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May 12th, 2008 |
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May 12th, 2008 |
Poker Room Review:
Here is a poker room that may appear to be on tilt. Please forgive the pun, but Full Tilt Poker is a stand alone poker room that has chosen its own route. They have gained far stretching endorsements from many top poker pros. Their signup bonus is huge. The software is one of a kind.
However, tilting is going astray, leaving the path. Full Tilt on the other hand follows it through, they have a plan. For good and bad, Full Tilt POker is not on tilt, they are on full tilt.
Full Tilt Poker offers a good selection of poker variants. As in most rooms, the action is mainly focused on Hold'em. You will always be able to find low stakes no limit Hold'em games. Fixed limit games are also relatively crowded. During peak hours (American daylight time) the choices presented to you is much better though. Opportunities to play Razz in an online poker room do not come around very often elsewhere.
Although the player traffic is decent, and be could considered good as the room has only been around since July 2004. Full Tilt has such an authority that it is easy to forget that they are a relatively new room. Player traffic is one area where it is noticed though. When comparing them to the other top rooms they do not quite measure up. At off hours (that is when the sun has not been shining for a while over the American continent) it is not possible to cherry pick juicy games. With only one table at a specific limit active, it is take it or leave it (or find another limit or game where there is more action).
The full sized tables accommodate for nine players. There is a lot of action at the short handed games for six people.
There is a large following to the fixed tournament schedule. Good tournament structures with guaranteed prize pools is the likely cause of that. The opportunity to knock out a big poker name probably has some effect too. More players prefer tournaments than cash games at Full Tilt Poker.
The most important factor that makes the tournaments at this room competitive is the slower blind increase. Full Tilt Poker is not the best in the business in this aspect but amongst them. Nothing stands in the way of serious poker at Full Tilt Poker.
The big tourneys are of course no limit Hold'em, but all variants that are offered as cash games are available in the tournament format as well. You didn't think they would forget about Razz did you? The fixed limit and pot limit betting structures are allotted their fair share of the tournaments offered. The not so mainstream formats are also promoted by having a smaller fee.
The sit'n'gos are busy. The same variants are there, with buy-ins ranging between $5 and $200. Heads up as well as multiple table choices too. Competing for tournament tokens can also be done. Another nice feature is a "I'm ready" button, if everyone is ready to get down and play, why wait a minute?
The software is unique. Cartoon characters that can display emotions represents the players at the table. THe table it self is round. It is not a reenacting of the knights of the round table. Because there are no knights, choices of avatars range from dogs and roosters to cigar smoking gentlemen and big busted women. Nor is the battle at the table carried out by lances and swords but rather with cards and chips.
Exactly what the software displays on your screen is not important. Some players switch off the avatars because it reminds them too much of a video game. If you get that feeling, give them a chance. A session or two could be enough to get comfortable. Then perhaps you will agree that Full Tilt Poker goes far in creating a home game or casino atmosphere. They do this not by trying to emulate a brick and mortar card room but rather by using what the cyber world is good at.
There is an option to always auto center the tale, that is the table is rotated so that you wind up front and center. Apart from giving you the best seat in the house, Full Tilt Poker lets you have complete control of the chat. The chat window can be detached and resized. If you wish to scrutinize the actions of a previous hand, then all you have to do is to begin scrolling. A scroll lock is activated and the chat window only moves with the scroll bar. After you are through with your studies, you uncheck the scroll lock and the chat window again displays in real time.
The ease at which such things are done, are addictive. Compare to the felling of having used a mouse with a scroll wheel and then having to go back to one which lacks it. The lobby is logical and quick to navigate. Hand histories are easily accessed and are automatically stored on your computer. There are different sounds for a raise compared to a “mere” call. Overall there is a really smooth feeling in this card room.
Table (click to enlarge)
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Lobby (click to enlarge)
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At first people did not know what to make of Full Tilt Poker. Why on earth would you want to play against pros? They are good, why get “killed”? Of course you will not be up against pros all of the time. The site also saw a steady increase in traffic as people realized that: as saturated as Full Tilt Poker might be with people who has poker as their primary source of income – they will not be at every table.
All though you don't have to play against the pros if you don't want to, the games at Full Tilt Poker are tough. Players ate much tighter than elsewhere. As the stakes rises – the viewed flop percentage goes down. Already at the $0.50/$1 NL Hold'em the viewed flop percentage is typically between 30 and 40%. These numbers are accurate for full (9 seat) tables. Averagely skilled players can get a claustrophobic feeling that is not only the pros (with their own special avatars) that has poker as their primary source of income.
Oversized signup bonus, a steady stream of guaranteed tournaments, and different schemes with the pros involved, those are the corner stones of Full Tilt Poker's promotions.
At $600 it is fair to describe the signup bonus as oversized, it is also a 100% match one.
The rake structure for the cash games is somewhat less attractive than average. It follows industry standard in that it is 5 % and capped at $3, however the intervals at which the rake is taken from the pot is tighter. There is a no flop – no drop policy and at for example a $1/$2 FL game the rake is capped at $1 when there are three or more players.
The fees for tournaments and sit'n'gos on the other hand is a guiding star for the industry, especially for the lower stakes and less mainstream variants.
Currently, customer service is only handled via e-mail. While this might cause some concern, the response time i good. Usually a sensible answer is received within a couple of minutes.
As for the security, the site has financial muscle and all those famous backers will not want to get their names tainted. Banking is painless.
