My Poker Stars Review

[otbdave]

These are my opinions and I may be flat out incorrect on some things, so please let me know if there are ways around some of my gripes. PLEASE COMMENT!

So, I finally downloaded Stars, I deposited 50, taking the 100% bonus which I should release fairly quickly, along with a $222 after from Sparx so I am working with a ~300 bankroll. So what do I do what that? $0.05/$0.10 NL of course!

I started out by going through all of Stars options and customizing everything to my liking, automuck/automuck, Stars Dark/Simple layout, no animation, single click tables, etc etc I was impressed with the options...

I went to sit down and I just went for all 12 tables at once. I figured 12 tabling might be a tad overwhelming on software Ive never used, but its nickel dime, come on, lol.

So... I think the easiest way to convey my review is Likes and Dislikes... This would be compared to Full Tilt.


Likes:

- Some cool new options in the main lobby, I particularly like the abundance of layouts and view customizations.

- Software seems very stable and low on resources. This is obviously huge for me. I ran 12 tables with no PokerTracker and the software ran seamlessly, as it should.

- Additional time to act on hands. Am I crazy here? I was playing regular speed tables but I felt like I never timed out playing 12 tables and I had all day to act. Does anyone know the exact time allowed per decision as compared to FT?

- More table options (Fast, Not Fast, No allin (wtf that is?) lots of cool stuff I have not explored yet)

- Cool little custom player logos. Need I say more?

Dislikes:

- FOLD button appears when I can CHECK. Ok I like that this feature is possible. But when I am trying to run 12 tables don't give me a FOLD button, let me click it, and then ask me if I really wanted to fold. Of course I DONT want to fold, WTF would I want to fold when I can check? I wish there was an option to make the FOLD button not appear in these situations.

- No POT button. I rarely POT postflop, but I like the option of at least being able to POT when I want to. Sometimes, I am about to time out, I wanna make a BIG bet or RAISE but only got 0.1123 seconds left and I gotta click somethin! Slider works fine and typing is good but POT or HALF POT would be nice.

- Silence the dealers. Will my setting save for this? I want the dealers to never text my chat window, ever. I had to change every single one of my 12 tables to silent dealer. I have only played one session but maybe the setting will save now?

- Preferred seat. When does my preferred seat take affect, do I have to wait a hand or something?

- Minor: Tiling tables with multi-monitor. When I tile my tables, they tile across both monitors. I do not like this. Tables should tile across one display only. However this is minor because I only have to create a layout once and save it. The "tile" function is useless to me but the ease of custom layouts nullifies the blow.

Software Winner: Full Tilt Poker


I kept these opinions all software related. I have chose not to mention the level of play yet for a few reasons, the biggest one being I feel level of play is very close to stable across all major sites. I also of course would refuse to comment saying "one runs more real" than the other because I think all opinions such as those are just ridiculous. I did get set over set on my first PS session though against a nickel dime donk, so I am convinced it is rigged as I have not been set over set on Tilt yet this month. (sarcasm)

[otbdave]

Quick opinions of level of play:

I have only played one session of 10NL on Stars and the players seemed frighteningly tight and coherent. Almost no one was spewing chips and open shoving garbage, which I would really like to see at these micro levels. So my analysis so far is that Stars skill > FT skill over an extremely small sample at only one stake (micro).

Other quick asides:

I have not had a chance to explore yet, but I am sure Stars tournaments are much better simply because more players. They also have more tables available. I think FT rewards remains king if you include rakeback as a reward. PS loyalty program simply does not make up for 27% rakeback and a monthly freeroll valued at about $70. I could be wrong here though.

[Chipless Wonder]

Good review Dave.

I'll add a few comments of my own here as well since I just opened and account there, and have played eight 45-person tournaments so far.

So, I finally downloaded Stars, I deposited 50, taking the 100% bonus which I should release fairly quickly, along with a $222 after from Sparx so I am working with a ~300 bankroll.

I deposted $100, played eight $1 games to learn the software, and clawed my way up to $108. The $655 from SparX helped too, so now I have $753 for a nice heads start on Dave.

FOLD button appears when I can CHECK. Ok I like that this feature is possible. But when I am trying to run 12 tables don't give me a FOLD button, let me click it, and then ask me if I really wanted to fold. Of course I DONT want to fold, WTF would I want to fold when I can check? I wish there was an option to make the FOLD button not appear in these situations.

This drives me crazy too.


I also am not real happy with how difficult it is to tell the bet and pot sizes. Even with the Display Pot Size option enabled, it just doesn't seem like this is easy to discern.

I don't like how small my opponents cards are. Sometimes I struggle to tell who is in a hand with me.

I don't understand the Notes option on the bottom left of the table. I see the Player Notes area, but what is the other Notes section for?

When I'm railing for someone, I'll see them in a list of players and many times it won't display any chip count beside them. But it will display chip counts for some players. I see that I can click on that player to find out how many chips they have, but why not simply display their chip count in the list with everyone else?

I've been very impressed with PokerStars' customer service so far. Here's a thread I started on this topic:

http://www.badbeatspoker.net/forum/p...r-service.html

I was also extremely impressed last night when I watched the WCOOP final table. They actually had a moderator present to pause the tournament and facilitate a chop. First class for sure!

[otbdave]

I deposted $100, played eight $1 games to learn the software, and clawed my way up to $108. The $655 from SparX helped too, so now I have $753 for a nice heads start on Dave.

Wanna race? hehe

I also am not real happy with how difficult it is to tell the bet and pot sizes. Even with the Display Pot Size option enabled, it just doesn't seem like this is easy to discern.

From what I have noticed the total pot size is only shown at the top of the table, not the center of the table, is this correct? However, you cannot tell what the pot was before they bet or raised in to it.

I don't like how small my opponents cards are. Sometimes I struggle to tell who is in a hand with me.

Agreed here. I would like to use yellow cards on my black table. Yellow cards were an option, but it disappeared as an option when I went to Stars Dark Layout. For some reason they let me select between 6 sets of black cards. I know I can fix this with some work, but annoying.

My opinions are still a little biased as I am mostly only picking out things that bother me. However there definitely are some perks at Stars too, I am just reserving them until I can exactly explain them.

[Xwisit]

I was also extremely impressed last night when I watched the WCOOP final table. They actually had a moderator present to pause the tournament and facilitate a chop. First class for sure!

One thing about Poker Stars is they really look after their final tables. In every major tourney there is ALWAYS a moderator present to welcome everyone to the FT and to facilitate a chop if requested.

Now if only I could get the to delete my screen name and let me start fresh I might be tempted to go back there.

Good reviews guys.

[Rdsknman]

I am at this point biased towards Stars as I just can not seem to do well on Full Tilt. This could do w/my level of play which is questionable and the competition difference between the 2.

I have always stated and believe in this... If you are not doing well on one site, try another. Bad beats are everywhere (I think i've found em all.. ), but for me just changing the "venue" helps negate the i'm doomed feeling one can get after a bad run.

I like the variety of tournaments that Stars has as well, especially within the SnG's. As for the cash tables, I do not play those online too much so I can not give insight between the 2.

[RoadManagerPhil]

I find this interesting... that the flops seem more 'random' on Stars. I do better at Stars than on FT. You would think it should all be a wash. I take way way more bad beats on FT, and the amount of 1-suited flops at FT I see has got to be above 50% (not really, but I do notice it a ton).

Acutally, I will say that on FT (and I'm playing only microstakes on both sites), the amount of hands that just seem to lead to big pots seems to happen quite often. For example, I see a lot of flush vs. boat or straight vs. flush, etc... set vs. 2 pair, whatever. On stars I seem to get more 'realistic' plays with the occassional 'big pot' type hands.

Am I crazy?

[otbdave]

I think PokerStars plays slower (regular speed tables). I have not verified this yet but it would agree with your theory in certain ways.

[Kojangie]

Although I stopped playing a whole lot of internet poker in the past few months, I thought PStars would suit me a little better than Full Tilt.

But for some reason, I cannot win a freaking penny on PStars. I think I'm just too impatient with online poker now that it's hard for me to sit down and care. In fact, the only time I enjoy playing online is if I'm playing for play money with my girlfriend or playing in the Wednesday night league with you guys. And it just so happens that I do the best when playing with good players such as the people from this forum (aside from sucking out on TurboGP with poop truck).

When playing with randoms online, I end up just getting bored and giving away chips because I'd rather be playing Halo or something. I decided to try my luck one last time in a $11 rebuy on Stars last night which happened to be a complete all-in donk fest. I just sat around and went all-in with the best hand every time and got paid off. After noticing that there was normally lots of pre-flop reraising, I decided to call a huge EP raise in the cut-off with AA hoping that either everyone folds or someone reraises. Of course a mere 4 more people behind me called. So I became impatient and open-shoved the flop and was up against quad 7's and drawing dead.

I don't think anything I just said had much relevance to a review though. Sorry.