| What Poker, Inc. says... There is little doubt that Party Poker is still the big dog on the block, but they are now getting some serious competition from the likes of Poker Stars, Paradise Poker, and Full Tilt Poker. Like many other organizations who became the market share leader, they find themselves reacting to their competitors rather than continuing to be an innovator. This has led them to be the last of the big rooms to implement features such as VIP programs, multi-table Sit-n-Go tournaments, WSOP freerolls, table re-sizing, and the percentage of flops seen information for each table in their lobby listing (oh wait, they still have not done that last one). The good news is that Party Poker does keep up with their competition eventually and the amount of recreational players and just flat out poor players throwing chips around the virtual felt continues to make Party Poker one of the most profitable sites to play. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you will have no problem finding a cash ring game or tournament to play. They offer players the choice of the "big five" - Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud, and 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo. The PartyGaming software is not the best of the sites, but recent upgrades have appeared to improve it. There are still reports of large multi-table tournaments having an occasional crash. The new table re-sizing feature does allow players to fit up to four screens on their computer at one time which is a good feature for multi-tablers. The software is one of the most limited in terms of providing players with statistics, but users of Poker Tracker or PokerOffice will not find this to be a problem since the hand histories are compatible with every major poker software on the market. The bonuses offered by Party Poker are average at best. They offer a 20% up to $100 sign-up bonus and they offer reload bonuses about every other month that range from 15% to 25%. On the positive side, the bonuses are easy to clear at the low-limits. Party Poker's VIP program (frequent player points) has finally gotten on par with the programs at Poker Stars, Paradise Poker and Full Tilt Poker but it took them more than a year to get it there. Cash-outs, particularly to Neteller or Firepay, is where Party Poker shines. Their cash-outs to these two popular internet wallets take 2-6 hours. Cash-outs to your bank account is the industry standard of about 2 business days. Customer service at Party Poker leaves a lot to be desired. Too often you get nonsensical answers to questions you did not even ask or a "pass the buck" attitude. In fairness, when you have 100x the customer service requests of many other sites coming into your support center, you will have more instances of "poor" customer service; however, Party still ranks behind the other big sites in this regard. In summary, despite its flaws, Party Poker is still a worthy home base for the online poker player. The abundance of games and poor players almost ensure that a player willing to focus on their game will turn a profit over the long-term. Poker, Inc. strongly recommends Party Poker.
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