Sites |
|
Average Player Volume |
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PokerStars
|
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110,000 – 150,000 |
|
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Full Tilt Poker |
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45,000 - 60000 |
|
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Players
Only |
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10,000 – 15,000 ? Just my guess |
|
|
SportsBook |
|
2000 - 4000 |
Review |
|
Carbon Poker |
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3500 – 6000 |
Review |
|
Bodog
Poker |
|
2500 – 5000 |
Review |
Carbon Poker
Summary – Love the game windows! Just love em (see comments under software). The play is kind of weak and wild at times, there are not as many games and tournaments as the bigger sites. I find myself here often just because I like the feel of the game tables. And this is a great place for a good systems player to make money playing multiple tables. If you play 6-9 tables at once, play tight as hell, calculate your pot odds, you will win a lot of money here. You’ve got to be able to think quick, be willing to fold when you have good cards and the wild ones bet to much so that you have poor odds. Not recommended for beginners, because you could lose your shirt if you don’t know how to handle the wild play. Learn elsewhere first. They accept credit card like most casino sites do.
Competition – Again this is a casino site and is one of the smaller sites. As usual at a casino site the play is loose. This site has some of the highest players in the hand percentage I’ve seen. There are a lot of 6 handed ring games at this site if you like faster moving games. Tournaments have smaller numbers, often only 300-500 players. This is a good thing for some of the qualifiers for live events. Also it’s obviously easier to finish in the money when there are only 400 players as compared to 1500 – 2000 as you might find at PokerStars.
Software – They have some features I love, but the software does need some tweaking. First the bad. The lobby window is not resizable and it’s a bit to small so you have to fiddle with the columns to see all the you need to see. Other windows such as tournament lobbies, or settings screens sometimes have text running out of space so it’s hard to read. These issues are a bit annoying, but don’t affect playability at all. What I do like about their software over rides those other things. First when you install the software click on the Settings button, then click on the Window tab, then select New Window. With out this the game window opens in the lobby window and is not resizable. But when you change the default setting the game screens will open in a separate window which is completely resizable, from very small to full screen. At the smallest size I can easily fit nine game tables on my screen, and if my screen was just a bit bigger I could fit sixteen! I’d be in heaven playing sixteen games at once! Probably lose a lot of money though cause I’d have no clue what was going on at any table. The next cool feature is that at the same Settings screen as before you can also click on 2x2 grid. This makes game windows fit inside a grid 2 wide by 2 high, and makes it just one window. This grid is resizable and if you full screen it, it’s perfect for 4 games at once. Love that! Last there are the stats that you can leave open on the screen and still see everything. The playability of this software is great, though it could use a few customization options, this is my favorite software for sure. There are certainly some bugs to work out as I mentioned first, but they don’t bother you at all when your playing.
Promotions – The have a Royal Flush bonus, if you hit one you get a bonus of 100 times the big blind. They have Comp Points that you can buy merchandise with, but the merchandise is pretty weak compared to other sites. They do also have qualifiers for live events just the same as other sites.
Bodog
Summary – I’ve talked to some players that like this site, but I can’t understand why. I do like to play around at different sites, sometimes more than one site at the same time. But I almost never find myself going to Bodog. I do not like the software at all. It may be fine if you’re playing one table, but I almost never play one table at a time. This site is limited to 3 tables at a time, but if you play even two at a time I find the software hard to follow. The competition is weak and loose here for sure. But if I’m going to try to take advantage of weak play, I’m going to fold a lot, wait to bust them on big hands, and I’ll be playing 4-6 tables, which you can’t do here. So in my mind there are better places for this. What you can look for at Bodog is any of their guaranteed dollar amount tournaments where there are not enough players signing up to cover the guarantee. Then Bodog has to fund the rest, which means the payout is high for the number of entrants making it good odds. This does happen frequently.
Competition – Bodog might have the weakest competition of any site I know. As always casino sites tend to have gamblers not poker players. I wouldn't recommend bluffing at these players often, as they'll call you down most of the time with middle or bottom pair. Raise your strong hands, and don't forget to keep an eye on the active pot. There are routinely 5 or 6 players seeing the flop, which means you're getting great pot odds to play suited connectors or marginal hands from late position. Just keep in mind that you'll have to have the strength to release those hands if you don't flop at least 2 pair or a monster draw. Overall, players who know how to handle calling stations and the assorted maniac should do very well at this site. There is good traffic at ring games at most times. But tournaments traffic is weak, very weak.
Software – I feel a rant about to start! I’ll try to stay calm. First thing I don’t like is in the lobby window. For ring games they list tables by the max you can bring to the table, not by the blinds. Silly, but you can get used to it. When your looking at tournaments there is not enough width to display all the information. Bodog is not alone in this, but why is this so hard to accomplish? They waste so much space on that screen and then don’t have enough room for what we care about. The tables are very plain, which doesn’t bother me, I don’t need them to be pretty, but the speed of the software is very fast. Too fast really. It can sometimes be difficult to follow the action, particularly if you’re playing more than one table. I suppose if I played here regularly I’d get used to it. There is a flashlight thing that moves around to help you follow the action. This may work fine if you’re playing only one table, but if you’re playing more it just doesn’t do it. But what I can’t get used to is that there is a limit of 3 tables you can play on at one time. That by itself is enough to keep me from being a regular here. The table screens are not resizable but that’s not really a problem since you can only play three at a time, and they are small enough for that, but only if you close the window for the stats, notes and chat. Kinda dumb. Then they have a really worthless feature that they call picture in a picture. If you’re playing 3 tables they can be grouped together in one unit, with the active table being large, and the other two being small. When the table is small you can see what’s going on, but you cannot play the table when it’s small. You have click on it to make it the active (big) window in order to bet, check or fold. When you do that the tables don’t stay in the original position, they swap positions. Do this a few times and you have no idea which table your playing on. Since learning player tendencies is very important in poker this is terrible! For me it’s unplayable. So I would never use it. Bodog got this all wrong, Carbon Poker got it right. You can play without the useless picture in a picture like at any other site, and since you can play no more than three tables and they will fit on your screen, there is no reason for the picture in a picture. I wonder how much time and money they spent developing and implementing this useless thing.
Promotions – Like everyone else they do have qualifiers for seats at major live events. You can also earn points and turn those points into cash.
Bonuses – Bodog has traditionally had wimpy sigh up bonuses. But they have started doing a 110% sign up bonus where 10% is added to your account immediately, and the rest you have to earn like at any other site. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any reload bonuses at Bodog but as you can tell I don’t come here often so I may have missed it. Bodog does seem to have lost players since there are more sites that have opened to the US market, so just as they have recently started doing competitive sign up bonuses, they may add reload bonuses sometime in the future. They surely need to.