Party Poker

Party Poker's new tagline is "the World's Online Poker Room". Even though they no longer accept players based in the USA, Party Poker.com still has tremendous amounts of ring game and tournament traffic. Their marketing machine has done an excellent job of generating content pages in multiple languages (13 languages at the time this is being written) and targeting players in other areas of the world besides the USA, and this strategy will serve them well in the long run. In fact, even after the decision to stop taking US players, Party Poker is still the 2nd most trafficked poker site on the web. (Right after PokerStars.)

The free play version of their site (play money only) is Party Poker.net.

PartyGaming

Party Poker is owned and operated by PartyGaming, which is a publicly traded company available on the London stock exchange. (Being publicly traded is the reason they no longer accept USA based players. It's no coincidence that the only online poker sites accepting US players are privately owned. Shareholders don't want any legal risk, no matter how small, because the consequences can be tremendous.) They operate several other sites too, like Party Poker.net, which is an online poker school with play money only poker games, and Party Bingo, Party Casino, Party Bets, and PartyGammon.

PartyGaming has been in business since 1997, when it was a conglomeration of gambling sites known as iGlobalMedia. They launched PartyPoker.com in 2001.

PartyPoker Traffic and Games

The Party Poker site has enough traffic that you are almost guaranteed to be able to immediately find a game of the type and limit you prefer. The cardroom spreads Texas holdem, Omaha, Omaha/8, stud, and stud hi-lo games at all limits, from lower limits to high stakes. The no-limit ring games offer buy-in's as low as $10 per game, and the limit games have betting limits starting from 5 cents.

If progressive jackpots are your thing, Party also offers progressive bad beat jackpots. The action at these games is generally pretty loose, so the opportunity to make money is definitely available there.

Blackjack games are also available at Party Poker, although many die hard poker players will probably not be interested in playing a negative expectation game against the house. That being said, these blackjack games have been pretty popular, and not long ago we read that the blackjack games had significantly increased the website's revenue. Party Poker's blackjack games are available in both single player and multiplayer modes, and you can also play one hand at a time or multiple hands at once.

Free play money poker is available online at Party Poker.net, the free poker version of their site.

Party Poker Tournaments

PartyPoker also has a huge amount of tournament traffic, both for multi table tournaments and sit and go single table tourneys. The filters that the site uses to help you search for a game make it even easier to find a table, and that interface was the best I'd seen at any online poker room. (I played there before they stopped taking US players.)

The $300,000 guarantee tournament every Sunday is a big draw too, with a great prize pool. Entry to that is only $215, or you can win your way in with a qualifier. The tournament schedule is well thought out. Tournaments start every 10 minutes, and each time slot corresponds to a specific limit, so you'll always know when your favorite level tournament is starting. (For example, the freerolls always start at 50 minutes past the hour.) PartyPoker also offers qualifiers to the World Series of Poker 24 hours a day. At the time of this writing, Mac users are unable to participate in Party Poker's tournaments.

The Party Poker Million is another big poker event sponsored by Party Poker, and it takes place annually on a cruise ship. This is probably PartyPoker's flagship tourney, and it was at one time co-sponsored by the World Poker Tour.

PartyPoints

Like most online poker rooms, PartyPoker also has a frequent player points program to reward players who play a lot. Players are rated as one of 4 different levels, and the higher the level of the player, the more points she earns as she plays. PartyPoints can be exchanged for cash, entries into freeroll tournaments, or merchandise in the Party Poker store. Party Points are earned on every 20 raked hands played, and the amount of points awarded are based on the limits at which you're playing.

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