PokerStars General Information
Pokerstars is the biggest online poker room, with the most ring games and tournaments. Even after it left the US market, it remained the biggest poker site online, as their rewards program and great action keep most people around after they sign up.
It’s rated by many as the top online poker room, and in this review you’ll see why Pokerstars.com has gained that coveted title. Pokerstars is NOT USA friendly, and you can play Stars on a Mac or PC.
PokerStars Site Traffic
For many years now, Pokerstars has been the largest online poker room. Whether it’s day or night, they have countless tables at every stake and variety. They blow all other sites away in terms of player volume in the ring games.
Pokerstars is also the king of poker tournaments. Their MTT’s or Multi-table tourneys are bigger and have higher guaranteed prize pools then any other site. On the same token, they also have the smallest micro stakes entries out of any poker site, so they really do take advantage of the player volume and offer something for everyone.
Whether you are just a beginner or seasoned poker pro looking to get into some serious action, there is a ring game or tournament for every level of play.
Features And Layout
The Pokerstars lobby and game search has always been top of it’s class, and the features at Stars certainly help it stand out from the pack. The layout is simple yet perfectly engineered, as you can multi table as many tables as you want and have them fit perfectly in a number of ways on your screen. Their are plenty of customization options as well, setting the standard for how online poker software should be made.
Across the top of the Pokerstars lobby is a quick navigation which allows you to set several options and jump from area to area. You can play in over 20 different languages and change a multitude of options in this area such as auto muck, audio options and over 30 more. You can also access the requests section, which delves deep into tons of features that many other poker rooms don’t have, like checking your TLB (tournament leader board) points, or doing a table search for another player.
PokerStars Customer Service
You’ll be able to contact the Pokerstars.com support staff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They have a pretty large work force to handle any type of request or query, so you’re definitely in good hands when it comes to this department. You can contact the support staff at anytime from right within the Stars software.
Software Graphics And Gameplay
The Pokerstars graphics are excellent and the gameplay is smooth and bug free. It’s a custom poker software not shared by any other poker room, and was custom developed by Stars for multi millions of dollars. ThHe hard work and money put in to it makes it the most robust, safe and secure, and entertaining poker software to play on.
You can open up 20 tables if you want, even on an old computer, and everything still runs smoothly. All that and still having superb graphics and sounds. You definitely don’t get that tacky online audio that you do on some sites, everything has a professional and crisp edge on it, from the graphics and sounds to the gameplay.
Pokerstars is also the leader in innovation for bet/raise/etc buttons and sliders, easily allowing you to hit shortcuts or drag an exact amount to bet or raise. The last hand replay function will have you replaying your hands as you relive victories and analyze past play.
PokerStars Competition
The competition on Pokerstars is a tricky one to analyze. Obviously, as one of the most heavily advertised poker sites, they have tons of new players signing up daily. That makes sure there is plenty of inexperienced players and fresh blood to go around. On the other hand, that also attracts lots of poker professionals and otherwise highly skilled players.
The key is great table selection, and since there are hundreds of tables to choose from at any given time you’re only enemy is your impatience. Want to know a quick way to find out the experience of players at any given table (without the use of software)? Simply scan the player avatars for 3 stars and up, because that means you’re playing against people who are on the site a lot, and obviously are probably winning to get to the higher VIP levels.
Of course that’s not always the case, and they could actually be a whale or a sucker with deep pockets. It goes back to your patience again, read the given stats by Pokerstars for each table and get on the waiting list for a juicy game, even if other seats are open at the same stakes. Overall, you should have no problem at all finding very beatable tables at Poker stars.
Poker Games
This is another area where Pokerstars really stands out. While other online poker sites offer plenty of variety, Stars definitely trumps them all. You’ve got all versions of Texas Holdem, Omaha, 7 Card, 2-7 Triple and 5 card draw games, H.O.R.S.E, Badugi, Razz, Lowball and mixed games.
They have both ring games and tournaments daily for all of these game variations, and they’re the only online poker site able to do that because of the massive player pool online at all times. If you like to really mix it up and play different variations of poker like so many poker players do, there is no other choice but Pokerstars.com. Other sites simply cannot keep up the player volume in some of these less popular games.
Poker Tournaments
Pokerstars has better tournaments and more of them than any other online poker site. It’s not even close actually, because there are multi table tournaments starting literally every 2 minutes on Pokerstars.com, ranging from Micro Stakes to High Stakes. There are also points tournaments (FPP player points), satellites and freerolls. When it comes to sit and go tournaments, Pokerstars is again the leader in the industry. Whether it’s single table, 2-table or 3-table sng’s that suit your style, there will be one starting any minute at various stakes on Poker Stars, guaranteed.
Every single day Pokerstars has the best guaranteed tournaments, such as their $162 buying nightly $40,000 and tons of rebuy tourneys like the $3+ $50k guaranteed. They have endless tournaments starting with small buyins yet huge prizes, and also have higher buyins with huge prizes that narrow down the playing field.
The WCOOP (World Championship Of Online Poker) is the internet’s premier poker championship, with $50 Million up for grabs across a series of events. Pokerstars is also the king of offering tourneys into offline live events such at the EPT, WPT and WSOP.
Freerolls
There are daily freerolls going on at Pokerstars, however, there are tons of entrants in the general ones. You can expect thousands of participants in the totally no requirement freerolls. On the bright side, there are plenty of different freeroll tournaments for people in different categories, such as depositors only, new players only, special country freerolls, etc.
If you’re a real money player at Pokerstars, you’ll have started to accumulate FPP’s, which is short for Frequent Player Points. As the name suggests, you earn more the more you play. In addition, the higher stakes you choose to play, the more points you’ll earn respectively. There are tournaments starting every few minutes for “FPP’s”, and they are usually satellites to further rounds of tournaments, which eventually end up in a major online or offline tourney. There are also daily 10 FPP $500 freerolls, and 20 FPP $1000 freerolls, and those amount of points are earned in minutes.
Poker Bonus at Stars
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Pokerstars offers a top bonus of 100% match of your first 3 deposits, up to $600 each time. That means you could get a total max bonus of $1800 after your 3rd deposit, or you could simply take advantage of the 100% bonus by depositing $30 and getting $30 free. It works that way all the way up to $600, you get 1 bonus dollar for every $1 you deposit. With that in addition to the top class player’s rewards program described below, you really can’t get much better than this.
Player’s Reward
The Pokerstars loyalty program is among the best in the business, and many claim it to be the ouright champion. There are several levels of VIP status that you can reach at Stars, with the “silver” status being the lowest and easiest to reach. The Supernova status is the creme of the crop, and what every player strives for on the site. If you reach that level, the perks and special tourneys with money added are seemingly endless. Even at the lower ends of the VIP status program there are plenty of perks.
The reason people like the Pokerstars FPP program so much is that the Frequent Player Points are racked up very quickly, even at lower stakes. Not only that, the FPP’s have actual real value to them, with many people winning full blown poker vacations with main event tickets to live tourneys all over the world. There are also daily huge freerolls just for FPP holders. Really, if you’re going to be a regular at any poker room, the rewards program here makes it the #1 choice for sure.
Deposit And Withdrawal
The deposits on Pokerstars are quick and take 10 seconds, and they even have a fast deposit option that is quicker than that! Of course an extremely important thing to note is that their withdrawals are fast and you can request them in a ton of different methods. Basically, if it’s real money then Pokerstars will accept it. Some examples are instant echecks, Visa, Mastercard, Moneybookers, Instadebit, Ukash, ClickandBuy, Check, Wire Transfer and more. When you are ready to cashout your winning simply go to the cashier and request a withdrawal, which is processed almost immediately.
Conclusion
As you can tell, Pokerstars triumphs over their competitors in every category imaginable, which is a pretty impressive feat. It is also the reason that they’ve always weathered the storms and eventually came out on top as the premier online poker room, bar none. If you’re looking for an online poker room that caters to the international community, today is a great day to join Pokerstars. Take advantage of their deposit bonus which likely won’t last for long, because to be honest, they don’t even need it. Remember to use the code MPONLINE for the max bonus of 100% up to $600.