PokerStars Offical and Independant User Review
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Overview
If you haven’t heard of PokerStars, get the hell out from under that rock and welcome to the world of online poker! The biggest poker room in the industry, they have an impressive resume: home of the World Champions (well, certainly a lot of them), Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and a lot of the best online MTT players, including Europe’s Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier and Dario Minieri. If you’re after a soft game of poker, it might not be for you, but it’s one of the best sites out there.
Conclusion: We love PokerStars, but you’d have to be mad not to.
Software
Much of PokerStar’s well-earned popularity came from it’s playing software. No need to fiddle around wondering how to raise here, oh no. Big buttons, simple control and the kind of layout that lets your mind concentrate on the poker rather than wondering where on earth that action is. They don’t even rest on their laurels, either. If you don’t like the traditional Pokerstars layout (although we can’t fathom what the issue might be), you can alter the design, card index…even the colour of the card backs.
Conclusion: Simple, effective and not unattractive for it.
Traffic
Tons of it, which is a good thing. ‘Stars is most certainly the premier place to head to if you’re an MTT player or looking to satellite your way to some of the bigger tours. This year players from the site have gone to the WSOP, EPT and APPT, with three of the final tablists from the ‘November Nine’ being Pokerstars representatives. Pokerstars also boasts the popular World Championship of Online Poker, which in 2008 put up guaranteed prize pools of $30 million. Also very lovely. There's also a wide range of cash games, all brimming with players.
Conclusion: You’ll get a game of any size or type at any hour. What more can we hope for?
Rake
The rake at ‘Stars is competitive, coming in at slightly lower than the industry average. They are certainly gentle on micro-stakes players, with a decent rake for the higher rollers too. Rake is 5% of all No-Limit games with a max of $1 and $3 per hand depending on the number of players dealt into the hand. While the rake varies on the Fixed-Limit games, it basically averages out at around 5% as well, meaning there’s nothing here to perturb those who can’t stand big-bet poker.
Conclusion: Very competitive.
Donks or Not?
We all like to play against the clueless, hence increasing the chances of us leaving with a profit. Sadly, the Pokerstars clientele tend to be some of the best out there. While it’s true that some of the non-hold’em games are still soft (pretty much the case across the industry as a whole), the two-card poker variation is certainly tougher than average. They also home Daniel Negreanu, and he’s no slouch either.
Conclusion: Not donks. You can't have it all, can you...
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