Poker Stars Review

Play at PokerStars

PokerStars is the market leader when it comes to online poker. PokerStars has by far the best software, tournaments and traffic. You feel comfortable when you play there because the software and structure of play is exactly how it should be. I constantly keep playing at PokerStars because there is no other poker website that comes close to providing the experience you have there. There is a huge amount of players there and you will be able to play in the biggest tournaments online. You can be sure that you will always have many tables available at any limit and at all times of the day. The customer service is the best out there for rooms that don’t have live chat, they are knowledgeable and reply in a timely fashion.

The only drawbacks are the bonuses and amount of fish. They only offer a free $50 when you sign up which is well below industry standard. You can unlock this bonus by entering our PokerStars marketing code (PAWT7). However, they don’t need to have great bonuses because the room itself is what attracts all their players. There is a very low amount of fish at PokerStars and the competition is the toughest in online poker. There is a huge amount of money to be won or lost here, and if you aren’t up to scratch you can be punished.

PokerStars is the #1 room in online poker today. They raise the bar when it comes to providing a safe, enjoyable experience in online poker. The huge tournaments and great software by itself is enough to keep thousands coming back for more. This is my first choice when I play poker online.

Download PokerStars Software

The software is stunning to say the least. Everything functions exceptionally well, it is updated regularly and you can be sure that it is the best in the industry. They have 6-handed and 9 people in their full ring games. I prefer having 10 people in full ring games but it shouldn’t really bother you too much. The cashier and hand history pops up immediately, you aren’t taken to a web page so it is a lot quicker and smoother. I have hardly ever encountered any lag and this will almost never be an issue. They do have scheduled server resets, but that is common amongst poker sites.

• Player Search
• Multi Tabling
• Resizeable Windows
• Hand History Text
• Hand History Graphic
• Heads Up Cash
• Heads Up SNG
• Mac Compatible

Multi-tabling is smoother than on any other site that I’ve played at. You can resize the tables to specifically fit the screen to how you want it and playing on two screens is easy as well. You get a generous time bank which is quite useful in tourneys. It can be especially handy if you are playing multiple games, which may require you to take more time than usual. They also have turbo cash games where decisions have to be made quicker. This is in the best interests of single table players because they don’t have to wait for all the multi-table grinders to make their decisions.

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You can see your folded cards by pointing your mouse over your name and you can make final table deals by sending an email with URGENT in the title to support@pokerstars.com. You can also transfer cash between your mates and look them up to see if they are online. You can set up private tournaments if you want to challenge your friends or work buddies to a game which can be a lot of fun.

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In comparison to other sites, PokerStars has by far and away the best software available today. They have more features, better functionality, smoother graphics and provide an easy to look at interface. The one drawback is in cash games, when you get all in before the river card, you cannot see your opponents hand until the river card has been dealt. Other than that, there are simply no other drawbacks to mention. The software is the best available in online poker.

PokerStars Promotions

PokerStars sends more players to the WSOP than any other poker site. This year is no different and they have stepped up their normal satellites to include seats through their “steps” promotion. Starting off at step 1 with a $7.50 buy in, you work your way to step 6 by playing the 9 players SNGs to win your seat. The standard WSOP that PokerStars provides is $10 000 USD buy-in to the main event plus $2500 USD for expenses.

PokerStars has the best Frequent Player Point system in online poker. You gain entry to large Freerolls, gain faster FPPs if you attain a certain VIP level, and can use your points to buy into tournaments and satellites. They also have a store where you can trade them in for LCD televisions, luxury cars and a wide variety of merchandise.

The VIP levels allow you to enter the biggest VIP Freerolls in the industry. PokerStars provides a weekly 50k tourney, a monthly 100k tourney and many other smaller ones. These tourneys offer great value for money for simply playing there on a regular basis. The best thing about the VIP levels is that you earn an accelerated rate of FPPs once you earn the level. This means that you don’t have to play as much to earn the same amount of points the following month.

PokerStars offers satellites to a lot of live events through the year and they run more frequently than the rest of the poker sites. You can win a seat to the World Poker Tour (WPT), European Poker Tour (EPT), PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) that has an event held in Sydney every year. PokerStars promotions are marketed towards the serious players that want to gain entry to the big land based events. You won’t get innovative new promotions, but you will get the best and most frequent qualifiers to the major live tournaments. If you want to qualify for some major tournaments, look no further.

Tournaments at PokerStars

PokerStars has the best tournament schedule available to poker players. They offer huge daily tourneys as well as the biggest weekend tourneys in the industry. The Sunday Million is a weekly event has $1.5 million USD guaranteed in the prize pool. They also have the Sunday warm up which has $500k guaranteed. They also have the Nightly Hundred Grand, 250k Gtd Super Tuesday and the Daily 50k just to name a few. There are massive amount of players in tournaments here and you will almost always find the guarantees are well and truly passed. They have 20 thousand entries in weekly $11 tourney with 200k Gtd. There is a great opportunity to have massive pay days here, but be weary of the competition as it is the toughest online.

PokerStars also offers a wide variety of tournaments. The most popular are in the form of hold ‘em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, and HORSE tourneys. They offer tourneys as 6-max shorthanded, turbo, deep stack, re-buys and many guaranteed events. The tournaments are regular and have a large amount of entries. The downside to this is that tournaments can run from 6-12 hours depending on the number of entries.

Amount of PokerStars Players

This is easily the poker room with the most traffic. Its nearest competitor is Full Tilt which has about half of the players that PokerStars has. In peak times PokerStars has even broken the 150 thousand online mark, the first room to ever have that many people online at once. There are large quantities of players available at all hours and you will never struggle to find a suitable game. During lulls, online players can drop below 30k, but this is still well above the other competitors. The rate that SNGs fill at is also the fastest anywhere online. At peak times, you might even struggle to get in quick enough which is a good problem to have. If you are a heads-up player, you need not worry about finding a game either as there is always one available. Cash games are plentiful and there is always a great selection. Amongst the players that play here, you will find a large number of poker professionals including Aussies Joe Hachem and Jeff Lisandro. Be sure to use the search function in the PokerStars software to see if they are online.

• Hold Em
• Omaha
• Stud
• Razz
• Horse

PokerStars Bonus

The 100% bonus up to $600 that you receive when you enter your PokerStars marketing code is well behind the industry standard. They offer a great amount of value in their VIP and FPP schemes, so the first deposit bonus is easily made up for. A better bonus would be a great addition to this room, but I don’t see it happening any time soon. They have enough players and enough offline advertising to attract players without offering large sign up bonuses. If you are looking to clear a bonus to deepen your bankroll, this is not the place, but if you are a regular player you will be more than compensated by their generous VIP program.

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To recieve your bonus, use the PokerStars marketing Code PAWT7. All you have to do is enter this code after you download PokerStars software.

Toughness of Competition

PokerStars is the home of the toughest competition you will find in online poker. The sharks are plentiful, and even at the small stakes, you will find better players than normal. You will still find plenty of fish, but there are plenty more on other poker sites. The cash games are particularly stronger than normal and you will have to be on your game to consistently win. The tournament players are also stronger than normal and you will run into quite a few specialist tourney players.

Don’t let the level of competition dishearten you though, because there is still a great amount of money to be won if you play well. The PokerStars bonus you receive when entering your PokerStars marketing code will also help out a litte bit when you make your first deposit.

Because of the large volumes of players, there is always bound to be larger numbers of shark and fish. You will still find plenty of games where the players watch some T.V, read an online book and away they go. You will find that a lot of players there think they are world class, but leave a lot to be desired. Make sure you play in the big tourneys because the competition is beatable and you can take home a large pay cheque.

Level of Customer Support

The customer support at PokerStars is world class. They offer timely, accurate responses and are well informed to make decisions. Often on other poker sites you can get generic, automated, dry responses. With the PokerStars team they are eager and switched on. They know the answers and they can help you out with whatever you need. In the dealings I have had with them, they have responded within an hour and have helped me with what I needed.

The only drawback about their customer support is the fact that is that they don’t offer live support. In my opinion, live support is a better method to deal with poker rooms. But, as they only have email support, they go down a little bit in my books. Aside from the live support, the support is as good as you expect and even better in a lot of cases. I have barely ever seen a negative thing said about their customer support which says a lot about their quality of service.