The newest international poker room to open its doors is Poker.com. This is a Bitcoin-only room that conducts all cashier functions and gameplay in this increasingly popular crypto-currency.
This is a fully USA-friendly poker site, giving players in the Land of the Free a much-welcome addition to the somewhat restricted market for this country. Moreover, residents of almost all other countries in the world are allowed to play also.
We could not pass up the opportunity to check out this newcomer to the online poker scene and compose a thorough Poker.com review for the benefit of our readers.
Games
Poker.com hosts the standard trifecta of ring games, sit-n-goes, and multi-table tournaments. Cash games use the crypto asset Bitcoin to denominate the blind sizes, bet sizes, and all other aspects of gameplay while tourneys and SNGs list their buyins and entry fees in this same cryptocurrency.
Rather than listing all figures in Bitcoin directly, this poker room employs chips valued in mBTC. This means that 1,000 chips is equal to 1 BTC, or stated the other way around, each chip is worth .001 BTC.
No Limit Texas Hold’em cash games are listed from 0.01/0.02 (roughly equal to $0.07/$0.014) to 0.16/0.32 (about $1.12/$2.24). Pot Limit Omaha is present solely for 0.01/0.02 stakes. All tables are 6-max.
This range of blind levels is a bit constricted, but it should certainly suffice while this room is still in its initial phases. Should action pick up significantly, we have no doubt that management will deploy additional tables as demand warrants. As things stand now, we have never seen more than three simultaneously running ring game tables.
Sit-and-goes are offered in 6-max NLHE form at three buyin levels: 0.1 + 0.01 ($0.77), 0.25 + 0.02 ($1.89), and 0.5 + 0.04 ($3.78). MTTs are currently restricted to a couple of freerolls per day. Again, we expect this roster of tourneys to be expanded in future.
Play Money Games
Poker.com grants every new player 500 of what it calls pBUX. These are play money chips that you can use to try out the games for free. There are 1/2 ring game tables, both heads-up and six-player, that you can sample with these pBUX.
Software
Poker.com’s software supplier is the Swedish development house Cubeia, a company that focuses on browser-based gaming clients and has already seen its products featured on several popular poker platforms. This cardroom client runs directly in your browser; there’s no download required. This means that cross-device compatibility is excellent.
The lobby is about what you would expect with tabs on the top to choose the type of poker you’re interested in. A list of available games is shown toward the middle of the screen. One nice touch here that’s missing from most other BTC poker sites is a chart toward the right of the screen that tells you approximately what the mBTC stakes correspond to in USD.
Tables
The tables at Poker.com follow a pretty simplistic layout without much extraneous clutter. You will be located in the bottom-middle seat with your avatar displayed next to your name and chip stack. Other players are shown in a similar way occupying the other seats at the table.
When it’s your turn to act, you will encounter a betting interface with a bet slider, a box to type in your bet or raise size, and several buttons for preselected fractions of the pot or multiples of the big blind. You have about 15 seconds to make your decision, but you can activate a time bank to get up to 30 more seconds.
In the bottom-left corner of the table is the chat box and a few other options, like auto top-up and no more blinds. You can sit out at any time by checking the box so labeled near the top-right of the window.
Overall, this no-frills approach to poker works well. The action keeps moving speedily, and there’s almost no noticeable lag at any point.
Settings
Through a gear icon in the top-left of the lobby, you can access various settings to enhance your gameplay experience. In here, you’ll find the four color deck, bet size presets, table themes, and more. There are more than 40 avatars that you can pick to display next to your name at the tables.
Hand History
Poker.com is not compatible with any third-party tracking or hand grabbing programs, and in fact, such tools are prohibited by the terms of service. You can still view a record of the hands you have previously played, though, through the Hand History interface of the website.
To go there, select “My Profile” near the top of the lobby. Then choose “Hand History.”
You will see a list of the recent hands you’ve played with your hole cards and the results of the hand shown. Change the date in the filter up top to see hands from a different time.
If you click on any specific hand, you will bring it up it the graphical hand replayer. You will also get a link that you can share so that others can view the hand.
Promotions
Although Poker.com doesn’t provide a traditional welcome bonus to its users, it does offer a number of incentives to keep you coming back for more BTC poker fun.
Million Satoshi Freerolls
Every day, there are two freerolls that each distribute a total of one million satoshis (10 mBTC or around $70) to the top few finishers. These freerolls occur at 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET. and feature standard NL Hold’em gameplay.
There are generally only a few dozen entrants in each free poker tournament. This means that these events are a nice way to run up a free bankroll with a good chance for you to walk away with a prize. The small fields also mean you won’t have to play all day before you make it to the final table.
Cashback Loyalty Program
You can get a form of Poker.com rakeback as long as you put in enough time at the tables. For every $1 you contribute in rake, you will get 1 point. Then, once you accumulate 50 points, you will begin to earn cashback at a 15% rate. As you reach higher point totals, you will become eligible for greater returns as follows:
- 50 points = 15% cashback
- 100 points = 20% cashback
- 200 points = 25% cashback
- 600 points = 30% cashback
- 1,000 points = 40% cashback
- 1,500 points = 45% cashback
- 2,000 points = 50% cashback
The highest tier in this loyalty system requires just 2,000 points, equivalent to $2,000 in rake contributed. This is an easier condition for achieving the highest loyalty level than at almost any other gaming site. Your Poker.com rakeback will be paid to your account every week.
Deposits
ALL deposits, as well as payouts, at Poker.com utilize the crypto-currency Bitcoin. There’s no way to deposit or withdraw U.S. dollars, Australian dollars, British pounds, or any other government-issued, fiat currency or even any “altcoins” – that is, cryptos other than BTC.
Thus, it’s essential that you have at least a basic understanding of how Bitcoin works in order to get the most out of Poker.com. Fortunately, we have prepared a Bitcoin poker guide for beginners, which will show you how to create wallet and exchange accounts, move your money around online, and perform all other functions needed to begin playing poker at Bitcoin-compatible internet gaming sites.
To make a deposit, click on the “Buy Chips” button near the top of the window. You will then see a BTC address, in both text and QR form, that you can send your coins to:
You need to then open your crypto wallet and initiate a transaction to the address displayed. Funds will be credited to your Poker.com balance as soon as there’s one confirmation on the Bitcoin blockchain. Be sure to select a mining fee high enough so that your deposit goes through quickly and you don’t have to wait long for your transaction to be included in a block.
Withdrawals
In order to request a payment, press the “Buy Chips” button toward the top of your browser window. Then click over to the “Cash Out” tab. You will be asked to enter the address of your Bitcoin wallet:
Then choose “Next” and proceed to enter in the amount (in BTC) that you want sent to you. Once you complete your withdrawal request, it will enter a manual review in order to combat fraud and money laundering. Most payouts occur within 24 hours.
Same-day payouts, which is what Poker.com says it achieves in almost all cases, are quite a bit faster than is standard in the offshore gambling industry. For information about other organizations that pay out quickly, check out our monthly report on online poker, casino, and sportsbook cashout speeds.
Mobile
Because the software that Poker.com employs is centered around HTML5, it’s an ideal platform if you’re on a mobile device. The only real system requirement is that your smartphone or tablet possesses a relatively modern browser. Thus, it works flawlessly on Android, iOS, and basically every other mobile operating system on the planet.
Casino
In addition to being an interactive cardroom, Poker.com also boasts a casino section for when you need a break from poker. The menu consists of more than a hundred slot machines along with a dozen of so table games.
These titles come from the Nucleus Gaming, Playson, and Booongo studios. These are smaller, niche organizations with games that are not exactly commonplace in the online casino world. Thus, you can enjoy diversions that may be hard to find elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the games from Playson and Booongo are not accessible by U.S.A. customers. Americans can only play the titles from Nucleus Gaming.
Customer Support
There are two ways to get in touch with customer service. The first is by sending an email to support[at]poker.co.ag. The second is by opening up a Live Chat window. You can do this by clicking on a blue speech bubble icon toward the bottom-right on the poker.com website.
The CS team is standing by 24/7 to address your inquiries. However, when we clicked on the Live Chat feature, we saw a notice saying that the typical response takes up to 55 minutes. This is quite slow for what is described as a “Live” chat.
Conclusion
The Poker.com site has a lot going for it, including a very desirable domain name, support for the convenient and low-fee Bitcoin crypto-currency, and a software platform that has been tested and improved for several years already. We believe that there’s almost no downside to opening up a Poker.com account and leaving the lobby open even if you must grind elsewhere until a juicy game pops up.
The main issue with this operation is the low level of player volume, which is only to be expected with a site that has just recently opened its doors. Assuming management can successfully build upon its advantages going forward, this problem will eventually abate on its own. Poker.com may even become your primary online home for card games.
If you would rather explore your other options, then our USA offshore poker guidebook ought to prove both illuminating and useful.
Prohibited Jurisdictions
Though Poker.com gladly offers its services to individuals around the globe, there are a few parts of the world from which it is unable to accept customers. They are:
- Antigua
- Costa Rica
- United Kingdom
- Sweden
- Louisiana
- Kentucky
- Maryland
- New Jersey
- Delaware
- Nevada
- Washington State
- Pennsylvania
source https://casinonewsblogger.com/review-poker-com-everything-you-need-to-know-about-this-brand-new-room/
No comments:
Post a Comment