Online Poker Reviews

FULL TILT POKER REVIEW

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URGENT UPDATE: Full Tilt Poker has suspended US operations. Until the status of available games becomes clearer we are redirecting their links to Sportsbook Poker, our top-rated poker room that also accepts US players. We will update this page as soon as more information becomes available.

Full Tilt Poker Bonus Code for $600 bonus: BEATTHEFISH

 US CHECKING ACCOUNT DEPOSITS ACCEPTED:  Full Tilt Poker is one of very few poker rooms to offer direct checking account deposits, also known as eChecks, to all new and existing US players. The overall process is extremely simple as all that is required is an existing checking account. eCheck deposits also take place directly within the existing cashier as opposed to a third-party e-wallet service. Deposits made via checking account are immediately available for gameplay.

It's encouraging to quietly see a few top poker rooms offer services like this that allow US players to get their deposit done hassle-free and focus on the actual games. The Full Tilt Poker structure should be the model eCheck service as it is available to all new players, no deposit fees are taken, and players aren't required to provide a wealth of personal information or documentation.

If eChecks aren't an option for you the next suggested deposit option would be Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card. While many cards face the same historical declines the acceptance rate at this Full Tilt Poker tends to be higher than average. Should you face trouble successfully processing your credit card I would recommend that you try an action bank debit card with a Visa or Mastercard logo.

The best alternative to depositing directly online would be the cash transfer service, which is an electronic way to send cash at tons of locations across the country. Recently, I learned that many 7-11 stores have automated transfer machines. You should e-mail the poker room for exact transfer details. Finally, you could request to deposit via paper methods such as cashier's checks or money orders.

RUSH POKER EXCLUSIVELY AT FULL TILT POKER: While Full Tilt Poker has always been in the top tier in terms of overall poker room quality, the genius of the new "rush poker" mode cannot be overstated. After testing out this new feature with numerous playing sessions, the only negative is that it wasn't invented sooner. Simply put, rush poker is a dream come true for those who want to maximize their time playing online poker.

Instead of players sitting at a single table waiting for each hand to play through regardless of if they're involved in the hand or not, Full Tilt Poker creates a pool of rush poker players for each limit. The pools often reach 500-1,000 players per limit. You're still seated at a normal 9-seated table, but as soon as you fold your hand, you're whisked off to a new table with other players ready to play a new hand. This all takes place within the same window and you'll have new cards as soon as you fold your existing hand. Full Tilt Poker gives the blinds to the players who have been the longest without posting them.

The entire rush poker process is incredibly streamlined and easy to understand. Full Tilt Poker offers a "quick fold" option to move to a new hand as soon as you know that you're going to fold. This is most useful pre-flop if you've been dealt a weak starting hand or the pot has already been raised beyond what you're willing to call. This allows for 250+ hands per hour with some players seeing more than 500 hands per hour. That is the equivalent of having 5-8 traditional tables open without the need for separate windows. Full Tilt Poker also allows you to have more than one instance of rush poker open.

The best result of rush poker is that your attention is constantly engaged and decisions made out of impatience should be completely eliminated. Of course, the Full Tilt Poker rush poker mode is constantly generating new tables with different opponents so players who prefer to scrutinize their opponents' tendencies may feel out of their element. For players who like constant action, multiple tables, and playing their cards more than their opponents, this is the greatest online-only poker invention since the sit and go.

Full Tilt Poker actually has a patent pending for rush poker and as it is a proprietary software feature it can only be played at their poker room. Rush poker truly seems like the next step in the evolution of online poker and, while that sounds like a marketing cliche, it seems too logical to have taken this long to develop. Instead of taking the traditional brick-and-mortal table model online as has been done for over a decade now, rush poker takes advantage of technology to eliminate waiting time between hands. I highly urge new and existing Full Tilt Poker players to at least try rush poker once. I can tell you that I now play this mode almost exclusively at this site.

Overall:  4.5/5

I've been a fan of Full Tilt Poker since their roots as a quirky side project of a handful of professionals. These days, they've become one of the true giants of online poker with a ubiquitous presence in every form of poker media. Looking beyond their advertising front and massive roster of pros, Full Tilt Poker continues to offer one of the best software packages online, one of the best and busiest tournament schedules, and an extremely strong bonus to reward new players while still hosting the high quality cash games that keep players loyal. The massive influx of players in the last couple of years has enabled tens of active tables at every limit as well as numerous guaranteed tournaments every hour.

One of the most notable exclusive features of Full Tilt Poker is the new rush poker mode (see above for full details), which is reason enough to keep an account at the site. This is an extremely significant step forward in online poker with post-fold waiting time eliminated. As they sponsor so many top professional players, Full Tilt Poker is also one of the only sites where you can find at least one pro online throughout the day. While every online poker room sponsors professionals rarely, if ever, can you actually spot them playing on the site. That isn't the case with Full Tilt Poker. Mike Matusow often plays all night and online regulars include Phil Ivey, John Juanda, John D'Agostino, and Erick Lindgren.

Overall, I think that Full Tilt Poker provides a good package to attract new players with a large 100% deposit bonus while still offering high stakes games, an extremely comprehensive tournament schedule, the excellent new rush poker addition, and a professional software interface to keep players around. The lack of side-game distractions and focus on quality ring games and tournaments helps put this poker room in the top tier. With their decision to continue accepting US players and allow direct checking account deposits, Full Tilt Poker has grown to become one of the largest poker rooms online as well as one of my personal favorites.

Bonus (100% up to $600) and Promotions:   5/5

For a deposit bonus, Full Tilt Poker actually offers one of the biggest online at 100%, a full matching bonus with our links or bonus code. You will also automatically be eligible for the full 100% bonus using any of our links, but you can also use bonus promotional code BEATTHEFISH to ensure that you receive it at signup. The bonus cap for our new players at Full Tilt Poker is $600, which is certainly earnable for middle-to-high stakes players.

A $10+ hourly bonus rate isn't too difficult to achieve at Full Tilt Poker, which is an excellent rate compared to what you'll typically receive at competing sites. Lower-stakes players can still get a nice bonus out of your initial deposit as the playing requirements are fairly lenient. The bonus is released in $10 increments but I appreciate that your progress can be checked at any time in the cashier down to the cent. Their player rewards program is through Full Tilt Points, which can be used for special freerolls or to get free merchandise.

Full Tilt Poker also seems to randomly reward players with special bonuses or private tournaments. For example, a couple of years ago I was also invited to a WSOP freeroll based on my gameplay. While there were a lot of entrants, but it didn't even cost me any of my points to get in. Other regular promotions include the Iron Man Challenge, which gives special rewards to those earning daily quotas of Full Tilt Points, and tables that award extra points at designated hours of the day. Overall, I feel like Full Tilt Poker has both a large initial deposit bonus and one of the stronger online player loyalty programs.

Fish:   2.5/5

I'm not exactly sure why but the ring games at Full Tilt Poker tend to be fairly tight. Perhaps with all the professional sponsors, they attract more players who think they're serious poker players. Fortunately for the learned player, most of them just think they are. I also believe that the games have opened up quite a bit from the aggressive offline marketing at Full Tilt Poker but no poker room can escape the generally tight play that has resulted from the economic plunge of recent years. The flop percentages are about 15-30% at Full Tilt Poker, even at the lower limits.

One point that I stress is the fact that tighter play doesn't necessarily mean better play. The players at Full Tilt Poker are a different kind of fish: the ones that you can slowplay and win a big pot from. Normally, I don't advocate slowplaying hands too often, but it's a great way to deceive tighter opponents who are less likely to draw out on you. Of course, there is some inherent risk in slowplaying a vulnerable hand, but you're usually safe on this site with only 1 or 2 opponents and a ragged board.

I recommend that new players ignore the reputation of tighter play at Full Tilt Poker as this is one of the best overall online poker rooms available. I have done well here overall several years and so can you with the right adjustments. With the overall spike in traffic at this site ring games are increasing in traffic, even during off-peak hours. This is a great benefit as players have plenty of choices between tables with larger average pots and flop percentages. The new rush poker mode also tends to play very tight as player impatience becomes a non-factor. As players can simply continue to fold one poor starting hand after another in mere seconds you'll experience less bewildering decisions from your opponents made simply to stay active.

Tournaments:   4.5/5

Full Tilt Poker has really grown over the years to become one of the top tournament destinations online. With plenty of variety in terms of rebuy, Sit and Go, deep stack, and turbo Full Tilt Poker now covers essentially every tournament niche. Their biggest weekly event is the $750,000 guarantee which takes place on Sundays at 6:00PM EST. The buy-in is $200, which is a reasonable cost for one of the largest weekly online tournaments. The improvement of the standard weekly tournament offerings has been phenomenal with guaranteed events now taking up a bulk of the schedule.

Since the traffic has skyrocketed at Full Tilt Poker, you can usually find 5 or more guaranteed events every hour with buy-ins from $5 to $100. The prize pool ranges from $3,000-50,000. Their popular $24 events often guarantee a $20,000-30,000 prize pool and take place at least every hour. Another notable event is the nightly $50,000 guarantee with a $50 buy-in. One unique tournament feature is the token system which allows players to collect tournament buy-in credits. These are awarded in various freerolls and satellites.

Also, they now have Sit and Go multi-table tournaments for buy-ins up to $50. This allows you to play at your comfort level without having to wait for your preferred buy-in to come up on the schedule. In terms of general Sit and Gos they're extremely popular and fill up within a couple of minutes all the way up to the $50-100 level. Freeroll players should also appreciate the events at Full Tilt Poker because instead of a miniscule cash prize pool they give top finishers an entry into a larger real money tournament. Overall, Full Tilt Poker has become an excellent site for tournaments with their massive increase in traffic and promotions.

Software:   5/5

The software is one of my favorite aspects of this site and really adds to the game for me. The cartoon-like graphics just seem fun in an industry where simplistic software is the norm. I like the fact that the programmers at Full Tilt Poker spent some time to create original-looking graphics, and you're able to choose your own avatar from a list of characters. At the table, you're able to right-click your avatar and express a few different emotions, which actually animate your character. It's of no consequence to the game unless you're under the impression that you can bluff with pixels, but I like little quirks like this. The ingenious rush poker addition is another big positive that is only available at Full Tilt Poker.

I also give Full Tilt Poker points for giving you the choice of deck colors and high-resolution backgrounds. It's fun, and sometimes necessary, to mix up the visuals if you're getting tired of looking at the same graphics all the time. Backgrounds include space, jungle, beach, lodge, and Vegas. Another positive is the hand history feature, which displays the entire table graphic instead of making you wade through lines of text. Game speed is also very fast, and I appreciate fast action. Full Tilt Poker has also now made their software available for the Mac not as a Java popup but as a standalone native application.

US Payouts:   5/5

Full Tilt Poker is a very professional site, and their cashouts are handled in the same manner. In my opinion, most other online poker rooms need to take note of the player-friendly check withdrawals and offer a similar service. Paper checks are always free and, over the past year, have arrived for me within 7 days and often arrive within 3. The speed of their check system is simply unmatched in the industry. Unfortunately, direct checking account wire transfers have experienced delays of several weeks or more so I highly recommend using the standard check system.

Customer Service:  4.5/5

Poker sites that only offer e-mail customer service usually do a good job because that's their only contact with you. I have been impressed with their support system, which has responded to most of my e-mails within 10-20 minutes.

Player Traffic

Not too long ago, I still would have considered Full Tilt Poker a niche poker site with relatively low traffic. However, the traffic has really expanded lately by continuing to allow US players. During peak hours, you can usually find at least 10-15 middle-stakes no-limit ring games going on and the tournament traffic has improved dramatically to reach at least several hundred players for every event.

Best Features

Big deposit bonus. Even smaller players can earn this bonus, making it a realistic and honest promotion.

Strong software. This software is just plain fun and the lobby has been updated to make it more user-friendly.

Rush Poker. This mode eliminates waiting time after folding your hand and allows for each instance to run at 250+ hands per hour.

Tight competition. Some players might not think of this as a good feature, but others might appreciate the consistent play. If you want to lessen your bad beats, this is one approach.

Player loyalty program. Even if it's only to play in the occasional freeroll or get a jersey after playing for 3 months, at least they give you some rewards for frequenting their site.

Games Selection: Hold'em, Omaha, 7 card stud, Razz, HORSE, HA.

Limits: 5c/10c up to $1,000/$2,000   No-Limit: 1c/2c up to $500/$1,000

Deposit Methods: Major credit cards, eChecks for direct US checking account deposits, cash transfer, and Click2Pay. For US players, the eCheck option is seamless and allows direct checking account deposits without the need to sign up for a third-party e-wallet.

Minimum Deposit: $30

Tips: As I mentioned earlier, Full Tilt Poker tends to be tighter and more consistent than most. You'll find the occasional maniac, but they are fewer and farther between. How do you make money at a tight site? Easy! Change gears. Get to know who likes to see a cheap flop and who gives up their blinds. Then pick up lots of small pots with a pot-sized raise from late position.

Also, don't be so eager to bet out your strong hands. Most of the time, you'll end up winning a small pot. If there are no obvious draws out, you may consider checking on the flop or turn (or both if you have a real monster) to give your opponent an opportunity to catch up and then snap him off for all his money on the river. Also, take of note of the pot size preflop, as you may not be getting the correct odds to stay in with your drawing hands.

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