Pokerstars review

PokerStars endorses Daniel Negreanu and has the highest tournament guarantees in online poker.

Pokerstars offers a 100% match bonus on your first deposit, up to a maximum of $50. This is unfortunately one of the weakest first time deposit bonuses of any poker site. The overwhelming positives of the rest of the site more than make up for this though, and let’s face it, PokerStars knows it, which is why they can get away with offering such a low initial deposit bonus. As a bonus, PokerStars does give small matching bonuses in the 25% range on subsequent deposits, which many other sites don’t offer, so it’s not all bad news on the deposit front. They also have a large number of options available for depositing money, making it easy to hop onboard.

Earning that bonus is through the collection of FPP’s, or Frequent Player Points. The number needed to unlock the bonus varies depending on your deposit amount, with a $50 deposit requiring approximately 500 FPP’s to unlock the full $50 bonus. As the bonus amount is low, and you have a full 6 months to collect it, there should be absolutely no issues with collecting your full bonus, especially with the absolutely ridiculous number of games and tournaments available.

FPP’s can also be used for entries into other tournaments, including exclusive FPP-only tourney’s, or can be used at the FPP store to purchase a wide range of goods. The FPP store is massive, with products such as gift certificates, clothing, electronics, or cold hard cash (a personal favourite of ours).

If you’ve been living under the proverbial rock for the past decade, PokerStars is pretty much the current and reigning Heavyweight Poker champion of the world. They have more traffic than any other site out there, more tournaments and specifically more big money tournaments, satellites for dozens of live events including the prestigious World Series of Poker, many great freeroll tournaments (both through the use of FPP’s, or with absolutely no strings whatsoever), a great VIP Club, and a huge roster of major poker stars (or rather PokerStars) endorsing them.

Let’s begin with their pros, of which PokerStars has many. We’re talking major players like Daniel Negreanu , Chris Moneymaker (gotta love the irony in his family name), Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, and many more. All of their pros have full bios as well as their recent exploits in major tournaments detailed. The pros can commonly be found at online tables, where anyone can take them, as long as you have the heart and the bankroll. These pros don’t play cheap after all.

In fact it’s Moneymaker and PokerStars who are often credited with the massive interest the game has received in the past few years, both online and off, after Chris (as an amateur and unknown), won an entry into the World Series of Poker through PokerStars and went on to win the $2.5 million grand prize. This incredible story inspired many people to take up the game, or get more involved in it than they were, helped pave the way for the massive influx of poker programming on T.V which attracted yet more players, and pretty much spurred the industry’s colossal boom.

The massive amount of traffic, well over 100,000 players during peak times, means you’ll never have to worry about finding a game in the exact format you want. It also means the competition level can vary greatly. You’ll find more soft opponents than at any other site, but you’ll also find some of the most hardened online foes around, looking to take advantage of those players. Keeping your eye on game room statistics is important, as you’ll find they vary wildly. The higher the percentage of players in a room seeing the flop, the greater your odds are of walking away with some easy money.

PokerStars has a nice variety of games, including Hold’em, H.O.R.S.E, Omaha, Stud, Razz and Draw, with all pot types and blind amounts available and accounted for, and plenty of players using each one.
In addition to their VIP Club/FPP rewards program, they also have what is called T$ and W$. These are earned through tournaments, or by cancelling out of a tournament you gained entry to through a satellite. In the event you win multiple seats at the same tournament your extras will automatically be swapped for these tournament dollars. These T$ and W$ can be used for access into other tournaments, and in the case of W$, major events such as the WSOP, the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, or the European or Asian Poker Tours.

Many other special tournaments take place at all times, including massive weekly guaranteeds like the Sunday Million, as well as major tourneys like the Battle of the Planets with a $3,000,000 prize, and the $1,000,000 Turbo Takedowns each month. PokerStars has one of the best software packages out there, with great options, graphics, and sound effects. The lobby allows you to search through games in a variety of ways, and provides you access to all the information you could ask for, including your past history, game and player information, and much more.

Once in a game you’ll be greeted with a very appealing and streamlined interface that even newcomers to online poker will be able to navigate with ease. You can use your own image as a custom avatar, which surprisingly few sites allow, as well as access to all sorts of customization options. Considering the m