Poker.com Review (4.5 out of 5)
Poker.com Review (4.5 out of 5)
Bonus and Promotions: 4.5/5
Fish Rating: 4/5 (Tuna.fish)
Tournaments: 3.5/5
Software: 4/5
Payouts: 4.5/5
Customer Service: 4/5
This is a site that I just started playing at recently and I'm impressed with their poker room overall. Also, their decision to continue service to US players bumps them up another notch for me. Poker.com is really trying to attract new players via lots of promotions, and you can play in $35,000 worth of weekly freerolls by playing a few hours at their ring games. Because of their heavy promotion, this site is attracting mostly new and inexperienced players to the tables.
The competition is quite weak on this site, as you'll routinely get lots of action for 3 or 4 calling stations at once. Poker.com has some very soft small-stakes games and the occasional good $1/2 or $5/10 NL. I also give them credit for their instant NETeller cashouts, which is something more poker sites should consider offering. I would like to see this site grow as they have some strong promotions for their regular players. The type of player that this site is mostly suited for is the casual low-to-medium stakes no-limit player who appreciates big freerolls.
Bonus (200% up to $600) and Promotions:
Their bonus payout structure is moderately easy to cash out if you play fairly often. They've set up a "Comp Points" system, which gives you points when you contribute rake. You'll receive the bonus in $10 increments after accruing Comp Points. In terms of other promotions, they're mainly in the form of freerolls. As far as I know, Poker.com offer the most freerolls online - $35,000 worth every week. The biggest prize pools are for players who have participated in raked hands throughout the week and the largest event is a weekly $20,000 freeroll. Poker.com is unique in that you get to play for 7 days worth of the big freerolls for playing on the site. Because of the big freerolls and the good deposit bonus, they earn a good score in this category.
Fish:
As is mostly the case with newer poker sites, the Poker.com competition is very weak. Not only are they weak, these players often get involved in enormous pots. At a typical no-limit ring game, the average pot is usually over 40-50 times the big blind. You'll also be getting great pot odds on drawing hands like suited connectors as it is the rule, not the exception, to have 5 or 6 players seeing every flop. I really believe that this site has some of the weakest players online. What this adds up to is a lot of action on just about every hand. Unfortunately, your premium hands go down in value with more opponents, so tend to limit the field preflop with your big hands and encourage action to get the right odds on your mediocre hands. No-Limit ring games were previously limited to smaller stakes but as the traffic has grown you can usually find games going at the $1/2 stakes or higher. Limit games also remain popular into the middle limits.
Tournaments:
The Poker.com freeroll traffic is massive and, as mentioned above, they are very generous about freeroll prize pools. They host several $100 freerolls daily that are open to everyone, but the real rewards are in their daily $500 and $1,000 freerolls, weekly $2,000 and $10,000 freerolls, and a monthly $50,000 freeroll. These are open to all players who have earned a certain number of "Comp Points" so the field is usually limited to only a few hundred players. This is typically done in a playing session or two for the smaller events and over a few extended sessions for the larger ones. One thing that I value in how a poker site runs their freerolls is how quickly it is run. Freerolls here are typically over within a couple of hours, making them very playable. Poker.com also offers a good number of low-to-medium buy-in tournaments, but the traffic isn't too high yet as the site is still fairly new.
Software:
While the graphics aren't highly detailed, I like the software at Poker.com and I think that it deserves a high score. First of all, I appreciate when an online poker site actually creates original software, not putting out another skin on someone else's engine. This site has done that, and in terms of functionality, it's one of the easiest to navigate. Instead of opening up lots of windows for new games, they use tabs within the main software window, which I think is highly innovative. Hey, so I'm a desktop clutter freak... I also think that they had the right idea in creating some unique options at the table. For example, they offer an animated smiley box that allows you to laugh at your opponent's suck out or wave to a newcomer at the table. Also, during all-in situations, they show winning percentages for each hand similar to what you see on televised tournaments. Other neat features include a rabbit-hunt on winning hands and the ability to show only one of your cards after winning a hand. You can also earn little stars and ribbons next to your name if you win tournaments or other special events. While the lobby plays some cheesy muzak in the background (you can disable it if you wish), the animations are very smooth. Game speed at a full ring game usually runs about 45 hands per hour, which is decent. Overall, I found this software very appealing.
Payouts:
In terms of payouts, Poker.com can potentially be one of the fastest online so they deserve a good score. If you deposit and withdraw using NETeller, they allow the opportunity to receive an instant credit to your account up to the amount you deposited in the first place. This is a unique feature, and one that should be adopted by more poker rooms. Keep in mind that you will need to wait the normal amount of time to withdraw over your deposit amount. My experiences were pretty quick with this, and I had my NETeller cashout within 1-2 days.
Customer Service:
While I think that it's best to offer all forms of support, Poker.com does respond in a fair amount of time to e-mails, which is their only form of service. I contacted them once before I set up my account, and I received a personal response within 20 minutes.
Player Traffic
Player traffic will probably be the biggest obstacle that Poker.com has to overcome. However, I've been monitoring their progress and they are improving ring game traffic as US players continue to join the ranks. While this was a site restricted to tables under $1 stakes, you can normally find a $1/2 no limit game going on and even the occasional $5/10. While you can mostly find action at the small no limit stakes, traffic is improving to include mid-limit games. Tournament traffic is very good for their freerolls, and is about average for events under a $10 buy-in.
Best Features
The best freerolls. This is the main promotion for the site right now, and the best ones with decent prize pools are the events that actually require previous gameplay.
Original software. I wish that more poker sites would add the all-in winning percentages to their software.
Soft competition. The flop percentages are extremely high with opponents regularly playing too many hands for too much money. I recommend raising your strong hands more than normal to thin the competition as you'll probably still get plenty of action.
Game Selection: Hold 'em, Omaha
Limits: Limit: 2c/4c up to $30/$60 No-Limit: 10c/25c up to $25/$50
Artist/Author: Beat the Fish April 14, 2007 | |
