Online Poker Labs

As time goes by, poker enjoys more and more popularity around the world. Millions of people are getting involved into poker and it actually becomes more then a game, gaining a status of a social event. Poker Tournaments with multi-million prize pools become regular, and poker experts make nuts on them, increasing their bankroll to the size of a fortune…

In the Internet there are a lot of online poker rooms, where one can learn and start playing poker for real money or just practice while playing different poker variations like Texas Hold’em, Omaha and 7 Card Stud.

Many poker rooms are united by poker networks to provide large players’ community with a non-stop gaming process. However, despite the fact of being united into one network, poker rooms wield the authority to introduce their own features, like customer support, bonus policies and special tournament offers. That’s why you should not rely on the myths that all poker rooms from the same network are similar and offer similar gaming conditions. Take your time to choose a poker room from the gaming network and make a weighted decision. Good examples of networks’ major poker rooms are the Euro Poker (Ongame Network) and the Titan Poker (iPoker network).

Some poker rooms are so big that they can afford not to be the part of a poker network in order to provide dynamic gaming opportunities to their players. Some of the biggest poker rooms of this type are Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and Party Poker.

The poker room quality can be estimated by a number of certain features. According to them, poker rooms are rated to make it easier for you to choose the right poker room. Considering these features we will rate the above mentioned poker rooms.

Number of players during peak hours

The more online players you can find in a particular poker room, the more interesting and dynamic is the game in it. Judging By the amount of players during peak hours, the indisputable leader is Poker Stars with more then 100.000 players. Next goes Party Poker with 50.000 to 60.000 and growing players community, and right after it goes Full Tilt Poker with about 40.000-50.000 players. The network representatives, such as Euro Poker and Titan Poker, share the fourth place. The last place in this rating is taken by Absolute Poker, which started relatively recently, but has a high rate of growth.

Average player Skills Level

For a beginner it’s important to know the gaming level he would meet in the poker room he chose. The biggest average player level is believed to be in the Poker Stars. In Full Tilt Poker gaming level may be estimated as “very high”. These two rooms are ideal for game improvement if you already have certain poker experience. For those who just started playing poker, or for experts who earn money on poker, these rooms are better to avoid. In Party poker, Titan Poker and Absolute Poker there is plenty of week opponents, particularly in low limit games. In Euro Poker weak players dominate.

Freeroll Offers

This is an extremely important feature. Freerolls are the tournaments that do not require entrance payment (buy-in), but where you can win real money. It is recommended for beginners to start their practice with the freerolls to increase their bankroll and gain experience of tournament gaming, which would be invaluable for further development. The best freeroll offers can be found in Euro Poker. Absolute Poker is the second place to look for them. Poker Stars has great freerols, but due to the large number of participants it’s hard to get any prize. There are exclusive Freerolls in Poker Stars for VIP players only, but getting VIP status is not an easy task. In Full Tilt Poker and Party Poker, freerolss gather too many players, and offer rather small prize pools, so these are not the best places for playing freerolls.

Game Choice

There are several popular poker variations. The most common one is Texas Hold’em, which has become a synonym to “poker”. Meanwhile, in some poker rooms you can find activity in other game variations, like Omaha and 7 Card Stud. You may be also interested in different kinds of hold’em – limited game, no limit holdem and pot limit holdem. Various poker rooms have different activity levels in each kind of poker and betting limit. Poker Starts offers great selection of $2 to $1,000 no-limit games any time, which means that any time you can find appropriate game to play. Not far behind Poker Stars goes Full Tilt Poker offering a number of $10 no-limit games and up, while being the only room where a game in the $40K-$60K no-limit range is frequent. Party Poker offers good selection of $4 to $1,000 no-limit games and poor activity on higher limits. Titan Poker, Absolute Poker and Euro Poker are in the tail of the list with good choice of low-limit and median limit games, while having frigid activity on limits higher then $2.000

Other Features

Among other features according to which poker rooms can be rated, it is worthy to mention: bonus offers and policies, website and software interface, rakeback offers, offers of multi-table tournaments. If you are interested, you may read further poker ratings that include analysis of these features for the major poker rooms.

I would advise everyone to pay attention to selecting a right poker room for starting the game. It is very important to make a weighted choice of poker room for developing your game skills, read through the poker room reviews before you download any poker client program.