full tilt poker

so i've been playing at full tilt for a couple of weeks now and i thought i'd write a review of my experience thus far.

i joined full tilt after being a regular stars player but finding that at my micro limits there was little to no chance that i'd ever clear any kind of bonus as a reward for my play. with this in mind i thought a little trip to full tilt with the chance of recouping up to $600 sign up bonus plus the 27% rakeback was worth my while.

software
i like it and i don't. having plied my trade at the super smooth pokerstars you come to expect absolute finesse. full tilt software is good, don't get me wrong but there are things like, the sound effects not matching up to the animations, or the inability to get hand histories emailed to you instantly that seem like bigger problems then they are after playing at stars.

i know people talk about online sites being rigged, and i don't subscribe to this, but i have to say the random number generator at full tilt does seem to produce some crazy action! i mean i've had some serious bad beats since playing there, but i also seem to get dealt a lot more premium hands, or at least high hard hands. i used to enjoy massive barren spells at stars with not even a k/jo. at full tilt i seem to get a couple of face cards every few hands.

overall though, the software is good, its not stars good, but its easily second best. my pokeroffice client works perfectly with it and have had no problems, just small irritations.

traffic
full tilt is the second largest site behind pokerstars, recently overtaking party poker to take the title of number one challenger to stars dominance. i only play micro limits at the moment and traffic down the bottom is strong and steady. i must admit its rare that i find an open seat at any of the full ring tables but after jumping on few waiting lists i'm usually playing within 5 minutes.

play
i thought full tilt had fairly decent players, that was my understanding after reading the reviews, but after playing the micro limit tables i have to say its not true. i mean, its great, there are fish-er-roos everywhere, swimming around with not much clue. players down the bottom seem quite happy to call an all in with a/10h on a 3c 6s 9h board vs my qq, there is obviously nothing you can do when they hit a runner runner heart flush but apparently if you keep putting the money in ahead you'll be a long term winner! given players fishee tendencies it means play can be quite erratic with swings up and down in every session through odd calls and bizarre suck outs. it makes bluffing or reading opponents fairly hard but of you can adapt your game to the fish-er-roos play you'll be laughing.

support
only needed support once and that was to get some hand histories sent, they were emailed fairly promptly which was great. i did notice that the format of emailed hand histories is different to live hand histories giving me some database issues but all got fixed fairly swiftly.

usp
unique selling point that is. it has to be the pro's, full tilt has millions of them and its dead easy to watch them play. only the other night i railed durrr vs. ivey on the $500/1000 nlhe table of death. crazy sums of money were changing hands and durrr was enjoying most of it. i love this feature on full tilt and often surf around looking for some pro's after a session just to enjoy some high stakes action.

overall
i have to say that so far i'm enjoying myself on full tilt. its very different to stars and i sometimes jump back over to enjoy the finesse of the stars client but full tilt feels more like what poker should be. if stars feels like sitting in a monte carlo casino then full tilt is like your in a saloon throwing chips about, sipping whiskey while packing a 6 shooter! if i can handle the random beats and crazy action i'm sure full tilt will become my new permanent home and i recommend you give it a try.