3. Full Tilt Poker Review

[ammbo]

Full Tilt Poker burst onto the poker scene in 2004. Although they were somewhat late to the game they have quickly grown to become among the top tier sites. Using a marketing strategy that includes endorsements from top poker pros such as Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, and Chris Ferguson, they have managed to become a force in the poker world. One of the primary perks at Full Tilt is the ability to sit at an online table with well known poker pros and match wits with them.

Full review here:
Full Tilt Poker Review

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Full Tilt Poker

[dtrain1974]

Full Tilt is a great site that is nice to participate in or watch the pros beat up each other. Every day I can see Mike Matusow going up against one of a number of pros and amateurs like Phil Ivey to name one. The games can be tight or loose depending on the level. I play 1/2 and most are pretty tight, but you can get an occasional loose table that is extremely profitable.

Cashouts are very speedy as I use ePassporte and usually have the money in my account less than an hour after cashing out.

[TheKid]

dtrain: do you know the screen names that ivey, lederer, mattisow, and ferguson play under?? I just joined the site and would love a chance to watch them play. thanks!

[Sticker99]

For the most part the pros play under their own names. They all have avatars in their likeness and there names are usually in red.

When looking at available tables which are listed in blue (if I remember correctly), if a pro is sitting at the table, it will be listed in red. So it's easy to find a table with a pro.

I have played a couple of SNGs with Erik Seidel. (one was a $5 table another was a $20 table). He was a pure gentleman and I felt took the game seriously even though it was a micro limit for him.

It usually only has a bout 3,500 people on line at average but I have a feeling it can reach at least Ultimate Bet levels.

A BIG plus is that they have RAZZ! Seriously, pick up some articles on RAZZ learn some strategy, make a deposit of about $100 at Full Tilt and within a week you will triple up your deposit.

The Bad: No Mini-Tables. Why is that Ultimate Bet is the only site that uses mini-view? Working off the bonus at low limits takes forever.

Sticker

[TheKid]

Thanks, I appreciate the heads up. So far Ive been able to converse with Juanda a bit and played with Clonie Gowen at a $100 buy-in NL cash game table. Mostly, Im multitabling 1/2 and .50/1 limit games just trying to clear the bonus. I play a lot of poker, but it looks like Ill be able to clear it at the rate of $20 per day. Hmm... 20 x 6 days a week = $180 a week, its going to take over three weeks to clear the bonus.

The games are MUCH more tight/aggressive than Im used to. I should have known this though, coming from Pacific. Time to reread some poker books and shape up my game!

I think Ill end up keeping some money at this site just to get a chance to play with the pros on occasion, but the ring games are much too tight for my tastes.

[CITYTOM]

My favorite. You can display the lobby to see how you stand, see your statistics, see the chat, and play the table all at one time. Also, when I play elsewhere I find I miss the "LAST HAND" feature FTP offers.

Citytom

[groucho]

Good
1) The software is good
2) The bonus is big

Bad
1) Toughest games I've seen so far
2) Only two or three ring games at the PEAK hours
3) Ring games are 9 handed and a lot of time a player or two is sitting out, so the game is often 7 handed
4) It takes awhile to earn the bonus

Other:
I've been getting murdered at this site. It's probably a combination of bad luck and tougher competition, though I could easily start believing in rigging.

[Dooper3]

It's taking awhile to clear the bonus...at my present rate, playing either .50/1 or 1/2 tables, it took me a few hours just to get the first $20 payout. The plus is that there is a payout schedule, and the first deposit bonus is great.

Nevertheless, I am holding my own at the tables. Most players are pretty tight, but a couple of times some maniac sat down with a nice bankroll and proceeded to try to bully the table. Both times they lost their nice bankroll, eventually. But the average player plays rationally, which has its own opportunities. There don't seem to be a lot of regulars, so notes on player behavior can pile up quickly and usefully.

The software is great. It looks nifty, plus you have choices of avatars (with expressions!) and backgrounds. You can add a color tag to the player box, which helps you get a quick idea of what you're dealing with, plus it alerts you that you have notes on the player. The visual Last hand feature is neat, as you can not only check what you did but you can flip back through the session and double check what other players are in hands with (assuming they get to the end, of course.) A good tool.

It's also cool to be easily able to find the tables where pros are playing, and get to watch them win or lose amounts that are far beyond my own comfort zome. Razz is also a plus, but I'm finding it best not to multi-table if one of the tables is a Razz game. Although that may change when I get more accustomed to going for strictly low.

If I have any complaint about this site, it's that traffic there is not high. So it takes awhile to fill up a SNG, and there are relatively few active tables (at least compared to Paradise or Party).

Another lesser complaint is that the player boxes do not include their location, so you have less chance of spotting likely collusion. This somehow also makes the site less friendly and less chatty than many other places. I don't know why, but I like to know where people are in the world. I suppose I have vague pigeonholes about players from various places-- a person from Vegas, for instance, might be a bit more aggressive than someone from Florida? It's not a lot to ride on, but it's a start that you just don't have here.

[keethb]

I've noticed that the mininum age requirement for FTP is 21 years of age.

Being from Canada, I'm of the legal gambling age. Is 2 years difference going to cause my bankroll to be frozen or give me cash-out problems?

[PigPen]

I haven't been playing at FullTilt very long and first impressions of their software is it's a bit too cartoonish for my tastes.

But I keep playing and I do like their NL ring games and have done pretty well there. I agree the players are tighter and seem to be more solid and level headed than at other sites. That's a refreshing change from players at the bigger sites. I enjoy the play there and FT is moving up the list of my preferred sites to play at.

Other than the goofy avatars (the background changes are nice though) I have no complaints and would certainly suggest giving them a try.

[Dire]

For whatever reason, the average level of play at this site seems to be much higher than at other sites. They have plentiful bonuses, but they clear at a snail's pace playing 2/4. The avatars are cute but somewhat distracting. Really, the only benefit I've found is that player points accumulate relatively quickly, so you too can quickly get an oversized Full Tilt jersey and work on your best Phil Ivey impersonation!

Until the players get worse or the bonuses get better, there's better sites out there.

3/10

[joey3strikes]

I've read some posts on how the competition is better on full tilt than other places and i agree, its a more tighter style of play. But wouldnt u want to play against better players! YOu might not win as much but could be better in the long run. I think its awesome all the pro's on there. Even Chris Ferguson and some others phil ivey and jen harmon even play in the play money games. I think its great that they give some feedback especially jen. She tries to converse with as many people as she can. The best is you can watch and play against a couple of pros at the same time. The best was the other night there was Layne Flack, John D'Agostino, John Juanda, Allen Cunningham, Mike Matusow and Jen Harman at the SAME TABLE! What other site will you be able to see that, i believe it was a 20$-40$.

[Piscivorous]

I played at Full Tilt in the last part of 2004 through June 2005. I finished the $600 sign-up bonus in February '05, and only played sporadically there from then to June '05. At the time, the mix of players were around 1 or 2 borderline fish, and the rest were rocks. It made for a horrible combination.

I came back yesterday, and so far quite like the way it is now. A lot of bad players, some good, some borderline. Flop seen percentages are running in the low to mid 30 percentile.

I might stick around this time.

[Griffy_Clyro]

Does anyone else find that this site slows down now and then? sometimes it gets so slow that it cant auto-post my blind in time and forced to sit out

[RiverCascade]

For the answer to Griffy's question, and to continue further discussion, please see this thread.