Home / Poker Site Reviews / Full Tilt Poker
Updated
Tue, 2010-03-23 05:26
Full Tilt Poker
Review
Poker room score
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Deposit Bonus:
100% up to $600
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About Full Tilt Poker
For years, Full Tilt’s main – and just about only - selling point has been the “play with pros - learn from pros” approach, which proved quite efficient indeed, and that’s probably why they’ve stuck to it to this very day. Nowadays however, Full Tilt Poker is much more than an online poker room where some of the world’s most famous poker professionals play everyday folks like you and I. It has become somewhat of a symbol of resistance in the face of the abusive UIGEA because it still accepts US players to this day. That same factor also brought about a huge explosion in Full Tilt player numbers, which turned it into probably the biggest online poker room in existence today.
It features the highest stakes tables in the business, and if you thought $30-60 was huge, you might want to know that Full Tilt has $500-$1000 tables as well, which is something no other online poker room can boast.
Full Tilt Poker Software
Needless to say, Full Tilt’s software is one of the best in the business. Why is it so? With so many regular players and poker professionals playing at their tables, and a management always willing to listen to every useful suggestion any of these people make, it only makes sense that they have one of the most efficient and fully optimized user interfaces in online poker.
Graphically, the interface looks fine, and even though the goofy cartoon avatars look a bit out of line in the beginning, once you get used to the whole thing, you’ll grow to like them. The lobby is laid out in much the same way other online poker rooms arrange theirs, but Full Tilt brings a few minor yet significant improvements in this respect as well. Tables where Full Tilt pro team members play, appear highlighted so people can easily locate the “real action”. Resizable tables make for easy multi tabling. The way one lays out his tables on his computer screen can be saved and loaded next time he decides to play so he/she doesn’t have to waste any time setting things up again.
On top of all that, tables are fully customizable.
Full Tilt Poker Promotions and Best Bonus
Full Tilt Poker is not a member of any poker network. It uses its own in-house software and is not subject to any abusive network requirements. That is probably the very reason they’re able to offer their players some of the best bonuses and promotions. The 100% match on first deposits up to a rather generous $600 is only the beginning. The ease at which these bonuses can be unlocked adds further value to it. Because of the fact that Full Tilt practices dealt rake, you’ll receive a Full Tilt point for every dollar of rake, even if you only sit around and muck your cards, without contributing to the pot in any way. While this may not aid loose-aggressive players much, it is certainly of huge help for weak-tight rookies. Every such point is worth 0.06 dollars of bonus, and the bonus is released into your real money account $20 at a time. That means that you’ll probably be able to earn $20 from the bonus alone by playing less than 2 hours at a single table. Any way you look at it, that’s a great prop.
You’ll have your bonus unlocked before you know it, because tournament fees are extremely well-rewarded too. Each dollar you pay out in tourney fees earns you 7 Full Tilt points.
If you cannot afford to deposit a large sum of money to begin with, worry not. The chunks in which the bonus is released is set to 10% of the sum you deposited, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be $20, it can be less too.
Full Tilt Poker Tournaments
The Full Tilt tournament offer is a lot like what you will find at just about any poker room, with the exception that Full Tilt’s tourneys are bigger and better than anything else out there, from pretty much every point of view. SNGs are extremely popular, and even though most people play Texas Holdem ones up to a max of $33 in buyin, there are SNGs available for some really small buyins as well as the monster $2,200+$50 where the big boys play. Another outstanding thing about Full Tilt’s SNGs is the fact that one won’t have to wait in queue for long even if it’s HORSE or some other more exotic poker variant he/she wants to play. I suppose that advantage comes with the turf when you’re dealing with the most popular online poker room. MTT-wise Full Tilt won’t disappoint either. There’s an MTT starting every 15 minutes and there are about $5,000,000 in guaranteed prizes given out every week. Buyins range from a few stray bucks to $550 and accommodate a wide spectrum of online poker players.
Full Tilt Poker Special Offers
Because it’s an independent poker room, Full Tilt can afford to give its players some pretty special and unique promotions to enjoy. They are the only top online poker room which offers rakeback to its players. Not being subjected to any network policies regarding this matter, Full Tilt can do whatever it deems necessary to make its players stick around.
Some other unique offers of theirs are the weekly $750K guaranteed MTTs and the monthly $1million guaranteed. Take note that satellites and qualifiers run for these events all the time.
Events like the Full Tilt Online Poker Series run all the time, and no matter what real money game one takes part in, he/she will always be earning Full Tilt points when playing.
These poker points will be usable for a variety of purposes. One can purchase merchandize from the Full Tilt shop which doesn’t just sell useless knick-knacks, it also offers poker books, CDs and DVDs which can be used to improve one’s play. Full Tilt points will also grant players access to some action point tournaments and satellites.
Full Tilt Poker Accept US Players
Full Tilt Poker is one of the few remaining online poker rooms that accept U.S. players despite the restrictions imposed by the UIGEA. By this they don’t only secure themselves a constant influx of new players (many of the Americans who used to play on Party before, migrated towards Full Tilt in 2006) but they also give the whole poker industry a huge thrust by managing to keep an otherwise lost segment of the market involved.
As far as fairness and security goes, Full Tilt lives up to its fame. Licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, Full Tilt does not tolerate fraud or attempts for fraud in any shape or form. Logs are often checked and hand histories analyzed by human personnel to make sure awkward betting patterns are fully investigated. The 128-bit industry standard encryption should make sure that all money related issues run flawlessly
Full Tilt Poker Support
Currently, Full Tilt Poker offers only email support which is frankly less than I would ever have expected of them. The problem with email support is the following: most problems that online poker players come across need to be solved at the moment’s notice. Problems that are not cleared straight away tend to discourage people from playing at the poker room because there’s nothing more frustrating than having to wait several days when one is ready and prepared to hit the tables.
The speed of reply at Full Tilt’s email support leaves a lot of room for improvement. Some sort of live support should be implemented because live chat or phone usually represent an instant solution to game-related problems and are far superior to email support in every respect.
72 hours is an awful long time to wait for an email which will probably require several replies going back and forth anyways.