Testing Various Poker Rooms

New players commonly want to know what the best online poker room is. The answer is that there is no answer. Some poker rooms offer more than others in one area but may fail in another. Some offer the full package but may not be the right fit for everyone. However, there are a few poker rooms that stand out because they lead the industry in terms of traffic. Traffic references how many players they have sitting at their tables. The more traffic a poker room generates, the greater ability the poker room has to offer larger tournaments, better promotions and they can run a high stakes selection with no worries of keeping the tables filled.

Research

There are a number of reasons why a poker room may not be the proper fit. The bonus offers may be too low, the clearing requirements may be ridiculous, they may not accept your country of residence or their software is Windows only and you use a Mac. These are just a few examples. Before you begin play testing a few different poker rooms, some basic research needs to be completed. This involves using a few web searches through a search engine such as Google. Bonus offers can be found through a web search or by visiting the poker room's website. Downloading the software of the poker room will help in determining the traffic at the poker room. Most poker rooms offer a ticker that shows how many players are currently online within their software. You can also research the average traffic levels at a particular room by conducting a specified web search.

Research should be conducted to cover all of the areas that are important to the player. Players generally want a good bonus offer that doesn't have extreme clearing requirements attached to it, high traffic, user-friendly software, good game selection and a nice promotional system that rewards them for their continued play. This can all be found out through a little research and play testing.

Testing Rooms

Once a basic research phase has taken place, players should test a few rooms that best fit their criteria. Download the software and install it. Once you have it installed, you have a few options. First, you should take the time to play around with the lobby and see what the room offers. If you are a multi-tabler, find out what customizable table options they have and figure out how you can design your setup to meet your needs.

After you have thoroughly looked over the software and played around a bit you can either play for play money or make a deposit and get started. Play money allows you to further your investigation without risking anything. The players are most likely going to be extreme fishes but you can feel out the table layout, the action buttons, the timer and table options. If you decide to make a deposit, you should keep in mind that you usually get the best bonus offer for your first deposit. In other words, if you are seriously considering a room and would normally deposit $1,000 but want to just try it out, don't deposit a ridiculously low amount like $10. You may be receiving a 100% or better bonus offer and you are wasting this offer to only receive $10 in bonus money.

Remember that you want to take advantage of the bonus offer by trying to maximize it. However, play at a few rooms and don't let the bonus offer be the sole determining factor. Finding the perfect fit is much more important than the bonus. Maybe deposit $50 or $100 at a couple rooms and play a few hours a day at each for a couple weeks and then decide which one you prefer the best. At that point, you can either keep the others as rainy day rooms or cash out.