How to dissect a poker room - A poker room preview

Sunday, January 17, 2010

How to dissect a poker room - A poker room preview

Most people don’t think too much beyond opening the online poker room, clicking the log on button, checking their cashier following a quick race to their favorite tourney or cash table. I think about a lot more than just these things and have become an expert on how to dissect a poker room. Some may find it kind of odd, I find doing this worth its weight in gold. It really is best to know the ins and outs of every poker room you plan to play on for maximum poker profits. Here I am going to show you how I dissect, in short a poker room preview!

Obviously the first thing we have to do is sign up. I even dissect that part of the poker room, bonuses and promotions for sign-up. Let’s face it; you want the deal to be perfect straight up! Also checked is the obvious – Is this site available to residents of the USA and also Australia? I want maximum players on the site I play!

I then look at key factors as part of my poker room preview. The cashier is the next part I dissect. I look at every little aspect of it. Deposit methods, cash out/withdrawal methods, availability to transfer from player to player, what I can spend frequent player points on and how fast they accumulate. Really the list is plentiful of things to check with an online poker room “bank”.

So; I have covered the cash, now to the software stability and functionality. I really go hard on this part of my poker room dissection. Really this is where the P in poker room preview comes about. ‘P’lay money! To the play money tables! Do the games run smoothly? Can I play a few tables at a time? Does the software have various functions such as change of background image, avatar, chat, player marking, quick deposit or chip up without leaving?

All of these areas of a poker room plus more count BIG time! Imagine playing on a brilliant internet connection only to have a poker room crash, run slow, time you out and so on. Disastrous! In addition, imagine being stuck without your necessary tools such as player tagging, ability to turn off chat and even muck hands! These things are a must and if I find them missing during my poker room dissection its thumbs down from me! These are just a few of the poker software stability and functionality areas that should be checked. By no means is this list; the full list.

Ok, to my next cut how to dissect a poker room; the game limits and game selection! No matter what level you play; from beginner to high roller you must have plentiful amounts of players and games. If you only have a small roll you are going to want to make sure you have enough cash tables to play on, and also suitable sit n go’s and tournaments. If there isn’t – why bother playing on the site? At the other end of the scale, high rollers can find it difficult to get a game too. On some sites at any level it’s hard! In addition it is very important that you check that your poker variant is available. There’s no point joining a room as a stud player if they don’t offer it in their game selection (as a classic example). The more poker game variants the better the room is going to be for you in both the short and long run. This can be easily explained – the more games the more likely there is more players and more fish, in addition you may choose in the future to play more poker variants then your current chosen ones. This makes playing a tad difficult if they are not available!

In summary a poker room can be dissected into these particular areas and a thorough poker room preview can be done. Let’s not forget there are more aspects to consider if we were to go further in-depth in our poker room review and dissection. These aspects you probably never even think of. These are not usually in reviews either. Sometimes they do have support in reviews; support is a important poker room factor. Without good support a poker room can be our enemy. In addition to this other services not seen to the naked eye such as fraud detection, detection of collusion, multi-accounting and underage player detection – the security services!

Fancy sitting at a table with 7 players all working together as you are hustled? Well, that can happen without a brilliant security service. I also go beyond this and look deep into any online sagas, debates and scandals. If there is one notated I am not playing there!

Ok, enough of the dissecting for now. My poker room preview is over which just a few of the main factors dissected. Please remember that this advice on how to dissect a poker room is only a bare minimum dissection. We can dissect each support method, each game, each table background – the list of “dissecting within the dissection” is endless!