 Overall: 8.7 |
|
|
PokerStars is the most popular and the busiest poker room today. It is market leader in terms of player traffic in tournaments as well as cash games. PokerStars took over as market leader in 2006. when after the UIEGA came into effect in the United States, many online poker rooms banned American players.
There are thousands of new players who join the site every day. Its tournament schedule is very impressive with regular huge guaranteed prize tournaments and many Sit'N'Gos at high stakes.
PokerStars offers a $600 sign-up bonus after making your first deposit.
The PokerStars software is one of the best on the market in terms of functionality and playability. The graphics are also ok.
Because of the huge number of players, the opposition ranges from very easy to serious high stakes pros. There is a lot of opportunity to play against international poker stars on PokerStars.
All in all, PokerStars is a great site and they offer a generious VIP system for loyal players.
PokerStars sent the would be world champion to the WSOP several times, Chris Moneymaker in 2003, Greg Raymer in 2004, Joseph Hachem in 2005 and there are 6 PokerStars players out of the nine finalists of the 2008 Main Event. They run many satellites every year to the WSOP as well as other big tournaments like EPT, LAPT and APPT.
|
|
PokerStars offer a huge 100% up to $600 first deposit bonus for their new players. You can make up to three qualifying deposits in 90 days. Bonus code: STARS600
| Bonus Type:
First Deposit |
|---|
| Maximum bonus amount |
$600 |
Deposit % |
100 |
| Clearing requirements |
10 FPP / $1 |
Player level |
Intermediate |
| Time limit |
180 |
Minimum deposit |
$10 |
| Recommendation |
Recommended |
Bonus code |
TFHU |
In the last few years PokerStars has been offering more and more promotions. They mostly concentrate on large guaranteed prize tournaments. The Sunday Million has the biggest prize pool as a weekly tournament.
They offer reload bonuses regularly, usually 20-25% of the deposit up to $100-$120.
They run satellites for the biggest live tournaments, for example the European Poker Tour (EPT), the Latin-American Poker Tour (LAPT) , the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) and the World Series of Poker.
They have plenty of freerolls with thousands of player but the prizes are low, because these are only satellites to the weekly freeroll final.
You earn Frequent Player Points (FPP) at PokerStars for every raked hand and every tournament you play. For every dollar you pay as a buy in to a tournament earns you 5 FPP. These points can be used to buy in special weekly and monthly tournaments as well as other kind of tournaments, or can be used to buy gifts in their shop.
Besides PokerStars also offers a VIP program. There are five different VIP levels: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, supernova, and supernova elite. Your level depends on how many FPPs you collect each month or year. There are certain benefits for reaching higher levels, for example on higher levels FPPs are collected faster, so the bonuses can be cleared faster.
You can estimate from your points how much of your contributed rake PokerStars gives you back. Every point is worth about 1.6 cents. Based on this a player at bronze level gets a 5-8% rakeback, and a player on supernova elite level gets a 25-32% rakeback from his points.
Cash games at higher stakes are pretty tough, the flop view percentage is quite low, which means the game is tighter at PokerStars than at other poker rooms. The good thing on the other hand is that there are always a lot of games going on in every game and at every take. The games are tight, but you can play a profitable game if you know how to win on tight tables.
At the 9-seat, minimum $1/$2 no-limit Hold’em tables the flop view percentage is between 20-30%. There are loose Omaha tables, where the flop view percentage is over 40-50%, sometimes it even gets above 60% (on $1/$2 tables and higher). Because of the continuous feed of new players, and the good game variety, cash games are becoming looser and looser.
The level of players at tournaments is usually weaker and you find a competition of mixed abilites. Of course mostly the better players enter the high stakes Sit’N’Gos, and the bigger tournaments. Some less qualified players also enter these events, because PokerStars is the leader in tournaments, and this attracts a lot of new tournament players.
All in all, the player level at the cash game tables is higher than average, but on the tournaments it is usually weaker.
PokerStars is the most popular poker room on the internet. At peak time there are more than 200,000 players online.
From the very beginning the PokerStars has been very famous for its tournaments, but today they offer nearly any kind of game and the cash games are popular as well.
PokerStars offers a lot of promotional tournaments, with million dollar prizes, and they are run the online poker world championship every summer.
The PokerStars software looks good and is user-friendly. The software is available in 16 languages.
They updated the software recently so now you can choose from two lobby styles: use the old yellow or the new black version. You can customize the software to show your own photo and the tables can be set to any sizes. You can chooseIt is possible to choose from different graphics for the cards and different backgrounds for the tables.
The software is secure, reliable and fast. PokerStars is considered to be the most popular online poker room at the moment, because of the tournament traffic and the quick secure software. There are always a huge number of players on the tournaments, and the software is able to serve the very high volume without any problems.
There are certain features in the software that are especially implemented to help tournaments run smoothly. For example tournament tables are always balanced. The tournament lobby shows all necesary information to evaluate our position in a tournament.
PokerStars was the first poker room to implement the note taking facility and the statistics of play. There are the usual useful information in the lobby, for example the hands played per hour, the flop view percentage and the avarage pot.
 |
 |
| Software is available in the following languages: |
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
|
| Website is available in the following languages: |
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
|
| Platforms: |
 
|
VISA, Moneybookers and Neteller deposits and cashouts are available.
| Deposit methods: |
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
 ,
|
| Withdrawal methods: |
 ,
,
,
,
,
 ,
,
,
|
| You can open your account in the following currencies: |
USD |
The game variety is good on PokerStars, they are leaders in heads-up games, and it is safe to say that most games are played here at the highest volume.
This is true for Omaha High, Omaha High/Low, and Seven Card Stud. Omaha High/Low, HORSE and Razz are all available in no-limit version.
PokerStars was the first to offer micro limit tables, and it started the internet poker revolution with this idea. First it offered $0.01/$0.02 Omaha High and Hold’em tables. PokerStars doesn’t take rake at these micro limit tables!
The Hold'em tournament tables are 9-handed in the no-limit, and pot-limit Hold'em, as well as the cash tables. The limit tables are 10-handed.
PokerStars has a very good e-mail support, they are very fast, and have good knowledge. Unfortunately this is the only form of support they offer.
| Email support is available in the following languages: |
|
PokerStars is the busiest online poker room in the world today. Extremely safe, nobody ever had any problems with them.
Overall: |
|
|
Play Now
Visit
Ratings
Overall
First Deposit Bonus
Promotions
Loyalty Bonus
Ease of Competition
Software & Graphics
Payment Methods
Player Traffic
Financial Security
Support
Gaming Variety
First Deposit Bonus - 8
Go to Top
Promotions - 10
Loyalty Bonus - 7
Ease of Competition - 6
Player Traffic - 10
Software & Graphics - 9
Payment Methods - 9
Gaming Variety - 10
Support - 8
Financial Security - 10
