it’s not a big shock to learn that she also participates in cash games. She spends a lot of time receiving Texas Hold Em hands at the 200NL to 600NL buy-ins.

It’s no doubt that she got lucky to go so far in the WSOP, and she has worked hard to stay prominent in the poker world. Back in 2008 we spent a lot of time wondering why she wanted to endorse UB rather than a Full Tilt Poker download, but it looks like it worked out just fine for her. She has a lot of work ahead of her before she makes it into the poker elite, but she has an entire career in which to accomplish it.

Joe Sebok

Today’s update will feature Joe Sebok, another poker professional that endorses a UB bonus. If you don’t recognize Sebok, you should have heard of his stepfather, Barry Greenstein. Originally from San Francisco, Sebok started playing professionally around five years ago. He has been endorsing the UB bonus since late 2009.

Tournaments are Sebok’s bread and butter, and his live tournament winnings total almost $2 million. Although he’s never won a WSOP bracelet, he’s cashed 15 times to date. His highest finish in the Main Event was 56th just last year. Seeing as he’s primarily a tournament player, you have to wonder whether or not he tries MTTs on a Full Tilt Poker download or uses a PokerStars bonus code from time to time. Since he’s a UB pro, he’ll definitely never disclose that information to the public!

Sebok has gotten quite involved in the poker community. He created PokerRoad.com with Greenstein, a site that has blogs, radio, and TV all related to poker. Gavin Smith, another professional player, helps him host the PokerRoad Radio. Perhaps you’ve seen the Internet show “Prop Bets”, a show in which Sebok and Smith compete against each other in random prop bets in things like mechanical bull riding and belly slapping. This show developed from the prop bet that Sebok lost to Smith that caused Sebok to wear three costumes to the WSOP ME in 2006, including a bear with a diaper, Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman. He definitely doesn’t lead a normal life, and it’s pretty clear that Sebok does not always use poker downloads and MTTs to rake in the dough.

Sebok is only in his thirties, and there’s probably a lot more to come as the years continue to roll on. He’s only just started his poker career, and it’s not a stretch to believe that he will win a WSOP title in the near future. He played on internet sites when he first started playing poker, and you should do the same if you’re determined to become a better player. However, Sebok would encourage you to forget everything you've heard about a Carbon Poker download or a Bodog bonus. UB is where it's at!

Annie Duke

Last entry I described Phil Hellmuth because he is a professional player that would encourage a UB bonus, and now I will tell you about Annie Duke, another UB spokesperson. One of the most prominent lady poker pros in the world, Duke earned a World Series of Poker title six years back in an Omaha event. She was born in New Hampshire and has a brother, a sister, and three children.

Duke has been representing UB and the UB bonus for 10 years now. She’s done quite well since she started playing professionally, seeing as her live MTT poker winnings total over $4 million. Her most successful finish in the WSOP ME was 10th in 2000, the year she started with UB and the year she also had her 3rd child. She’s placed in the money in the WSOP 37 times for a total of $1.1 million, and she won $2 million in the WSOP Tournament of Champions back in 2004.

Duke isn’t well known in the poker community just because she’s a female poker player. She tutored Ben Affleck to poker success in 2004 when he won the California State Poker Championship. She was the first poker player to talk on the Colbert Report, the game show 1 vs 100 was lucky enough to have her appear 3 times, and she must like game shows because she also showed up on Deal or No Deal once. She is also well known for participating in Celebrity Apprentice a year ago where she came second behind Joan Rivers despite the fact that she collected three times more in donations for her charity, Refugees International. Add the fact that she also participates on UB’s Best Damn Poker Show, and it’s amazing she ever has any time for poker hands.

Duke proudly supports American poker online, and she speaks up when she thinks something is wrong. She publically dislikes the rule that players are not free to have logos on their clothes during some live events. 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.” Duke of course knows that she’s one of a few women in her industry, but she disagrees with the fact that women have their own exclusive tournaments. Her opinion on the subject: "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." It doesn’t come as a surprise that as a result, she passes up any opportunity to sit in women’s only MTTs.

Annie Duke is a good spokesperson for both UB and poker in general. It’s my hope that she will encourage more men and women alike to play on legal US poker sites and enjoy one of the best games around. You can join her at the tables on UB – make a UB download today!

The Poker Brat

A very famous pro poker player that would favor a UB bonus over others would be Phil Hellmuth, a UB spokesman famous in the poker world for his ridiculous table antics and multiple World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets. Hellmuth was born in 1964 in Wisconsin where he went to University and eventually learned to play poker. He currently lives in California with his wife and two sons.

Would you be more likely to get a UB download and take advantage of a UB bonus if you knew that UB’s most famous pro player holds some amazing tournament poker records? It’s just amazing to find out that he has won 1st place in a whopping 11 WSOP tournaments, winning the first title when he was just 24 years old, another record at the time. He also holds the record for WSOP cashes with an amazing 75 and the largest number of final tables with 41. He ranks in the top ten for total WSOP winnings with $6.1 million won so far in his career. Many people are surprised when they find out that Hellmuth has still never won a World Poker Tour (WPT) tournament even though he’s made the final table 3 times. He’s cashed 11 times in WPT events and his total winnings is $691k. This long list of impressive feats allowed him to be brought into the Poker Hall of Fame a few years ago in 2007.

Hellmuth first achieved attention and fame through his accomplishments in MTT poker, but nothing keeps him in the limelight more than his reputation for outbursts and tirades at the tables. It’s clear he thinks incredibly highly of himself, and nothing upsets him more than a couple bad beats. He frequently berates players when they get lucky versus him, questioning their intelligence and ability to play the game. In 2008 during WSOP he got a penalty because he kept harassing someone that showed a big bluff he made against Hellmuth. His personality and countless shenanigans have earned him a special nickname: “The Poker Brat”.

Leave it to Hellmuth to make money off his nickname, though. He currently has a clothing and merchandise line at www.PokerBrat.com, and you can buy a book that he wrote titled, you guessed it, Poker Brat. He’s actually written several books, he’s made several DVDs, and he even partnered with Oasys Mobile to make a mobile phone poker game. He writes a newspaper column called “Hand of the Week” about interesting poker hands, and he writes in blogs for both UB and CardPlayer. And with several TV appearances and coaching gigs, it’s clear that Hellmuth has a busy poker life outside of the tables.

There’s tons of information out there regarding playing at Full Tilt or using a PokerStars bonus code, but you’d be mistaken to not consider playing at UB too. You can join the UB pros and use your UB referral code to earn your bonus at the same time. If you strive to one day be as successful as Hellmuth at poker, the best way to practice is by playing online. If you haven’t already done so, visit my previous entries for more information about playing at UB.

WSOP 2010 with UB

To encourage additional people to use a UB referral code and deposit into their site, the players that want to play in the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) have the chance to get an additional UB bonus if they qualify for the event through UB. This UB bonus isn’t the kind you have to earn Status Points for, though. Basically every player that wins a Main Event seat at UB via Sit N’ Go’s (SnGs) or multi-table satellites receives cash just for playing in the tournament and representing the site.

UB adds money to the UB bonus WSOP prize pool each time a new person qualifies for a seat in a satellite. In fact, once over 50 players have won Main Event seats, UB contributes $5,000 to the prize pool for each person. When the satellites are finished, three quarters of this prize pool will be divided amongst the players that won seats to the Main Event and the leftover quarter will be given to Team UB members that win money in the event. The entire prize pool will be divided between all the people that play if no one is able to cash.

Some people like some calculations to make things crystal clear, so let’s look at some numbers. Imagine that sixty players get a UB download and then earn WSOP Main Event seats by playing satellite SnGs. This means that UB will put $5k x 60 = $300k into the bonus pool and each player will be offered $3.75k in bonus money ($300,000*0.75/60). If three people manage to earn money the tournament, the remaining 25% of the prize pool will be given to them and they will receive an additional $300k x 0.25 / 3 = $25k. Not bad for a few days of poker!

If you’re able to go one step further and earn the privilege of receiving poker hands at the final table of the event, UB will offer you a opportunity to earn extra cash with a site sponsorship. A 9th place finish would earn you $75,000, and if you were to go all the way and take 1st, you’d earn $750,000! Placing in between 9th and 1st would net you a number in between. You’ll need to agree to endorse UB for a year after the event to receive the final table money.

If MTT poker is your thing and you’re planning on winning your way to the Main Event this year, you should definitely consider doing it at UB. You’re guaranteed to receive some cash via the progressive prize pool, and cashing in the event has the potential to earn you tens of thousands more. Good luck in WSOP 2010 to Team UB!

Tournament Series at UB

To date we’ve talked about the UB bonus and how to clear it, the benefits of downloading the UB software, and details about their VIP program, RAI$E. For today’s topic, I intend to discuss tournament poker at UB, in particular the UB Online Championship (UBOC) series. Earlier this year UB hosted their fourth UBOC, and it consisted of 18 events over a two week period.

The people that were able to deposit in early January definitely benefitted from being able to clear their UB bonus during the tournament series because they were able to play for a total prize pool of over $4 million. If you were a beginner player, you didn’t have to worry because running at the same time was Mini-UBOC, a series that had the same events as the regular UBOC but had buy-ins less than $30.

While there were a lot of Hold Em events, UBOC players also had the chance to play different types of poker. There were two Pot Limit Omaha events, three mixed game events, and one HORSE event. The Hold Em choices included standard full ring games, rebuy events, short handed tournaments, and even a heads-up contest. If you managed to win one of the events, you received a very nice championship watch as a special UB bonus for winning the tournament.

You could buy-in to events from $109 to $2,600 while individual tournament guarantees were anywhere from $30k to $1 million. MTT poker pros such as Eric Baldwin and Phil Hellmuth were asked to host the 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!

Every UB series features more games and bigger prize pools, so it’s exciting to consider what the next UBOC might offer. It might seem like forever before the next series is announced, but the bright side is that it will give some new players a chance to do a UB download which might make the prize pools even larger. If you’re not already playing poker hands at the site, feel free to check out my older entries for details about why it could benefit you to do so. Until next time, good luck at the tables!

UB VIP Program - Details

Welcome back! This time I’d like to give details on UB’s VIP program, RAI$E. I’ve already said that you are provided Status Points to clear your UB bonus, but the Points are worth so much more than that because of the RAI$E program. As an overview, the VIP program has five levels and as you climb the VIP levels, your rewards get better and better. UB automatically makes you a member of the program when you sign up with the site.

When you first start playing at UB, you’re called an Ultimate Member and you’re at Level 1. Surprisingly, Ultimate Members still receive benefits such as entries to freerolls, the occasional reload UB bonus, and refer-a-friend bonuses. These perks definitely are helpful, especially considering you do no work to get them, but you’ll be wanting to earn Status Points fairly quickly because the higher levels are just so much better than being an Ultimate Member.

You just need to earn 50 Status Points in one month to become an Ultimate Player. As a Level 2 achiever you keep the Ultimate Member perks such as the refer-a-friend UB bonus, but then you get a few extras. Number one, you get an UltimatePoints multiplier that boosts the number of Status Points you get by two so that you can accumulate points faster. This level gives you something to do with your points: spend them at the UltimatePoints Store. 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.

Once you get to 500 Status Points in a month, you become an Ultimate Contender, and Points can now be redeemed for up to $50 cash per month. You are given access to special items in the store and your UltimatePoints multiplier becomes three.

The next level, Ultimate Legend, is earned when you collect 2,500 Status Points in one month. You’re going to have to play a lot of poker hands to reach this level, but you’ll find that the benefits make the extra work worth it. You get an Ultimate Points multiplier of four and a 10% discount in the store to boot. If you prefer the cash rewards, you can now redeem Points for up to $250. If that isn’t enough, Level 4 VIPs also get a VIP host, a personal concierge, and exclusive freeroll entries. Sometimes there are special auctions to participate in or you'll get the occasional VIP treat.

For the greatest benefits possible, you’ll need to become an Ultimate Icon. The qualification is 10,000 Status Points per month, but the rewards make it worth it. Firstly, your UltimatePoints multiplier increases to five and you can redeem up to $1,000 per month for your Points. For account balances over $1,000, you receive a 9% interest rate on the money. For even more perks, UB will extend invitations to play MTT poker in events around the world such as the WPT! You must receive an average of 10,000 Status Points for 6 months before you receive the Ultimate Icon benefits, and then you will need to keep this average going to keep going at this level.

UB offers this VIP program to say thanks to those that play there regularly and to entice new players to make a UB download. You should be aware that reaching the highest levels in their RAI$E program is extremely difficult and time consuming. If you decide to take the plunge and go for the top while playing low stakes, you’ll probably need to put in all of your online poker at UB to accumulate the needed points. Reaching Level 5 is well worth the trouble, though, if you can do it.

UB Review

In my introduction post, I talked about the UB bonus and what you have to do to earn it. A smart player might say, the UB bonus being great is one thing, but is the site as good as the bonus? I'll show you more about the site with an overview of their VIP program and player base.

The VIP program at UB isn't limited to releasing your UB bonus, it also earns you extra benefits. The “RAI$E” points system has you earn points which earn you reload and monthly cash bonuses. The highest and most exclusive status level is called the Ultimate Icon Level, and this allows you to receive the biggest cash bonuses, discounted store merchandise, 9% interest on account balances greater than $1,000, and even trips to live poker events! Becoming an Ultimate Icon at UB can yield some fantastic benefits.

I'm the first to admit that UB hasn't attracted the same player base as Full Tilt and Pokerstars, but there are still a number of players to be found at the site. The CEREUS Poker Network is actually the 3rd biggest network in the world, thanks largely to the fact that it’s still one of the US friendly poker sites. Whether you want ring games, single table tournaments, or MTT poker, you’ll encounter a bunch of tables if you’re at low or medium stakes. Unfortunately a high stakes player might need to go elsewhere for action, especially if they play multiple tables at a time.

Ultimately (no pun intended), if you’re wanting to play tons of poker at small to medium stakes and you want to try a site with a fair amount of soft games, UB is probably one of the best US poker sites online these days. Grind out your deposit bonus, collect thousands of Status Points, and you’ll be making a bunch of money playing poker on UB before you know it!