Thankfully at IPN Freerolls we only use words such as ‘brilliant’, when we really, really mean it. The ‘Governor of Poker’ falls into that category. The game is based on Texas Holdem poker rules and you can play a quick game or enter a full poker tournament. To see what all the fuss is about, enter your poker alias below and good luck!
 

The games on offer at Celeb cater for all budgets and tastes. The game varieties include Texas Hold’em, Omaha, 7 Card Stud, and 5 Card Draw, Single or Multi Table Tournaments. FREE practice tables are available for all games so you can learn or improve your skills. Buy-ins for real money games can range from as little as 5c to $1000. Single and Multi table tournaments start regularly with buy-ins ranging from $3 to $5000.
For all the tournaments including the guaranteed and freeroll tournaments, currency is provided in both the Euro and the Dollar, catering for a global market. There is also a wide range of other currencies available for sit and go tournaments. As well as different currencies players may play in the native language of English, Spanish, Turkish or German.
Guaranteed tournaments satellites are always available with prizes ranging from $3,000 to $250,000!! Regular freeroll tournaments are also held offering big money prizes with no buy-in, so you can get that valuable practice at the table and win big prize money without any cost.
Celeb also hosts their own online poker league, which as well as the normal prize pool offers points that place your position in the league. The league has great cash prizes and international tournament tickets up for grabs. Roll all of these great features together and you’ll see that Celeb offers something for everyone.

During peak times there can be up to 60,000 tournament and 10,000 cash game players found at the Full Tilt Poker real money tables. The cash games consist mainly of Limit or No-Limit Texas Hold’em tables.

Historically even at lower limits the players at Full Tilt Poker tended to be quite a bit tighter than those found at most other online poker rooms. Although these tight players were not necessarily be good players it did make it much more difficulty to win than rooms with looser players. However as the room has grown in size the competition has gotten considerably easier, especially in the Omaha games.

The software at Full Tilt Poker is excellent with no discernable bugs or problems. Available for both MacIntosh and Windows platforms the software runs smoothly, quickly and is easy to navigate. While the cartoonish graphics may not be to everyone’s tastes they do provide a welcome change from the staid visuals found at most other poker rooms. Statistics provided in the lobby to assist table selection are average pot size, percent of players seeing the flop and hands per hour.

Full Tilt Poker offers 24 hour support via e-mail only. The response time is fast, usually within half an hour, and the quality of responses is very high.

 Ladbrokes are huge in tournaments, there are scheduled multi table tournaments starting every ten or fifteen minutes around the clock, as well as satellites to big events.

 If you’re after the really big money, Ladbrokes is classical ground for some really high stakes games. A number of well-known big timers have used Ladbrokes as their catapult into high stakes poker fame. For every qualifying real money hand you play, you gain player points that you use for various extras, such as qualifying for cash back up to 30% or share in the $80,000 worth of promotional freeroll tournaments with prize pools of up to $25,000.

 On top of all this, there are the regular Rake Race, various leaderboard and guaranteed prize tournaments. In total, Ladbrokes Poker gives away over $1,000,000 in cash rewards to players each month

As is often the case in the highly competitive online poker niche, being your own network is a struggle for smaller pieces of the big cake. Ladbrokes also isn’t among the top ten when it comes to poker traffic, but they have been around for ages and their customer base is to a great extent hard-core Ladbrokes fanatics.

 Real-player traffic at tend to peak around 1,400 simultaneously seated players (March 08.) Since Ladbrokes has decided not to deal with US players as long as US legislation appears to make this a somewhat risky business, their peak hours typically fall under European, evening times. Or, perhaps, British tea time, seeing that this is The Place to be for British online poker wizards and tourists alike.

If you like the Microgaming poker client, chances are you’ll like Ladbrokes too, since it’s running on a customized version of the Microgaming system. On the other hand, if you’re not that fond of Microgaming, you could still like Ladbrokes – since it’s been customized. One example of customization is the poker lobby that has some functionality we recognize from the much improved Party Poker lobby, like hiding columns to get at better view of the cluttered game listings. A huge addition compared to regular Microgaming sites is the 3D graphics poker client. Of course, not all poker players appreciate a realistic graphic overlay, but if you’re into that particular mix of PC gaming and live poker, Ladbrokes definitely offers an exciting gaming experience. The lobby was a bit hard to navigate at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s really comfortable. Cash games and tournaments are found on separate tabs, and the different poker variations are listed under separate headings, as is the convention.

 What really adds usability to the Ladbrokes lobby is the My Lobby function that lets you bookmark your favorite games, and from then on you’ll find them gathered nicely in one place.

 With Ladbroke’s experience and renown, you can expect absolute first-rate performance of their poker server, be it in cash games or large tournaments. There is more than the absolute minimum here. Beside the mandatory Holdem and Omaha portfolio, Ladbrokes tends well-known and popular poker variations such as Seven Card Stud, Five Card Stud and Five Card Draw. High, Low and High-Low variations are spread pretty much the usual way, as are the common betting structures fixed limit, pot limit and no limit. One setback, however, is that there’s no Razz or Seven Curd Stud High-Low games.

Cash games can be played full-ring, shorthanded (six players) or headsup. Sit-and-gos come in an almost bewildering fauna: there are one-table sit-and-gos with 2, 5, 6, 8 or 10 players; multi-table sit-and-gos with two, three or four tables – which in their turn are either full ring or shorthanded. There are jackpot sit-and-gos, ladders and satellites to bigger cash tournaments.

 The multi table tournament gamut at Ladbrokes is all you ever dreamed of. Tournaments run all day and all night with buy-ins ranging from $2 to $300 and all the usual species are represented, such as turbos and guaranteed prize pools. For offline events, such as WSOP and EPT, you’ll always fins an abundance of satellites at this site, and the Ladbrokes Team seems to be a really nice group to travel with, should you win a seat to a remotely located poker paradise.

With an array of freerolls, live tournaments and big money competitions available, Poker Heaven has seen its player base swell in recent years. Lavish packages to live events, such as the World Series of Poker (WSOP) and Master Classics of Poker, have helped attract even more players to the site.

Boss Media are charged with ensuring that the software is reliable and functional at all times and with more than 10,000 players online at peak times, Poker Heaven continues to provide a first class service. The customer service team, who are on hand should you require any help, are most supportive in assisting with any problems that you encounter.

The Playerzone feature has proved a welcome addition to the site and offers personalised information on how players have performed at the felt. Furthermore, the unique Buddy Tracker facility allows you to keep tabs on your opponents and, in turn, help boost your bankroll!

There has never been a better time to start playing at Poker Heaven with a fantastic €1000 deposit bonus available to all new players. Go to www.pokerheaven.com to download and start playing right away!

The Poker Stars software runs in a quick manner and very rarely causes any problems. Poker Stars updates their software regularly, on a near daily basis, to ensure players are given the best possible gaming experience. With Poker Stars you can resize tables to allow for multiple tables to being played. Players can play up to 24 cash tables at any one time as well as an unlimited amount of tournaments.

The traffic PokerStars draws in is simply amazing.  At off-peak hours there can still be upwards of 40,000 players connected and at peak hours this soars to over 100,000. Some of the tournaments they provide have over 5000 players battling it out for prize pools which can reach in excess of $1,000,000! Real money cash game traffic recently broke the 30,000 mark, and you can usually find over 50,000 players participating in Poker Stars’s sit and go’s and multi table tournaments.

Poker Stars offers Texas Holdem, Omaha, Stud, Draw and Horse. These can be played at a huge variety of stakes ranging from $0.01/$0.02 all the way through to $1000/$2000. Tournaments buy-ins range from $0.10 to $1000+ so I’m more then confident you will find a game suitable for you at PokerStars.

Poker Stars also have an array of tournaments at their disposal. Players can play in huge tournaments with in excess of 5000 players. Sit and Go tournaments fill up in seconds at peak hours and as soon as one fills up another is opened, so you will never find yourself waiting for a tournament. PokerStars runs some excellent value tournaments for beginners with their daily $50 and $100 added tournaments which you can buy into for as little as $0.10. If you are looking to play in the largest offline poker tournaments in the world Poker Stars will also help you gain entry as they offer daily tournaments to qualify for the WPT, EPT, WSOP and WSOPE!

Party Poker is one of the largest online poker rooms on the net with almost 80,000 people playinh on their site at peak times. Party Poker is also known to hold the largest Limit Holdem tournament in the world and is one of the many stops on the World Poker Tour.

Party Poker’s software takes a few minutes to download.  They offer a variety of play money games,  which is good if you want to learn how to play a different game like Omaha Hi/Lo.  Setting up a real money account is simple.  They accept all major credit cards,  e-Passport,  FirePay,  IGM-Pay,  and Western Union transfers.  Within minutes of setting up a real money account,  a customer service rep calls you to verify that you funded your account.  This is part of their attempt to provide extra security for their customers.

The software is above average.  The main lobby is easy to navigate.  You can choose to play on regular tables or tournament tables.  The best feature is the “Average Pot”  function which helps you select a loose or tight table as you prefer.  The poker tables include male and female avatars with your screen name and chip amount clearly visible.  You are able to check your own session stats and take notes on players.  You can choose a four-color deck if you have a tough time reading different suits.  Another feature is an  “Auto-Post Blind” button so you will never miss posting a blind.  You have the option to show or muck your losing or uncalled hands.  This function is perfect if you want to display your bluffs.  You can also speed up the action by clicking on the  “Fold to Any Bet”  button.  You can elect to get hand histories mailed to your email account,  or downloaded into a special folder on your hard drive.

Party Poker offers a wide selection of Limit,  No Limit and Pot limit Texas Holdem,  Pot Limit Omaha,  Omaha Hi/Lo,  seven card Stud,  and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo.  The highest limit for Holdem is $30/$60 and they recently doubled the number of highest limit tables from three to six tables.  The lowest limit they have is $0.50/$1.  They also offer $1000 No Limit tables along with $600,  $400, $200,  $100,  $50,  and $25 NL tables.  Unfortunately, there is not a large selection of high limit Seven Card Stud tables:  only two $20/40 tables available. Party Poker also has Bad Beat Jackpot Tables from $2/$4 Limit Holdem all the way up to $15/$30.

Party hosts a variety of multi-table  (MTTs)  and single table tournaments (SNGs).  They are both broken down into two sub-categories:  regular and special.  The regular MTTs are mostly NL Holdem with a couple of Limit events and Seven-Card Stud tournaments.  The buy-ins are as little as $5 running up to $100 and run 24 hours a day.  Party also offers Speed Tournaments with an accelerated blind structure.  The special tournaments are usually satellites to the bigger Party Poker tournaments like the Million Dollar Guaranteed,  WPT events,  and other tournaments held in England,  Australia,  and Ireland.

Party Poker hosts SNGs for all of their table games.  They offer $5,  $10,  $20, $30,  $50,  $100,  and $200 tournaments.  The SNGs are comprised of 10 players with the top three places winning the prize money in a 50%-30%-20% split.  You can also play special SNGs to win seats into various multi-table satellites.

Party Poker recently introduced a Player’s Club where you accumulate points based on how many hands you play and how many tournaments you enter. These points can be exchanged for various Party Poker merchandise,  or you can use the points to play in different Player’s Club Freeroll tournaments that give away as much as $5,000.  You can also receive bonus points if you deposit additional funds,  play raked hands for 20 or more days in a month,  or if you play between the hours of 4:00 AM and 2:00 PM EST.

The players on Party Poker are notorious for being some of the worst players on the internet.  The lowest limits are some of the toughest to crack on Party Poker. The middle levels are soft and that’s where a lot of people can make a profitable living if they play smart.  Party Poker allows you to play more than one table at a time,  and a lot of smart players take advantage of this feature.

Aside from the initial security check,  Party’s support staff has a reputation of being below industry standards.  The 24 Hour Live Help Chat feature never seems to work.  You have to e-mail support a couple of times before you get a straight answer to your question.  And usually you have to call them to get a real live person on the line so they can help you out.  The staff is friendly and courteous but they are obviously swamped.

At the tables you can choose from multiple modes, including fixed camera points that are at four different locations of the table, an overhead view, or my personal favorite – the “dynamic” mode. In dynamic mode the camera follows action around the table, so it has the same feel as watching poker on ESPN.

There are multiple different playing environments, including a bar, a resort, a casino, and many more. Also, you can customize your character as much as you want by changing his/her face, body, skin, clothes, and accessories. Once you start building up PKR Points (PKR’s version of a frequent player point) you can add further customization to your virtual player, including secret chip tricks and special accessories. PKR even awards a virtual bracelet to winners of big PKR.com tournaments that can be sported at the tables.

PKR’s poker games include Texas Hold’em (in No Limit, Pot Limit, and Fixed Limit Stakes), Omaha High (in Pot Limit and Fixed Limit), and Omaha Hi-Lo (in Pot Limit and Fixed Limit). Although they offer all of those games, No Limit Hold’em is clearly their centerpiece, and most players online are playing that game. PKR offers stakes up to $100/$200, but games at that limit are rarely running.

Besides the initial deposit bonus, PKR also offers new players a $1,000 freeroll as well as a poker strategy eBook so they can improve quickly. Plus, the more you play the more PKR points you’ll earn, and those points can be turned in at the PKR store for great rewards such as virtual gear for the tables, or real life PKR gear.

PKR offers outstanding customer support, and the few times we’ve had issues we received prompt and informative responses. Although they don’t offer a phone number, they do have Live Chat which lets players get an instant response to urgent issues, as well as email support for players who would prefer to send an email. All of our emails were responded to promptly, and the Live Chat was, of course, instant.

Overall PKR is definitely the best 3D poker site, and if you’re interested in checking out 3D poker we absolutely recommend them.

The Titan poker lobby is simple and devoid of special features but navigation is easy. While being a bit resource intensive and slow, there are a few good things about it. Live Support and other contact info is available here as well as a very informative help section for the newcomer. There are also a few casino games for those of us who like a bit of light relief.

Traffic on Titan Poker is very high, NLHE games from $0.02/0.04 to $100/200 are offered and if you play limits up to $3/6, there will always be several hundred tables to choose from. Titan will more than likely satisfy all your micro-mid stakes NL needs, that’s for sure. The LHE section is also quite busy with games spread from $0.02/0.04 to $5/10 running around the clock. Higher limits up to $300/600 are listed on Titan Poker but hardly ever run except for an occasional $10/20 one every now and then. Omaha and Omaha Hi-Lo traffic is so-so, you’ll find a few active tables from $0.01/0.02 to $5/10 but that’s about it. 5 & 7-card Stud sections are pretty much desolate.

MTTs selection is good, many tournaments in the 50c-$50 range run on a daily basis along with daily freeroll tournaments. Rebuys, freeze-outs and guarantees take turns alongside the bigger feature tournaments listed below. SnGs from 10c to $200 run often enough, there are always plenty of tables to choose from for the 10c-$50 player.

Titan Poker has so many feature tournaments I wonder if I can list them all. How about the weekly $20K/50K/100K guarantees, the December ECOOP which is a yearly event and includes 10 huge tournaments, Master Classic super satellites, EPT and WPS Bahamas qualifiers, satellites for the Australian Open and the $1M guaranteed Main Event. How’s that for a list of events?

The Titan Pokerfirst deposit bonus is 150% up to £250 plus £10 feww. This bonus releases in $5 increments for every 600 Titan Poker Points (TPPs) earned and is very hard to clear as you have to play between 60-3000 hands for every $5 of bonus money. That’s 120,000 hands for the micro-stakes player just to earn a mere $200. Reloads are frequent, see web page for up-to-date info on these. Becoming a member of Titans VIP Club allows you to earn TPPs faster which is good as they can be used for buyins to selected MTTs.

Titan Poker customer support, both live help and the email department, is generally very good. Any questions you may have are answered quicky and accurately.

Funding your Titan poker account is easy, there are plenty of methods to choose from; Credit Card, Neteller, ClickandBuy, EcoCard, myCitadel, UKash, Entropay, Moneybookers, Firepay, PaySafeCard, UseMyBank, WebMoney, InstaDebit, Bank Wire and Check. Cahouts are a bit on the slow side, 2-3 days for e-wallets and 5-10 days for withdrawals to bank account.

If you can overlook the facts that software is kind of slow and cashouts likewise, I can really recommend playing Titan Poker. With lots of feature/special tournaments and very high ring game traffic, Titan provides non-stop poker action and that’s what we’re after when push comes to shove.

Learn how to master the most popular card game on the planet with our detailed Texas Hold’em guide.

A Beginners’ Guide to Texas Hold ‘Em

Texas Hold’em is the most popular form of poker in the world. It is a community card game, with straightforward poker rules, where each player is dealt two cards which can be used in conjunction with the five face-up cards on the board to make the best possible five card poker hand. The following guide describes the poker rules for a Fixed Limit Texas Hold’em hand.

Pre-Flop

The size of the blinds is determined by the table’s betting limits – the small blind is equal to half the lower bet amount, and the big blind is equal to the lower bet amount. For example – in a $2/$4 Fixed Limit Texas Hold’em game, the small blind (SB) would be $1 and the big blind (BB) would be $2. At the start of a hand, the player to the left of the dealer button posts the small blind, and the player to his left posts the big blind. Then, starting with the small blind, two cards are dealt face down to each player, and the action begins with the player to the left of the big blind, who is referred to as being “under the gun”. He may fold (muck his hand and take no further action in the pot), call (put in an amount equal to the big blind) or raise (put in an amount twice the big blind).

Play continues in this manner around the table until all players have matched the current bet amount or folded. The blinds posted at the start of the hand are considered live and contribute to the players’ bet – if no one raises before action gets round to the big blind, he has the option of checking and seeing a flop, or raising and re-opening the betting. Normal fixed limit poker rules dictate there is a maximum of 3 raises on any betting round.

The Flop

Once all pre-flop betting is complete, it’s time to move on to the flop. Three cards are dealt face up in the middle of the table. These are community cards which anyone can use as part of their final five card poker hand. Now, the betting begins with the first player left of the dealer button who remains in the hand, who has the option to check or bet. Bets at this stage are of the lower betting limit, which is the same as the big blind (so $2 in the same $2/$4 game). A check is simply declining the opportunity to bet, and can only be done if there have been no bets so far. Play continues in a clockwise direction until all players have matched the required bet or folded, and then we continue to the turn.

Turn & River

A fourth community card, called the turn, is now dealt face up next to the flop, and another round of betting ensues. In Fixed Limit Hold’em, the betting is almost identical to the flop, except now the larger betting limit comes into play, so all bets are doubled (making bets $4 in our $2/$4 game). Once this is done, a fifth and final community card, called the river, is now dealt face up next to the turn card and there is a final round of betting, which is identical to the turn with one exception – if only two players remain then an unlimited number of raises are permitted. Once all bets are matched then it’s time for the showdown.

Showdown

All players still left in the hand at this stage now turn their cards over, starting with the first player to the left of the button. In Texas Hold’em, each player may use any combination of the two cards in his hand and the five face-up cards on the board to form the best possible five card hand using standard poker rules. The best hand at the showdown wins the pot, and if there are two or more hands of the same value, then the pot is split up into equal parts.

No Limit/Pot Limit Texas Hold’em Poker Rules

If No Limit or Pot Limit Hold’em is being played, the game plays in the same way with the following poker rules exceptions:

Bets can be of any size above the amount of the big blind (up to the current pot size in a PL game)

Raises can be of any size above the size of the previous (up to the current pot size in a PL game)

There is no limit to the number of raises permitted.

The table stakes ($0.25/$0.50, $3/$6 etc.) represent the size of the blinds, not bet sizes.