Bitcoin Mining Pools?

[Lethos]

As many a newbie we start small and what little advice we managed to find it's recommend to find ourselves a mining pool to join.
So which one did you end up going with?

I went with bitcoin.cz apparently operated by Slush, no particular reason. Just first one I came across.
Have no doubt there could be a better one out there.

Mining Pool: bitcoin.cz (Slush)
Reason(s): First one I found.

Anyone else?

[gweedo]

Pool: BTCguild
Reason: Cause in testing a couple it was the one I made the most bitcents from

[Andy First]

Check this https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools and compare reward types and fees. And choose which is suitable for you and don't forget to use backup pools.
One crucial thing is stale rate and that is missing from that table.
I recommend bitlc https://www.bitlc.net/ and Slush http://mining.bitcoin.cz/
Reasons: Low stale rates and fees

[fankih]

I first went for Slush's pool and then I tried Deepbit too, but I went back to Slush again.
Would there be some even more profitable pools?

[Andy First]

I first went for Slush's pool and then I tried Deepbit too, but I went back to Slush again.
Would there be some even more profitable pools?

If you have enough hashing power you could try p2pool.
EDIT: Can do multi merged mining too https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=62842.0.

[duukat]

Mining Pool: eclipse
Reason(s): I was with Bitclockers for about 3 months when P4man dropped some knowledge on me and explained pool hopping.  I left there and went to Arsbitcoin.  It kept a ton of coins in limbo which sucked.  I had like 40 coins it was holding from me and it took a month for it to be funded to me.  Then I went to eclipse.  They payout in Paypal which is great.  I have mainly been hording my coins lately hoping for a big increase in price when the reward drop hits.  Overall, eclipse seems to be great, I get what I expect to be getting out of my systems, and Inaba is a really helpful guy that is active in the community. 

[lazyranma]

P2Pool is good when you have a good ATI card. With my old NVIDIA card expected time to share was longer than expexted time to block... Which is not bad, but after some (vary unlucky) period with no shares and 0 BTC payout I switched to p2pmining, which is just a p2pool node.

[Lethos]

Mining Pool: eclipse
Reason(s): I was with Bitclockers for about 3 months when P4man dropped some knowledge on me and explained pool hopping.  I left there and went to Arsbitcoin.  It kept a ton of coins in limbo which sucked.  I had like 40 coins it was holding from me and it took a month for it to be funded to me.  Then I went to eclipse.  They payout in Paypal which is great.  I have mainly been hording my coins lately hoping for a big increase in price when the reward drop hits.  Overall, eclipse seems to be great, I get what I expect to be getting out of my systems, and Inaba is a really helpful guy that is active in the community. 

Does it work out more effective to have them pay you via paypal, than you try to sell bitcoins yourself via other means?
The simplified factor alone might be worth while.

[duukat]

They charge a 4% fee for the transaction, so it is possible to get more money out of your coin.  It is just really convenient to get it funded to PayPal.

[Lethos]

Have to say that is pretty reasonable. Thanks Duukat.

[bskrtich]

I would really recommend p2pmining. Very easy to use, no need for real accounts, so it makes it easy to deploy to multiply machines.

[energiel]

P2pool is cool, wen bitcoin reward drop the transactions fee should cover the loss, and you can mergmine.

[arby]

I heard about eclipse