Online poker is still alive and well. While many sites have stopped taking on U.S. poker players there are still plenty of online poker opportunity on the World Wide Web. In this article we compare two sites on different aspects of online play. Poker Stars and Full Tit Poker.

Poker Stars

Poker Stars is the largest online site, with over 100,000 players at any particular time. As I write this article there are currently 131,000 playing either tournaments or cash games. If your just getting started with online poker, Poker Stars has free rolls almost every hour. The games rotate between Texas Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, Bedugi, and HORSE. They all can accommodate up 12,000 people. These are first round satellites. The top 64, 72, 88, or 99 finishers (depending on the game) move on to round two tournaments held on the weekends and have a $2,000 prize pool.

Poker Stars has a wide array of scheduled tournaments starting at just ten cents all the way up to $200 buy-in. The top 10% normally make the money. Occasionally the site offers a 20% payout tournament that pays double the amount of players. The big regularly scheduled tournament on the site is called “Sunday Millions.” The site offers a number of small buy in satellites to this tournament, which has a buy-in of $215 and once a month, a $500 buy-in. Sunday Millions has a guaranteed prize pool of $1.5 Million. The winner walks away with approximately $170,000.

The sit and go schedule on Poker Stars is especially impressive, with limits ranging from $1.00 all the way up to $5,000. The sit and go fields range from heads up (one on one) to 180 players.

Cash games at Poker Stars are also quite extensive, starting at .01-.02 blinds to an amazing $1,000/$2,000 game. Cash games are offered in just about poker game you want to play

including HORSE and Deuce to Seven Lowball.

Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt is where I spend most of my online poker playing. Full Tilt has about 60,000 players at any particular time. The biggest attraction at Full Tilt is the approachability of the Full Tilt Pros. Full Tilt offers poker forums and live chats with various poker pros where you can ask pros strategy questions in real time. You will see pros like Allen Cunningham, Mike Matusow, David Pham, or Erick Lindgren playing tournaments and cash games. The very unique feature of Full Tilt Poker is a bounty on any pro in any tournament of 30 players or more. If you knock a pro out of any tournament you receive a bounty of the tournament buy-in up to $200.

You can literally find any poker game you want at Full Tilt in tournaments or cash game. Imagine playing a Razz cash game. You can find it at Full Tilt.

Full Tilt’s free roll schedule are about one every two hours. The field size is dramatically lower than Poker Stars with a limit of 2700 people, but only 27 players make the money. These free rolls are not satellites, they are real money tournaments with a $100 prize pool. The games rotate between No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Razz and HORSE.

The Tournament schedule at Full Tilt is quite vast. You can find a $3.00, 90 player, bounty sit and go tournament. The range of buy-ins at Full Tilt range from $2.00 up to $1,000. The payouts are always the top 10% of the field. Full Tilt offers a number of “daily double” tournaments. They are two consecutively running tournaments with identical buy-ins. (the buy-ins are $5.00, $10.00, and $60.00 at various times of the day) If you cash in both tournaments you win extra money from extra jackpot prize pool. If you are able to win both tournaments you win the entire jackpot.

Full Tilt has a Sunday feature tournament, “The $750,000 guarantee.” Anywhere from 20 to 50 poker professionals will play in the tourney each Sunday. Satellites from as little as 50 Full Tilt Player Points can get you into this feature tournament.

Full Tilt has an extensive list of sit and go tournaments ranging in buy-in from $1.00 to an astonishing $5,000. The fields range from heads up (one on one) to 90 players. Sit and go games include Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, HOSE and HORSE. One unique sit and go that is exclusive to Full Tilt are their “Matrix”sit and go tournaments. In these tournaments you play four, one table sit and go tournaments at the same time against the same eight opponents. The tournament pays out based on survival and knock out points.

By: Chane Steiner

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Full Tilt Poker is an online poker card room launched in June 2004 with the involvement of a team of poker professionals, among them Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Jennifer Harman and Chris Ferguson. This Organization is now or has been the principal sponsor of a number of poker television programs, including: Learn from the ProsPoker Championship at Red RockPoker and After Dark Poker Equalizer. Full Tilt Poker is open to players worldwide, including the United States.

It is one of the fastest growing poker sites on the internet and is the second largest online poker room in terms of traffic volumes. It is also licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission in Canada, one of the world’s leading gaming regulatory authorities.

It’s online poker room was designed by world class poker professionals, and offers you the ability to learn, chat, and play online poker with the pros. If you can find it in a poker room, you can probably find it at Full Tilt Poker.

Tournaments take place throughout the day and often include participation from one of the Team pros. Tournaments and Sit and Goes can be filtered by game time and buy-in level to allow users to get to their preferred games fast. Tournaments include a variety of games including Omaha, Stud and HORSE in addition to Holdem. Tournaments and Sit and Go’s are usually running 24/7, with a lot of the popular tournaments coming over the weekend ($750k Guaranteed) and at the end of the month ($1 million Guaranteed). For every dollar paid in tournament buy-in fees, you’ll receive 7 Full Tilt Points. These tournaments are a strong point for Full Tilt Poker with many poker variants, field sizes and buy-in amounts covered.

Depositing money and withdrawing profits from this game is very easy for players worldwide. Deposit money into your account with your ATM or check/debit card. Deposit methods available include; Visa/MasterCard, Neteller, InstaDebit, Moneybookers, FPS, Click2Pay, ClickandBuy, and eChecks (transfer money online directly from your bank account).

Game Variety and Limits are the best, with regards to the selection of poker games online.The majority of all the Full Tilt poker players stick only to Texas Hold’em. Game speed is also very fast, and I appreciate fast action. Games are available around the clock in various formats including multitable tournaments, sit and go’s and cash (ring) games. Games-wise, Full Tilt Poker is the most complete Poker Room in the world, and just about the only place where you can play Razz online.

As online poker rooms go, it is one of the Net’s premier online poker rooms and, frankly, is pretty easy to understand why. It is one of the best online poker sites for playing in high quality, fun tournaments. So, if you’re looking for an array of multi-table action any day of the week, Full Tilt Poker is for you. It is also the only place online where online poker has become a big spectator sport.This poker site is endorsed by many of the world’s biggest poker celebrities, who play there on a regular basis. Full Tilt Poker is also known for its very interactive software feature that even catches the fancy of many players who are particular about images seen on the screen while playing.

By: Sonny Castro

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Have you ever heard of poker bonus codes? There are many poker rooms which offer poker bonuses. Poker bonuses are available for high limit games. Almost every game site give a time limit to claim the bonus. Bonus clearance depends on your limits. Poker games can be played through many rooms. A room consists of several thousand players.

With the help of online games you can make lot of friends online. Online gaming communities are growing very fast. It is a good idea to go through all the game websites which feature online casinos. There are many websites which review latest game bonuses and referral codes. Popular websites offer special discounts and coupons to attract more and more players. Online games is the only way of enjoying and making money online. It is a good idea to ask for the advice of a friend who is involved in online gaming.

Because of above reasons the status of the game is increasing day by day. It is a good idea to go through all the rules and regulations before you start playing the game. More and more players playing full tilt poker due to special bonus. Many websites offers guaranteed tournaments with very high stakes. It is possible because of large number of participants in the tournament. Online games are played easily with the help of online payment systems. This is how the game of poker can be played. It is a good idea to consult a professional gamer before you start playing online.

By: Jitesh Arora

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I’ve played a lot of tournaments at both sites and have had relative success at both, at least as far as cashing goes. Pros will tell you that if you can cash in 15% of the tournaments you play in than you’re doing pretty well. When I do get to play, my stats at both sites have me cashing 20-27% of the time. Even when you do cash though, there has to be some bigger ones in there, some deep runs to pay for the ones you didn’t cash. In live tournaments it’s even more important because you have expenses to pay for as well. For those that tour the various circuits playing tournaments they have to try and make enough that cover their hotel, travel, food, and any extra-curricular activities they may partake in while not playing.

Online, it can be just as important. You still want to be able to make up for your non cashes of course. If you’re doing it for a living, then yes you want to be able to pay your rent/mortgage, bills, food, etc. I like playing tournaments online when I can. Lately it’s been much harder to do with my busy work schedule and I don’t play them when I have my son. I find that between the two sites I play tournaments on, PokerStars is slightly better than Full Tilt. Full Tilt is better in some categories as well and below are some of the things I like:

1) Number of Available Tournaments – This one easily belongs to PokerStars. They aren’t the biggest tournament site online for nothing. There are literally hundreds of tournaments at every level starting every few minutes and you can play a bunch at a time if you’re adept at multi-tabling. At Full Tilt, if you can only afford to play at a certain level you may have to wait for a bit. There is more variety in all those tournaments you can sign up for at Stars too. More turbos, rebuys, 1 rebuy 1 addon, hyper-turbos, deep stack tournies, super stacked tournies…its goes on and on.

2) “Guarantee” tournaments – I like playing these ones and at Stars there are a LOT of them. Basically, a guarantee tournament is one where they list how big the prize pool is and no matter how many entrants there are, that number is the minimum that will be paid out. If there’s a $10K Guarantee for a $10+1 ( the “plus one” is the extra a site takes for themselves. The $10 goes into the prize pool) buy in tournament and only 100 people register? Then that $10K will be divided amongst those that cash. If more people than the minimum required to make a $10K prize pool register, then the prize pool goes up. So, if 2000 people register for that same tournament than the prize pool will be $20K. If it’s not a guarantee tournament, they may require a minimum amount of people to be registered to run the tourney. I definitely prefer the guarantees

3) Structure – This one is actually pretty close now. It used to be that the structures on PokerStars were far superior. Full Tilt now seems to have tweaked there’s a bit. Generally you start with 1500 in tournament chips and the blinds start at 10/20 with the rounds going 10 minutes. Tilt used to start you at 15/30 but they’ve dropped down to 10/20 as well which is a good thing. The lower the blinds are in relation to your starting stack, the more play you get and usually the longer you play the more the skilled player has an advantage. Skilled players always have the advantage of the non-skilled players in the long run. I may take a pot or two off Phil Ivey but in the long run he’s going to kick my ass. lol The structures change depending on how big the buy in is too though.

For example, at PokerStars you buy in to a $10+1 tourney and the structures are as I’ve listed above. Antes start to kick in on the 7th level which is 50/100 and the blinds go up every ten minutes. In a bigger buy in tournament or in a lot of the guarantee tournaments they run, they may start you with 2000 or even 3000 in chips while keeping the blinds starting at 10/20. In their famous Sunday Million tournament the blinds start at 25/50 but you get 10K in tournament chips! And the blinds go up every 15 minutes instead of 10. Five minutes in the online world is huge. With not having to worry about shuffling and chips being pushed to players, you get to play so many more hands. I’ve played this one 3 times and cashed twice. I’d love to be able to play it every weekend, plus a lot of their other bigger tournaments they have on weekends. One day.

4) Time Clock – This one, for me, belongs to Stars as well and it’s the same for their ring games. PokerStars just gives you more time to make a decision while sometimes it seems like Tilt is trying to rush you to get more hands in. When you’re deep in a tournament and you’re being put to the test for your tournament life, you should have more than 30 seconds to make that decision. I know the time banks build up the deeper you get into a tournament but even in the beginning levels you sometimes need time to think, run the hand over in your mind, etc. If you’re rushed into the wrong decision it could influence the rest of your tournament. Now you’re either incredibly shortstacked cuz you made a call you shouldn’t have or you have less cuz you folded when you should have called and won a big pot. That isn’t fair. PokerStars gives you 90 seconds right from the beginning. Not on every decision though. If you use 30 seconds on one, you’re down to 60 seconds next time the clock starts on you. But, if you don’t use the clock for awhile, time gets added back on.

5) Quality of Player – I think this one is Stars also. It probably has to do with the fact that with there being so many more tournaments to play, it’s easier for people to hone their games here. Full Tilt seems to be the place where the better cash game players are, probably driven by the nosebleed games and big names that are playing them at any given time. If you don’t offer a lot of tournaments than you’re going to go to the place where they ARE being offered. Pretty simple really. Now, this could make it tougher to go deep because there are so many more tournament savvy players but I find that it’s also sometimes easier to play them. Fancy plays are lost on the lesser skilled player (another post for another time) but more skilled players understand that what you’re trying to do, may not in fact be a bluff and that you do actually have the goods and fold. On the flip side, a more skilled player may be better able to sniff out that play, call you and take your chips. That’s what makes it such a great game, that competitiveness and one upsmanship vs. your opponents.

6) Payouts – Here’s where I think Full Tilt is better. They generally pay out to the top 10% of the field. If 1000 people are in the tournament, than 100 people are getting paid. Stars, for whatever reason, pays out to more people. Using the same example, Stars might pay out 150 or even 200 people. I’m guessing it’s to get more people to play them because you have a better chance of making your money back. I disagree with that mentality. I think those that get paid should be earning it a bit more. Sometimes you’ll see that even though you’re getting paid, it might only be slightly more than what you paid to get in. Let’s say they pay out the top 175 out of 1000 people and using the $10+1 buy in.

The next pay level might not be for another 30 people, meaning anyone who finishes from 175th-145th will get paid the same and that amount might be $11.75. The next pay level pays another 24 people (144th-120th) and the total is $11.76! It’s true, and I’ve seen so many like this. I mean, what’s the point? You’ve played this long to profit .75? (don’t forget about the $1 rake) I say keep it at 10% and use that $1.75/1.76 you’re paying out to pay those that got that much deeper and they earn a little more. Now when you finish 100th they’d probably pay you more like $15 for the 100th-85th place finishers for example. I’d rather take that chance and win that little bit more for that bigger percentage pay out. I know it doesn’t sound like much because I’m using lower limits for my examples, but in relation to the buy ins it’s actually a fair bit.

So, there you have it. Both sites have their pros and cons but overall PokerStars is the clear winner here

By: Justin Gayler

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Full Tilt Poker is one of the largest online poker sites in the world. This site had started in July 2004 and has a very strong reputation every since. They are one the most marketed online poker casinos in the world. The have many big name poker players who sponsor their site such as Phil Ivey, Phil Gordon, Howard Lederer, that even actually can be watched playing.

There are more poker players playing on this site than any other in the world. During the high volume times there are up to 60, 000 tournaments and 10,000 cash games player playing online. The two main cash games that can be found are No-Limit and Limit Hold’em tables. Some of the games offered on Full Tilt are Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz and Horse.

The software at Full Tilt Poker is great and gets constantly updated. You can download this software either through Windows or MacIntosh platforms that runs quick and very easy. All your stats are also There is currently a $600 bonus available now at Full Tilt Poker.

Overall, with all the great poker players associated with this site, I am proud to be an active member. I can watch and learn from the best poker players today in the game. I also like the fact that there are more players playing on this site than any other site in the world, which gives me the best chance of making a profit. I will always continue to play poker on this site because of this reason. Enjoy and Know your Limit.

By: Napoleon Will

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Full Tilt Poker Allows You to Play With the Pros – Get $600 Free Now!

Stud poker may be just a card game that will not necessitate its players to be physically able, but lack of knowledge on it can lead to financial ruin and cause more damage on the players than what they could possibly get from games that require strength. Stud poker is a game played with strategy, so it is helpful that you know some techniques to equip your mind with before you begin your play.

Free stud poker tips and rules are easily accessible by basically anyone who knows how to use the Internet. With simply surfing the net, you would find several blogging sites where users who play the card game post articles regarding skills, strategies, and other free stud poker tips. Also, even if stud poker is a game intended for gambling, there are lots of educational websites available that reveal even to minors the tried and tested secrets of the game and present additional stud poker tips for free. Even poker websites themselves such as Bodog Poker offer free stud poker tips and tutorials for its online players. Here are some of those tips that you might useful.

Know that there are lots of things you as a player can do which you think would be helpful, but in reality, could reduce your chances of winning. An example of this is the fact that many are led to believe playing to many starting hands will increase the probability of winning. However, good poker players are actually very careful and choosy in playing. They would play only hands that have an enormous chance at the pot.

Know also when and how to bluff. Your opponents do not know what exactly are the cards are in your hand, and the least they could do is guess. Use that power to make them think that your downcards are good. Do not exaggerate though, look calm and in control.

In addition, be mindful of your opponents’ upcards. If the card you need is now included in your opponents’ upcards, then your original strategy in mind will no longer be advisable to pursue. Adjust your line of attack accordingly.

Another common mistake of a player is attempting to slow the play when he has a premium hand. This is very wrong, since it allows the other players to remain in the pot until the end of the game. If you have a premium hand, raise your bet and eliminate as many players out of the hand as possible because anything can happen and your opponents might get lucky and render what was supposedly a very promising hand wasted.

Furthermore, paying attention to your own cards is important but paying attention to your opponents’ cards is equally important as well. Observe when they make a raise and how behave in certain situations. Likewise, do not let your emotions get the better of you. If an opponent has an upcard that you badly need for your strategy, do not get frustrated. Adapt a new one and do not let them you face betray any emotion. As the name itself says, put up a “poker face”.

Most importantly, be brave enough to bet, raise or call. You will go nowhere if you do not know when and how to push your luck.

These are just some of the useful tips for one who plays or plans on playing the game. There are still lots of free stud poker tips readily available in books and on the Internet. All you need to do is check them out and start enjoying your winnings.

By: Sean Moranse

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