888 Poker Review

Overall 96 Ease of Competition 95 Tournaments 89 Customer Service 86 Software 93

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Overview
The competition is easier at 888 Poker than at most sites, making it a potentially profitable place to play. However, they also have one of the worst rake structures of any online cardroom, so a lot of those extra profits may just bleed away in rake.

888 Poker has been the most improved online poker room over the course of the past couple of years. They've done a great job improving their product. Their software used to be fairly poor, but it has improved significantly lately and now includes webcam tables. They also have their software translated into German, Swedish, Spanish, French, Danish, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese.

Bonus
888 Poker offers a first-time deposit bonus of 100% up to $500 . To claim this bonus, please visit 888 Poker through a link from PokerTips . Otherwise the bonus is just 100% up to $400. Players have 90 days to collect this bonus which is released in $10 increments for every $50 in rake generated.

They also are giving players up to $88 free, no deposit required . Please note that it sounds a little better than it is. For UK customers, they receive $2 in actual cash and $18 in tournament tickets and $80 in pending bonus money. For non-UK, they receive $2 in cash, $6 in tournament tickets, and $80 in pending bonus money.

Promotions
888 Poker is very dedicated to rolling out nice promotions on a regular basis. They have some of the most interesting promotion of any online poker room. Many online poker rooms center their promotions around a grandiose form of rakeback, but 888 Poker makes an effort to keep their promotions a bit more original which is nice.

They also award bonus dollars for your play. For every $10 you wager, you earn one point. For every 100 points, you earn a free dollar. For lower limits, this means little. However, for higher limit players, this is a very nice feature.

Tournaments
888 Poker is a small stakes tournament player's paradise. The tournaments are soft, frequent, and cheap. Because this site offers so few large buy-in tournaments, there are very few strong players on this network mopping up the money. Lately there have been consistent overlays in their regularly scheduled tournaments with guaranteed prize pools.

Each Sunday the site holds a $82+$8 buy-in with one optional $82 rebuy $100,000 guaranteed event. This is perhaps the softest "Sunday Major" tournament at any online poker room.

Software
888 Poker 's software has made a meteoric rise. Several years ago, it was notoriously buggy and simple. They have improved the software substantially through the years and today it is quite impressive. They have Pokercam tables that allow players to see each other on webcam.

Rake
It should be noted that 888 Poker charges a higher rake than most online poker rooms. Notably, instead of a standard 5% up to $3 rake, the maximum rake is $4 in limit games of $3-$6 to $30-$60 and for all no-limit and pot-limit games. Furthermore, most poker rooms cap the rake at $2 for 4- or 5-handed games, but 888 Poker caps the rake at $2.50.

Table Statistics
They display the flop % and average pot which is nice.

Competition Level
Soft competition is the main reason to play at 888 Poker. The players are fishier here than at most sites. There are a lot of calling stations and some maniacs exist. However, this may skyrocket the frustration level if your premium hands are cracked. If you can put up with their poor rake structure and customer support, you might be able to profit consistently from this site.

Customer Service
888 Poker offers both phone and email customer service. They do a decent job at answering basic questions, but they are pretty bad at helping out with more complicated matters. They also take a long time to answer emails. Just hope you do not have any major problems because you will not be dealing with the most knowledgeable or helpful support staff out there if you do.

Ring Games Offered
Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, 7-stud, 7-stud hi-lo

Fixed Limits: $.02-$.04 to $75-$150
NL & PL Blinds: $.01-$.02 to $10-$20

Tournaments Offered
Both Single-Table and Multi-Table

Single-Table: $0.25 to $750
Multi-Table: $0.01 to $215