The Most Haunted Online Poker Rooms

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Poker Stars

 

 


Featured Site

Poker Stars


>> Poker Stars Review - Online Poker Rooms

Poker Stars

 

Click here to visit Poker Stars.

 

Overall: (5)
Bonus: (2.5)   
Promotions: (4)  
Fish: (3)  
Tournaments: (5)
Software: (4.5)
Cashouts: (5)
Customer Service: (4)

  Poker Stars

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall: 4.5
Of course, Poker Stars is best known for sending both 2003 and 2004 WSOP Main Event winners Chris Moneymaker and Greg “Fossilman” Raymer to the event. With the addition of 2005 Main Event winner Joseph Hachem to the crew, they’ve got the last 3 winners under their banner. While this gets them a ton of television publicity, the main message you should be getting is that this is one of the most professionally-run poker rooms online. It is a perennial player favorite, and is one of my personal favorites. They’re closing in on Party Poker’s numbers in terms of ring game player traffic, and serious tournament players will find everything they need here. Even though you’ll find plenty of action down to the 1c/2c micro-limits, full high stakes tables are regularly filled up. Excelling especially in terms of software, tournaments, and ring game traffic at all stakes, I keep Poker Stars near the top of the list.

Bonus: 2.5 (check homepage for current)
Since they seem to be pretty proud of their overall package, bonus hunters will probably be disappointed here. Deposit bonuses here are tough to find, but they will occasionally run 20% or 30% bonuses. The cashout structure is pretty generous, so you can probably work off your bonus pretty quickly at most limits. Poker Stars seems to target bonus seekers less and would rather keep serious players by offering a strong overall site. Their main reward comes in the form of Frequent Player Points, which we’ll discuss in the next section.

Promotions: 4
The main promotion to players at Poker Stars is the Frequent Player Point system (FPP), which accumulates as you buy in to tournaments or play raked hands in cash games. With your points, you can then buy in to special freeroll tournaments or get special free merchandise such as jackets, books, posters, and t-shirts. I even got a little tank top for my girlfriend through the FPP Store, and it’s pretty good quality. (She actually supports my online poker habit. How cool is that?) Besides that, they also hold tons of satellites into live tournaments and a smatter of freerolls. I recently saw a statistics that claimed that Poker Stars sent 20% of the field for the last WSOP Main Event. Also, they've just launched a VIP Program which rewards more frequent players with a higher rate of FPPs and a greater variety in the player store.

Fish: 3
I am constantly amazed at the reputation Poker Stars has gotten as one of the toughest places to play online. What tables were they on? While it is true that the tables are generally tighter with flop percentages averaging 25-50%, you’ll find plenty of poor players making bad decisions all the way up to the highest limits. Since you’ll capitalize most often on the mistakes of your opponents, there is still plenty of money to be made for the average player. This isn’t a wild poker room, but it certainly doesn’t deserve the tough reputation it has received.

Tournaments: 5
To sum it up, you can’t do better than Poker Stars for tournaments. While their best events are the larger buy-in tourneys for serious poker players, they have a good number of small-stakes events down to a $1 buy-in. Tournaments fill up very quickly, so you’ll usually be playing for a large prize pool regardless of the buy-in. Their big weekly event is now up to $1,000,000 guaranteed with a $215 buy-in. That's the largest weekly online tournament up to this point. They probably offer one of the busiest tournament schedules online, and their biggest event, the World Championship of Online Poker, takes place over the summer. It is structured similar to the WSOP with lots of events of mixed games. The main tournament in the WCOOP drew over a $1 million prize pool. For Sit ‘n Go tournament players, they have the usual assortment with plenty of players, but they also host some wacky events like 45-person $1 tourneys or $6 2-table speed tourneys. These are quite popular and fill up even for games like Omaha and Stud. Poker Stars easily gets a top score in this category.

Software: 4.5
Poker Stars usually is at the top of the list when online poker players are asked what their favorite software package is. While I don’t think that any poker site is really that much better than the competition, Poker Stars also earns a high rating. For starters, the lobby is very logical and easy to use. At the table, you’re able to upload your own avatar, and game speed moves along at a quick pace. The table graphics are attractive, and the hand history feature is pretty advanced. You can also see every player’s hole cards (even if they didn’t show) at the showdown by using their hand history. One excellent feature is the “Time” option, which allows you to occasionally take extra time (usually 30 seconds) if you’re faced with a tough decision that requires extra thinking. The only .5 point deduction we took is for the cards only being dealt one at a time at the table. It’s sort of frustrating to see that first Ace and watch a 4 come up 3 seconds later. You better not be playing A-4, either! Overall, this is one the best software packages in the industry.

Best Features
-Excellent ring game traffic. This is easily the #2 site with plenty of full tables available.
-Busy high-stakes tables. Larger players will find plenty of busy tables.
-Great software. This is probably our favorite software package overall and is very user-friendly.
-Best tournament offerings. This is the most comprehensive and busiest tournament schedule online.

Cashouts – 5
Poker Stars is one of the best in terms of cashouts. At times, I have received instant withdrawals to my Neteller account, and it should take 12-24 hours at most.

Customer Service – 4
While customer service is done strictly through e-mail, they’re very professional in their responses. Turnaround time is usually less than an hour, and I’ve always received the proper answer to any question I had.
 

Game Selection: Hold'em, Omaha, Stud


Limits:    Fixed Limit: .02/.04 - $100/200     No Limit: .01/.02 - $5/10


Tips
Firstly, since Poker Stars is a tighter site, you might be tempted to slowplay your big hands preflop. I don’t recommend this play very often, because there are still plenty of players looking to get in to see a cheap flop and crack your Aces. You’ll still run into opponents who play trash cards, so I recommend raising your premium hands often to thin the field and make it that much more difficult to be outdrawn. Also, my experiences here show that stealing the blinds from late position should be done with caution. Many players defend their blinds, and will try to outplay you on the flop. If you don’t have a better-than-average hand, just let it go even if you’re the first one into the pot. It’ll save you from having to make a tough decision on the flop and perhaps running into a check-raise. Finally, you’ll have the option to show your losing and uncalled winning hands. I don’t recommend doing this unless you’re setting them up for later. Why give your opponents free information that you didn’t have to give?
 

 

Click here to visit Poker Stars.