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May 16th, 2008 |
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May 16th, 2008 |
Poker Room Review:
Bugsys Club is a fairly new and small poker room. It has many – but far from all – of the drawbacks associated with a smaller poker room. This stand alone poker room has a spin to it which if not compensates for their size, at least balances or offsets the consequences. Bugsy’s Club is the third chapter of the book which also includes PokerSchoolOnline and the poker portal PokerPages. Most players have at one time or another come through the free games at PokerPages and schooling at PokerSchoolOnline. This results in very limited high stake action but a set of interesting games in a relaxed environment.
There is a lively forum and dynamic leagues. If you value the community aspect of online poker then Bugsys Club is one of the premier choices. In any respect Bugsy’s Club is a good choice for low limit players with reasonable talent and also has some interest in either interacting and learning together with others or has some inclination towards tournaments.
There is a good supply of games at BugsysClub, but the demand is not as great. Razz and ½ Holdem & ½ Omaha (either as High or as Hi/Lo) are added to the lineup of the standard cash games. The mixed rotational games are played with 15 minute rounds of each game and Bugsys Club is the only room in the online poker world to offer them as ring games. HORSE and other mixes of games are available in the tournament area.
As in most cases numbers presented by the poker room itself can be misleading. The active player tracker at Bugsys Club is extra misleading if you use it as an indicator of real money games. There is such a large portion of free play games. As it is now, only Texas Hold’em cash games run on a regularly basis. Usually there is always action up to the $5/$10 level for fixed limit games and play with $1/$2 blinds for the no limit betting format. Omaha Hi/Lo games run from time to time and so does the rotational games. All other cash games are sporadic at best. The tournament section is busier.
First off there is a good mixture in the tournament schedule. Tournaments run sparsely at Bugsysclub.com compared to larger rooms. However the variation is good, especially in the sit and go section. As the sit and go’s fill up quickly compared to the size of the room, the time to start becomes tolerable. Whether STT’s or MTT’s, spur of the moment urges are difficult to satisfy. Most players don’t seem afraid to try what is at hand however as in: “Poker is poker and not only No Limit Hold’em at a specific buy-in”. Together with a better than average structure, which creates a calmer pace, the result is quite fun poker.
Certainly the most common tournaments are still NL Hold’em. The most frequented tournaments have buy ins in the range of $1 to $10. There are also true micro limit tournaments with buy ins of $0.05 and $0.10 and no fees. The Sunday night guaranteed has a $10K prize pool with a $50 + $5 buy in. Satellites to large live events are usually not specific to a particular WPT event. A nice touch is 2 day events with small buy-ins allowing players to test “the real deal” without putting up the money.
All tournaments also mount up to month long competitions. There are leagues with quite intricate but good and fair regulations to decide the leader board. There are separate competitions for heads up tournaments, sit’n’go’s and multi table tournaments. The biggest money is in the fourth league which is a combination of the three other leagues. The level of competition is slightly higher at the tournaments than in the ring games. Micro limit tournaments are played more seriously at Bugsy’s Club than elsewhere.
Describing the software as “one of a kind” should not be interpreted as an entirely positive spin nor should it have an ironic and negative ring to it. The last passage is added to those readers who reads the sentence after having had a quick glance at the interface, Bugsys Club’s tables does not give a good first impression. About the only thing that can be called good-looking are the chips and they can in turn be rather difficult to make out. In all other respects the unimaginative software is user friendly.
The software has been created in-house. By doing this Bugsys Club has been able to incorporate what they feel are important. Don’t be fooled by the first appearance. Just because many others have studied Paradise Poker and the nameplate across the chairs at Bugsy’s look like they have come from there does not make the software a blue print of some other software. Then it is another matter what they have accomplished by making their own product.
It has already been established that Bugsy’s club software is rather bland but user friendly. The aim of the software is to be a pedagogical one. This position is most clearly pronounced with the statistics functions. The statistics are very detailed and can be divided into ring games and tournaments, different game types and even specific tables. The stats are not limited to one session either. Bugsy’s club continuously accumulates info from all sessions, helping players to learn from all play in a number of different categories including: seen flops from SB, BB and other positions plus how far these hands are played, with which actions and with what result. On this smaller site, the note taking system lets you quickly build a data base on the majority of the players you will face. Along with the elephant in the room which in this case is the community, all features help develop the players. The community is not only an ordinary recreational social group but a learning resource.
The tables have a large chat area. While this can be useful it is also annoying that it can not be detached from the table or made smaller in any way. Don’t be startled by the size of the table. The table shown in this review is the default table which just about fills up an entire 1024x768 screen but there are “small” tables too which are equivalent to other rooms default sizes. The developers had a long experience from free games when they launched Bugsys Club. This means there aren’t any annoying flaws; still the download time is long and lags are present from time to time.
Table (click to enlarge)
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Lobby (click to enlarge)
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The player base at Bugsy’s Club is smaller but still not homogenous. A few different groups of players can be identified: Players from PokerSchoolOnline who take their poker rather seriously – within this group there are simple rookies, predictable unimaginative basic strategy players and aspiring pros with varying talent to fulfil the goal. Another group is the happy amateur who has acquired a few bucks by playing freerolls and catching Frequent Player Points, called Bugsys Bonus Points (BBP). The biggest group is the recreational low limit player who enjoys the community at Bugsy’s Club.
As a whole the games are easier to beat than average. Unlike the play at larger poker sites the games can actually be described as weak-tight, an unusual adjective in today’s day and age. The small crowd, which gets even smaller at a preferred limit, makes it possible to pick up and abuse the habits of people you play with recurrently.
The first deposit bonus at Bugsy’s Club is generously sized but not as liberally released. While the restrictions have gotten simpler – most importantly the bonus is now released in $10 installments instead of the old way to pay it in one lump sum – the bonus is still rather difficult to clear.
A $10 batch of bonus is released into your account after you have earned 100 more Bugsy's Bonus Points (BPP). That is, you get your first $10 after 100 BPP’s, your second $10 payment when you have reached 200 BPP’s and so on. At ring games the points are awarded one at a time. One BPP is given to each player dealt into each raked hand when the rake reaches: $0.50 for fixed limit games with stakes $1.00/$2.00 and lower, or $1.00 for all pot- and no limit games, and fixed limit games with stakes $2/$4 and higher.
These are rather high standards especially for pot- and no-limit games. Most players have their job cut out for them trying to get the whole $600. Low limit players are hit by how high the rake bar is set and others are crippled by the limited number of games. But as there is no time limit to complete the bonus requirements and as it is paid out in instalments, there is no harm in trying. Apart from clearing bonuses BPP’s can be traded in for cash at a rate of $1 per 100 points.
Standard reload bonuses are offered from time to time. Special incentives to deposit money are given more often, most often in the form of an entry into a larger tournament or satellite with a value of around $50. Otherwise the promotions at Bugsy’s Club are firmly fixated at the performance based tournament leagues and ring game challenges.
The monthly tournament leagues consist of both separate leagues according to structures ($3,500 MTT Leaderboard, $3,500 Sit and Go League and $1,000 Heads Up League) and one combined $10K Monthly Skill League. The last one pays the top 25 players of the month where the first prize is $3,500. The ring game leagues are weekly affairs and have three separate ranking lists that are divided according to the level of the blinds. Each table at Bugsy’s Club is labelled to show whether play at them counts toward the gold, silver or bronze league with $7,000, $1,700 and $600 purses respectively. Standings in these weekly ring game leagues are based on points given for raked hands. Also scoring 1,000 points in the Gold or Silver league combined during a month gives a player a seat in the $25,000 Ring Game Challenge held the first Sunday of each month. This is a rebuy tournament and the more points you score the more rebuys you have.
The rake at Bugsy’s Club is in general attractive for the player. Micro limit and low limit games benefit from the intervals never dropping below $.05 per $1. Almost regardless of limits the 5% is taken in decent intervals. In other words Bugsy’s Club are not pushing the envelope to get 5% out of every pot. One limit range where they do have quite tight intervals is with fixed limits games between $2/$4 and $4/$8; where Bugsys Club picks the rake in fractions of $.50 instead of $1 seen elsewhere. Otherwise the maximum rake is never above $3 and the reduction of the max rake due to low limits or few players are good. What is really good for pot- and no limit players are progressively larger intervals as the games get bigger, something most others has not bothered to implement. To get the full picture study Bugsys Club’s complete rake tables. The fee for the tournaments are exclusively 10 % but there are micro buy ins without any fee at all.
Bugsys Club has a commendable support. The support is good, and not only when considering the size of the room, it is good period. There is live chat 24/7. There may be a short waiting list if the operators are busy; in which case the staff always gets back soon after you’ve left a message. There is of course also a traditional e-mail option. The extensive FAQ section covers most queries. Overall the response speed is good and the answers are backed up with poker knowledge. There is good variety in deposit and withdrawal options although the cash out speed is not the best. The professional operation and the long line of poker professionals endorsing the site make Bugsy’s Club a secure establishment.
