pokerstars.com Summary

PokerStars is an industry leader, offering some of the best software, security, game selection, and customer support around. Its biggest flaw is the difficult competition at the mid and high stakes, but other than that, there aren't too many things to complain about. The site continues to come up with new and innovative ways to appeal to their customers and so far it seems they are only going to get better.

Each year, Poker Stars send literally thousands of online qualifiers to the WSOP. When it comes to WSOP satellites this is the true superabundance, and no other site has had so many WSOP champions playing for them. All in all few sites can compete with Poker Stars when it comes to genuine poker experience.

pokerstars.com Games Available

Ring games are one of the few very popular areas with more than 130,000 online players involved in both real and play money ring games. PokerStars is by far the largest online poker room and much of this has to do with the variety in game selection. Currently the poker room supports; Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi Lo, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi Lo, Razz, HOSE, HORSE and 2-7 Triple Lowball. All of the games are available for practise play which means you can play at Pokerstars for free, or if you want to player for real money, the stakes start at $0.02/$0.04 and continue to increase up to $100/$200. The poker room does take a 5% rake capped at $5 per hand although the lower limits pay a reduced amount.

pokerstars.com Player Traffic

Real-money player statistics as of June 2009 show 22,500 ring-game players at peak hours and 155,000 tournament players at peak hours.

pokerstars.com Quality of Players

In previous years Poker Stars has had a reputation of having very tough players at any games or limits. As the player numbers has grown the competition has decreased to a level that is about average compared to other rooms as a whole.

Pokerstars Tournament Info

• World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) - Once a year PokerStars runs their own little version of what is comparitively known as the online WSOP. The 2008 WCOOP had a guaranteed prize pool of $30,000,000 that covered 33 different tournaments! As the site grows, the prizepool for this yearly event will no doubt increase even more - and players can qualify for as low as $2 or just by using their FPP’s.
• Guaranteed Tournaments - PokerStars has amazing Guaranteed prizepool tournaments that attract a lot of players and normally exceed the money put up by Stars EVERY time. The most popular tournament in this format is undoubtedly the heralded Sunday $1.5 Million - which ships the 1st place winner nearly $200,000 every week!
• Loyalty Rewards Program - PokerStars runs an amazing loyalty program that allows players to earn FPP’s (Freuent Player Points) at above-average rates just by playing at real money ring games and tournaments. The more players play the more FPPs they will earn, which can then be used in the VIP Store to buy up exclusive poker merchandise, tournament tickets, or just redeem cash vouchers (similar to Rakeback).

Pokerstars Software

Since opening with an extended beta testing stage, Poker Stars has had the most stable and functional software of all the online poker rooms. Even with tournament sizes of more than a thousand people the software runs quickly and smoothly.

The statistics provided to players are comprehensive. The lobby lists tables with average pot size, players per flop and hands per hour. Statistics offered to seated players include flop seen by position, pots won with showdown and pots won without showdown. In tournaments players can also see their current position and the average chip stack sizes of the players remaining.

Pokerstars Bonus & Promotions

Perhaps because they have such a large customer base, Stars does not offer as many bonuses and perks as some other sites do. There is a rewards program in place, but it requires a significant amount of play each month in order to qualify for the higher VIP levels. The famed Supernova Elite status is only reserved for the highest stakes players who play nearly full time. Most everyone else can earn Frequent Player Points to redeem for cash bonuses or gifts from their in-house store, but it takes several thousand points in order to purchase the nicer products like electronics or gift certificates.

There are also a number of satellites available to the various tours PokerStars hosts. The site offers large multi-table tournament satellites as well as the popular Sit N' Go steps, where players can win their way into events by playing through a series of single table tournaments.

In addition to being the source for all things poker, our guide delivers the best PokerStars bonus codes and marketing codes PSP11054 available on the internet. Not only does our unique PokerStars marketing code PSP11054 deliver the fantastic bonus of 100% up $50, marketing code allows players to participate in our exclusive promotions, including free cash tournaments, special leagues and other great features awarding cash and packages to some of the biggest offline tournaments, including the WSOP and EPT. Often these promotions total in excess of $20,000 per month!

Make sure you enter the PokerStars marketing code – PSP11054 when registering your first account at the World's largest online poker room, PokerStars. Already registered using our exclusive PokerStars marketing code? Ready to make your first deposit? Simply enter our special code, PSP11054, when making your first real money deposit and you will be able to access the fantastic first deposit bonus of 100% up to $50.

Pokerstars Deposit & Withdrawal Options

Deposit Options: Credit Card (Visa, MasterCard, Visa Delta, Visa Electron, Visa Gift/Pre-Paid Card, MasterCard Gift/Pre-Paid Card, Diners Club International, Solo, Maestro), ELV, ClickandBuy, NETeller, Moneybookers, PaySafeCard, Web Money, eChecks, Online Bank Transfer, Local Bank Transfer, Cashier’s Check, Money Order, Bank Draft.
Withdrawal Options: Visa, Solo, Maestro, ClickandBuy, NETeller, Moneybookers, Web Money, Direct Bank Transfer, Check.

Pokerstars Languages

The multi-lingual website comes in the following languages:
English, Greek, Czech, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Hungarian, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Russian, Romanian, Slovenian, Swedish, Finnish and Ukrainian.

This enables poker players from about everywhere in any language to understand their website completely.

Pokerstars Security and Integrity

All communications between the PokerStars client software and their servers is encrypted. Since encryption itself does not guarantee privacy, they also spent a lot of effort designing their security system and policies.

PokerStars is also very clear about cheating in form of collusion, where two or more players signal their holdings to each other. Security personnel will be automatically warned if their detection methods catch any unusual play patterns. A thorough manual investigation will be taken to investigate all players' reports about suspected collusion.

Pokerstars Customer Service

In case you have questions, we suggest you take a look at the PokerStars FAQ section before contacting support. Their comprehensive FAQ covers almost every aspect of their software. If the FAQ doesn't bring an answer to your question, then you can contact PokerStars' award winning support department via e-mail. Unfortunately this is the only contact method they provide, but since the response type is very high this should not be considered a problem.

Overall, PokerStars boasts quick e-mail support bolstered by a knowledgeable and friendly staff. However, there is no live or telephone support at this time.

Pokerstars Additional Information

A lot of professional poker players play at Poker Stars, including three of the last four World Series of Poker winners (Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem).

Pokerstars Pros & Cons

Pros:
• Offers a $1.5 million weekly guaranteed, largest in the world
• Massive satellite, ring game and tournament spread
• Large and well-known pro team to rail, chat and play against
• Great software
• Very responsive to player feedback, adding new features, games and tournaments often

Cons:
• Only e-mail support
• Tough games at the higher levels