Party Poker Review

The Importance Of Truly Informed Poker Site Reviews

Before I get started reviewing Party Poker for you, I want to point out the importance of getting an accurate and informed review of poker sites that you are considering playing at. I’ve been in the business of reviewing poker rooms for many years now, and I’m also very familiar with the way these reviews are normally written up by other people. It might surprise you to know that most of these poker reviews aren’t even written by people who have even played poker online ever, let alone at the level that’s required to provide you the accurate and informed picture that you are looking for and deserve.

The reason for this is that the person who owns a particular website may or may not be a poker player himself or herself, but even if he or she is, he or she is probably not that talented of a writer, and the language of the site may not even be the one that they speak. So what people do is hire professional writers to do the reviews for them, and these guys write for a living so some are pretty good at it. However, they get their info from just reading other people’s reviews, and those people probably haven’t even ever played on the poker site either, so it becomes pretty much the blind leading the blind.

I’ve played poker online for a living for several years and have been playing at Party Poker even longer, and even more importantly perhaps, I’m not from the U.S. so I’ve been able to still play there after they stopped taking Americans a few years ago. I’ve played at the high limits, the low limits, and everything in between. In fact I’ve played the smaller stakes just so I can get a better idea of what’s going on there for the benefit of my students, as I’m also a poker coach and teacher.

So this certainly won’t be the shortest review you’ve ever read of a poker room, as I’ve included all the things you really need to know in order to truly make an informed decision on whether you want to open an account at Party Poker or not. You’re here and reading this because you want all the info, and that you shall get. So let’s start by talking about Party Poker itself, the company, and then we’ll move on to what is in store for you there.

Party Poker Is A Rock Solid Totally Trusted Poker Site

Party Poker has been one of the world’s most favorite online poker sites since the early days of online poker. In fact they were the world’s largest poker site up until the decision was made a few years back to no longer accept players from the U.S. The truth of that matter was that the standards for Party Poker are set much higher than other large online poker rooms such as Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker.

Party Poker’s parent company, Party Gaming PLC, is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange, so the stock exchange requires all of their dealings to be completely above board, and doesn’t permit them to do business in any grey areas. So not only did they comply with U.S. law, they even paid a large fine to the U.S. government, for which they were in no sense obligated to do by the way. The fine was for offering gaming to U.S. players before the law was passed.

It seems pretty crazy that they would pay it, but they were more than willing to. That’s how far that Party Poker is willing to go to comply with the rules, and as poker players, this is very comforting to know indeed, especially in a business where few things are certain, as people found out recently with seeing Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet, and Absolute Poker have their sites shut down by the U.S. government. Full Tilt and Poker Stars made a deal and are back in business, for now at least, but Ultimate Bet and Absolute have now declared bankruptcy, and no one knows whether or not they will get their money back.

So once again, one of the great things about playing at Party Poker is that you know your money is safe, and they are complying with all laws, even laws in different countries than they are located. Not only does this protect you against the poker site being attacked by some pretty powerful forces such as the U.S. government, it assures the complete safety of your money on deposit with them, and also ensures that you’ll always be treated fairly by them. Given the choice, I’d want to deal with a completely ethical company every time, especially with my money on the line. Party Poker is that company and are clearly second to none in this regard.

Party Gaming Offers More Then Just Poker

In addition to players being able to play poker at Party Poker, for those players who enjoy other forms of online gambling, Party certainly has you covered there. Their selection of other forms of betting in fact is second to none. They offer a wide selection of casino games, in addition to real money bingo and backgammon. If you like sports betting, they have that available as well. On top of all this, you can also place bets on the financial markets, without actually buying or selling any instruments. The selection at Party Gaming in terms of all the different things you can bet on is second to none in fact. You get all this selection in addition to having all of your gambling money with the most trusted name in the business. In addition, the folks at Party Gaming have been doing this for a long time and really know what they are doing, and have won several awards in fact over the years.

Party Poker Has Always Been Famous For Its Soft Competition

Without a doubt, the most important thing in deciding where the best places to play online poker at is the softness of the competition at a given poker site. I can’t tell you how many students I’ve turned from losing to winning players just by getting them to switch from a tough site to win money at to an easier one. Even if you’re a winning player at one of the tough sites, where the players are generally of a better caliber and thus harder to make money off of, it stands to reason that if you instead play at an easier poker site, you will make more money.

At the end of the day, the way we keep score in poker is in terms of money won or lost, so you would think that this would be pretty important indeed. I have always been surprised though at the lack of attention a lot of players pay to this, especially the more casual ones, who often just sign up at a poker site and don’t even shop around to see what else might be out there. They end up lamenting on how much money they lose, or the fact that the games have gotten so much tougher lately and it’s so hard to beat them now.

I will tell you that overall, the games have indeed gotten tougher, as with all the poker instruction on the internet that’s out there now, there are a lot less really bad players around. This is much more the case at the tougher poker sites though, and in particular, the mega poker rooms like Poker Stars and Full Tilt, which are rife with a lot of online professionals. These online pros generally don’t even play the high stakes, and usually play a ton of mid stakes tables. So if you’re a casual player, you’re often sitting at a table with some very good players even at the stakes you play. This isn’t an ideal situation to say the least.

Back in earlier times, it wasn’t uncommon to see a whole table full of bad players who would play most hands and play them too far. Back then all you really needed to do in order to win money was to play tighter than the other players, and when you’d become involved in a hand, you’d generally be playing better cards than they would be, and would win their money over time that way. However, things have changed since then, and there are more tight aggressive players around, and while these players can be beat, you generally will win less money against them than against the loose fish.

So it has become even more important to seek out softer competition. Relatively speaking, the competition is certainly looser at Party Poker than places like Poker Stars and Full Tilt. This has always been the case in fact, and still is today. Ever since Party Poker stopped allowing Americans to play there a few years ago, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Americans lament about how much easier it was to make money back in the “Party days,” and wish they could play at Party once again. If you’re not from the U.S., then the party continues.

The Traffic At Party Poker

Party Poker certainly isn’t the only poker site with soft competition, and there are several others out there where the players are relatively easy to beat in general as well. It’s not enough to have the players be fishy at a poker site though, as you also have to look at how many fish in total are there. It does you no good to know that there are some real good games at the stakes you play, but there’s very few or even no tables running at it when you want to play. People like to play at different hours of the day as well, so it’s also important that there’s lots of action both day and night, which will require a busier poker site.

So what it all comes down to is having more tables to choose from at a given stake, and the more tables that are running, the more selective you can be. Table selection is in fact an important element to playing winning poker, but that doesn’t do you much good if there are very few tables running at the game and stake you like to play. Now I’m not saying that some of these smaller poker sites aren’t worth having accounts at, and in fact, you want to have an account at any room that has fishy tables running. The trick is to be able to play at the most profitable games running at any given time on the internet, and once you can manage it, having accounts at smaller poker sites as well is a very good idea in fact.

However, you will need to have a main poker account, and regardless of whether you think Party should be your main one, it really makes no sense not to have a poker account there. Among all the other things Party Poker has going for it, the fish to good player ratio is excellent, and the total amount of fish is as well. So this is an ideal situation, and given that you always want to be at the softest tables, there will be more at Party Poker than anywhere else.

Party Poker’s Software

Party Poker has finally updated its software to a more modern version. Gone are the tired old same old avatars that had remained unchanged for years. To be honest, although I did get real sick of looking at them, my annoyance with this was more than offset by the fishiness of the players and all the money I was making off of them, so I really didn’t mind too much. However, things look much more modern these days, and the changes are much more than just skin deep in fact.

Their filtering system is very good, and that’s very important since you want to be able to find the best games there quickly, as this often means more or less money in your pocket at the end of the day. The usability of the software has always been pretty good and you won’t find any real issues with that, and they have made a lot of improvements in that regard as well. In particular, the half pot, three quarters pot, and full pot buttons are very helpful, and not every poker site has them.

They’ve also taken some of the best ideas from other poker sites and incorporated them in their software, which has really brought things up to date. I’ve been pretty critical of their software over the years, but I’m now glad to say that they have really gotten things right, and have also shown that they are really out to make the experiences of their players the best they can make it.

Party Poker’s Security and Trustworthiness

I’ve already spoken about the higher standard of ethics that Party Poker subscribes to, and this carries over into their commitment to providing the fairest poker games possible. There is a lot of concern in general about players cheating for instance, and Party Poker has state of the art computer programs specifically designed to root out and punish these players. Some people think that live poker is safer in this regard, but this isn’t true at all, and live poker has been known to be rife with cheating and collusion. You’d never get away with this at Party Poker though, as their programs evaluate every hand and know exactly what to look for to catch these people.

A lot of players also worry that the shuffle isn’t as random as it should be at certain poker sites. Now this is mostly due to confusion and paranoia, but at the same time there are differences between poker sites in this regard, to the extent that one poker site might have a more random shuffle than another. While all poker sites these days are plenty random enough, and all are much more random than a real deck of cards would be, unless you shuffled for a few years between deals, at the same time it’s nice to know that Party Poker uses a state of the art program which is among the best in the business. This is completely not an issue there in fact.

Party Poker’s Bonuses And Rewards

If you’ve read the Party Poker bonus section on our site, then you know that Party Poker offers a 100% match of up to 500 dollars, Euros, or Pounds. I’ve taken the time to work things out for you to decide which one would be best and making your initial deposit in British Pounds won out. I want to point out that Party’s initial deposit bonus is excellent compared to other poker sites, especially the fact that they pay it out in 1/10 increments, meaning that you not only get your bonus money faster, you are more assured of getting it all. The way Party Poker calculates their Party Points is also beneficial to their players, and this also allows bonuses to be freed up faster than at many other poker sites.

They also offer reload bonuses from time to time as well, where it’s pretty much the same deal as when you first deposited, and whether or not you need to deposit again, these are always worth taking advantage of. Party Poker also offers a nice reward program where you earn Party Points with every raked hand you get dealt cards in, and for every tournament you pay a fee in, and you then redeem the points you earn for merchandise and other goodies. As well, the more you play, the more you get, and they have 10 different levels that you can achieve based upon how much you play, with more Player Points given out at each subsequent level.

They also have a “tell a friend” promotion where for every friend you refer, you get $10 in cash for every 60 Party Points your friend earns, and they also offer the same deal to your friend. So both you and your friend can collect up to $100 in cash just for getting your friend to try out Party Poker. Once again, we’re not talking bonus money here that you have to play a lot of hands to free up, as in this case your friends are freeing it up for both of you. When you think of how many friends you have, this could easily add up to a lot of money for you, and you’d be helping them all out with extra cash as well. This is something a lot of players don’t really take advantage of, but there’s no reason not to, and this just adds to the desirability of this poker site.

Party Poker Game Selection and Tournaments

As you might expect from a poker site this size, there’s plenty of game selection and action at any time of the day or night across many variations of poker. So no matter what you like to play or what stake you like to play at, you should have no trouble at all finding a good amount of tables to choose from. This is especially important once you work your way up to the higher stakes, where things can really thin out at less popular poker rooms, but with the sheer amount of players at Party, you’ll find a lot more action at the top as well.

If you enjoy poker tournaments as I do, then you’re really going to like what Party Poker has in store for you. While the cash games are known to be nice and soft at Party, this is particularly true with Party Poker tournaments. Regardless of the format which you prefer, whether it’s sit and go, medium sized tournaments, or the real big ones, and regardless of what buy-in level you prefer, there’s always lots of action going on day and night at Party Poker. If you enjoy freerolls, Party Poker gives away over $100,000 in freeroll money every month, so this is like freeroll heaven. This is a great way for newer players to gain valuable experience by the way without even having to risk any of their own money. Party Poker also runs a lot of special tournaments, offering seats to special events such as the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker. In fact, Party Poker now owns the World Poker Tour, so if you ever imagined winning a seat to one of their events, Party Poker is the place to do it at.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, there’s a lot of good reasons to have an account at and play at Party Poker. This is a first class poker site all the way. When you take everything into account, which I’ve laid out for you in this review, I’m sure that you can see that there’s absolutely no good reason why you shouldn’t try out this great poker site if you don’t have an account there already. In fact, there’s no reason to wait to get started, and even if you don’t have any money to deposit right now, you should still open an account and lock in your bonus using our bonus codes. So all you have to do now is click on your link and enter in the Party Poker bonus code and you’re on your way.