Party Poker Review

Party Poker Review

Party Poker is one of my favorite poker sites of all time even though they no longer accept players from the US. The cash games here are the stuff of legends – it’s a huge poker site but the games are notoriously soft. If you combine that with the fact that Party Poker has a massive bad beat jackpot, cash game players really can’t go wrong with Party Poker.

Party Poker Bad Beat Jackpot

Participation in the Party Poker bad beat jackpot is entirely optional. If you want to have a chance to win the massive prize, you can play at the special bad beat jackpot tables. At these tables, 50 cents is taken out of every pot played and added to the bad beat jackpot. With about 100 bad beat jackpot tables available around the clock, the jackpot typically grows by about $1,000 an hour.

The minimum losing hand that qualifies for the bad beat jackpot is four of a kind 8s or better. This means that if you have four 8s or better in your hand and you still lose the pot, you’ll be the latest winner of the Party Poker bad beat jackpot.

The jackpot is paid out according to the following pay table:

• 20% is used to seed the next jackpot
• 10% goes to the house

Of the remaining 70%:

• 50% goes to the victim of the bad beat
• 25% goes to the winner of the hand
• 25% is divided up among the other players at the table who were dealt in to the hand

Both of the holes cards must be used in the bad beat jackpot – so if there are 3 8s on the board and you have a single 8 in your hand, you won’t qualify for the jackpot. Additionally, at least 4 players have to have been dealt in to the hand for it to qualify.

The size of the jackpot varies wildly, depending on how often it gets hit. Out of the last two months, the biggest winner took home nearly $250,000 and the smallest winner took home about $28,000. Last month it was hit 3 times total and this month it’s been hit a total of 4 times so far. It’s all in the luck of the draw.

Party Poker Bonus

You can get up to $500 just for signing up at Party Poker today and making your first deposit. They are currently offering a 100% match bonus that will effectively double your first deposit at Party Poker. As long as you deposit $25 or more, you’ll get your money doubled for up to $500 in free cash.

Party Poker bonuses have always been easy to clear and this one is no exception. You have 120 days to collect 8 times as many PartyPoints as your bonus was worth. So if you deposit $100 and get a $100 bonus, you’ll have to collect 800 PartyPoints (easy).

Cash Games

Like I mentioned earlier, Party Poker has some of the best online poker cash games you’ll find anywhere. For some reason – maybe because of its marketing skills – Party Poker seems to attract more recreational players than anyone else. As a result, the games here are quite soft.

The games range in stakes from the very small to the very large. Limit games start out at $0.05/$0.10 and go up to $250/$500. No Limit games start out at $0.02/$0.04 ($4 buyin) and go up to $25/$50 ($5,000 buyin).

Tournaments

Party Poker has always been a major tournament destination thanks to its huge player base. The Monthly Million regularly awards first place finishers prizes in excess of $150,000.

You’ll find all the usual tournament types here including freezeouts, deep stack tournaments, turbos, sit-and-go’s, shootouts, rebuys and many more. Most tournaments are held in the No Limit Holdem format but you can also find other tournament types running every day.

Promotions

There is a very nice promotion from Party Poker taking place in December 2010.  There will be a daily $5000 freeroll and all you have to do to qualify for the freeroll is to earn 5 party points the previous day.  Qualify for 5 freerolls and you will be entered into the massive $50,000 freeroll taking place on Jan 2 2011.  What a great way to bring on the new year.  There are also bonus jackpots for winning freerolls.

1.       Win two daily $5,000 freerolls = $5,000 jackpot

2.       Win three daily $5,000 freerolls = $50,000 jackpot

3.       Win five daily $5,000 freerolls = $500,000 jackpot

Customer Support

Party Poker has 24 hour live customer support 7 days a week via phone and e-mail. There aren’t very many poker sites out there that offer 24/7 phone support so its refreshing to see Party Poker take the lead in offering strong customer service.

If you don’t need to talk to anyone right away, you can always send in an e-mail. Even by e-mail, they will respond quickly and help you out with any questions you have. The customer support team is competent and courteous so if you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with them.

Play The Bad Beat Jackpot Tables at Party Poker Now!