Through funny advertising and generous bonuses, PartyPoker has become the most popular poker website on the market. Known for it’s high volume, easy competition, good software, and many bonuses, PartyPoker is surely a great place for you to have fun, make money, and improve your game.
Software/Support:The PartyPoker software is very easy to manage, and takes very little time to get used to. As seen, the main lobby is pretty easy to navigate. The lobby is partitioned into real money (cash games), bad beat jackpot, party poker million, tournaments, sit and gos, and play money, each of which is further divided into other sections. Finding a suitable table is easy and fast.
The tables are very easy to look at. It's a little ugly, but they are very managable and have useful features. The player icons can be turned on/off based on your preference. PartyPoker provides personal statistics on your play. You can see how many flops you see, the percentage of hands you win when seeing a flop, and other important statistics. The only downfall to the stats is that they stack from different games. That is, if I am playing 2 games of Omaha and 2 games of Hold em, my statistics are the combination of those games. Alike Pokerstars, there is unlimited note taking ability. When you take notes on a player, a little notepad icon comes up over his name, so you don’t have to remember every player you have notes on.
One very silly feature is the sidebet option. You can bet if the flop will be all red or black in a game for $5 or $10. I would strongly urge not taking these sidebets; they are obviously in the houses favor, so any luck you may have in the short run will NOT last.
One advantage partypoker has is that it stores hand histories directly onto your computer. So, if you are using poker tracker, your statistics are easily available from your hard drive. Despite being readily available, the hand histories are convoluted and hard to follow. For example, let’s say you bet $5, and I raise to $15. The hand history will say that I am raising $15, because it is a raise of how much I had originally bet ($0). It is very confusing and hard to get used to this ambiguous notation.
The support team on partypoker is not all that great.
http://partypoker.com/help/index.html
Unlike Pokerstars, which has one support email: support@pokerstars.com, PartyPoker’s support team is fragmented based on your specific questions. One would think this would allow the support team to answer your questions faster, but in fact it doesnt. I shot a few emails over to a few different departments and it took almost half a day for each of them to respond. When they did respond, my questions were answered fully with good information, but it took a long time. I've also heard some complaints from some about problems dealing with the support team, in which help was much less than optimal. The email support is ok, but it's not nearly as good as some other sites.
Further, if you have to talk to them on the phone, it's pure hell. They hardly speak any english, and it takes forever to figure out what the hell they are saying. Despite being very accessible, where calls are patched through very fast, they offer little help. I've heard multiple complaints about the lack of help received from phoning in.
Rating of Software: 7.5
Rating of Support Team: 5
Cash Games:Partypoker has a great range in stakes on its cash games. The site allows for great ease in Multitabling – you are allowed to play up to 10 games at once! It recently instituted some micro stakes as well, although they are only offered for Hold Em. Note that the no limit and pot limit tables allow for up to 10 players unlike pokerstars 9.
Hold Em:
For fixed limit, stakes vary from .15/.3 to 100/200. No limit ranges from $5 NL to $2000 NL. Multiple games are running in every limit at all times. To find the micro games, click on the beginner section. The regular hold em section has games $25 NL and .5/1 up. With the exception of .02/.04 (which allows for 125 big blinds as the max buyin), the No limit tables allow for 100 big blinds.
Omaha:
Fixed limit Omaha games range from .5/1 to 15/30. Pot limit games range from $25 PL to $2000 PL. Although it is hard to find games on the higher stakes limit games, the Pot Limit tables are always running.
Omaha Hi/Low:
Opposite of Omaha, the fixed limit games are running more often than the pot limit/no limit games are. Stakes range from .5/1 to 20/40 for fixed, and $25 to $2000 for pot limit. The least popular stakes are the $1000 and $2000 PL games, and even those often have games running.
7 stud:
Stakes range from .5/1 to 20/40. There seems to be a decent player base on PartyPoker, as every time I’ve checked, every stake has had multiple tables running.
7 Stud Hi/Low:
Although not as popular as regular 7 stud, there is usually a game going between .5/1 to 10/20.
Blackjack:
Yes, partypoker now offers the dreaded blackjack to it’s players. Unlike blackjack in a casino, it is literally impossible to win here. The deck is reshuffled after 10% is dealt, and the games are heads up with the dealer, so card counting is not possible. If you want to mess around and play, go ahead, but be warned, you cannot win!
Rating for Game selection: 9
Rating for Cash Game Traffic: 10
Rating for multi-table capacity: 10
Tournaments/Sit and Gos:Partypoker offers a wide variety of tournaments and Sit and Gos, including satellites to major tournaments and freerolls to win prizes such as cash or a Ferrari!
Satellites:
This year, party sent a good number of players to the World Series. Satellites are also run into other tournaments such as the European open, or the PartyPoker million, which happens to be the favorite WPT tournament of Daniel Negreanu. Smaller satellite tournaments are run for other events such as the 500k tournaments. The most common satellite is a step qualifier.
Step tournaments:
Party’s most common qualifier tournament is the step system. Basically, you can buyin to any level of the tournament, the lower levels cost less to buyin, and the higher levels cost more. If you win a level you move up to the next level. If you manage to win the final level, you qualify for whatever tournament the satellite was to.
500k tournaments:
Offered every Saturday, PartyPoker has a 500k tournament similar to Pokerstars Sunday tournament. You can either buyin for the $215, or win a satellite such as a $10 buyin tournament.
Sit and Gos:
Party always has tons of sit and Gos running, whether it is single or multi table (2 or 3 tables). The stakes of these ranges from $5 buyin all the way up to $200. There are higher SNGS, but they are mainly steps in a qualifier.
Freerolls/Point Redemption:
Party offers a lot of freerolls, including party points tournaments. As seen, there are tons of freerolls which allow for a chance to win a Ferrari. These are run sort of like step tournaments, but the lower levels are freerolls. Info about the Ferrari giveaway can be found here: https://secure.partypoker.com/news/events/ferarri.html Party points (similar to FPPs) can be redeemed to play in a tournament with cash payouts.
Any other information about partypoker tournaments can be found here:
https://secure.partypoker.com/games/tournaments/index.html
Rating of Tournament availability: 10
Rating of Tournament traffic: 10
Miscellaneous:Party offers multiple bonuses for it’s customers to take advantage of. The first is a user referral bonus. If you tell a friend about the site and he makes a real money deposit, you get $50 and he gets $25! So if you have any friends itching to play poker after watching it on tv, convince them to deposit some money on partypoker so you can make some quick money.
Further, party offers 25% bonuses up to $100. This means, if you deposit $500, you will get a $100 bonus, which is cleared after playing a certain number of raked hands. It's not huge compared to some other sites, but it is always there, and adding in the friend referrals makes the bonuses well above average. Despite it's other great bonus features, party does not offer rakeback.
For low limit players, I think party has the best bonus system. The bonuses dont take very long to clear, and it's a good way for a small stakes player to make some extra cash. Please note that the bonus is a 1 time offer, and reload bonuses are offered only sporadically. Further, for mid to high stakes players, besides the friend referrals, I would rate their bonuses as below average.
By playing raked hands, players accumulate party points, which can be redeemed in tournaments, or by buying items from a store. More about party points can be found here: https://secure.partypoker.com/my_account/pc/pc_details.html
One final note I’d like to make is that Partypoker has pretty soft competition. The players here are not nearly as strong as the player level at Pokerstars. Although not as easy as some other sites (cough prima cough), it is still a great place to make some money off serious fish!
In conclusion, partypoker is a really great place to play poker. It has good software, tons of games, the highest traffic of any site, and great bonuses to take advantage of, not to mention easy competition! What more could you ask for?
Rating for software: 7.5
Rating for support: 5
Rating for Game Selection: 10
Rating for Cash game Traffic: 10
Rating for multi-tabling capability: 10
Rating of Tournament availability: 10
Rating of Tournament traffic: 10
Rating of FPP store: 9
Rating of Bonuses: 6
Rating for competition strength: 8 (10 being easiest, 1 being hardest)
Rating of Rakeback: N/A
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