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May 17th, 2008 |
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May 17th, 2008 |
Poker Room Review:
“Every day is a nice day to play.” That is the motto of Sun Poker. It is true, it is easy to enjoy your poker here. Recurring bonuses at a poker room with a good range of games and soft competition has that effect.
The game variety at Sun Poker is OK. The only game missing out of the "big five" is Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo. The growth of the Cryptolgic network which Sun Poker is a part of can, at least in part, be explained by the introduction of pot- and no-limit games as well as multi-table tournaments. For some reason these forms of poker, which are virtually indispensable in online poker, were not introduced at first. Sun Poker has proved to have better poker sense since. The Cryptologic network nowadays lives up to its potential and is one of the bigger networks out there.
Almost as many players are playing at the ring game tables as in the tournaments. The Omaha Hi games are occasionally busy even at the higher limits. Seven-Card Stud and Omaha Hi/Lo games are infrequent. The limit and no-limit Holdem games are equally popular.
There are no real low (micro) limit games at Sun Poker. The lowest limit is $0.15/$0.25. The selection of high stakes games is good. The highest limit is £150/£300 for fixed limit games and £10/£20. It is not only possible to use different currencies when depositing at Sun Poker, there are tables available for US dollars, pounds and euros too.
From being virtually non-existent, the tournament traffic at Sun Poker today measures up to other rooms. There is lots of choices, concerning tournament starting times and buy-ins. Apart from occasional fixed limit tournaments it is all no limit though, and on top of that exclusively Texas Hold'em.
If there is not a large variety in game formats, SunPoker does make sure buy-ins and starting times are to everyone’s liking. There are multi table tournaments starting every 15 minutes. The monthly guaranteed prize pool is over $4 million. At least $100,000 each day is guaranteed. The guaranteed tournaments are all no-limit Holdem. The biggest weekly tournament is a Sunday tournament with a £50,000 or $90,000 guaranteed prize pool. The attendance at the tournaments is OK 24/7 with highs on European evenings due too many British players.
The interface at Sun Poker is attractive and clean. You still would expect better software from Cryptologic. The graphical interface does not have that little extra. Apart from a few glitches, the functionality is good. If it is simply the case that such a large casino software provider has more to live up to or whether the misses in the software really are annoying in themselves, is perhaps best left undecided in this review. For certain the software has become much better with major upgrades.
Sun Poker has a time-allotment which promotes good speed at the tables. This effect is sometimes neutralized by the resource intensive software. It is not possible to enter the cashier while at a table, that is another irritating circumstance. The voice options are good. The notes are in a drop down menu in the chat box. This solution is different from most other poker rooms, and it does facilitate an easy-to-handle note taking with a good overview.
While on the subject of other online poker rooms, the Cryptologic software is well described as a polished Party Poker version. The two different softwares have the same general concept. There are no avatars, or anything else distracting. Cryptologic takes that extra step while still keeping it basic. That extra does come at the expense of making it extra resource intensive. The hand histories are accessed from a log viewer where the information is saved for 90 days; it is hard to get instantaneous feedback from the hand history but they are easily saved for the archives with the push of a button.
Table (click to enlarge)
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Lobby (click to enlarge)
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Sun Poker is populated with many unsophisticated poker players. This is because many of the customers comes from sports books and casino environments. The action at the tables is as loose as you would expect with that recruitment base. Generally it seems as the lack of poker experience is as most evident at the short handed tables. A basic tight-aggressive strategy is often enough to have a substantial edge.
The game quality varies more at Sun Poker than at most other poker rooms. A mix of solid poker players and recreational players is one explanation model. The monthly reload bonus is another factor. At the beginning of each month the density of good players is higher.
The first deposit bonus is any poker room’s first line of scrimmage. Caribbean Sun Poker puts up a good fight for the poker players affection with theirs. The signup bonus is not a knock out, but it is a hit.
Caribbean Sun Poker offers a 100% first deposit bonus up to $50. While it is only moderately sized, it is a 100% match offer. It is also very easy to clear. You need to play five times the bonus amount before it is released. That is you need 5 raked hands per bonus dollar. The fact is that a raked hand is defined in such a way: as a hand where you get dealt cards and the rake is $1 or more.
This means that the bonus is cleared swiftly at higher limits while it takes longer time at lower limits (where pots of $20 which yields a $1 rake are uncommon). No half points are awarded but to accommodate for lower stakes players quarter of a point are! Each player is credited for a ¼ of a raked hand in any pot that is raked at least a quarter but not a whole dollar.
With the advent of ¼ points, the first deposit bonus is wholesome any way you view it. The first deposit bonus is the first free money from Caribbean Sun Poker but it is not the last you are eligible for. Caribbean Sun Poker’s “ace in the hole” is a monthly bonus of $40. The same number of raked hand requirement goes for the recurrent monthly bonus as was described for the first deposit bonus. The bonuses are not stackable (that is after you clear one bonus, you can start clearing the next one), actually it is better than that. The bonuses run simultaneously.
This adds up to $90 in bonus money the first month. $40 will automatically be added to your account after having played the 200th raked hand that month. The first month an extra $50 is added after just 50 more hands. $90 for 250 raked hands is good.
As for Caribbean Sun Poker’s other promotions the poker points are the most pronounced. Poker points are awarded for played hands, raked hands and tournament fees. A jump start is given as points are given just for signing up. At the moment the best use for these points is to enter special tournaments. There are plans to open the “casino comp shop” which the backers to this poker room use for their casino players. In this shop you can get tickets to events, vacation rewards, quality watches and so forth.
There is a bad beat bonus, and best hand of the day is in the release stages. Since the guaranteed prize pool tournaments are not always filled, they could then be viewed as added money tournaments. There is always a lot of effort to send as many players as possible to the million dollar prize pool Caribbean Poker Classic.
The rake at Caribbean Sun Poker is slightly higher than average. The target value for the commission is 5%. That is normal. What is bad for the player however is that they do a good job at hitting that number. They are quicker to get there piece of the pie. There are no exceptions from the general rule, except if the hand ends before the flop when the "No flop, No drop" policy enters.
The general rule stipulates a rake of 25¢ for each $5 in the pot. Another quarter is taken for each $5 until the pot reaches $60. That is more than $3 is never taken out of the pot.
Deposits and handling of bonus codes is efficient and self-evident. Withdrawals are equally easily handled after the PIN code from ECash has arrived. ECash handles the financial transactions for Sun Poker, something they have been doing since 1996 for other companies who has large volumes of online transactions. Sun Poker gets a good financial security already by using them. The grade gets better by being a long term member of a stable network without any remarks on them or the network.
The PIN code is necessary to make a withdrawal. The PIN code is for security reasons sent by regular mail directly after the first deposit, it may take a few weeks. Cashout speed is below average. Sun Poker puts themselves in the higher circles by providing telephone support. The opinion on the support speed and quality however is only on average.
