Article Avenue - free articles and downloads - Finding The Right Poker Room For You

By Jeremy Olson

A decade ago, choosing an online poker room wasn’t hard for one simple reason: there weren’t many places to choose from! But now it’s the complete opposite: there are literally hundreds of places trying to get your business with bonuses and promotions.

And with so many rooms out there, it can almost be overwhelming to decide which room is the best to play poker and earn free poker money. This difficult decision can be made easier: all a person has to do is look at certain criteria for the room they are thinking of joining. Here are some good things to check out when you’re considering signing up for a certain poker room.

Bonuses/Promotions

Even the best online poker players in the world experience highs and lows with the game, and when you’re in one of those low points, it’s always nice to know that there’s bonus money available. One of the first aspects to examine in this category is the initial deposit bonus that a poker room offers. The size of the deposit bonus is definitely the primary thing to be concerned about, but it’s not the only thing! That’s because some places, including Full Tilt Poker, may offer a $600 deposit bonus, however, players will have to jump through hoops before they ever see a dime of that money. So make sure that the bonus is actually obtainable first.

Another aspect of bonuses and promotions that you need to check out is what kind of bonus point system is offered. Pretty much any quality poker room, will have some form of reward system where they dish out bonus or frequent players points based on how many tournaments and cash games people participate in. How you can use the bonus points that the room gives is important too; the variety of things that you can normally do with bonus points includes converting them to cash, buying into tournaments, or purchasing things from some kind of poker store with the points. For example, Everest Poker and Absolute Poker have systems that let players earn points to enter tournaments or buy merchandise.

Besides bonus points and deposit bonuses, you should also check for other types of promotions that the room offers. Things like bad beat jackpots, high hand bonuses, land-based tournament prize packages, and monthly cash bonuses are some of the more common stuff that you’ll find in the online poker industry.

Popularity/Player Competition

Most poker players don’t keep a set schedule for jumping online to play, so you should look for a room that has a decent amount of player traffic. Almost every room is going to have plenty of people online during their peak traffic hours, but how many players are they going to have on when poker traffic isn’t bustling? Most rooms will only give a figure based on their peak hours but this is often a good indication of how the room will do during low traffic hours too. According to PokerScout.com, PokerStars has the highest player traffic volume in the world.

Another thing to keep in mind with this room popularity issue is that low traffic will make it hard for people to find games in more obscure poker variations such as 5-card draw as opposed to the popular ones like Texas Hold’em and Omaha. Low traffic is a good indication that only Texas Hold’em games will be raging on into the early morning or late night hours. A good place to check out the popularity of a poker room before downloading the software is to look for site reviews, since these normally give this kind of information.

Along with the player traffic issue, you’ll also want to make sure that the room you are looking at isn’t infested with sharks. Playing poker can definitely be fun, but it becomes a lot less fun when you’re losing tons of money to more skilled players day in and day out. So make sure to do some research on a room’s reputation before you start playing for money there.

Customer Support

There are quite a few poker rooms out there that put so much of their resources into things like promotions and advertising that they neglect their customer support section. You definitely want to avoid these rooms at all costs – it can be very frustrating to play at a room that doesn’t provide enough ways to contact them or doesn’t respond to problems and inquires quickly enough.

Any good poker room should provide telephone and e-mail support; if they don’t do this then they should at least respond to e-mail questions and concerns within an hour or less. Truthfully though, it’s always best to try and find a place that offers three or four ways of contacting them – live chat, phone, fax machine, and e-mail support is optimal. The more ways that a poker room has for you to get a hold of them, the easier it should be on you. For example, Purple Lounge only offers e-mail support; however, the response times are usually fast and the answers are accurate.

Company Ethics/Security

When a person deposits their money at an online poker room, they are placing a lot of trust within that place. After all, you most likely don’t know the owners of the site well enough to give them your cash. This is why it is so important to look into the background of poker rooms to make sure that they don’t have a history of cheating or banking problems – any type of incident in the past can be an immediate red flag, so don’t take this lightly.

Check into what kind of security method a room uses to protect people’s information and money. Most poker rooms will have some sort of section on their website that explains how they ensure that people’s info stays safe. If a site doesn’t include this information at all, then it might be another indication that the room’s security and/or ethics could be suspect.

Software

One last really important aspect of a poker room that many people often overlook when choosing place to play at is the quality of the software. The main requirement is that it should run smoothly with no glitches; if the software doesn’t run well then it can really hinder the playing experience. Once again, there’s really no way to know how the software runs unless you either download it or check out reviews of the room. If you do check out the software yourself, make sure to just participate in play money games until you get a feel for it.

Another aspect to examine with regards to software are the options that you’re given at the table. Some basic commands and options that you might find at a table are “sit out”, “auto fold”, and “auto post”; more advanced ones may include “fold and show”, “audio settings”, “player voices”, and “view hand history”. Not all rooms are created equal in this regard; make sure to pick a place that will give you a decent amount of commands and is easy and straightforward to use.

About the Author:

About Us:

Poker Source is the number one site for Free Poker Money Free Poker Gifts and Rakeback online. We have been providing unique poker promotions since 2004 and have over 180,000 satisfied customers. Our Free Poker Money offers are the best in the industry. You can get up to $100 free money without making a deposit at select poker rooms. Our free poker gifts range from poker books and chipsets to poker training videos and poker software such as PokerTracker3 . We offer top rake back deals at the top online poker sites. You can get your rake back paid directly into your poker room’s account every month.