Paradise Poker Review

UPDATE:

As a result, the following review is now out of date. A new review is needed to reflect all of the changes at the poker room.

Bonuses

Paradise Poker Review
Player Traffic
- 10,000 during peak hours, limited table selection
Tournaments
- big money tournaments, reasonable SnG's
Game Variety
- the basics and then some.
Bonuses
- sign up and reload offers.
New Player Protection
- penny tables available.
Player Rewards
- reload offers, no comp program
Overall
- solid company, good game selection, room to grow.

Session:

I used the bonus code FIRST25 and took advantage of the new player bonus of up to $50. I made the purchase through neteller, it was instantly deposited into my poker room account, and $50 appeared automatically in my separate bonus account.

The bonus is released in increments of $10. Every 100 raked hands that are played (no contribution to the pot necessary), $10 is automatically released from the bonus account into your player account.

It took me 6hrs 15min of double table play at the $1/$2 tables to clear the entire bonus. When I cashed out it was 2 hours from the time of the request until the funds hit my neteller.

Review Date: - Wednesday Aug 17, 2005

Room Tips:
- Set the chat to "Dealer: Everything" so you can read how much the bets are. The room displays the chips being pushed into the pot, but doesn't display a chip amount number to go along with it. When you are not in the hand, watch the chat to see how much people are betting.

Game Selection:

Texas Holdem:
Limit holdem stakes start at $.02/$.04, so you can get pretty far on a dollar. The limits reach up as high as $40/$80 with plenty of action at all of the levels.

The stakes at the No Limit tables start at a max buy-in of $2, where the blinds are $.01/$.02. I've seen players go all-in for $2 in order to pick up the $.03 in blinds. I guess you can expect some loose play. The highest buy-in the room deals for is $500, although there was no one there when I stopped in. There was however, ten tables worth of action at the $200 buy-in level.

Omaha Hi:
Is dealt in two betting forms, fixed and pot limit. The buy-ins for the pot limit games ranged from $400 (which was empty) down to $50. Lots of action at the $200 and $50 levels.

The fixed limit tables were completely empty, and the choices were $1/$2 or $5/$10.

Omaha 8 or Better:
Hi-Lo Omaha draws a larger crowd. The pot limit buy-ins are the same as Omaha Hi, except there was plenty of action at the $400 tables. The fixed betting games ran from $.50/$1 to $10/$20. Tables full of players at the lower stakes, short handed action at the higher limits.

7 Stud and 7 Stud Hi-Lo:
7 Stud comes in fixed betting only. You can play Stud for pennies at the $.02/$.04 tables, hi-lo stakes start at $.50/$1. Not a lot of Stud action at Paradise. There are games at the $.50/$1, and a few tables of $2/$4, but no one playing anything any higher than that during my visit.

Draw:
You can play Draw poker at Paradise Poker, with several active $1/$2 tables going. Oddly, there were blinds instead of antes, so only two players were forced to make bets before seeing their cards.

5 Card Stud
Paradise also offers 5 Card Stud tables. Right now there are only 2 levels, $1/$2 and $4/$8, but there is action at several of the $1/$2 tables.

Pineapple
Comes in both hi and 8 or better versions. The betting in both games is fixed, and starts at $1/$2 for the high, and $3/$6 for the hi-lo. There was no action at the hi-lo tables, but there were a few different games of high going on. Strangely, or maybe not, they seem to be dealing Crazy Pineapple, where you are dealt three cards, can see the flop, and then you make a discard.

Heads Up Play
You can find some simple heads up tournament action (no limit holdem that is) at Paradise. Buy-ins go from $5 to $200, and there were players playing at every step along the way. The matches were simple one-on-one affairs, they do not offer full 8 or 16 man heads up tournaments.

There were also heads up tables (not tournament style play, one-on-one ring games) for limit holdem, and both versions of 7 Stud and Omaha. So, pretty much whatever your game is, you can play it heads up at Paradise.

Tournaments:

Paradise is one of the older online poker rooms, and they have a full line-up of poker tournaments. Their Sit and Go's start at $6, and reach up to $325 buy-ins. At the holdem tables you'll start with 1,000 chips instead of the 800 you can expect at a Party single table.

There are SnG's for Omaha 8oB and 7 Stud 8oB also.

Players Rewards:

Liscences & Policies:

Besides being a publicly traded company, they open their random number generator (used for dealing the hands) to review. Click here to see one of the reports by PriceWaterhouseCoopers.