Review of Party Poker
by Matthew Hart

Party Poker is by far the largest site on the internet. They were the first of the online poker sites to understand the effect television advertising could have on their player pool. They used regular advertising, as well as the Party Poker Million Cruise, their World Poker Tour event, that players players can win a seat in for as little as $7, to secure a foothold as the number one in online poker. They offer a variety of limits, but as of now do not have ultra high or low stakes games like some other sites (the smallest games they offer are $.50-$1 fixed limit and $25 no limit, and the largest are $100-$200 limit and $2000 no limit). They offer, in addition to hold'em, seven card stud (with limits up to $20-$40), seven card stud eight or better (with limits up to $10-20), as well as omaha and omaha eight or better (with limits up to $20-$40 and $2000 pot limit).

Party Poker has round the clock multi table tournaments at a variety of buy-in sizes as well as a number of single table, sit n' go tournaments. Buy-in sizes range from $1 to $600 with almost everything in between being offered. They offer a weekly $500k guaranteed tournament as well as periodically offering million dollar guaranted tournaments. They offer a number of satelites to the larger tournaments, which not only create a less expensive route to enter the larger tournaments, but ensures that the fields remain relatively soft. You can find single table sit n'go tournaments (STT) up to $200 going round the clock and their steps include STT's with an opportunity to play your way up to, or buy in directly to, STT's up to $2000.

Party Poker's interface and software leaves something to be desired aesthetically, but it is easy to use and time tested. One of the major complaints is with their support. Often times emails go unanswered and even when you do get a responce the language barrier can create problems. It is often not so much an unwillingness to fix a problem but an inability to understand what the problem is that causes their inactivitity. They offer a player's club to reward their regular customers, but they have yet to offer rewards that are much of an insentive. They have been promising new additions to what you can redeem your player points for, but it has been a long time since any new options have been provided. They do offer a number of freeroll type tournaments that you can use your player points to enter. While the prize pools are too small to attract higher limit players they should offer a chance for low limit players to gain tournament experience and perhaps even boost their bankrolls.

Party Poker has recently added blackjack and prop bets to the options they offer their players. A player can use the money in their poker account to play blackjack or make prop bets on whether the flop comes out black or red, similar to the bets some players make in high stakes cash games. The difference of course, is that Party Poker attaches a vig and pays out at only 8-1 on a bet that should pay more. While these offerings should prove convenient for players that like to gamble on things other than poker, it may prove to be too convenient for some players. It is easy to envision scenarios where a player on tilt could lose considerably more than they envisioned playing blackjack when on tilt in the midst of a losing session. It is to early to tell if this will have a negative long term impact on the poker games. This is a feature that some players may find a great convenience while others may find the temptation is just to great.

Where Party Poker really shines is in game selection and the softness of the games. It has a significantly larger player base then the other sites, and this results in more and better games to choose from. Every player should have a Party Poker account if only for this reason. While other sites may have a more pleasing look to them, noone compares to Party's round the clock action. You can find a game at almost any limit you want twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Even the other large sites do not offer this convenience. As the most visible site, they attract the most new players. This creates easier games, which is good whether you are an experienced player or are just giving poker a try. Party Poker is not a perfect site, but if a player were only going to have one account, this is likely where it should be. Even if being the undisputed number one in internet poker may have made them a little complacent, until someone surpasses them (and that will be very difficult to do), they are also the undisputed number one place for players to make money.