DOWNLOAD POKERSTARS
Use bonus code First2008 to get a bonus of 100% up to $50!
Over the past few years, Pokerstars has arguably become the most prestigious poker site out there. Although known mainly for being the online poker home for the past 3 world series of poker main event champions, Pokerstars has far more to offer than just major tournament champions.
Software/support: Pokerstars software is consistently voted the most user friendly among the major poker sites out there. As shown above, the main lobby is very easy to navigate through, and users should have no trouble finding a suitable table. Additionally, the poker tables are easy on the eyes and provide much useful information. Potsizes are constantly recalculated after each player acts, and a player's icon lights up when it is his turn to act. The player icons are not ugly like some other websites, and are very beneficial; often times you will remember playing against someone from just their image, which can lead to correct reads that aren’t possible elsewhere.
Pokerstars also provides useful statistics for each game you play. For example, say you are playing 2 no limit hold em tournaments, 2 pot limit Omaha cash games, and 2 no limit hold em cash games. Pokerstars keeps separate statistics for each of these 3 types of games. You can view how many flops you see, how often you win a showdown, and how many hands you have won before a showdown. In 7-card stud, the additional statistics of how often you see 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th street are available.
Along with personal statistics, Pokerstars allows for nearly unlimited note taking ability on other players. Say you pick up a read on a player, but you are multi tabling and you might forget it soon afterwards. If you double click a player’s name, you can write anything you want about that player in the given box. The website saves an N icon on that player's image, which lets you know that you have notes on the given player in case you forget.
After being dealt into a hand, players have full access to detailed hand histories from the table lobby. These hand histories show every action that went on in each street, and even shows the cards players mucked at a showdown. Players are also able to email themselves personal hand histories to review their play at a later time, and upon request can ask for full hand histories from email support.
One really nice feature about pokerstars is the reloading. say you call a big bet preflop and completely miss the flop. Before you fold, you have the option to reload your stack so you have the maximum amount at the table. This is great in a way because it allows you to reload immediately instead of waiting till you fold your cards, which can be really annoying if youre multitabling. However, it does have a drawback. It allows for a loophole called the reload bug, where players can reload when they are winning a hand in order to get well over the maximum stack.
Along with easy to use software, Pokerstars has a diligent support team that works around the clock to make Pokerstars as user friendly as possible. The best way for me to portray how helpful the support team can be is through a story. The first involves my friend named Veg. He made a 2nd account on Pokerstars with a fake name and address, and after taking a large pot of someone, proceeded to tell him ""yeah that’s right, a minor just raped you, I’m 13 years old" The next day, Pokerstars emailed him the following:
We have recently observed your chat in which you claim that you are
only 13 years old. The minimum age requirement to play on
Pokerstars is 18 years of age. Pokerstars treats such chat claims
just as airport security treats "jokes" about bombs -- serious and
factual until proven otherwise. As such, I have closed your account
pending receipt of proof of age.
Please forward to us by Email as an attachment, or by fax to Costa
Rica, a legible copy of government-issued photo ID demonstrating that
you are at least 18 years of age.
At first, he was reluctant to do anything out of fear of having 2 accounts, especially one with a fake name/address. However, he emailed them the truth about the situation, and Pokerstars closed one account and transferred all the money to the other. According to another person, a similar situation occurred and Pokerstars took care of it swiftly and even transferred the FPP over to one account. These examples not only show how much Pokerstars cares about security, but how much it cares about its users.
The one downside to the pokerstars support team is that they are unreachable through telephone. However, the email team is truly the best there is.
Rating for software: 12 (cause it really is that damn good)
Rating for support: 9.5
Cash games:
Pokerstars offers a wide variety of games with a huge range of table limits to play. As for multi-tabling, Pokerstars allows players to play up to 12 cash game tables at one time and also an unlimited number of tournaments. The best feature about the cash games is the micro stakes. Some sites have higher stakes games going on, but Pokerstars allows starting out players to play for a very small amount of money with .01/.02 games.
One thing to note is that the pokerstars no limit and pot limit tables have a maximum of 9 players allowed.
No Limit Hold em: Pokerstars most popular game is undoubtedly NL hold em. With limits ranging from .01/.02 to 25/50, there are games for everyone to play. Some stakes are more popular than others, but there are multiple tables running for every possible limit at all times. The No Limit tables have a maximum buy in of 100 big blinds.
Fixed Limit Hold em: Pokerstars offers a huge variety of limit games, ranging from .02/.04 to 100/200. Although not as popular as no limit, there are a good amount of people who play fixed, and always tables running at every limit.
Pot Limit/Fixed Limit Omaha: Ranging from .01/.02 to 10/20 (pot limit) and .02/.04 to 15/30 (fixed limit), stars offers a wide range of Omaha limits. The more popular limits have 5 tables running at any given time, but all limits have a game going at any given time. The pot limit tables also have a maximum buy in of 100 big blinds.
Omaha Hi low: Most Omaha split games are offered as fixed limit, but some are offered as No limit and pot limit as well. Limits range from .01/.02 to 75/150. Always plenty of games going for you omaha split lovers
7-card stud: Although it’s not nearly as popular as it was in the old days, there is still a healthy 7 stud community on stars. Stakes range from .04/.08 to 30/60, although the higher tables don’t always have games going.
Stud Hi Low: The least popular game offered at stars is Stud Hi Low. Limits ranging from .04/.08 to 30/60 are offered, but there usually aren’t more than 2 tables going at limits above 1-2. Still, there’s always a game going, so if stud Hi low is your thing, then there are games available for you.
Rating for Game Selection: 9 (don’t offer some games available at other sites, such as Razz)
Rating for Cash game Traffic: 10
Rating for multi-tabling capability: 10
Tournaments/Sit and Gos: As shown in the screenshot, there is a huge amount of tournaments available ranging from satellites to multi table tournaments to the world championships of online poker. In terms of tournament traffic, Pokerstars truly has it all.
Satellites: Pokerstars offers satellite tournaments to tons of major tournaments. Last year, over 1100 players in the Main event of the world series of poker were representing Pokerstars. The last 3 winners of the main event all call Pokerstars their online home. Besides the World Series, players are often able to qualify for World Poker Tour events. For example, a well known player with the id TheTakeover qualified for a Foxwoods event in November 2005 and won it, bringing home over 2 million dollars.
World Championships of Online Poker: In September, Pokerstars offered the online World championships, which consisted of 15 events of varying games, culminating in a $2500 buyin No limit hold em tournament. Many well-known professionals migrated to Pokerstars during this time to take part in these events. Besides forking over the cash to buyin, players were given the opportunity to play a myriad of qualifier tournaments to enter them.
Sunday Tournaments: Every weekend, Pokerstars offers a 500k-guaranteed tournament. What this means is that 500,000 in cash prizes are guaranteed to be given out. The structure of these tournaments is phenomenal. With 2500 starting stacks with 10/20 initial blinds, rising every 20 minutes, these tournaments are structure more like major tournaments in that the blinds don’t increase so fast and the stack sizes start out over 100 big blinds. To enter this tournament, you can pay up the $215, qualify through a rebuy tournament, or qualify through an FPP sit and go.
Sit and Gos: Pokerstars offers heads up, single table, or multi table Sit and Gos, as well as sit and go qualifiers for larger tournaments. The heads up tournaments range from $5 to $5000, the single tables from $5 to $1000, and the multi tables from $5 to $215. It’s generally very easy to find a suitable tournament, and they fill up fast, so it’s not a long wait to play one. The single tables have a great structure as well, with 1500 starting stacks and 10/20 starting blinds, moving up every 10 minutes. This allows for a lot more postflop play than the sit and Gos offered by some other sites.
Besides the aforementioned, Pokerstars also offers multi-table tournaments in every listed game, of buyins varying from 0, played in by using FPP, to $1, all the way up to $500 tournaments.
One last note I'd like to make is the ease of making deals in tournaments. Let's say you get down to 3 players in a fairly large tournament, but you're all equally stacked and the blinds are high. If you call support in, you can split the prize pool up however the three of you decide and pokerstars will grant your wish. This is almost as much an issue about the support team as it is tournaments, but it's a very nice feature to have.
Rating of Tournament availability: 10
Rating of Tournament traffic: 10
Miscellaneous FPP store: http://www.pokerstars.com/fpp_store.html
Pokerstars allows for accumulating FPP. Every time a pot reaches $20 unraked, 1 FPP is awarded to a player. Additionally, for each $1 raked out of a tournament 5 FPP are awarded. The store has some cool clothing, a few great books, and a phenomenal chip set, which I’ve already bought 2 of.
Bonuses: Pokerstars occasionally offers 20% bonuses for players up to $100 or $200. These offers are not always running, and are not as generous as some other sites. They also don’t offer bonuses for player referrals. Further, Pokerstars does not provide any rakeback, while other sites do. If you are looking solely to bonus whore, Pokerstars is probably not the optimal place for you.
Traffic: Pokerstars consistently has over 35000 people logged in. At peak hours there are over 50k people playing.
Rating of FPP store: 10
Rating of Bonuses: 2.5
Rating of Rakeback: N/A
Criticisms of Pokerstars: The first criticism is usually the skill level of players. If you are looking for easy players to take advantage of, this is not the place to go. The competition level on Pokerstars is very high, and at higher limits its very hard to find an easy game. However, if you are looking to improve your game, Pokerstars is the place to be.
Another criticism is their lack of bonuses/rakeback. The site is not generous in this regard. They do often offer bonuses during special time periods, but these are not continuous and they are not as much as other sites.
Overall, I’d give the site a 9. It has the best software, support team, tournament/cash game traffic, but the lack of bonuses and easy competition detract from its attractiveness to a lot of people. If you are looking for pushover competition and lots of bonuses, Pokerstars is not for you. However, if you want to enjoy your poker experience, and want to improve your game, give Pokerstars a shot.
Ratings recap:
Rating for software: 10
Rating for support: 9.5
Rating for Game Selection: 9
Rating for Cash game Traffic: 10
Rating for multi-tabling capability: 10
Rating of Tournament availability: 10
Rating of Tournament traffic: 10
Rating of FPP store: 10
Rating of Bonuses: 2.5
Rating for competition strength: 2.5 (10 being easiest, 1 being hardest)
Rating of Rakeback: N/A
DOWNLOAD POKERSTARS NOW
Use bonus code First2008 to get a bonus of 100% up to 50$!
You can also sell your pokerstars $T / $W dollar on liquidpoker! |
