This article is about which poker sites (US Online Poker Sites for US Players) to play at. I will be discussing the layouts, players skill level, the tournament structures, features, places which have the best guaranteed prize pools, deposit bonuses and the support. The sites I am going to be looking at are going to be UltimateBet, PokerStars and PartyPoker for real money games because in my opinion these are the top 3.
Other sites which are also good, but I am not going to be mentioning here, are Bodog, Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker. I’ve played on these before and they were both exceptional sites. If I were to pick another site to review, I would have picked Full Tilt. At the end of this article I will also give my advice on which sites to use for play money.

Now before I start I’m going to let you know where I’m playing. Currently I’m on PokerStars playing the MTT (Multi-Table Tournaments) which have guaranteed prize pools and playing the 2/4 and 3/6 limit games with 10 and 20 dollar SNG’s on the side. My article next week will be on this subject and I will explain how to make the biggest profit on these limits and to prepare yourself for the highs and the lows of limit play.

I am going to begin by explaining layouts. This is how the site looks and how easy it is to navigate on.

PokerStars: PokerStars is by far the best look and layout of any of the sites I am going to be reviewing, so I’m going to be explaining it first to compare the other sites to it. The layout is crisp and looks professional. It is very easy to navigate through if you’re looking for tournaments or for a quick SNG.

Ultimatebet: This I have played on a lot, but the layout I always thought could have been better. Sure, its better then the Tiger Gaming layout but it still suffers. Its also easy to navigate on but one of the problems I have encountered is the tables not loading right away and getting some lag on the site. I just don’t like the look compared to PokerStars' professional looking layout; it looks like they care more about the poker than the look. With the technical problems the site faces it brings frustration towards the player.

Party Poker: I have just recently started to play on the site but as soon as I downloaded it and installed the software I was incredibly surprised at how bad the layout looked. It looks like they just but together the first thing that came to their mind and worked on it from there. The site still is easy to navigate on but, it just looks like crap. Maybe it was their plan to make the layout bad so everyone would get to playing at their tables which looks 100% better then the starting page.

So for layout, feel and navigation, I would rank #1 PokerStars #2 UltimateBet and #3 Party.

Now that the layout is done, lets talk about the players. Obviously the worse the players the better it is, but you need to know how to suffer the bad luck that poker brings when that maniac catches his 1 outer on the river to take down a large pot. I will be ranking the sites from worse to best players at the end of this topic.

PartyPoker.com: The site has the worse players by far. This is mainly because there are so many players playing on this site; the percentage of good players are increased dramatically. Even in the 5/10 and above limits, there are players calling down with bottom pair and are just there to have some fun and if they lose a few hundred dollars or more, they couldn’t care. The site is well known for the fishy’s, so be prepared and have a stress ball beside you when playing in these limits for the long hall. It can be very profitable though.

UltimateBet: UltimateBet has a mix of good and bad players. Still need the stress ball for this site but its not as bad as Party, but still it has the fishy’s. It attracts good players who want to play vs pro’s and it attracts the bad players for the same reason. The poker games that I’ve played up to 5/10 seem very soft and you need to be able to stay focussed on your goals.

PokerStars: PokerStars has the best players of these sites but on any site you’re going to get those maniacs who make you feel like you want to trash your computer. The maniac start to go down in numbers about the 3/6 limits but they’re still there calling you with 3-4 offsuit. Just take their money and if you lose vs them, take it in stride because you can’t always be the winner vs the weaker player. There is some luck involved in this game.

If you’re looking for the worst players, PartyPoker is the place to be. UltimateBet isn’t as bad but party poker is easier to play on just because of the speed of the game. Pokerstars is the best of the 3 if you’re looking for some sane play. I would suggest Pokerstars.

Lets talk about the structures of the tournaments on these sites and the features and poker sign up bonus offers they have, especially concerning depositing money and just overall things to make your life easier and more profitable.

Pokerstars: PokerStars would be my pick for the best tournament site, they have many satellites games and multiple tournaments every hour at numerous limits for the rich and the poor. There are also around 20,000 players online which makes it easy to find a game and the tournaments rack up quite a big prize pool. There are many times during the year where they offer bonuses on deposits and re-load bonuses which are very wise to take because earning back the bonus dollars is quite easy. There is a find a friend option, which lets you search if your buddy is online and another feature is that if you reach 2000 FPP you can create your own private tournaments by emailing support and asking them to install this feature on your account.

PartyPoker: The site is known for offering a large number of deposit bonuses. Their refer a friend option with the normal bonus options make it so you can gain some hefty bonus dollars by depositing on this site. You can also have the option of getting a special referral code and distribute it to others making money off the rake the host takes off of that player’s pots. The site also has a new steps game. This is a multi-table SNG where a certain number of players advance at the end of each. You can work your way up by using the initial 11 dollar buyin and eventually play for the 9,000 first prize. If you also lose on a bad beat in the late rounds of a SNG’s they will move you back down a level. I would only suggest buying into these tournaments at the 11 dollar level because anywhere else I think you’re giving yourself a disadvantage. They also have a find buddy option which works well.

UltimateBet: UltimateBet has a 50% deposit bonuses during the year and 100% refer a friend options during the year. I took advantage of this option this year and made a few hundred bonus dollars within a week. The bonus dollars do take a little long to make back, but its still a reasonable amount of time to make free money. One of the downfalls of the site is that there are not that many players on it, but that might be a positive if you don’t like sites with a lot of traffic. There are enough players though to still get a game and not have to wait that long, but it might seem like a decade compared to PartyPoker and PokerStars. For example the late night 5 dollar tournaments will usually get about 300 players, where as on PokerStars the get about 600+. One of my favourite features of this site was to find friends. They have a UltimateBuddy system which keeps tracks, of which friends are playing and where, and there’s no bar to slide or anything, you can also see where the pro’s are playing if you want to see some action.

In terms of support, I’ve had problems with UltimateBet’s support regarding transactions of ultimatepoints and the site losing the connection during the tournaments and they hesitate to refund my entry fee. But they did, just took them awhile. I'm yet to use the other sites' support so cannot comment.

In conclusion I think it’s a toss up between PokerStars and PartyPoker, for myself I like PokerStars. I like how many tournaments they offer and the many satellites. I also like their layout and don’t get bored of it or dislike it like I do PartyPoker.com’s. For limit and table play I like PokerStars better because I like playing a lesser field of maniacs. But sites like PartyPoker are also very good, but you need to be patient and take your time and don’t ge rattled when you get rivered over and over again because in the long run, you need to realize that you will win, if you play at your best. UltimateBet used to be my main site which I was playing on a year ago but since then I think the site is getting worse and I have taken out my money to focus more of my play on PokerStars. I will probably re-deposit once they have the 50% bonus starting again because that deal is just too good not to take advantage of.

For my last thing, if you’re into play money I would suggest to play at TruePoker. This is where I learned to play before going into real money games and I still go there for play money every once in awhile. It shows you your chips so you start to realize that virtual numbers mean something. The play isn’t that fast which lets you practice patience before getting into the real money. They also have hourly tournaments which are fun to play in.

Other pages of interest: Poker Sites & Reviews.
Also see non-UK poker site reviews: Full Tilt Referral Code, Party Poker Bonus Code, Party Poker Bonus, Party Poker Bonus Code, Titan Poker, Titan Poker , Titan Poker Bonus Code, TitanPoker, PokerStars Marketing Code, PokerStars, PokerStars MarketingCode.

Return to the Poker Strategy Contents page.

PLAY POKER AND BLACKJACK AT ULTIMATE BET - ACCEPTS US PLAYERS

Where to Play Poker Online