U.S. Players are Fully Accepted

Poker Stars - Best Sign-up Bonus and Review

Poker Stars Logo
After UIGEA comes into law, PokerStars became world's largest online poker room. It's the home of online poker tournaments and satellites, especially WSOP satellites: PokerStars provides around a third of all WSOP Main Event entrants.

Poker Stars Website
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Poker Stars Bonus

Sign-Up Bonus$50
Deposit Match100%
Bonus Expiration180 days
Bonus Code
STARS50

Bonus clearing is based on FPPs (Frequent Player Points). You need to obtain a number of FPPs equal to 10 x (bonus amout). You have six months to earn the FPPs and cash out the bonus.

You will not be eligible for the bonus if you cash out during bonus period prior to making a deposit.

You can view the bonus status in the cashier window by pressing the "Check My Bonus Status" buton.It will show you how many FPPs are still required to release the bonus and when the bonus will expire.

Notice that FPPs obtained in a satellite do not count towards getting a bonus. Also have in mind that freeroll tournaments do not award FPPs.


Poker Stars Review

PokerStars was launched in September 2001 and gradually growing it's player base. It was always competing with PartyPoker but after the changes in US gambling legislation, Party closed it's services to US players and PokerStars became the Nr.1 poker room. But even before October 2006, eGaming Review awarded PokerStars with the "Best Poker Operator of the Year" in 2005.

When it comes to tournaments, sit & go and multi-table, PokerStars is the leader with the rest poker rooms lagging far behind. A notorious tournament is the weekly tournament called Sunday Million with a guaranteed prize pool of on million dollars at a $215 buy-in. Among Sit&Go, turbo sit&go have more popularity.

In 2002 PokerStars started the WCOOP - World Championship of Online Poker. Now it's the largest online tournament series. In 2006 J.C. Tran won the WCOOP bracelet and returned home with more that $600,000 in his pocket.

PokerStars sponsors several professional players including Chris Moneymaker (WSOP 2003 champion), Greg Raymer (2004 WSOP 2004 champion), Joe Hachem (WSOP 2005 champion), etc. They can often be found playing or chating at the tables

Due to its massive player base, PokerStars offers the most variate type of competition at the tables. The high traffic volume also have an impact on support: it's fast and very accurate. Although there is only email support, the high quality of the responses practically excludes the need of phone calls or chat

In May 2008 there were more than 22k players at ring-games and more than 150k tournament players. Because of the tournament focus, PokerStars provides professional support managers for multi table tournaments. High traffic volume doesn't imply a ton of fish, at $2/$4 stakes and above the gameplay is already tight.

PokerStars offers one the best VIP and FPP (Frequent Player Point) systems nowadays. FPPs will let you win seats in live events and online tournaments, enter cash tournaments and VIP Club Satellites. When it comes to VIP, there are 6 levels that you climb based on the FPPs you earn in a month. For the 1st VIP level, called SuperNova, the point calculation is based on years instead of months :) But notice that a VIP will earn FPPs more quickly: up to 5 times faster. In the VIP store you can turn FPPs into clothing, poker accessories, books&dvds, electronics and much more.

Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP Mac

Software and Playability

Table
Poker Stars Table
Lobby
Poker Stars Lobby
Download (6.6 Mb)

PokerStars software is well known for it's stability and feature richness. The high traffic volume forced their software team to provide mechanisms that will reduce connection lags to a minimum.

Almost any side of the software is well done: window focus options, table layout schemes, resizable tables. The "Remember Table Positioning" is a useful feature: you can arrange the windows at a pixel level and be sure that they will be at the same positions next time you open them.

Of course there are room for improvement. For ex. player notes feature is not handy. FullTiltPoker does a better job in this area: you can see player notes as hints when you move the mouse over a player at a table. Furthermore, you can see the notes even in the lobby in the list of players when you select a table.

A unique feature that makes PokerStars special is language support. Not only the website is available in 14 languages, the software interface language can also be changed. You can also specify which is you preffered email language (the language in which you will receive support from PokerStars). The list of supported languages is comprised of: English, Deutsch, Español, Français, Nederlands, Italiano, Magyar, Dansk, Norsk, Svenska, Suomi, Português, Polski, Русский.

It may not be obvious for someone: while playing at a table, you can access the options by clicking on the dealer tray. Handy options for multi-table players are: single click window activation and auto-popup tables when it's your turn.

Someone may complain about the missing the "bet pot" or "1/2 pot" button. At least the slidebar has tickmarks on it.

You can request hand history (up to 1 week) and tournament history and statistic and you'll automatically receive an email with the desired data. There is also a "Stats" tabsheet at the tables that shows you the stats for your current game

Game Variety & Limits

Besides commonplace poker games like Texas Hold'em and Omaha, Stars offers Seven-Card Stud, Five-Card Draw, H.O.S.E., H.O.R.S.E., 2-7 Triple Draw and Razz. Novice players will be happy to find out that at 1¢/2¢ micro-limit tables there is no rake. Stars have a huge geo-scattered player base. It means that there is action at the tables at any time.