Poker Site Recommendations
One of the biggest on-line poker sites. No shortage of games at any level. US players welcome.
(Revised, Feb ’09: Full Tilt has now added cash tables down to 0.01/0.02, and, lowered the rake percentage for the 0.50/0.10 cash tables) For the beginner, be warned that the smallest cash tables are 0.05/0.10 with a $10 maximum buy in. This implies that if you are going to practice proper bankroll management, and, you plan to buy in to the table for the full amount, your bankroll should be $200 = 20 buy ins for proper management. Alternatively you could also say to yourself that I’m willing to deposit $200, but I’m going to try $100 here first and deposit the rest later if I want to or try the other $100 later at another site.
On the other hand all kinds of tournaments and Sit and Goes are available for $1, $2, $5 and $10, up to and including the big $750,000 Sunday Guarantee. There are a number of satellite tournaments where the prize is a buy in to a bigger tournament which can be a good way to grow a small bankroll by taking shots at bigger prizes. Conversely this means that if you have the skills and bankroll to play bigger tournaments you will often be facing a number of less inexperienced players meaning the level of competition might be lower than at some other sites for comparable levels.
At the time of this writing there is a 100% first deposit bonus up to $600, meaning that up to a maximum of a $600 first deposit, you can earn up to 100% of your first deposit as a bonus by playing enough raked hands. Deposit $500, play enough hands with a high enough rake in 4 months, and Full Tilt will credit your account with $500. The good thing is that the bonus is earned in $10 increments so as soon as you earn $10 in bonus you will receive $10. Not all sites will pay partial deposit bonuses.
- Software-wise I turn off the avatars because they’re silly and you can’t add your own, so it doesn’t help much in visually identifying players that you’ve played before.
- I like having the “Bet Pot” button available but hate the bet slider as it’s difficult to get it to bet the amount that you want. Update Aug 2008: Full Tilt now has options for bet sliders, including a linear one which I’m now using. Tiny font, but at least it does what I want it to do.
- I like the detachable and resizable chat box as I usually have the full details of the hand history listed for easy review.
- I also like the graphical hand history screen, but don’t like the fact that the hand history details in this box are in a tiny area that is not resizeable.
- Multi-tabling is easy as the tables are fully resizable.
Full Tilt is where I ran my 40 $1 Turbo Sit and Go project.
Create a play money account to try out the software and see if Full Tilt is the site for you.
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Currently the biggest site on the internet, no shortage of games at any time. US players welcome.
Beginners cash tables from 0.01/0.02 and up to high stakes.
All kinds of tournaments as well as Sit and Goes, although Sit and Go stakes jump from $1 to $5 without anything in between. You can also satellite or buy directly into big tourneys like the Sunday Million.
PokerStars also offers a 100% first deposit bonus, but the maximum amount tends to vary so check the site for the current limit. They give you 6 months to earn the bonus, but you must earn the entire amount during that time. If you fall short, you receive no bonus, so choose a lower first deposit amount that you will be more likely to achieve. PokerStars was the first site that I made a deposit on so I went for a $50 first deposit rather than a larger amount just to make it easier to achieve the deposit bonus.
- The software is nice and lightweight (the only one that still runs on Windows ’98 that I know of, which means you can still use that old laptop if you want)
- Customizable avatars, which I like to have turned on as it helps me visually to remember the players better.
- Good bet slider and resizable, easy to read hand history.
- New Jul 30/08: PokerStars added a graphic hand replayer, going a step past Full Tilt’s graphic but static hand history.
- Multi-tabling is easy as the tables are fully resizable.
- PokerStars is well known in poker circles for having one of the best, if not the best, support.
PokerStars is where I ran my Bet/Raise/Fold exercise.
Sign up, give the play money tables a go to get a feel for the software, and see if you like PokerStars.
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Some general thoughts/opinions on poker sites
Size: At the time of this revision (June 26, 2008) PokerStars is the most active site with twice the traffic of the next, Full Tilt. You can check current statuses at sites such as pokerscout.com
- PokerStars
- Full Tilt Poker
- iPoker Network
- PartyPoker
- Ongame Network
- Everest Poker
- Absolute Poker
- IPN
- UltimateBet
- Svenska Spel
- CakePoker
- PacificPoker
- Microgaming Network
- Bodog
- Betfair
Size does matter; at a small site there may be only one table for the level of game that you want to play and Sit and Goes may take forever to fill up. Plus you may run the risk of the site going under. If a big site gets into trouble, it will be news but when a small site is in trouble you may not hear about it.
Some of these sites are actually combinations of sites or “skins” sharing the same network. For example, iPoker includes Titan Poker, Noble Poker, TonyGpoker and some 70 others. If you register with one, you essentially register with the entire network and the players at the tables may be coming from any of the 70 sites that are part of the network. Not that it matters much, but just so you know if you start chatting and wondering why everyone thinks they are playing at different sites.
Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet have both undergone scandals in the last year. In fall of 2007 it was determined that a superuser account was active on Absolute Poker, where an old test account that could see the opponent’s cards was being used. Same happened with Ultimate Bet in early 2008. Both have undergone audits since then and are supposedly safe and fair again. For the beginner, superuser accounts were never anything to worry about since anyone who had access to a superuser account wouldn’t be playing at micro levels anyways.
USA Friendly: It’s already been forgotten by some beginners, but many poker sites pulled out of the US market when the US passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Sites listed above that remain US Friendly are PokerStars, Full Tilt, UltimateBet, CakePoker, Microgaming, and Bodog (does not take Canadians though).
Graphics: I’m not a fan of the idea of using pictures of people (PartyPoker) or even just chairs (UltimateBet) as part of the graphics. This is internet poker, not a kid’s game pretending to be live poker. It’s not that I dislike sitting down and being represented by a mustached cigar smoker, a 20 year old in a baseball cap, or a busty blonde, but the less distraction and the more efficiency the better, imho.
Playing at more than one site: Many players, myself included, play at more than one site. There are many possible reasons for this;
- having friends that play at various sites,
- having a choice which site you want to play on any given day,
- sometimes you may have connection problems with one site or the site may be temporarily down,
- taking advantage of specifics that one site may have, such as a special tournament only open to players from Finland,
- taking advantage of deposit bonuses. Often these are only for first deposits but it can be worthwhile to work your way around and collect the bonuses that each site has to offer. Some occasionally offer bonuses for additional deposits so if you’re only on one site you miss the opportunities that other sites are offering. Poker software doesn’t interfere with software from other sites; I’ve chatted with friends on MSN while they play games on 4 different sites at the same time.
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(Other site specific reviews pending at this time)
For related posts, see:
Choosing An On-line Poker Site
Poker on Facebook: poor software
