Full Tilt Poker

Posted by Lassieham 27/02/09

8.1 / 10

Network: Full Tilt Poker (independent)

Country of origin: Aruba

Established: 2004

Accept US Players: Yes

EU Based: No

The site in general: Full Tilt Poker is one of the recent success stories in online poker. Currently, Full Tilt Poker sits number 3 on the list of biggest online poker rooms. Until recently, this site has concentrated on U.S players and is one of the few rooms that remained in the U.S following changes in U.S legislation. As a result, the site picked up a lot of U.S players that were previously on other sites. However, Full Tilt Poker is now increasing their focus on foreign language markets in an effort to build their brand in Europe and the UK.

Big name pros: Chris Ferguson ("Jesus"), Howard Lederer ("The Professor"), Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, Andy Bloch, Eric Lindgren, Phil Gordon, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, Patrik Antonius, Annette Obrestad, Trond Erik Eidsvig and many more…

Bonuses: Full Tilt offers a 100% deposit bonus for joining up to $600 which is one of the most competitive sign-up bonuses around. Given their sponsorship of events such as the WPT, Poker After Dark & the NBC Heads-Up Championship, qualifiers are also on offer for a wide variety of major offline tournaments. Playing in any qualifying raked real-money ring-game hand or real-money MTT or sit-and-go earns Full Tilt player points which you can use to buy items from their Full Tilt store.

Software: Full Tilt Poker's software is one of the best online, with good customization options, fast game play, nice graphics and high reliability. It offers all the major functions of course, including player notes, statistics and multi-table play, plus a number of unique special features that really enhance game play. Overall, it's definitely made by and for poker players, and gets better with every update.

Tables: The poker room is very well-suited for multi-table play, with easy-to-use table functions, a great mini-view, a "time bank" for crucial decisions and a function letting you sit at any table position. The mini-table view is clean and easy to use, allowing for nine tables on a 22" monitor with no overlap. You can also save your current table layout. Full Tilt Poker's graphics are colorful, fun and well matched.

Layout:     

Special features: The Full Tilt software is legendary for its uniqueness. Firstly, you have the player avatars, which you can select ranging from an army officer to a Mike-Tyson esque boxer to Frankenstein. They also have happy and sad faces which you can add accordingly. Whenever a sponsored pro is at a table, that table will appear in red on your lobby: another excellent feature if you like sweating your favourite players doing what they do best. While the software was a bit complex on its launch, the site has clearly listened to the advice of the players and the lobby & general lay-out is simple and ideal for multi-tabling. There is also an instant hand history button available on all tables which is a life-saver when you are ploughing through games on a number of different tables. Full Tilt Poker offers a ton of special features and every software update adds more smart functionality. Among the best are the time bank for making big decisions, a "top up" feature that automatically refills your stack at cash games, pre-determined buy-ins, automatic re-buys, a log-in history and taking satellite wins in credits instead of a fixed buy-in.

Player Traffic: Since launching in 2004, a relentless marketing campaign has seen their reputation and traffic sky-rocket – it is second only to PokerStars in terms of active players, with around 10,500 ring-game players & over 70,000 tournament players during peak hours. There are always several games running at any level of Texas Hold'em and Omaha.

Ease of game: Competition at Full Tilt Poker ranges from relatively loose and terrible at the micro limits to pretty much unbeatable at the high and ultra-high stakes. Full Tilt Poker is definitely one of the rooms you’ll find “grinders” making a living from online poker, so realize if you’re hitting the mid-stakes games and up you'll find players with thousands of hours of experience ready and able to pick your game apart. That being said, there are plenty of noobs at the micro-stakes who saw that Bill Ivey guy on the TV and thought poker would be fun to lose a few hundred bucks a week at. Basically, pick your tables and stakes well and you can find very beatable games. No-Limit games are still soft, but more difficult than your average online poker room. Players looking for softer games should consider Omaha and the mixed games also.

Game variety: Full Tilt Poker offers an excellent game variety, spreading Texas Hold'em, Omaha Hi, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud Hi, Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo and Razz. It's also one of few rooms to offer a complete selection of mixed games including H.A.(Hold'em and Omaha Hi), H.O.R.S.E. (Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Razz, Seven-Card Stud and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo) and H.O.S.E. (Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo). Hold ‘Em games range from the $0.05/$0.10 micros right up to $500/$1000 – the biggest game anywhere online. Omaha (PLO & o8) are the same levels, with a $2,000/$4,000 for the really big o8 hitters. Stud (hi & hi/lo) & Razz are offered from $0.25/$0.50 to $2,000/$4,000, while the mixed games generally start at $0.05/$0.10 and go up to $500/$1000.

Tournaments: Almost all of the poker variants offered in cash-game form are also offered as tournaments (the exceptions being H.O.S.E., H.A., and H.O.). Single-table, low-buy-in hold`em sit-and-go tournament fill up in under two minutes. Full Tilt offers sit-and-gos for up to 90 players. There are plenty of guaranteed prize pool tournaments at Full Tilt and buy-ins range from as little as $1 to as much as $500. Such tournaments regularly go well beyond their respective guarantees.

Cash games: Players can find a cash game to their liking and start playing within seconds. Full or nearly full tables abound in the hold`em section and the other poker variants sections are heavily populated as well (yes, even razz). Full Tilt Poker has a range of limits to suit all levels. No Limit Texas Holdem starts at $0.05/$0.10 and extends through to $500/$1000. Omaha High/Low, Stud and Stud High/Low extend through to $1000/$2000. Razz begins at $0.25/$0.50 and tops out at $1000/$2000.

Rake info: For $0.25/$0.50 games the rake is very competitive, capped at only $0.50. The rake at Full Tilt Poker is determined by the number of players participating in a hand, the limit level and type of game being played. The rake at Full Tilt Poker is slightly higher than the industry average, with a 5% rake collected in tight intervals. In No-Limit and Pot-Limit games, a maximum of $1 is taken out of the 5¢/10¢ games. At higher limits, Full Tilt Poker has a max. rake of $3, and the rake structure is similar to most other sites. For Limit games, the maximum rake is 50¢ up to 50¢/$1 stakes. The max rake is $1 at $1/$2 stakes, and $3 at $2/$4 and higher stakes. Full Tilt also follows a standard "no flop, no drop" rake policy.

Rakeback: You are paid 27 % rakeback. All tournaments, SNG and cash game rake is included in the rakecalculation.

Deposit/Withdrawal: eCheck, Visa, MasterCard, Neteller, Moneybookers, InstaDebit, ClickandBuy, cash transfer and Click2Pay.

Support: Full Tilt Poker has a number of support emails available, depending on one's specific problem. Queries are answered promptly and accurately. The website also contains a wealth of troubleshooting information and FAQ's. Support response time and quality are both very good at Full Tilt Poker, and e-mails are often answered almost immediately. Some support lag has been known to occur at times, however, due to the high influx of players or during a large software update.

support@fulltiltpoker.com

Register through SmartGambler and you will in addition to a 100% sign up bonus up to $600 also get a 27% rakeback.

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