The worlds largest poker room High Withdrawal smoothness
Live 24-hours support

Party Poker Room Review

(Note, US players not allowed since Oct 1, see more below).

With very high scores, Party Poker is one of the leading online poker rooms in the world, and no earlier recorded problems. They have been able to maintain loose and juicy games over time, with the constant influx of beginners and gamblers looking for action.

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Total weighted score
Software + Graphics .
Ring Game Traffic .
Tournament Traffic .
Game Variety .
Rake .
Soft Competition .
Sign-Up Bonus .
Loyalty Bonus .
Promotions .
Support .
Financial Security .
Deposit+withdrawl.systems

World's largest poker room, with over 35% of the market

Software supports side bets, black jack, and deal making

Membership referral scheme

PartyPoker.com Million Tournament

Tons of tournaments, also in fixed limit

World's largest poker room

Million Dollar Tournament

Live 24-hours support

Responds under a minute

No great look and feel software

No lobby information on view flop percentage etc

Limited statistics functions

Sign-up bonus in $
Deposit bonus in % .
Referral bonus per friend .

$25
.100%
.$0

PartyPoker Monster freerolls are as large as the name indicates. A $1 Million freeroll will be held monthly and the top winners will also qualify for the $5 Million grand final event. $100,000 Monster freerolls will also be held every week. On October 9th, 2005, Party Poker cut off their four skin sites and began to act independently (not sharing same player base). But still Party Poker boasts the world's highest traffic in ring games. In addition to the huge traffic there are many other advantages with Party Poker, such as loose games, great promotions and loyalty program, special events and a membership referral program. There are quite a few juicy games at Party Poker with loose action even up to the $30/$60 limits. However, you don't get the statistics to easily locate those games. Recently (October, 2005) black jack, side bet (bet that the flop comes with all red cards etc), and deal making features was implemented in the software. Real money player statistics - Oct, 2006: 15,000-18,250 ring game players at peak hours, 70,000-95,000 tournament players at peak hours.

PartyPoker's software is quite good, with a number of upgrades during both 2003, early 2004, October 2005 and February 2006. We are not big fans of the graphics, but from a practical standpoint the playability is good. With its phenomenal growth, Party Poker has added servers and increased bandwidth in order to secure full relability at 100,000 simultaneous players. However, a few players have complained over delays and disconnections at certain tournaments. Overall though, Party Poker has very good quality nowadays, in line with or better than most competitors. Four simultaneous tables per player is allowed. Unfortunately, the view flop percentages are not presented, neither are hands per hour rate. (This has the benefit though, that the looser games are "protected"). You see the average pot size of the last 20 hands. The personal playing statistics function is somewhat rudimentary, but works well. Player notes function is included as well as instant hand histories. In October 2005 a new platform was lauched which removed the Party Poker players from the skin sites and now lets them play et their own private tables. Also new features like black jack, deal-making, and side bets are available while playing at a poker table. A nice feature is the very smooth table resizing option (which is especially good if you play on a lap top or other small screen). You have the option to "auto resize" all open tables meaning will resize and spread out evenly on the screen by the click of your finger. Resizing does not work for Omaha and 7-Card Stud games. In sum, the software is good today after improvements to support the record-braking traffic.

Party Poker became the world's largest site in ring game traffic already by late 2002/early 2003, after its legendary launch campaign. They are keeping up the ultra aggressive marketing and the traffic keeps climbing to new record levels every month. Oct, 2006: 15,000-18,250 ring game players at peak hours real money ring game players at peak hours. The drop in traffic (about 15%-20%) is due to the latest update were Party Poker cut off their 4 skin sites from the network.

Party Poker traffic at the tournaments is the highest in the world. Beside no-limit and limit Texas Holdem, there are lots of tournaments in both 7-card stud and Omaha. Party Poker probably hosts more than 70% of all fixed limit Texas Holdem tournaments in the world! The traffic reaches somewhere between 70,000-95,000 (Oct, 2006) real money tournament players at peak hours.

Good, thanks to the leading volume in all games hosted; Holdem, Omaha and 7-Card-Stud in both High and Hi-Lo. However, Party Poker does not offer certain games such as heads-up matches, draw poker, crazy pineapple, etc. Sit'n'Go tournaments are offered from $200 levels down to $5. Stakes offered in the Holdem section are (1) Limit Texas Holdem from $100-$200 down to $0.5-$1 and (2) No-Limit/Pot-Limit Holdem from $10-$20 down to $0.10-$0.25. There are currently no shorthanded Omaha games available.

PartyPoker's rake is not so attractive, as it highly disfavors the low limit games. The higher limit games actually have a comparably low rake. The rake runs as high as 10% in $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 games, as 50 cent is raked when the pot reaches $5. This holds true also for the tournaments, where good value only is provided at the higher stakes. 20% fee in $5 games and 8% fee in $100 games.

Party Poker has been able to maintain loose and juicy games over time, with the constant influx of beginners and gamblers looking for action. Even at "middle limit online games" this holds true - you can typically find very soft games even up to $2/$4 in no-limit and $5/$10 in fixed limit, whereas on most other poker rooms these stakes will give you rather tough opposition.

$25 sign-up bonus with a 100% match.

It gets better and better, now there are both a big frequent player points program as well as numerous re-deposit promotions in which you get 15%-25% up to $100 maximum.

The support is since late 2004 much better at Party Poker, in particular the 24/7 telephone support now often responds in under a minute! The support is nowadays very knowledgable on promotions and other trickier issues. Email has worked OK, even though the response times were a bit long. Upgraded to very good score in Jan 2005.

24/7 support: Yes
Website FAQ: Yes
Support Features: Email, phone
Email confirmation/receipt: No
Speed: Ok
Knowledge: Ok
Avg. NETeller pay out time: 24-48 hrs
Withdrawal smoothness: 90%

PartyPoker Monster freerolls are as large as the name indicates. A $1 Million freeroll will be held monthly and the top winners will also qualify for the $5 Million grand final event. $100,000 Monster freerolls will also be held every week. The regular clients are offered several types of promotions, based on the raked hands they have played. They have a standing membership referral scheme where you can get up to $50 for each referral.

Does not accept US Accounts!

Deposit options: VISA, MasterCard, NETeller, FirePay, Western Union, eChecks (by iGM-Pay)bank draft, cashier's check, money order, check.
Cash out options: NETeller, wire transfer, check, eChecks (by iGM-Pay).