Sun Poker Review
I recently played at Sun Poker, probably something that was a long overdue event. This room is one of the Crypto rooms, so they are on a reputable poker network. Still, it is one of the smaller poker networks and as such, holds the same advantages and disadvantages as most small poker rooms.
Sun Poker's New Player Freeroll
Bonuses
Sun Poker is part of the Cryptologic network of online poker rooms, and follows their tradition of offering monthly bonuses to all of their players, not just the new ones. This means players will often stop at Sun Poker month in and month out.
The poker room uses a comp points system to keep track of raked hands and points earned towards releasing bonuses (which happens automatically). For hands where the rake taken is $1 or more, a full point is earned. Hands with less than $1 taken in rake merit 1/4 of a comp point. Comp points earned while at the table are tracked and displayed in the upper right hand corner of the window. That's a nice touch.
Because rake is only 5% of a pot, pots need to be $20 to earn a full comp point. This usualy happens at $2/4 or $3/6 levels and above.
Note: Between Dec. 1 and May 31st 2007 Sun Poker is running their 100 Free Seats to the WSOP promotion. They will spread a prize pool of over a million dollars between 100 players at the room. See the promotion recap for more details.
| Sun Poker Review |
| Player Traffic | | |
| - 8,000+ during peak hours. Definitely an active room |
| Tournaments | | |
| - hold'em buy-ins from $2.20 up |
| Game Variety | | |
| - covers basics. No exotic games offered. |
| Bonuses | | |
| - monthly bonuses all around. |
| New Player Protection | | |
| - $.25/.50 tables available. |
| Player Rewards | | |
| - player comp points system |
| Overall | | |
| - good software, solid player offerings. |
Caribbean Sun Poker is part of the Cryptologic network of poker rooms.
Session:
I bought into the room with $250, not particularly trying to work off a bonus, but I had it in my mind none-the-less. I had used to spend some serious time at the Crypto rooms, playing the no limit pounds tables late in the night trying to catch the English players up late, and hopefully well into their pints.
My review session was quite the opposite, walking into the room on a weekend afternoon. There were still thousands of players in the room, so game selection was quite good with several tables active at most levels.
Review Date: - Wednesday - April 19th, 2006
Room Tips:
Sun Poker offers rooms in three different currencies, English Pounds, US dollars, and Euros. While you shouldn't be surprised to find someone from Detriot at the Euro tables, you can kind of gauge where a player is from by the currency they use in the room.
This is important, the banking method they use requires you to wait for a PIN number to be mailed to you, in an envelope. Do not put your enitre poker bankroll into the room unless you have plans of playing no where else but here for at least a week.
The good part is that once you receive your PIN, banking at Sun Poker is as smooth as anywhere else on the net. It's just setting up the thing that is a bother.
I should also mention that with the monthly bonuses, if you plan on becoming even a semi-regular player at the room, it is worth the time invested to set up the banking. Don't let it scare you from being a player, but do keep it in mind when playing the first time.
Another tip, the room removes the cap on raises and re-rasies when there are only two players left in a hand at a limit table. This is not common online, but it is the way I was accustomed to playing limit poker before I began playing online. We would routinely hear the dealer declare "heads up" which meant the two players remaining in the hand could reraise until their hearts were content.
Another note on the software, the note-taking function is odd. Instead of right-clicking and opening a text box like most other poker softwares, the note-taking is done in the chat box area. It's different, but functional. That being said, a big plus for the room is that the hand histories work with Poker Tracker!
Game Selection:
The tables come in three sizes at Sun Poker. The full length tables hold ten players, there are short tables of six players, and there is head to head action at the two man tables.
Texas Holdem:
The stakes at the fixed limit tables start at $.25/.50 and climb to 150/300 pounds (roughly $300/600). The highest level I saw action at was the $100/$200 tables.
There were both pot limit and no limits games being dealt. Like most places, the pot limit action was pretty thin, as no limit gets the glamour and the full tables these days.
Omaha Hi:
There was action taking place at the pot limit tables with several full table at the $10/20 level and several more full tables down at the lower limits. The fixed betting Omaha did not draw much of a crowd this time of day.
Omaha 8 or Better:
Not a lot of action at the 8 or Better tables this time of day. There were two tables with some players at the low-low limits, and that's about it.
7 Stud:
This game only comes in fixed limit betting. There were plenty of Stud players in the house. That surprised me, but this is a network that I can mention to Stud players because they can find a game!
Tournaments:
Of course there is tournament action at Sun Poker. They offer multi-tables, and sit and go's. There are satellites to major land-based events, there are private tournaments, and guaranteed money events as well.
I didn't sit and wait to join in a SnG, as I'm a cash game player, but looking at the tournament lobby I could see dozens of tournaments in progress. So, the wait time can't be that long for a Sit and Go to start up once you take a seat.
Players Rewards:
Caribbean Sun uses their My Poker Points comp points sytem to reward their players for time spent at the poker table. Currently the comp points can be used to enter special tournaments.
This kind of comp point system can easily be used to award merchandise and other "poker goodies", but I haven't seen that at Sun Poker, yet.
Liscences & Policies:
I couldn't find a lot of information on the gaming liscence that Caribbean Sun Poker holds. They mention that it is from Curacao, which is a Dutch island. Although I don't know much about their internet gaming poilicies, the Dutch have been a reliable nation for centruries.
The banking used at the room is ECash Direct, which is a less convenient, more secure way to do banking on the internet. This choice speaks well of the room if you are looking for security from your online gaming provider.
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