I prefer pokerstars
888, back when I tried it on an account my dad made, only allows 4-tabling (or 5) maybe that increased but for me that was one issue for a proper cash game grinder.
Also its play money version, I think it only has a tiny amount you can add and it's per day not per four hours like pokerstars. So for a pure beginner the site isn't friendly either.
PokerStars has a
free poker school and the information is all very very good stuff, not one thing in it is in any way false or 'waffling' (waffling means just junk information that isn't actually applicable in practical situations of poker). On top of that, their free school GIVES YOU FREE TICKETS that last a full 30 days to play with other school-students (that's why they only last 30 days so you're not against experts) and with the winnings of those games you play 1 dollar buy-in spin n gos which can get you rich and means you spent 0 to earn real cash (and these games count to your chest rewards which you should activate immediately as it's not default opt-in, their chests are their form of rakeback and you should google starcoins if you aren't sure how to use them)
888 has not only a higher ratio of shark to fish (because they have promotions and rewards that are much more helpful to really dedicated players whereas pokerstars aims to make rewards that maybe help sharks less but are attainable by all players) so pokerstars ends up filled with much more fish but on a surface level appears less rewarding to fulltime grinders but the fact that there's so many more amateurs is the very thing that makes it more shark friendly.
In terms of software usability, pokerstars is equal to 888 and I have to give 888 credit for this. I know a lot about computing and 888 is as good as pokerstars for how much RAM it demands to run per table played meaning even a bad computing system can run it well. This being said there is one aspect where pokerstars destroys 888; non-Windows operating systems. If you have MAc or
linux or a smartphone that isn't the windows smart-phone, you will find 888 either doesn't run at all or runs very very poorly.
when it comes to help and support quality, pokerstars again totally annihilates 888. 888 has the worst customer support quality of the three leading
poker sites (
party poker being the third of the trio) pokerstars is known for being the fastest to reply to any support ticket replying within 3 hours, not 24 hours like party poker but 3. 888 is known to take up to 72 hours to reply. Their email syas up to 48 but base don actual reviews it's up to 72. I have only ever dealt with pokerstars support and I can tell you they are so ****ing good. You cannot want more from them, they let you ask anything at all and do not make you feel like you are wasting their time.
When it comes to security, pokerstars is god tier. You don't know enough about encryption or anti-hacking mechanisms if you don't see this. I will NOT explain why they are better because if I do, it will help hackers. They have secret ways of telling if it's the real you playing and also secret ways of telling if cheating is going on in the tables that NO OTHER POKER ROOM USES. Party poker, to be fair, does try as hard as PS at the fighting of bots and cheaters but pokerstars is simply better because they actually have a team that makes cheating software or tries to trick their own detection system. Party poker does not have such a team to my knowledge.
Pokerstars is unparalled. You cannot ask more from a poker room, they are the kings of kings. From range of game-types to quality of customer service they are my poker home and if I was American I'd go for ACR.
These 2 rooms will dominate the poker industry in the future, I assure you.
change instances of free poker into a link to https://www.cardschat.com/strategy/free-online-poker-game/