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May 16th, 2008 |
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May 16th, 2008 |
Poker Room Review:
Party poker is the biggest poker room out there. More and more players sign up each day. Many players begin their online poker career at Party Poker. This means a lot of things for you as a player. You will never have any problems with finding a game. You will also be able to find games with lots of loose action. The developed software provides a unique gaming experience.
As with all other sites the greatest volume at Party 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.
Party 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 Party 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.Party Poker also facilitates Casino and Backgammon play with the same account.
Party 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.Party Poker tournament traffic dropped a bit after they cut off their four skin sites. They have picked up that and more since. Partly after a merger with Multi Poker and since they now share the tournaments with Empire Poker.
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Party Poker has always had functional software. Emphasis is put on playability, the graphics has been held back. The latest large revision of the software is the best upgrade to date, an already good product has been reconstructed.
There is no limitation to the number of games you can play. Play as many tables simultaneously as you can fit on the screen. If you can't fit any more, let Party Poker resize them so that they do fit! Either minimize the tables on by one (non-incrementally) or push a button for automatic perfect fit. This feature works great. Party Poker continuously adds servers and increases the bandwidth to cope with the ever increasing number of players so the connection to their server is constant. There have been some complaints about disconnections in tournaments but in this area no online poker room is spotless.
The lobby is geared to handle the volume, 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 personal playing statistics function is there, it may be a bit basic but following the red thread of Party Poker’s interface it is captures what is important and does it well. Player notes work great but where Party Poker goes above and beyond the call of duty is with the hand histories. You can see the last hand immediately after it is finished and all data from ring games can be automatically stored on your computer. This saves a lot of time for those who take their poker seriously and track theirs and others performances. Hand histories alone is a good reason to play consistently at Party Poker.
Party Poker has made deal making possible in online poker tournaments. The complex procedure is with Party Poker software spirit made intuitive. The second time around it feels natural.
Table (click to enlarge)
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Lobby (click to enlarge)
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Party 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.
The sign up bonus at Party Poker is not as monstrous as other sites offer. Partly because Party Poker knows that the sign up bonus is not the only attractive feature with their poker room. But mostly because their promotions has a wider range than most. They have ordinary freerolls, and big freerolls for all new players. They have their Poker Cruise and basically know how to treat their players. Also, the more you play, the better the comps get.
You will need to play in 5 raked pots per bonus dollar, so in order for the maximum $100 bonus to be released you need 500 raked hands.
PartyPoker's rake policy is not its greatest feature. In general it is OK but it disfavors small stakes fixed 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.
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. For the $1 buy-in tournaments there is no entry fee at all, Party Poker uses these tournaments partly to introduce new concepts.
In the pot- and no-limit games, the standard 5% is raked by taking 5 cent for each new dollar in the pot.
There is as most a maximum rake of $3 irrespective of the limit and structure. This number goes down as the number of players and limits goes down. There is a “no flop – no drop” policy. That is if there is no flop, then there is no rake taken either.
Depositing is easy and the cash outs are fast, the process is all in all very intuitive. There is no doubt that Party Poker is reliable. They have had the largest number of customers for a long time now, and yet no recorded problems.
All communication between your computer and their servers are protected by the good industry standard encryption algorithm security system. Their collusion prevention system was developed in conjunction with the knowledgeable poker personality Mike Sexton, who is the host of Party Poker. The 24/7 floor support is not only available by chat but by telephone as well. They respond quickly, which is reassuring if the response from your e-mailed question takes a bit long or if the answer is dubious.
