PokerStars

Introduction

PokerStars is the largest poker room online and is available in over 25 different languages. It is an ideal place to play Texas Hold'em and a long row of other poker variants, unless you're from the United States because players from the U.S. are not allowed due to U.S. regulations.

PokerStars has been offering real money play since 2001. Originally based in Costa Rica, they are now headquartered in Isle of Man in Europe and has an Isle of Man gambling license. Their operations in Italy are licensed by the Italian government.

Unlike many other poker rooms, PokerStars offers poker client play not just for Windows users but for Mac OS users as well.

Poker variants

PokerStars have a rich selection of cash tables and tournaments for Texas Hold'em, Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo, but they also offer poker variants that can be tricky to find in other poker rooms. Due to the huge amount of traffic, even rare things like 8-Game Mix and 2-7 Single Draw tend to attract quite a lot of action here.

The lowest cash game tables are $0.01/$0.02 while the highest are $1 000/$2 000. As usual, the broadest assortment is offered for Texas Hold'em. High stakes players should pay a visit to Daniel's Room, a high stakes room hosted by PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu.

At PokerStars, you can play the following poker variants:

• Texas Hold'em

• Omaha

• Omaha-Hi/Lo

• Sjukorts stötpoker (Stud)

• Sjukorts stötpoker Hi/Lo (Stud Hi/Lo)

• Femkorts mörkpoker (Five-card Draw)

• 2-7 Triple Draw

• 2-7 Single Draw

• Badugi

• Razz

• HORSE

• 8-Game Mix
  
  

Welcome bonus

The welcome bonus is a 100% deposit bonus up to $600. Most poker rooms will only give you an bonus on your first deposit, but PokerStars will give you a bonus on your first three deposits (until you reach the limit) within 90 days.

Software

PokerStars use proprietary software and is not a member of any poker network. You need to download a poker client and install it on your computer before you can start playing. Poker client is available for both PC and Mac.

• You can have up to 24 tables open at once.

• You can personalize the gaming experience in various ways, e.g. by uploading a photo to use as avatar at the table.

Tournaments

There is a huge amount of tournaments available around the clock here, and not just Texas Hold'em tournaments. Chose from a broad range of poker variants, buy-ins and tournament types, including plenty of free rolls.

Just like the other major poker rooms online, PokerStars celebrate the weekends with extra big guarantee tournaments – normally in the form of No Limit Texas Hold'em tournaments. The largest one is the $215 Sunday Million ($1.5 million GTD).

PokerStars sponsors a lot of the major tournaments online and offline, and this also means that there are plenty of satellites for these tournaments to be found on the site. Each year, thousands of poker players satellite their way into PokerStars sponsored events like World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), North American Poker Tour (NAPT), European Poker Tour (EPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) och PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA). PokerStars also send players on to non-PokerStars events like World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.