Party Poker Review
Party together with its skins is the monster of online poker today. It is the number one site in player volume. The hugetraffic exceeds 50,000 real money players at peak hours. Of those are 25-30,000 tournament players and 20-25,000 ring game players. But Party Poker hosts any big free-rolls that count as real money tournaments, so the number for tournament players is a bit decieving.
Party is unmatched in number of games and especially loose games. It is possible to play four tables simultaneously, which is very good. Statistics on the other hand is less attractive. There’s no “hands dealt per hour” viewable, nor is it possible to view “players seeing the flop percentage”. On the positive side the loose games get protected from all the sharks cruising around looking for tables with high percentage of flops seen.
Game selection is important at Party since competition can differ greatly between tables. There are many tables open in every game Party offers but it is fixed limit Texas Hold’em ring games together with no limit Texas Hold’em tournaments that are the most popular games. Other than Texas Hold’em Party Poker spreads Omaha High, Omaha Hi/Lo, Seven Card Stud and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo.
Party’s rake is industry standard with a 5% drop max $3 on full ring game table above $2-$4 limits. The lower limits are less attractive where the rake at times is as high as 10% ($0.5 rake on a $5 pot on the fixed limits up to $1-$2). Player support has suffered from problems both with the 24/7 live support and email support but they have improved a lot lately.
Party has several special features such as a bad beat jackpot which can reach close to one million dollars. The bad beat jackpot tables have a higher rake but they are separated from the other tables making it optional for players to contribute to the jackpot.
Overall Party Poker is the number one site to play at for the great games sake.