How do I apply for a stake? accept a stake? close a stake?

Remember, there’s no begging for stakes on PartTimePoker Staking - there’s only applying for stakes that have been placed in a Make A Deal Forum. People who beg for stakes will be warned and then geared if more begging happens, so please save us both the trouble and follow the rules.
Before you apply for stakes make sure your Poker Stars and your Full Tilt account names are set correctly in your Profile. To add your poker account names follow the directions in the following thread. "How do I set my poker screen names in my profile?"

Three steps to getting staked: Finding, Accepting, Closing

Step one: Finding a stake
All stakes are advertised in the Make a Deal forums. Go to the forums and browse through the threads. Each thread contains a different stake offer. ONLY THREADS WITH COLORED STARS are open stakes. Greyed-out stars have already been awarded.

IMPORTANT: You cannpt apply for stakes that are closed/accepted already, and more importantly stakes that you don’t qualify for. Don’t apply for stakes with a player’s name in the title – those are private stakes. Don’t PM or IM the person offering the stake. Everyone makes mistakes, but too many from the previous list will get you geared in a hurry.

If you’ve made sure you’re eligible and you’d like to apply for the stake, simply reply to the thread with ‘I apply’ and some basic info about your stats if they are required or if you choose to. Do not PM or IM the person offering the stake. The only way to get staked on PartTimePoker is to reply to the thread that the stake’s offered in.

Step two: Accepting a Stake

If you’re awarded the stake you will get an alert that will take you to your My Stakes area. Follow the link or click on the "Stake" link on the upper right of the page.
Each stake on your list has a status message on the far right of the entry. At this point, you may be waiting on the staker, so your status message will read "waiting for staker to confirm". It often takes a few minutes for the staker to confirm the stake. Be patient.
Once the staker has confirmed, your status message will be a link that says ‘Confirm Stake was Received’. Click it. You’ll be taken to a second Confirmation screen detailing how much money was transferred to you. Confirm the transfer in your poker account and click "accept".
You’ll be taken back to your MyStakes page. If you don’t see any records, just click on the "My Stakes" link on the top, or hit refresh.
A rail thread will automatically be created for you. The rail thread is where you post hand histories from your play - it basically allows the forum/staker to play along, which is half the fun of staking. At minumum you should post the tournament ID and bust/win hand in this thread. If your staker requests more, post more.

Step three: Closing the Stake


After you’ve played the stake, you need to report the results. Reporting the results is CRITICAL to the site – without records, players and stakers have nothing to go on. You do not get any player points if you don’t report, which makes it harder for you to get stakes in the future.
Win or lose, you still need to report. Go to My Stakes, click on the "Report Winnings" link in the status message. Enter the amount won (EVEN IF IT’S ZERO) and hit submit. Report the TOTAL AMOUNT WON. The system will handle dividing up the win, paying back the stake, calculating the 5%, etc.
If you still have funds left the system will alert you how much to send after the staker has confirmed the proper amount was reported. The stake status should now read "Waiting for staker to confirm winnings".
After the staker confirms, you will see a new status message that says "Pay Staker Share of Winning". Click on that and it tells you how much to send back to the staker. Transfer the amount to the Poker account of your staker.
Now you wait for staker to confirm receipt of payment. After he/she does, the status link will now read “Pay 5%” (if you profited). Click on that and follow the instructions provided. This step is critical, if you don’t complete it, neither you nor the staker get points.
The stake status should now read "Stake has been completed".