Poker Stars Review (4.5 out of 5)
Poker Stars Review:
Overall: 4.5/5
Bonus and Promotions: 3.5/5
Fish Rating: 3/5 (Raymer ate them all?)
Tournaments: 5/5
Software: 5/5
Payouts: 5/5
Customer Service: 4.5/5
U.S. players can use ePassporte at Poker Stars.
Poker Stars became an online poker giant following back-to-back WSOP wins from Chris Moneymaker in 2003 and Greg Raymer in 2004. With Joseph Hachem joining them in 2005 they ensured their massive exposure even further. In 2007, they became the largest online poker room boasting the most tables and players online. Aside from the publicity, this is a very professional site to play on without any real flaws. Poker Stars caters to the serious poker player, and their tournament traffic and offerings are unquestionably the best online. Their software package is sharp, payouts are fast, and customer service is very prompt. If you play at high stakes, you can actually find plenty of action all the way up to $100/$200. With other large sites dropping out of the market, it was great news to hear that this site continues to welcome US playes. This decision has helped to make them the largest online poker room in terms of player volume. Overall, I have continually been impressed by Poker Stars and they have earned one of my top spots.
Bonus (100% up to $50) and Promotions:
For the rest of 2007, they're offering our visitors a 100% deposit bonus (up to $50). This is a fair deal as they typically offer very few bonuses. You'll need to use one of our links to Poker Stars and bonus code "First2007" to receive it. The playing requirements are quite low and you should cash it out in a few sessions or less playing average-stakes cash games. This site also runs an annual promotion called the World Championship of Online Poker, which topped $10 million in prizes this year. The events are structured similar to the WSOP, holding events of mostly Hold 'em, but also Omaha, Stud, and HORSE games. This is a great promotion for serious tournament players with serious bankrolls. The FPP program is probably their main promotion. They have some neat ways to use them such as for big tournament satellites, cash freerolls, or merchandise like poker books, posters, and clothing. Most of their promotions focus on live tournament satellites or huge guaranteed tournaments. While these are great for big tournament players, they don't offer a lot of other promotions for smaller players and tend to rely on the quality of their games to carry them. Also, their VIP Club rewards frequent players on the site. Everyone has always earned FPPs to spend on merchandise, but this new program puts larger players in a different tier where they can earn even more points and enter an exclusive player store.
Fish:
Traditionally, Poker Stars has been one of the tighter online poker rooms. I think that it is opening up quite a bit due to their promotions bringing in new players. It is tighter than many sites in terms of flop percentage, but I still regularly run into awful players even at the $5/10 NL level. Players drawing with terrible odds also still runs rampant. At the lower-to-middle stakes, the flop percentage is about 25-40%. Personally, I can find this refreshing after an extended bad-beat session on another wild site. Many new players are scared away by their reputation of having stiff competition, but it really is mostly hype. Yes, for the most part players are tighter at this site, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are better. You usually want to be playing the opposite style of your opponents, so use their tight nature to your advantage, mix up your play, and run over timid players. If I find that a table is simply too slow for my liking, I'll switch to one with a higher average pot. If you're looking to play at a more consistent table that is more similar to cardroom play, you might try Poker Stars.
Tournaments:
One of the major draws of Poker Stars is the tournament offerings. In my opinion, this site is the best online for tournaments. They have an unmatched number of satellites not only to live tournaments, but also to their own guaranteed events. Their biggest weekly event is a $1,000,000 guaranteed event and they hold numerous double-shootouts throughout the week to win a cheap seat. This is the largest recurring online poker tournament in history and is simply unmatched by any other online poker room. Normal tournaments between the $10-50 buy-in range can attract over 1,000 players during peak hours giving you great value on a small investment. They structure tournaments well by providing an easy-to-understand lobby, giving a good amount of starting chips relative to the blinds, and allowing sufficient time between blinds. I like this structure because it tends to give a slightly larger edge than normal for skill vs. luck. As Poker Stars has been experiencing a huge boost in traffic, the tournament traffic is massive. No tourney is ever empty, which is a major positive for building big prize pools. They offer lots of middle-to-high buy-ins, but also offer a few $1 events during prime hours. Overall, if tournaments are important to you, you can't do better than Poker Stars.
Software:
Poker Stars publicizes their software as the best online, and I would probably have to agree. I don't think that it is head and shoulders above the other sites, but it is a pretty good package. They allow you to upload your own image as your avatar, which is a neat little feature that a few sites are picking up on. I recently increased their score to 5 because of the latest software update which I thought was a great improvement in both function and cosmetics. Firstly, you can resize any table window (or tile them) to whatever size you desire. Next, they have new themes that allow you to change the graphical theme to things like "Marine", "Stars" which is my new personal favorite, "Saloon", and "Renaissance". Each has their own background imagery and colors or, if you'd rather, you can upload your own image for the background. Their hand history feature is probably one of the best online and is easy to use. You're able to see all hole cards that were in the showdown even if it was mucked, which is useful if you're trying to get to know what types of hands your opponents are playing. I also like the game speed of the software, which runs at a pretty quick pace.
Payouts:
The main feeling I get from Poker Stars is professionalism, so they handle their payouts quickly and consistently. This site is probably in the top 3 in terms of speed of cashouts. If you deposit electronically, you instantly get any amount up to your deposits paid out to you. For funds over this amount, they can credit your ePassporte account or send out checks via Fedex. Checks shouldn't take longer than a week to receive.
Customer Service:
Again, I like sites that offer all forms of customer service such as live chat and/or telephone support. Poker Stars only offers e-mail service, which is why they don't earn the top score. However, they seem to have plenty of reps waiting to respond, so you'll usually get a response within a few minutes.
Player Traffic
With with help of never-ending WSOP repeats on ESPN, Poker Stars has experienced continued growth for a long time and they're now the largest online poker room in terms of active players. Peak hours will sometimes bring in 100,000+ players, and they've solidified a #1 ranking for player traffic by continuing to allow US players. This is actually one of the best reasons to play here, since you can find multiple tables active at all limits (even high stakes) at all times of the time. Tournament traffic is also the best online, with several thousand players entering some events.
Best Features
Excellent software. This should mean that you won't get frustrated from slow game speed or difficult-to-follow lobbies.
Professional service. They resolve problems very quickly, and I've always been happy with their professionalism.
Best tournament action online. This is probably the best site to go with in terms of large tournaments because of sheer volume.
Extremely busy ring game traffic up to the highest limits. This is one reason that I continue to play here - you can always find a few games going on at any limit so you have greater choice in terms of game selection.
Game Selection: Hold 'em, Omaha, Stud
Limits: Limit: 2c/4c up to $100/$200 No-Limit: 1c/2c up to $5/$10
Artist/Author: Beat the Fish April 13, 2007 | |
