I am an beginner poker player, and want to start learning and playing online.
I have around 500 hours experience playing on free sites, but know that this will not prepare me for cash play, and want to start playing micro stakes, which should be a better learning tool.

Anyways I am leaning towards ultimatebet because of their %200 match up to $1500 as advertised by pokerlistings.

A few things I am wondering is, when can you withdraw money, is the joining bonus credit to your account out immediately? or do I have to play a certain amount of hands to receive it. Because they obviously have to earn money off that bonus before you can withdraw it.

I see a lot of sites that say join though us and get a 30% rakeback, is this just a gimmick to make you use their affiliate? is the standard rakeback on UB 30%? Also does anyone know if UB calculates rakeback based on contribution?

Also, When depositing money to the account I read somewhere that they treat a credit card deposit as a cash advance? is this true?

OK,

UB will credit you in increments of $5 (I think it's $5) based on a certain number of UB points earned. You do not get it up front.

Definetly use rakeback ( I use raketherake.com, very reputable and you can use my referral code RTR26137)

You will not earn any rakeback until you clear the bonus, well you may earn a very small amount, but you need to sign up with rakeback to get it later on. UB calculates based on contribution, however there is a glitch: if you play a game with an ante you will be considered as contributing to every pot, so you can play low limit HORSE or Stud and earn point really fast.

You can withdraw whenever you want on UB (I think you have to leave your initial deposit in for at least a week or so)

Sometimes the site will pay you and in some instances (dependant on poker room) the affiliate will pay you.

There are a lot of good rake back affiliates out there so look more for the ones that offer good incentives such as rake races.

Also I agree that play money games are good for learning how the games work (by that I mean the mechanics of the games rather than stratergy) but micro stakes cash games play a little differently and each stake level gets progressivly tougher as you move up.

Here are some free poker training videos that may help you progress faster. http://www.tagpoker.co.uk/pages/training-videos.html

Good Luck