PokerStars has had a huge amount of success over the years since their initial launch in 2003. They have become one of the powerhouse players in online poker offering the widest range in stakes and ring games along with millions daily in guaranteed tournaments. They are backed and endorsed by some of the world’s leading professional players and is the number on site for US players. Poker Stars recently went through another upgrade and with this they are now in beta testing for Mac players.

Bonus

Poker Stars offers a 100% match up to $50 for all new players. This bonus is paid out in increments of $10 by earning the required amount of frequent player points. You will accumulate FPP’s by playing in any of the real money tournaments or ring games. You can also redeem these points in the Pokerstars online store or by entering selected tournaments. They do offer a reload bonus from time to time.

Competition

The competition at Poker Stars is well diverse and slightly tighter than most rooms even on the low stakes games. Part of this has to do with the amount of professional players and semi-pro’s playing in the room and the other half is because they have such a massive player base at any given time of the day. Depending on the stakes you are interested in playing will provide you with a different level of competitors. Anything above $3/$6 NL and you can expect a solid game.

Ring Games

The ring games are one of the rooms main attractions since they offer a wide spread in stakes and because they boast a host of mixed games such as 2-7 Triple Lowball, HORSE, and Razz it is obvious Poker Stars is attempting to reach all players. They do still support your traditional games like Texas Holdem, Omaha, 5 Card and Stud. All of the games available come in shorthanded, full table and heads up and contain a significant player base to make them very busy and in some cases very profitable. The rake is taken at an industry standard of 5% with a cap of $3. Poker Stars supports the no flop no drop rule, meaning if the hand is folded prior to a flop, than no rake will be taken and all funds will be sent to the winner.

Tournaments

If you’re a tournament player, or SNG player, than you will always have a game a t this room. The tournament line up is impressive to say the least and with over $5 Million dollars up for grabs every week including a $1,000,000 guaranteed held on Sundays this place is packed with tournament players. All of the tournaments are supported in the same format as the ring games, which mean if you enjoy Razz or 2-7 you will always find something in the daily schedule. Poker Stars provides plenty of opportunities to play with their team of pro players either through the weekly leaderboard competition or by running satellites and qualifiers to the Main Event. If you would rather SNG’s these are not only very popular but range in a host of different buyins accommodating the beginner and micro players to the highstakes player. All SNG’s are available in full table game, shorthanded, HU, HU MTT with each in turbo format as well as your standard 10 min intervals.

Software

The software is on its own network which means the 100,000 players online are actually playing on Poker Stars and not multiple skins. As such this room is probably the only one that can handle such an enormous amount of traffic and never have an issue with a game or the speed. It is updated almost daily with little to no downtime. The graphic are as clean as you can get and allow you to fully customize your game by custom avatars that can be uploaded from your desktop to a choice of a dozen backgrounds. If by chance you don’t like the backgrounds provided by Poker Stars you can also upload your own or even find table skins to use. The lobby and tables provide all your detailed statics with a great hand history button found in the lobby menu. This option will let Poker Stars email you your last 100 hand played. If you need more information, Poker Stars does allow you to use your Poker Tracker software. Multi-tabling is very easy and it’s clear to see that this room has taken the needs of those players into account. All tables can be resized quickly with no interruption to your game.

Support

Poker Stars only provides support through email. That being said they provide not only well trained people to assist you but the response time is great. Poker Stars support is available 24/7 however most answers can be found on the company website

Deposit

Deposit Methods; VISA (Delta, Electron, Gift and Prepaid), MasterCard (Gift and Prepaid), NETeller, FirePay, eChecks, CentralCoin, Diners Club International, ePassporte, Solo/Maestro/Switch, cashier's check/money order/bank draft (minimum deposit of $100).