After a really bad run during november and december, where I had essentially one winning day (for a whole $15 at that), I had taken a little time off to go back to do some reading and play things like World of Warcraft and my Xbox360 just to clear my head out of poker so when I come back to it I’ll have removed doubt over my previous plays even if it was just some short term variance.

 Anyway, I was checking my email today and it seems that Party Poker decided to give me $80 in restricted cash to play and use without having to make a deposit so I figured I’d go over, have some fun and see what happened. What happened was I noticed something really interesting when I started to play some sit’n'go’s…the entry fee for them comes out of the restricted bonus, even if you have money in your unrestricted balance (though I’m not sure if this happens when you already have cash deposited, I just noticed it after I had done ok in a few and had $80 back in restricted and $17 in unrestricted…when I entered the next $11 even it came form the restricted balance).

This little feature means that if you do pretty good in the S’n'G’s then you can effectively make money without ever risking your own for as long as the bonus offer period goes for…for instance just screwing around in 4 events tonight I got two firsts and a second and withdrew $75 while still having the $80 there to use for entry fee’s. I don’t know if this is intended, or if they will get round to changing it so it takes from unrestricted balance first, or if it works the same way for cash games, but for now it’s quite a nice way to get some confidence back by working on plays and tricks knowing you’re not risking y0our own cash…and that is somethign I have needed.