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May 16th, 2008 |
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May 16th, 2008 |
Poker Room Review:
Empire Poker is an adventurous poker room. First they were an up’n’coming room in the room in the Party Poker Network. Then in October 2005 Party Poker went solo and Empire poker became the largest player in the conglomerate of the disassociated old party Poker skins. Now Empire Poker is, as the only room, back with Party Gaming again. The player base, the largest in the world, presents a lot of advantages. There are always many games to choose between, and lots of them are filled with loose action.
As with all other sites the greatest volume at Empire Poker is found at the Texas Hold'em tables. Still their huge overall traffic ensures good crowds at all levels of all games. The Party Gaming network deals the most hands in all the games they host.
Empire Poker offers the standard games: Omaha and Seven-Card Stud as regular and Hi/Lo, and of course Texas Hold'em. There are no micro-limit tables but there is constant access to low limit action. As a matter of fact no matter what your bankroll is, there is always an appropriate game going on. Fancy a $1 BB No Limit Hold’em game, there’s an abundance of them. Want to sit down at a 7 card stud Hi/Lo game with $2000?, then Empire Poker is the natural poker room to visit.
There aren't any no-limit Omaha tables but fixed- and pot-limit instead, for which Omaha is better adapted. The bankroll that each player enters the ring games with are leveled. That is (by default) the players brings the same amount of money to the table, thus leveling the risk and reward. These are two features that exemplifies Party Gamings feel for good poker.
Empire Poker has tournaments in Hold'em, Seven-Card Stud and Omaha ranging from fun money to the $10 million poker cruise. Daily, weekly and monthly tournaments with staggering guaranteed prize pools, needless to say they are the biggest on the web. The diversity of the tournament structures with: sit and go, qualifiers, sub-qualifiers, speed tournaments, step structures, leaderboard and more is great. This many choices without spreading out to thin, it can only be accomplished by the branch leader. The same tournaments are run on Empire Poker as in Party Poker. Since Empire Poker rejoined the Party Gaming network all the games are shared.
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Empire Poker has good software. It will probably not tease your aesthetic senses but it captures what is important. It is intuitive and it is easy find ones way around. At the tables the playability is good: easy to read cards (available in 4-colored view), chips with their denomination clearly visible as well as continuously updated pot-size, and clear action buttons. Perhaps it is the action buttons that could be improved the most or rather the raise-slider which can be a bit slippery. Four tables simultaneously per player are allowed.
The lobby is adapted to the volume of players. Finding which games that are going on at the different levels of the different games is a breeze. Analyzing them is not as easy as in most other card rooms though as the "viewed flop percentages" and the "hands per hour rate" are not presented, the average pot size of the 20 last games are.
The hand histories are readily available; by a click at the table and stored on your computer. The only drawback is that they are only presented in a text format which makes them hard to inspect at a glance.
Table (click to enlarge)
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Lobby (click to enlarge)
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Empire Poker is definately one of the best sites to find loose games at. With lots of advertising and a strive to remain the largest site, the leading actor Party Poker has continously attracted new loose players constantly (and also kept the old). This loose action is spread up towards higher limits as well, this behavior is rather unusual at other sites where the competition gets tougher quicker. This is good no matter if you are a new – still to loose and undecided – player or a more seasoned one. If you want to test yourself against rougher competition it is there as well. If more than half of all the online poker players are there, then of course you can find all kinds players there.There used to be tougher competition at EmpirePoker. When the four old skins broke loose from Party Poker the tables did see a concentration of sharks. Many more good players had enjoyed testing the alternatives. As of February 2006 the player base is once again shared between Empire Poker and Party Poker, so the fish ratio is high again.
There is no sign up bonus at Empire Poker.
Empire Poker shares the successful VIP program with the rest of the Party Gaming family. The promotions at Empire Poker are individual. Based on the amount of raked hands played, several types of offers are tailor made. There are freerolls, added money tournaments and bonuses. For bonuses, the requirements vary between 5 and 10 raked pots per bonus dollar. So in order to clear a $75 bonus there could be a requirement of 750 raked hands.
Empire Poker has an unattractive rake policy, especially for low limit games. Small pots ($5) in fixed limit games up to $1/$2 have a 10% rake, as the pot rises the rake is lowered towards 5%. Higher fixed limit games has a comparably – also in relation to other card rooms – low rake. For those higher fixed limit games an average rake of 3% is a conservative approximation. In the pot- and no-limit games, the standard 5% is raked by taking 5 cent for each new dollar in the pot.
The maximum rake is $3 irrespective of the limit and structure. This number goes down as the number of players and limits goes down. Also, no flop – no drop. That is if there is no flop, then there is no rake taken either.
The entry fee to the tournaments is comparable with other poker rooms. The entry fee is $1 for a $5 up to $15 buy-in while it is down at $65 for a $1000 buy-in. So the percentage goes from 20% at the lowest level, down to 6.5% at a higher level. Notice that the percentage has decreased to 10% already at the $10 buy-in.
Empire Poker uses the same banking service provider as Party Poker, the Pay-Pro Cashier System. Pay-Pro is a well established and trusted actor. Depositing is easy, indeed all the processes are very intuitive. The speed of cash outs are good.
There is an experienced staff in the customer care team. Dedicated hosts are assigned to regular players. There is 24/7 support for everyone, though not over phone.
