Poker Room Review

[bothecorgi]

In my other thread about how Pokerroom hates me, it was suggested that I write up a review of Poker Room so here goes.

I signed up through TP on October 28, 2004 to take advantage of the 40% bonus offer through Halloween. I deposited $290 for a bonus of $116. To clear the bonus, you have to accumulate 7 points for each bonus dollar - a total of 812 points for my $116. You have 60 days to accumulat the points. When you go to your account information page, it tells you exactly when the bonus expires, how many points you accumulated that day, how many points you have accumulated in total and how many points you have to go.

You accumulate points based on the amount raked from the pot and you get points even if you don't contribute to the pot which I like. You earn .5 points if the rake is over $.50 (usually happens when pot reaches $5) and 1 point if rake is over $1 (usually happens if pot reaches $10). You also earn 5 points for every $1 spent on tournament fees (i.e., a $5-$1 SNG will earn 5 points since tournament fee is $1). You can also earn points by playing the casino games but I have not done that since poker is a game of skill but casino games are just gambling.

There is a good variety of poker games (HE Limit, HE NL, HE PL, Omaha, 7 Card stud) as well as a lot of multi-table and SNG tournaments. The number of players at any given time seems to vary from 4000 to 8000.

I started by playing 2 tables of $.10-$.25 NL HE ($25 max buy-in). The % of people seeing the flop ranged from 40% to 60%. The action was pretty good and the players were pretty loose but I felt that I simply was not getting the points fast enough. I usually have about 2 hours to play from 10 p.m. to midnight and I was only getting about 25 points per day.

I switched to the $.25-$.50 NL HE ($50 max buy-in) tables and found that the flop % was usually between 35 to 40%. The players were tighter but there is always at least one fish per table who seems more than willing to dump their chips to your nut hand. I am now getting about 50 points per day, although a copule of days I got 80 to 90 points. At one point, I was up around +$90 but now I am down about $60 thanks to my wife's stellar play on one hand (but that's a different story). After 13 days, I have 555 points and have 257 points to go which should take about 5 days.

With regard to the software, you can either download the games or you can launch them directly from the website pokerroom.com. I always just launch from the website. The software is o.k. although I did get disconnected twice last night while playing a $5 SNG. Overall, I like this site and I have found that the bonus is easier to satisfy than I thought it would be. Once, I clear the bonus, I will probably stick around this site for awhile.