Full Review of PokerRoom
Summary of PokerRoom
The poker room called PokerRoom was established all the way back in 1999. The site has always enjoyed good reputation and runs on award-winning software with very high usability.
Poker traffic is very high at both ring games and tournaments. The Ongame Network, at which PokerRoom is the premium site, is in the top-five list of the biggest poker networks, despite blocking US players. There are a good range of games to be played, and if you like holdem or Omaha, you will definitely be able to find good games here.
The PokerRoom software offers first rate graphics and runs very smoothly. You can have it as wither a download or a no-download version, making it possible to play poker just about anywhere and on any platform.
PokerRoom players are eligible for an exclusive $250 sign-up bonus at 100% deposit match. That is, to receive the maximum $250 bonus, you must deposit $250. You have 60 days to clear the bonus, and it will be released in a lump sum once you’ve completed it in its entirety.
To release the full bonus amount of $250, you need to earn 1750 player points. You earn player points at a rate of 0.7 points per $1 taken from a pot as rake.
The refer-a-friend bonus is $50 per friend. Loyal players enjoy a program of special freerolls, tournament tickets, and shopping for player points. There are tournaments with guaranteed prize pools from $4,000 to $50,000, satellites to numbers of live tournaments, a Weekly Welcome Series for new players, with a $2,500 guaranteed prize pool.
Poker Traffic
The poker traffic at PokerRoom is among the highest in the world. During peak hours there can be as many as 8,000 real-money ring game players seated at the same time (Feb. 2008).
There are always plenty of good games available in the holdem cash game lobby, and if you like Omaha you’ll be able to find a suitable game most of the time as well. In the other games, your chances are more depending on the time of day – or night.
As is often the case at poker rooms without US players, the peak hours tend to occur during evening time in Europe, which means around 1 PM, Pacific Time.
Software & Graphics
PokerRoom has developed its own poker software. In my opinion, this software is among the best on the market. The graphics are clean and clear, and you can easily follow all the action at the poker table. After all, good playability is what really counts. Cool details such as leather chairs or a Persian rug never compensate for lousy game play.
But the best thing about the software is the functionality. You can customize your table according to your own preferences, such as choosing whether or not you want avatars to be showing. Also, you can take player notes and use color codes to label different players, and you can use the built-in statistical functions to track your own game.
One of the greatest features is the availability of keyboard short-cut keys, whereby you can specify your actions using the keyboard instead of the mouse. This can be extremely comfortable, not least when you play a lot of tables simultaneously. Of course, in pot-limit and no-limit games the use is diminished since you often need to enter betting amounts other than the standard bet used in fixed limit poker.
PokerRoom provides a no-download version of its excellent software, making life easy for Mac and Linux users, just as well as for anyone who wants to play online poker during vacation in distant places, away from home on a job trip, or down at the local internet café when the kids won’t leave you in peace.
To top it all, PokerRoom was the first online poker operator to introduce a mobile platform to let you play poker on your cell phone. If you can deal with the generally small screen, this is some really cutting edge entertainment, and PokerRoom has really taken poker into the twenty-first century, if not the twenty-second.
Game Variety
In the category of game variety, PokerRoom does a little bit better than the average room and offers a decent selection of games. You’ll find good games at both fixed limit and no-limit holdem tables, and also rather good pot limit holdem games if you’re one of those.
Beside Texas holdem, PokerRoom offers Omaha and Seven Card Stud with their usual High and High-Low variations, plus Five Card Draw. There’s the usual choice of betting structures for the various games: fixed limit, pot-limit and no-limit. Stakes go from $0.25/0.50 to $500/1000. So you could say that the lack of micro limits is balanced by some really high stakes games.
There’s a scheduled multi-table tournament starting every ten minutes 24/7, more or less. You’ll find all kinds of animals in this zoo, tournaments that are extra slow or runs at turbo speed, tournaments with low or high buy-in, short-handed or full-ring, qualifiers to big events online of offline, guaranteed prize pools, special promotions, Texas holdem, Omaha or Omaha High-Low.
PokerRoom is celebrated for their strong play-money culture. At times players have even been making business with player points on trading sites like eBay. If you’re new to poker and want to learn the ropes, there’s probably no better place than PokerRoom to launch a serious play money career.
More About
2008 WSOP with PokerRoom
Starting in February and all the way through to the beginning of June, PokerRoom will be hosting a bonanza of WSOP satellites in all imaginable flavors. If you win, you’ll join the Team PokerRoom for 16 unforgettable days and nights in Vegas. Read more about the
PokerRoom WSOP satellites.
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