Party Poker Review from Actionflop Poker

PARTY POKER REVIEW

SCREEN SHOTS

Party Poker lobby

Party Poker ring game

OVERVIEW

Party Poker is the most popular online poker site. It benefited from heavy advertising on the Travel Channel during the World Poker Tour shows and in print media. It offers the most ring games and plenty of single- and multi-table tournaments. Perhaps the best thing about Party is that you never have to wait long, at any hour, to find a game.

As of October 2006, Party Poker is no longer accepting real money deposits from players in the U.S.

BONUSES

Initial deposit:

20% up to $100 - or - flat $25 bonus*

Difficulty to clear:

Easy

Expiration:

30 days after initial deposit

Method of tabulation:

Raked hands

Details:

You must play 5 raked hands for every $1 of bonus collected. (To receive the maximum bonus of $100, you must play 500 raked hands.) At $1/$2 and below, every pot that reaches $5 after a call is raked. Between $2/$4 through $10/$20, however, the pot must reach $20 before it is raked.

Opinion:

This is one of the easiest deposit bonuses to clear in the industry, especially at $1/$2 tables and higher. Most pots are raked at these levels, so count on playing 60 hands of $1/$2 for every $10 of bonus you intend to collect. This means you earn about $10 in bonus for every hour you play per table. It seems a little easier to me to clear a bonus at $1/$2 than at $2/$4 because the pot must reach $20 at the latter level before it is raked. $25 PLHE or $25 NLHE tables (with $0.10 and $0.25 blinds) clear the bonus as efficiently as $1/$2 LHE, and the blinds are smaller.

*Optional deposit bonus

If you prefer not to initially deposit a large sum of money, you can still get a good bonus. You can get a flat $25 bonus for a $50 minimum deposit by using the code ACTION1. You will need to play 125 raked hands to collect your $25 bonus. If you plan on depositing less than $150, I recommend this method. Click here to see where you enter the bonus code during the registration process. Click here to go to the Party Poker site where you can download the software client. Be sure to download via the link above to claim the $25 initial deposit bonus.

Reload bonuses:

Beginning in 2006, Party began to be more selective about who it offers a reload bonus. "Site-wide" bonus offers are offered less frequently in favor of "account specific" bonus offers. Depending on how much you play, you could receive offers such as 15% up to $75, 25% up to $100, etc. Most of these bonuses require you to play a number of raked hands equal to 10x the bonus amount in dollars. So a $75 bonus requires you to play 750 raked hands to release it.

If there has been no activity on your account for a while, Party sometimes tries to tempt you into depositing by offering you a special reload bonus. You will receive a special code after logging on. The terms of this bonus are usually better than those of the site-wide reload bonus (5x bonus amount and one month to clear). Recently, I was offered a special bonus after about three weeks of inactivity. You may have to have a small balance in your account (less than $50) to trigger this bonus offer.

In either case, Party reload bonuses are perhaps the easiest in the industry to clear.

GAME SELECTION/COMMENTS

Excellent. Party claims the most ring game players of all sites, and it offers a wide variety of poker games, including Texas Hold 'Em, Omaha, Omaha 8, Seven Card Stud, etc. Party offers some multi-table tournaments with huge cash prizes, including a monthly $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament. Recently, Party began offering an interesting alternative to single-table Sit 'n' Go tournaments and multi-table scheduled tournaments: the 30-player Sit 'n' Go tournament. This new format brings a higher payout to the convenience of a Sit 'n' Go tournament.

Like some other sites, Party offers a progressive "high hand jackpot" that awards money to players showing down a royal flush. Also, Party offers a "bad beat jackpot," something often seen at brick-and-mortar casinos and card rooms. Special "bad beat jackpot" tables are offered at the $2/$4 level and above (limit hold'em only). Losing with four eights or better will win you a share of the jackpot (see site for exact details). If a player suffers such a bad beat, Party keeps 10% of the jackpot and uses 20% of it to reseed the next jackpot. The remaning 70% is split among the bad beat loser, the winner, and all players dealt into the hand, with the loser taking the lion's share of 50%. The largest jackpot to date is $739,621, with the bad beat loser winning over $268,000! Party takes an extra $0.50 in rake from every "bad beat jackpot" pot, so you pay for the privilege of playing in the long run. For example, in one session I played 561 hands at the $2/$4 "bad beat jackpot" tables. I won 20 hands that were eventually raked, so I "paid" an extra $10 for the chance of winning big money. These kind of jackpot tables can be fun once in a while, but serious players will steer clear of them because of the hefty extra rake.

RAKE

Party Poker's rake is average for the industry. It is not as high as those found at sites such as Poker Room or Interpoker, and neither is it as low as Poker Stars' rake. However, at higher limits Party caps the maximum rake at $5, significantly higher than the $3 industry standard. See Party Poker's rake structure.

PLAYER REWARDS

In 2005, Party began its "Party Points" program. This program awards you points for frequent play and for depositing money without withdrawing it for at least a week. In 2006, Party revamped its points program to include higher-end merchandise such as Apple Ipods, Sony PSPs, Callaway golf clubs, Dell LCD monitors, etc. You can also use points to enter freerolls with cash prizes or paid entries into major land-based poker tournaments.

MISCELLANEOUS

It's easy to see why Party is the industry leader. I've played the most at Party for three reasons. First, there are tons of games. You can almost always join a full table rather than entering a shorthanded table and hoping that other players join too. Second, the players do seem a bit weaker than those at sites such as Poker Stars, Ultimate Bet, and Paradise Poker, but the difference is not as great as some have said. Lastly, the site offers frequent reload bonuses that are not impossible (and actually quite easy) to clear, especially if you are comfortable playing multiple tables at once.

The most recent update to the Party software includes some interesting features. You can now play blackjack on the site, make side bets against the house on the flop (whether the flop will be all red or all black), and make deals in the late stages of a tournament.

The Party software client has been known to check that you are a live, human player (as opposed to an automated poker-playing software program known as a "bot") by asking you to type in a series of letters that appear in a pop-up window. Although controversial, this pop-up window is one of the security measures Party uses to maintain fairness on its site.

In 2005, Party Gaming, the parent company of Party Poker, went public on the London Stock Exchange with one of the largest IPOs in the exchange's history.

DOWNLOAD SOFTWARE

Click on the banner below to be taken to the Party Poker site where you can download the client.

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