Party Poker is one of the very first online poker rooms. Launched in 1997 before the big poker boom the site quickly became the largest online poker room. Unfortunately after the online gambling legislation was passed Party Poker suffered a tremendous decrease in players. At the time of writing this the site no longer accepts US players.
A simple interface, great promotions and a large amount of traffic makes Party Poker a favorite among amateur and professional poker players alike.
Software
Party Poker opted to develop a custom software platform instead of a generic platform like many of the popular poker sites. The software is fast and stable even during peak hours there is no noticeable lag.
The software is available for all three popular operating systems: Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. You also have the option of choosing several languages including English, French, Spanish, German and several others.
The layout and design can be customized by changing your avatar, the background as well as the card deck. The multi-table feature is excellent, allowing you to resize windows and allows you to have up to 12 windows open simultaneously.
Party Poker recently overhauled their software platform and have made many upgrades. Amongst those are the upgraded hand statistics feature which now allow you to save your hand history and statistics to your hard drive for later analysis.
Ring Games
Party Poker offers some of the highest traffic ring games. Whether you’re looking for a $0.05-$0.10 No Limit Texas Hold’Em game or a $3-$6 Pot Limit Omaha game, you’re sure to find opponents. The average peak traffic in ring games can reach as high as 9,500 players.
Tournaments
Party Poker tournaments are heavily focused on Texas Hold’Em so if that’s your game you’ll be more than satisfied with the average 60,000 tournament players during peak hours. Similar to many other online poker sites you will find several guaranteed prize pool tournaments including a weekly $300,000 tournament as well as several qualifying tournaments to major upcoming tournaments, namely the World Series of Poker.
Competition
While you will undoubtedly face tough competition at the higher limit games, the bulk of Party Poker players can be classified as amateurs learning how to play the game. As a result the competition is less fierce than that of other online poker sites. This is most likely as a result of their advertising campaigns during televised poker events and their position as a “poker school”. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran player looking for an easy game or a beginner interested in learning the ropes without going broke you’re sure to find a game that’s right for you.
Game Variety
Party Poker offers every variation of the most popular games which are listed below:
Hold’Em – Offered in pot limit and no limit formats
Omaha H/L – Offered in pot limit format
Omaha Hi – Offered in pot limit format
Stud Hi – Offered in limit format
Stud H/L – Offered in limit format
Stud Hi – Offered in limit format
Razz – Offered in limit format
You will find the large majority of players in the low and middle buy-in Texas Hold’Em games, although with such a large player base there is never any shortage of players for the other poker variants.
Rake
The rake at Party Poker is abnormally high in comparison to other online poker sties. For $0.50-$1 games the rake is as much as 10% compared to 5% for Full Tilt Poker. This means that for every $5 in the pot the rake is $0.50. Admittedly the rake at higher limit games gradually decreases to as low as 2.5%.
Sign Up Bonus
Party Poker offers a sign up bonus of 30% up to $135 or the option of a flat one time $25 bonus. In order to get the bonus you must accumulate 4 Party Poker points per dollar within 30 days of your initial deposit. In comparison to other online poker sites the sign up bonus is fairly low and unatractive especially when you consider the time constraint involved.
Promotions
Party Poker is the host of the annual PartyPoker.com Million with a guaranteed $1 million guaranteed prize pool. The site also continually has lucrative tournaments and satellites to major events, as well as daily cash prize freerolls. The promotions offered is an area in which Party Poker rises above the rest.
Deposits and Withdrawals
Party Poker offers the following deposit options:
IGMPay, VISA, MasterCard, NETeller, citadel, FirePay, wire transfer, bank draft, cashier’s check, money order, and echeck.
Withdrawal options:
NETeller, wire transfer, check, eChecks.
Customer Support
Party Poker’s customer service is open 24/7 either by telephone with a toll-free number or by e-mail, albeit e-mail replies can be considerably long.
Launched in July 2004, Full Tilt Poker has rapidly become one of the largest poker rooms on the internet. While this is due in part to the fact that it remains one of the few to accept new US players, and its aggressive marketing campaigns featuring top pros such as Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson or Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow, the site’s overall quality is the reason why Full Tilt Poker boasts such high traffic at all times of the day.
Software
Full Tilt Poker’s custom software platform is easily customizable and offers one of the most pleasing playing experience available. The software offers a choice of 5 backgrounds, more than 40 avatars all with their own expressions; happy, sad, angry, and surprised. If cartoon avatars aren’t up your alley you can choose to not have them displayed.
The standard features such as player notes, hand statistics, multi-table (up to 8 simultaneous tables), language support for English, French, German, Spanish and Dutch can also be found on Full Tilt Poker.
The software also allows you to customize your preferred games. You can opt to only have cash prize tournaments displayed, or satellites and prize tournaments for example. Full Tilt uses a color coded system to help players easily identify a specific type of tournament.
Ring Games
The ring games at Full Tilt Poker are constantly populated by thousands of players at every limit. The two most populated games are Texas Hold’em and Omaha. During peak hours traffic in ring games can reach as high as 10,500 cash players.
Tournaments
Full Tilt Poker offers tournaments starting at only $1 all the way to $5,000 where you are bound to run into some of the pros. With over $5,000,000 in guaranteed prize pools every week you are sure to find a tournament that fits your budget. Full Tilt also offers several tournament variations, ranging from knock-out bounties, deep stack, buy-backs, and several other promotions such as the Daily Doubles Tournaments where you can win a percentage of the jackpot in two or more tournaments.
Competition
At the low-limit games ($0.05/$0.10 - $0.25-$0.50) the competition is fairly loose and the games are fairly easy to beat. As the stakes increase to $1-$2 and $3-$6 there is a considerable increase in competition and the games become tougher than the average poker site.
If you’re still new to online poker or are not too confident in your skills you should stick to the low limit games or sit and go tournaments where you can hone your skills before moving on to the higher stakes.
Game Variety
Full Tilt Poker offers one of the largest variety of poker games in several different formats which are listed below:
Hold’Em – Offered in pot limit and no limit formats
Omaha H/L – Offered in pot limit format
Omaha Hi – Offered in pot limit format
Stud Hi – Offered in limit format
Stud H/L – Offered in limit format
Stud Hi – Offered in limit format
Razz – Offered in limit format
All the games can be played either in tournaments and sit and go formats or cash games. Sit and gos can be played in heads up, short handed (6 players) or multi table.
Rake
The rake structure is similar to most online poker sites with a somewhat higher percentage. The rake is 5% and the maximum amount is $1 in $0.05-$0.10 to $1-$2 games. The maximum rake amount for higher limit games $2-$4 all the way to the $100-$200 games is $3. Full Tilt poker adopted the “no flop, no drop” rule whereby if there is no flop, no rake is collected.
Sign Up Bonus
Full Tilt Poker offers a very generous 100% initial deposit sign up bonus up to a maximum of $600. The bonus is released in 20% increments for every point you earn. For every dollar that is raked you earn 1 point which is equivalent to $0.06. Unlike other poker sites, Full Tilt offers partial points for rakes of less than $1 allowing you to earn you bonus much faster.
Promotions
Full Tilt Poker is constantly running promotions. For every major poker tournament from the World Series of Poker to the Aussie Millions or a WPT event, Full Tilt will run tournaments with guaranteed seats. There is always a new promotion each month featured on Full Tilt website.
Deposits and Withdrawals
Full Tilt offers the following deposit options:
Visa, MasterCard, Instant Checks, GatorPay, ePassporte, Cash Transfer and Click2Pay.
Withdrawal options:
Bank transfer, GatorPay, ePassporte and check.
Customer Support
Full Tilt Poker offers 24/7 customer support by e-mail only. This is one of the drawbacks to Full Tilt, however their reply time is usually under an hour.
