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Visit Lock
Poker
LOCK POKER
BONUS CODE FOR 150%:
BTF. Our new
Lock
Poker players receive an exclusive deposit bonus package
of 150% up to $750 in addition to the free tournament
coupon, which is detailed below. Please note that you'll
need to enter bonus code BTF at signups in order to receive
this increased bonus amount. Combined with the above-average
payout rate this is currently one of the better bonuses
available online.
FREE $11 TOURNAMENT COUPON: In
addition to the deposit bonus new players signing up through
our site and using bonus code BTF will receive a free
$11 satellite tournament coupon. The coupon is credited to
your real money account as soon as you make your initial
deposit and there are no further requirements or convoluted
terms. This can be used for free entry into any $11
satellite event at
Lock
Poker, including the Sunday guarantee qualifiers.
Lock
Poker is unique in that they have two distinct cashier
systems for its poker and casino side. This allows players to try
depositing with their credit card on both cashiers to get a
successful charge, if necessary. You can then transfer the funds
between the casino and poker room however you'd like.
Lock
Poker does seem to have better processors than others in
the US market right now. However, they have a smart system in place
in place as a backup for failed deposits.
If the credit card processing fails
Lock
Poker will send you an e-mail to ask if you'd like to
have a UseMyWallet account set up for you. This invitation-only
service is probably the most user-friendly and widely used of the
remaining US e-wallets. If
Lock
Poker doesn't send you an invitation automatically just
ask support to have one sent to you. You can deposit into
UseMyWallet via either checking account or credit card and then
transfer the funds directly to any poker room that accepts the
service. You shouldn't experience a block on deposits with
UseMyWallet.
The remaining options at
Lock
Poker are either cash transfer or Click2Pay. The latter
is not open to new signups so it is only an option for players who
already have Click2Pay account. The former is a bit less convenient
than other deposit methods but can be used as a last resort. Use the
Lock
Poker cashier and select cash transfer to receive
payment instructions. You can then go to a physical cash transfer
location, which are located in virtually every convenience and
grocery store, or charge your credit card on their website. There
are fees involved but you should try asking
Lock
Poker to refund them after your deposit.
 
Overall:
4.5/5
In the new online poker landscape the US market has shrunk to a
fraction of its former glory. Perhaps inconceivable at one point but
Lock Poker
and the parent Merge network have become the lone US poker
powerhouse, offering a stable and sizable cashier, a strong deposit
bonus, excellent software, and loose tables. Merge is now the clear
leader in the US market both in terms of player experience and
overall player traffic. Even though
Lock
Poker is one of the newer skins it's quickly become my
top choice on the network for its key improvements to the basic
Merge formula.
To begin with
Lock
Poker improves the standard deposit bonus for our
players to include a free $11 tournament coupon. While that may seem
insignificant it's essentially an extra instant $11 bonus added on
to all new deposits. There is no asterisk by this offer detailing a
laundry list of requirements. It's simply a show of good faith by
Lock
Poker in our players and an extra tournament entry for
your chosen event. The overall bonus is also strong at 150% with a
maximum of $750 given for larger depositors.
While big bonus numbers and a decent
tournament schedule may have been enough to woo new players in the
heyday of online poker's infancy these days easy US deposits and
tables that are looser than the Gordian knot are more of a priority.
Fortunately,
Lock
Poker succeeds in both of those aspects.
Lock
Poker has better credit card acceptance rates than other
Merge rooms and will invite any of its players to the UseMyWallet
service if they have trouble depositing via credit card.
The other big draw to
Lock
Poker is that its network has historically had some of
the loosest cash games in the US market. With the influx of new
players to the game dying down and existing players becoming more
educated the infamous wild games found everywhere online have mostly
fizzled out. Fortunately,
Lock
Poker has consistently offered games with seemingly
inexperienced players and high flop percentages.
Lock
Poker has a unique business model in that they seem to
be catering to experienced regulars and grinders by offering
built-in support for external tracking tools, a cash reward system,
and promotions geared towards more knowledgeable players. Typically
that hasn't worked for other rooms but I'm confident that it will
for
Lock
Poker. It's refreshing to have a US poker room that
seems to be self-aware of its place in the market and the state of
the industry.
Lock
Poker may be young but it has all the parts in place to
make a serious run at the US market.
Bonus (150%
up to $750 + $11 credit) and Promotions:
4.5/5
One of the better parts of
Lock
Poker is the promotional system, which takes the
already-strong network basics and adds to it for our players. As
mentioned in the above sections
Lock
Poker gives players signing up through our site a free
$11 satellite tournament coupon on any new deposit. Minimum deposits
start at $50 and players will need to use bonus code BTF in
addition to visiting
Lock
Poker through our links in order to be eligible. This
essentially gives you 20% extra instantly on a $50 deposit. You'll
receive a coupon credited to your real-money account that can be
used on any $11 qualifier, which are pretty much used for all larger
buy-in tournaments.
The coupon credit is in addition to the
play-through bonus, which is pretty sizeable at 150%, good up to
$750.
Lock
Poker is probably the only US poker room offering more
than a 100% bonus, although how quickly bonuses are dispersed is
really more important than the numbers.
Lock
Poker doles out the bonus in $5 increments with 75 VIP
points required for each dollar. I would estimate that to be about
$2-3 of bonus per hour per table at the $.50/1 or $1/2 NL levels.
That isn't incredibly speedy but also is
much better than the stingier offers found at some rooms. I give
Lock
Poker credit for making the bonus structure
straightforward: you earn VIP points to cash it out and there are no
extra terms for the free tourney coupon. You don't have to wade
through lines of legalese just to figure out how to get what they're
claiming is yours. Our new
Lock
Poker players are also eligible for several private
freerolls open only to new depositors.
The other main promotions at
Lock
Poker are the Battle of the Ronin, the Bad Beat Jackpot,
and the tournament leaderboard. The Ronin promotion is essentially a
cash rewards program that gives cash prizes every time you reach VIP
point thresholds. For example, when you earn 100 points you get
$1.50 and another $10 when you reach 400 points. The largest reward
is $7,500 for 80,000 points. If you're already working on a deposit
bonus this can add to it substantially. The
Lock
Poker Bad Beat Jackpot has been claimed a couple of
times over the past year and can reach upwards of $300,000. Overall,
combined with the bonus package for our players and the extra cash
contests
Lock
Poker has one of the best promotional systems in place
for US poker rooms.
Fish:
5/5
While I always stress that players
should follow their own personal priorities when choosing a new
poker room I imagine that beatable games are up near the top of just
about everyone's list.
Lock
Poker largely bucks the alarming trend of tough tight
games that were the rule on the former big US players like Tilt and
Stars. The flop percentage is a good indicator of the looseness of
play at a particular cash table.
Lock
Poker features higher numbers than its US competitors
with 9-handed cash games sometimes exceeding 30% and average pots of
20x the big blind or more. That may not have earned a top Fish
Rating 5 years ago but in the current environment that's an
incredible achievement.
The two main factors that I feel make
the
Lock
Poker tables so loose are the software design and the
snub given by "serious" players. The software is designed with a
less-rigid community feel as indicated by the animated chat
emoticons. With numerous raise increment buttons staring at players
it's also easy to get aggressive on a whim.
Lock
Poker and its network have also been largely ignored by
the tight grinders that refuse to play on smaller networks they
aren't comfortable with. The result can be a gold mine for
experienced players willing to try something different in
Lock
Poker. Players are more willing to see more flops and
pay dearly for draws. Over the long-haul that equals much more
profit than the tight-fisted games common at the larger networks.
Tournaments:
4/5
The
Lock
Poker tournament schedule is probably the largest in the
remaining US market and will be satisfactory to all but the largest
tournament players. During peak hours there are about 8-10 events
per hour with the best values being guarantees from $2,000-7,500.
The buy-in range typically runs under $30 for most events with $11
being the most popular level.
Lock
Poker usually draws about 300-400 players for the more
popular events during the early evening. They also have a wider
variety of game selection than most rooms with 20-30% of tournaments
being Omaha, Stud, or Badugi.
Lock
Poker tries to offer a few high buy-in events throughout
the day but they usually only attract less than 50 players.
Lock
Poker also implements a couple of newer tournament modes
that are starting to gain traction and more poker rooms. One of my
favorites is the Bounty style, which awards a portion of each
player's buy-in to the player that eventually knocks him out.
Besides adding a bit of extra fun to break up the long hours of
tournaments it allows players to either win money or at least a bit
of a rebate on their buy-in simply by knocking out a couple of
players.
Lock
Poker also offers Double Up sit and gos, which gives
half the table double their buy-in and the other half nothing. Both
these and standard sit and gos are popular up to the $50 level
without much wait-time.
One of best parts of the
Lock
Poker tournaments for players, massive overlays, is the
worst for the poker room. With the recent substantial increase of
new US players
Lock
Poker has been offering bigger guarantees to draw
tournament players. Unfortunately for them, they often fall short in
player counts to meet the guaranteed prize pool. Look for the "EV"
section on the right side of the tournament lobby to see how much
Lock
Poker has had to that particular event. It can often be
more than $1,000, which essentially means you're starting a
tournament with a bunch of players already knocked out. The big
Sunday event is a $100,000 guarantee with a $100 prize pool.
Software:
4.5/5
One of the best reasons to play on this
network over the years has definitely been the software.
Lock
Poker does little to change the default functions other
than modify the colors to their signature silver and black. The
lobby and graphics are fairly unremarkable but are seamless and
familiar if you've played online poker in the last few years. The
lobby can be easily customized to filter out the games you aren't
interested in and shows the usual vital table stats.
Lock
Poker graphics are best on the non-Bad-Beat-Jackpot
tables with dark colors, big cards, and different colors denoting
who's an active player.
The real meat of the software, however,
won't really be apparent until you've played a few sessions.
Non-vital but fun features at
Lock
Poker include a bunch of decorations for your seat at
the table. Each player can choose a small customized icon and will
earn bronze, silver, and gold stars as they become regulars at the
site. More interesting are the little trophies and ribbons that will
show up for winning specific tournaments and promotions.
Lock
Poker is also one of the few poker rooms that tempts me
to leave the chat enabled because of their collection of animated
emoticons.
More useful features at
Lock
Poker include a hand strength indicator that will remind
you of the hand you've made and a display on average winning percentages
when cards are shown in all-in situations. Other unique features
that I haven't seen elsewhere are the ability to only show one card
before mucking or a request for a rabbit-hunt of the remaining
community cards when you've won a hand prior to showdown.
Lock
Poker has a monopoly on some of these built-in options
and I'm surprised that it hasn't been copied yet at competing
networks.
US Payouts:
4.5/5
Of course, players can use either of the
e-wallets (UseMyWallet or Click2Pay) for
Lock
Poker withdrawals and I've had good experiences with
UseMyWallet. Electronic methods should be credited within 12-24
hours, which is certainly commendable. Paper check payouts don't
incur an additional fee and there aren't restrictions on how often
you can request one. Checks are delivered via regular mail and
usually only take 10-14 days to receive.
Customer Service:
4/5
Lock
Poker offers both of the basic constants in customer
service: e-mail and live chat. Unless I'm pressed for time I'll
always opt for live chat because of its immediacy. When I have used
the chat function successfully the representatives all seemed to be
English speakers and were knowledgeable about the poker room.
Unfortunately,
Lock
Poker seems to be swamped with new players these days
due to recent shutdowns so their live chat is sometimes unavailable.
E-mail replies typically arrive within 4-12 hours or so. I haven't
had any pressing issues thus far so as long as the live chat is
available it's a strong support system.
Player Traffic
The Merge network had been quietly
plugging away with low player numbers for years until recent events
forced the dominant forces from the US market.
Lock
Poker was one of the poker rooms that reaped the
benefits by continuing to allow US players. They now draw over
10,000 during the peak US evening hours and up to 500 players for
regular daily guaranteed tournaments.
Lock
Poker now has at least 10-15 active cash tables at each
limit up to the $1/2 no-limit level with a handful of tables above
that to the $5/10 level. Player traffic is now quite comfortable and
this is currently the largest US network.
Best Features
Accepts US players. With the market getting smaller and smaller
every day this is a huge draw for
Lock
Poker.
Free tournament coupon. The bonus is already strong at 150% but the
extra $11 allows players to try out the tournament offerings without
investment.
Loose tables. It's refreshing to find a population of players that
doesn't treat every dollar like it's their last.
Strong software. The
Lock
Poker color scheme is easy on the eyes and it's
rewarding to find all the little extra features like showing one
card or rabbit-hunting.
Game Selection: Hold'em,
Omaha, Stud, Draw
Limits: Limit: 2c/4c up to
$20/40 No-Limit: 2c/4c up to $10/20
Deposit Methods:
NETeller (non-US
players), Click2Pay, UseMyWallet, major credit cards, cash transfer,
and bank wire.
Minimum Deposit:
$50
Tips: I feel that
the days in which you could count on pocket Aces and Kings to do
your heavy lifting and consistently win you large pots are over. At
looser sites like
Lock
Poker these premium hands are consistently on the short
end of massive pots. Of course, these are still premium hands that
are a joy to play when played well. Unfortunately, players are
holding onto the days when they could commit their entire stack
post-flop on premium pocket pairs and expect to run into opponents
blindly throwing away money with a medium pair or complete trash.
Even the seemingly inexperienced players at
Lock
Poker can smell an opponent with Aces and react
accordingly, which means you have to get used to giving up Aces and
Kings when there's a good chance your opponent out-flopped you. That
sounds easy in principle but so many otherwise strong players cannot
release them when the time calls for it.
Obviously, it's always right to commit
everything pre-flop with pocket Aces. You'll always have the best
hand at that point and it's never wrong to put in your money when
you have the best hand. Post-flop, if you're playing aggressively
but continue to get raised and re-raised there has to be a reason
for it. With a flop full of undercards it's certainly possible that
you're facing an outright bluff or a smaller pair with the quality
of players at
Lock
Poker. However, it's much more likely that your opponent
took a chance with your pre-flop raise on a small pocket pair and
hit his set. Don't fall victim to over-committing to premium pocket
pairs post-flop. It's painful but necessary to throw away those rare
treasures when your opponent is giving you clear signals that you're
beaten.
Visit
Lock Poker
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