Party Poker - Review

Party Poker is the best known online poker site in the world. Since coming online in 2001, PartyPoker.com has always aimed to deliver the best games & service to its customers worldwide. Despite US restrictions, Party Poker still is one of the busiest sites around with a large selection of games at all limits. Party Poker is a great place to start playing online due to to the general poor standard of play at the lower levels, hopefully you'll be a winning player in no time. In our experience the customer service has been ok - though sometimes responses to emails takes a little longer than other sites. I guess this is a small price to pay for playing on a site with some of the juiciest games around.

Party Poker have developed their own software and have now broken from the Empire network. Their own 'stand-alone' software was launched in September 2008, and this indepedence allows them to constantly improve and update their software, making it better for their users.

The lobby, that used to be cumbersome to use on the old software, has been greatly improved. The new software allows you to streamline your gaming experience. Filters allow you to control the information you see, making the Party poker lobby customisable to your tastes.

The tables are quite bright, which is a refreshing change. They use a classic green colour for the baize and allow photos for the players (much like PokerStars). The cards are a good size, although it's advisable to use the four colour deck option. The gameplay is relatively fast & smooth, and the software has some nice features too; like the hand history and the player statistics. There's also a good buddy list to tag the fish and friends.

Thanks to the new Software, Party Poker gets a much improved score.

Party Poker were one of the first online poker rooms. In its heyday Party used to have the more users than any other online poker room. Since the U.S. ban on internet poker the players have dropped,but there's still plenty of action to suit all budgets. There are about 10,000 players at the cash table and 60,000 players at the tournament tables.

There's a good mix of games available. At non peak times you'll be able to play limit Texas hold'em from microstakes up to $100/$200. You'll be able to play No Limit Texas Hold'em all the up to $25/50 and Pot limit Omaha up to $10/$20. At peaks times the games get much bigger and there are more to choose from. For 7 card stud fans, there's usually a games going up to 5/10 at non peak times too.

Party Poker used to be regarded as a fish pool, meaning full of very bad players, and therefore easy to win if you're a competent player. Since the US ban the games have tightened up considerably. There are still some soft games about, but the general standard of play has improved since the glory days of fish paying everybody off with bottom pair!