Full review of PokerRoom

PokerRoom
www.pokerroom.com 
FREE DOWNLOAD!
Established 2001
Country Costa Rica
Auditor PWC
 

Special Features
Available in Java and download version
3D environment in download version
Statistical analysis of hands per each game type
 

Total score (out of 10)7.25

 Sign-up bonus in $ $300
Deposit bonus in % 50%
Referral bonus per friend $0
Deposit free bonus $0
Paid to play ($/hour) $0

Hits
Fast and reliable software, with nice look and feel
2 daily free roll tournaments of good value
24/7 telephone support
Easy note taking function
Good statistics functions (online and via email)

Misses
Scattered lobby info (has to click on each table to see view flop percentage, average pot and hands per hour)
Platform has been unstable at times (in particular in larger tournaments)
Summary
PokerRoom is the world's leading no-download poker room, with a unique and sleek design and good traffic. There is a download version as well which has very nice graphics. PokerRoom has managed to get real soft games the last 6 months with their huge traffic increase. The focus is more on 6-handed tables than most other top rooms (together with InterPoker). PokerRoom.com is the best choice for Mac-users, who can play without any special installs. PokerRoom offers great statistical analysis of your game and an open database of the hands played at the site. There traffic is very concentrade to the Holdem and tournament section. A large proportion of the games are short-handed tables with 5 or 6 players. The sign up bonus is huge coming from our site, but the rake is slighly higher than industry average (partly due to all short-handed games). The games have become very juicy lately where soft games are found even up to $5/$10 no-limit Texas Holdem which is impressive. Real money player statistics - July 2005: 2300-2700 ring game players at peak hours, 4000-6000 tournament players at peak hours.

Software and graphics
Widely regarded as one of the leaders with its clean, sleek and reliable graphics and software. The software is available as both Java applet and as standard Windows download. The Java version is a great feature for Linux and Mac users who otherwise need a Windows emulator. The Java version is also for certain users who cannot download programs to the computer.The statistics functionality on your played hands in the various games is good, with extra features such as hourly win/loss rate and Big Bets won or lost. There is a random delay in the automated pre-selected actions a client can take, not to give away any extra information via an immediate check. The lobby information is a little tricky to use, as you need to click on each table to get the full statistics.

Ring game traffic
The traffic at peak hours is currently 2300 to 2700 real money ring games players. The high limit tables in particular have grown very much since last year.

Tournament traffic
The traffic at the tournaments at peak hours reaches currently between 4000 and 6000 real money players. There are two big daily free rolls, which draw very large crowds.

Game variety
Good variety, but traffic very concentrated to Texas Holdem. Finally pot- and no-limit games as well as Omaha and seven-card stud (both Hi and Hi-Lo) were launched in the spring and summer 2004. (Omaha is both available in fixed-, pot- and no-limit where the no-limit version is rather unusual for Omaha, in particular in the Omaha High version).

Rake
The rake is now on par with the industry standard (used to be less attractive than the average), with 5% of the pot up to a maximum of $3. The policy to rake uncalled bets and no flop games is changed with no raken taken.

Soft competition
From our experience that there are quite a few more soft games available at PokerRoom since the big marketing push in the summer 2004 and their good positioning in search engines like Google. But you cannot look at the top stakes games for soft competition, where PokerRoom is less of a "fish pond". Still, you can at times find $5/$10 no-limit Holdem tables with a view flop percentage of 35-40%. Overall, many full ten-player hold'em games have a view flop percentage in the 40-ies and 50-ies, and some in the 60-ies - so the games are quite soft and the trend is good.

Sign up bonus
World-exclusive monster sign-up bonus via our site, with up to $300 bonus at 50% deposit match. You need 10 points to convert each bonus dollar. Hence, you need 3000 points for raked hands (where you just get dealt cards) within a 60 day time limit to get the $300 at a 50% deposit bonus. Each pot with rake of $0.5 gives 0.5 points and all rakes over one dollar give 1.0 point (which means 10 raked full pots per bonus dollar).

Loyalty bonus
WSOP-seat worth $13,500 is given away in June 2005 to the player that wins our private tournament for the 20 most active PokersList players during Jan 2005 to May 2005. Points are awarded for every raked hand in which a player participates. The points can be converted into cash (Player Points Payback) or used as buy-ins in free roll tournaments (Player Points Freeroll). Each 100 points is converted to $1.

Promotions
There a good level of promotions nowadays, including two daily $1000 free roll tournaments and two $500 added money tournaments as well as a $2500 added money "Lucky Dollar" every Saturday. One unique policy is that players scoring the most points any given day are eligible for cash prices, ranging up to $250. Also check out the new super promotion of becoming a full paid poker pro via PokerRoom for one year with an up to $240,000 package!

Support
There is both live chat and telephone support 24/7 plus email support, which is reasonably quick and very knowledgable.

Financial security
Very secure, as one of the top 6 poker rooms in the world, with no earlier recorded problems. Top score.

Deposit & withdrawal options
Deposit options:
VISA, MasterCard, NETeller, FirePay, 900Pay, PrePaid ATM, MoneyBookers, Delta, Switch and Instacash
Cash out options:
NETeller, FirePay, PrePaid ATM, courier check, normal check.