There is always a wide array of attractive promotions from which a player can choose at Poker Stars. From attractive sign up bonus offers, to specific tournament qualifiers and even large freeroll touneys, this site is aware that attractive promotions for its members equals higher player traffic at its tables. Consequently, Poker Stars prides itself on sending more players to high profile competitions like the World Series of Poker, the World Poker Tour, and European Poker Tour than any other site in the world.

Bonus:
PokerStars has a sign up bonus of 100% up to $50 for first time depositors. This means that if you are making a deposit for the first time at Poker Stars, you will receive up to $50 of free cash on initial deposits of $50 or more. The minimum deposit a player can make to be eligible for this bonus is $20; players depositing this amount will earn a 100% bonus of $20. Bonuses are released by earning frequent player points (FPP points), and players have up to six months to clear a bonus. At Poker Stars a typical bonus will be released when a player earns ten times the number of FPP points as there are pending dollars in their bonus account. For example, if a player is eligible the full $50 signup bonus, the bonus will be released when the player has earned 500 FPP points.

Promotions:
PokerStars offers some of the most creative and lucrative promotions available to online poker players. One of the most popular promotions at this site is the Sunday Million tournament with guaranteed prizes of over $1,000,000 every Sunday, and a weekly top prize of at least $100K. Buy-ins range from between $215 to $530 for this tournament, depending on the day of the month and volume of players expected.

Freerolls are extremely frequent at Poker Stars and are scheduled several times daily. Freerolls are available to new players, recent depositors, and veteran players alike, and range in prize pools from between $100 to over $1000. For players who enjoy these types of free tournaments, Poker Stars also features special freerolls which provide entry to satellites, large qualifier tournaments, special sporting events, or other promotional events.

Poker Stars is perhaps best known for its many tournament qualifiers and satellites to high profile live events. Promotional satellites at this site frequently send players to the World Series of Poker, Poker Stars Caribbean Adventure, The European Poker Tour, and the World Poker Tour Championship. Poker Stars sends hundreds of players to these events each year.

For the discriminating online poker player who wishes to increase their bankroll, Poker Stars offers a 100% first time depositor signup bonus of up to $50. A player receives this bonus by earning frequent player points through live table action and tournament game play. While it is not the largest Bonus offered to online gamers, it is enough of an incentive for all players who are interested in taking advantage of Poker Star’s numerous other promotions.

Software & Graphics:
Overall, the most impressive segment of the Poker Stars software is by far the lobby area. With the huge amount of different games, tournaments, and options available to a player, it is absolutely astonishing that Poker Stars has come up with such an efficient way of sifting through them all. There is nothing particularly fancy about the actual poker tables themselves, as keeping the graphics simple enhances the overall stability and software speed for most players’ computers. For players who want to alter the look and feel of the standard graphics, there are certain options like animation, player photos, and deck color, which can be customized, as well as a huge range of different table themes which can be chosen depending on a player’s choice of the kind of look and feel they prefer for overall graphics.

Statistical information on things like viewed flop percentages are built into the gaming window so they are easily accessible for players who wish to use them. These and other stats can even be requested by email for further analysis. Instant hand histories are accessible though the ‘options’ menu by players who want to review this kind of data to be live and on-demand while playing.

Poker Stars supports multi table gaming for up to 8 cash games and unlimited tournaments at the same time. A user can tile or cascade active table windows and use ‘advanced multi table options’ to enable special alerts when it is his or her time to act. While most players will never likely need the capability to play at over 8 tables at the same time, the advantage of such a feature is that it allows players to test the limits of their multi playing capacity if so desired.

Tournaments and Sit ‘n’ Go’s:
At any given time there are around 100,000 players competing in tournaments and sit ‘n’ go’s at Party Poker. In order to meet the enormous demand for seats posed by its members, Poker Stars schedules so many tournaments that there is one beginning at its site each second of every day. Ranging in all sizes, structures, and game styles, finding a tournament which meets your skill level and game preference is made simple through the Poker Stars tournament lobby. Buy-in’s for a typical tournament range from as little as a dollar to several hundred dollars for the larger guaranteed events. Prize pools for these tourneys vary as widely as the buy-in levels; it is extremely common to find $5,000, $10,000, $25,000, $100,000, and even $1,000,000 regularly scheduled events.

For players interested in earning a seat in large live events with huge guarantees, Poker Stars offers many special satellites to events like the new Asia Pacific Tour, European World Series of Poker, WSOP events, and The Poker Stars World Cup. The site also hosts some of the largest online tournaments on the planet, including the World Championship of Online Poker, a 23 stage internet event with a total guaranteed payout of $15 000 000.

The range of different kinds of sit ‘n’ go’s at Party Poker is also quite diverse. Hold’em, and Omaha events are the most popular, but sit ‘n’ go’s for most other types of poker can be found here as well. Buy-in’s range in price from as low as $1 to over $5,500 for more skilled competitions. Structures for sit ‘n’ go’s range from heads-up competitions to larger single table or multi-table events. For those players who enjoy fast action, turbo events are also available in this category.

Freerolls are a big part of Poker Stars tournament offering and run many times daily. The free tournaments are usually made tougher by the large number of entrants, but pay out decent guarantees of up to $500.

Game Variety:
With the high volume of players which regularly play at Poker Stars, it’s no surprise that the site offers more variations of Poker games than any other site on the internet. Games available at Poker Stars include Limit and No-Limit Texas Hold’em, and both Hi and Hi-Lo variations of Omaha and Seven-Card Stud. This site also offers No-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo games, H.O.R.S.E, H.O.S.E, 2-7 Triple Draw, Five-Card Draw, and Razz.

The wide range of different poker games offered at Poker Stars also varies greatly in terms of the multitude of different stake levels available to its gamers. For highly experienced veteran players, stakes can be as large as $1000/$2000 at the Limit Texas Hold’em tables or $200/$400 at the No-Limit Texas Hold’em Tables. For novice players interested in gaining experience at a particular gaming style, Poker Stars also offers micro limit gaming tables with stakes as low as $0.01/$0.02. The micro limit trend was actually begun by Poker Stars and is now widely copied by other online gaming sites. There is no rake at these low levels, and they are subsequently a fantastic opportunity for new players to earn valuable experience. While the most popular stake levels at Poker Stars are between $0.50/$1 and $5/$10, there are so many players who use this site, that every single table type is always well populated.

Typical tables at Poker Stars sit 9 players, but short handed 6 player tables, as well as heads up tables are also available for many game types. For players who prefer a quickly paced game with short waiting periods, fast or turbo tables are in abundance.

Customer Support:
Customer support at Poker Stars is available by email only. Support response time usually takes between 12 and 24 hours. Support representatives are knowledgeable, polite, and trained to deal with your questions and concerns rapidly.

Soft Competition:
You’re going to find players of all different skill levels, bankrolls, and playing styles at Poker Stars. As the largest online poker site in world, Poker Stars attracts many poker pro’s, experienced tournament specialists, and various other kinds of sharks. By far, the most dangerous and skillful opponents are attracted to the site’s top stake levels, beginning at $10/$20 and up, and large guaranteed tournaments. Here is where they can earn the most money relative to the amount of time they spend sitting at the table. Occasionally novice players who can afford to compete with a larger bankroll do well at these tables, but more often than not we have seen such players get slowly worn down by players using more sophisticated tactics.

If you’re looking for your best chances of winning at Poker Stars, we suggest starting out in cash games at levels between $0.25/$0.50 and $1/$2, or in sit ‘n’ go’s at entry levels around $1 to $5. Sit ‘n’ go’s are a great way to gain experience at Poker Stars, as the amount of money you are risking is fixed, and you have a great opportunity to analyze the playing style of your opponents consistently. At these stake levels you will be exposed to unskilled novice players, poker wannabees, and junior specialists who are in the early stages of refining their skills. Players will often act extremely aggressively at these levels, and this is either because they make most of their money consistently stealing blinds and small bets, or because they don’t properly understand how to play their hand. Be wary of the players who sit idle for many hands and then place large bets. Only engage with them if you’ve got a strong hand or think you can aggressively fold them.

Financial and Information Security:
Like other online gaming sites, Poker Stars takes its gaming security extremely seriously. Their software platform the industry standard SSLv3 protocol. It is configured to use RSA for authentication and key generation and triple-DES (EDE3, in outer-CBC mode) for encryption. They currently use 512-bit RSA key, which according to industry sources is sufficient for the next few years. Triple-DES EDE3 session encryption is even safer, and will likely be employed in the next few years.

Casino:
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Network:
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