Cake Poker

Posted by Lassieham 17/03/09

7.5 / 10

Network: CakePoker (independent)

Country of origin: Curacao

Established: 2006

Accept US Players: Yes

EU Based: No

The site in general: Cake Poker began operations in 2006 when a small team of poker players decided to get together to build a unique poker site. Currently, it sits on the Cake Poker Network alongside close to 30 other leading online rooms. CakePoker is a unique site in many ways, not the least of which is that players can redeem frequent player points for cakes (you read that right). The name and cake giveaways may seem like a novelty, but CakePoker is 100 percent serious, and the excellent software client and promotions attest to this fact. As the site's slogan says, CakePoker makes it easy to "get a piece of the action." CakePoker is proprietary software and is part of the CakePoker Network.

Big name pros: Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Bonuses: Cake Poker offers players a fantastic first deposit bonus of 100% up to $500. Players have 90 days to clear the bonus after which you forfeit all remaining bonus dollars. Bonus dollars are released in increments of $10 when players earn a certain number of Frequent Player Points. In ring games, $1 rake will earn you 1 Frequent Player Point. Tournaments on the other hand will get you 7 Frequent Player Points for every $1 in tournament fees.

Software: The software at Cake Poker is average and has all the basic features an online poker site client should have including: resizable poker-tables, note taking, sound and layout customization etc. Experienced players may find the avatars overbearing with the realistic approach, however this is easy to fix by simply choosing to view no avatars. Resizable table options give players the opportunity to multi-table without clicking between 4 different tabs. The color palette is muted but warm, so it remains pleasant to look at but it does not expose its players to the bright eye sores that many other sites employ. Seldom will news surface of a Cake Poker system crash or any other major malfunction. What Cake Poker lacks in players it makes up for in software.

Tables: You can quickly and easily resize your table to your desired preference. The options menu offers a much-appreciated "always wait for big blind" checkbox that auto-enables that option when initially sitting at a new cash game, rather than making players select this option individually each time they join a table. Also included in this menu are "always auto muck" and "always auto post blinds" checkboxes. There are also options for a four-color deck, "display bet amount," and "display pot amount." There is also an option to turn off avatars or animations, which allows users to tailor the experience to their individual tastes. Cake Poker is multi-table friendly, as multi-tablers are able to play as many tables as they wish. Multi-tabling runs smoothly.

Layout:

Special features: You can choose between several avatars and choose to sit at any chair. If you find the animations distracting, you can disable them - a nice feature. Other table features include player notes and visual customizations. Live bonus tracking offers instant access to your bonus information. A big plus are the web-viewable hand histories that graphically display your hand and allow you to send it as a link to your friends so you can analyze your play. Hand histories are available right at the table and you can also sort through the previous hands you played. Cake Poker has some great in-game buttons. What makes them great is that they have ½ pot and pot buttons to bet those size amounts, so you don’t have to calculate the math in your head! You can even enter a value in the tiny window as your bet size.

Player traffic: Cake Poker’s traffic is not nearly the size of Full Tilt’s or Pokerstars’ however, players will still always be able to choose from a wide selection of Texas Hold’em games. Cake Poker is the tenth largest poker network, and they reach numbers of up to 2,000 real money ring game players playing simultaneously.  The tournament traffic at Cake Poker is quite low, but is slowly growing. The good news for tournament players on Cake Poker is that their guaranteed tournaments tend to have large overlays. Keep a close eye on these tournaments and you can find some excellent value.

Ease of games: New poker rooms often attract the loose players and Cake Poker is no exception. Expect to see soft competition with player seeing the flop as high as 60%. There are not a lot of great players on Cake Poker: There are no in-house pros and very few players do frequent tables with stakes higher than $5/$10. Play is erratic and a table can as easily become a lotto all-in orgy as it could turn out to be a flopless folding festival. Seasoned players might find themselves with a headache after a few hands on Cake Poker.

Game variety: Cake Poker offers several games with nearly all the traffic focusing on Texas Hold’em. Players will still find juicy action on the Omaha games but will be hard press to find action on the Stud games offered.

Texas Hold’em – Pot Limit, Fixed Limit, No Limit, tournaments and sit and goes. Available on heads up , 6 handed max and 10 handed tables.
Omaha – Pot Limit, Fixed Limit, Tournaments and sit and goes. Omaha games available on 6 handed max and 10 handed tables.
Omaha Hi/Lo – Pot Limit, Fixed Limit, Tournaments and sit and goes. Omaha games available on 6 handed max and 10 handed tables.
7 Card Stud High – Fixed Limit, Tournaments and sit and goes. Available on heads up, and 8 handed tables.
7 Card Stud Hi/Lo - Fixed Limit, Tournaments and sit and goes. Available on heads up, and 8 handed tables.

Tournaments: CakePoker offers a variety of sit-and -gos including heads-up tables, sixhanded tables, 10-person tables, and 30-person tables with buy-ins ranging from $1 to $5,000. The site is also relatively unique in that it offers bounty sit-and-go tournaments. Turbo sit-and-gos are also available. CakePoker offers a daily $25,000 rebuy, weekly $100,000 guarantee, and a monthly $250,000-guaranteed main event. The site features many other smaller guaranteed tournaments, as well.

Cash games: Hold'em cash-game tables are generally well-populated. Even the highest-stakes tables usually have tables running, although there can sometimes be a wait to get seated at a populated table. Omaha tables are less popular, but it is still relatively easy to find a game at the lower stakes. Seven-card stud games are literally non-existent at the moment, although there is a tab for them.

Rake info: Cake Poker follows the no flop no drop policy, as rake is only taken on hands that see the flop. Rake begins from as little as $0.01/$0.02 and has range limits to suit all levels. Cake Poker uses two factors to determine the amount of rake taken – the game stakes and the number of players with dealt cards in a particular hand.

Rakeback: Cake Poker offers one of the highest rakebacks out there with 33% rakeback trough SmartGambler.

Deposit/Withdrawal:

Deposit Options: Visa, MasterCard, Instant Checks, GatorPay, ePassporte, Cash Transfer and Click2Pay.

Withdrawal Options: Bank transfer, GatorPay, ePassporte and check.

Cake Poker strongly recommends to email their support if you’re looking to deposit and a method that you normally use is not offered. Cake is very good about catering to their players and making something work.

Support: Cake Poker's support desk is very professional and quick to respond. E-mails are generally answered within 30 minutes. They are knowledgeable and willing to explain anything about their site, particularly bonus and depositing options. However, this is only available through email, as they do not support phone calls.

As a valued SmartGambler.com-member, we offer you a 100% deposit bonus up to $500 and 33 % rakeback paid directly to your account every month.
 

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