Everest Poker Interface Review
Mood:  d'oh
The Everest Poker download is one of the best rooms for those building bankrolls for the first time. Today I plan to continue reviewing the site by moving on to its software.

As I explained a couple weeks ago, the weakest aspect of using Everest in place of free poker no downloads is the large amount of computer resources the program needs. You shouldn’t go thinking that everything about the interface is poor, though. There are definitely a few good things.

Most people expect smooth navigation in online poker rooms, and Everest Poker has acted accordingly. You can choose to search through the various games via their tabbed menu system, or you can customize it to show you only the games of your choosing. At least one of these options should be more than enough to suit your needs.

One of the greatest things about being able to play the best online poker is the chance to play multiple tables at once. With regards to table sizing, you can stretch and expand Everest Poker's tables however you'd like, but as a bonus, you can also choose one of 4 resolutions for your tables! You can choose from 640x480, 800x600, 1024x728, and 1280x960. These multi-tabling features really stand out when you download free poker from Everest.

However, the one thing holding Everest Poker back is the memory hog issue. If they hope to compete with a Titan Poker download, they at least need to provide the option of reducing graphics at the tables. You can remove the chip and card animations, but it doesn’t really help matters.

Everest Poker Tables
The site I talk about in this entry is similar to Tiger Gaming in that it is mostly for Europeans and Canadians. Everest Poker’s target audience is mostly players new to poker, making it the perfect place for a quick bankroll boost. The lowest NLHE stakes available are $0.10 - $0.10, and the highest stake available is $50 - $50. Most people won’t need to play any lower or higher than the stakes available here, but the high-stakes crowd should consider alternate online poker rooms. By the way, that was not a typo up there. For some reason all NLHE stakes are detailed by stating the same number two times, even though it’s just the number of the big blind. The small blind is then half either of the numbers (since they’re both the same). I thought you should know that before you make the download and spend half your night being confused.

You’ll be pleased to know that the Limit stakes are stated quite normally. They start at $0.02 - $0.04 and go up to $50 - $100. Once again, players hoping to play very high will need to go somewhere else. The range of Sit-n-Go stakes is surprisingly good, however. They can be entered for as little as $0.04 + $0.01 and progress up to a fairly large $500 + $30. I have already stated that, similar to Tiger Gaming, Everest Poker is not listed as one of the US friendly poker sites available to Americans. If you live in Russia or China, you are also unable to play on the site.

The Everest Poker download has grown substantially over the past few years, and it is Everest's goal to become a very popular poker site. Their growth is impressive considering they don’t share networks with anyone else; they have their own network called the Everest Network. They've become the sixth most-played network on the Internet in the past few years. Everest is actually a great place to begin with money poker sites.

There are a few negatives however. One bad point would be the lack of diversity in games, as there are only variations of Hold‘em and Omaha, whereas most online rooms out there offer at least Stud. Also, if you do not own a computer on the newer side, the software uses more resources than a Full Tilt download. Everything considered, though, you will encounter a lot more good than bad on Everest Poker.

Interface on Tiger Gaming
Mood:  spacey
It is unfortunate that Tiger Gaming is not a US friendly poker site, but I will discuss them for another article for the benefit of our friends in Europe. The software at Tiger Gaming was recently updated with some useful features. They still have the clean look, but now they also have more of the functions that are really just necessary in today's world of online poker.

When playing at Tiger Gaming tables, you can now view hand histories instantly. People that like multi-tabling will also be pleased to know that you can now play up to 30 tables at once, and the tables are even resizable. Furthermore, if you like stats, you can look at some basic stats right at the table, no HUD required.

When you are at the table and the action hasn’t reached you yet, you have the option to use advance action commands. One thing I noted was that compared to other online poker rooms, the No Limit games do not have the advance action buttons "call any" and "raise any". I actually like this because it can be a huge source of tilt while playing No Limit when they are accidentally activated.

Tiger Gaming’s chat interface has the option of showing dealer chat, player chat, both, or neither. And like top rooms such as the Titanpoker download, there is also a four color deck available which aids multi-tablers and prevents the "Oh my God I just went all in and I don't have the flush I thought I did" moments.

When you are at the tables and you want to bet, you press the “bet other/raise other” button to make your bet exceed the minimum. Pressing this button brings up a pop up where you can bet as much as you want. While it sounds like an annoying extra step, it’s actually not bad, although the fact that it is set to automatically bet the pot will irk a few people. It’s true that this can be bad sometimes, but it can also benefit you. Some casinos for USA players have no “bet pot” button and therefore people often make very small bets, but the same players would just bet the pot at Tiger because it is so convenient. This is bad if you are in the hand and needs odds for drawing to a flush or straight. There are times, however, when pot sized bets are not optimal, and this is when it’s beneficial to you.

Another deviation from some of the top Texas Holdem sites is that players are able to take money off the table at any time by simply leaving the table, and then they can sit down at the same table with less money immediately afterwards. Many players greatly disapprove of sites that allow this since “ratholing” is heavily frowned upon.

Tiger also has different maximums and minimums at their cash game tables. Tiger has 40-50BB minimums at their tables, which is much higher than the typical 10-20BB minimums. Since most serious players wish short stackers would play a Roulette bonus instead of poker, these minimums are sure to make many people happy.

I hope this review of the Tiger Gaming interface has helped you decide whether to play there. While Tiger isn’t the best site online, it is at least better than free bet sportsbooks. That’s it for me today, I’ll be back in a couple weeks :)

Build a Bankroll at Tiger Gaming
Mood:  energetic
Thanks for coming to my new site! I’m a huge fan of online poker, and I will be updating this blog on a regular basis with poker articles. In this post I want to talk about Tiger Gaming, one of the sites on Action Poker. Please note that this site does not accept wagers from Americans.

Tiger Gaming is a nice site with pleasing graphics and a clean interface. Similar to the PokerStars bonus code, the deposit bonus is huge, and it is not too difficult to clear. You should find the support is very useful when you have a problem. What makes Tiger Gaming unique from other sites is that it hosts some different games that you will not find anywhere else on the internet. Included in these games are Guts, Big 2, Chinese Poker, and Pan. This isn’t a casino so there’s no Internet slots here, but this will become your site of choice if you enjoy any of the other games.

I haven’t talked about actual poker yet! Tiger Gaming has tables of Limit and No-limit Texas Hold'Em, Limit and Pot-limit Omaha and 7 Card Stud (an unpopular choice for some reason).

Tiger Gaming has recently been advertising aggressively in Canada, telling consumers to try online poker in commercials airing on TSN, Rogers Sportsnet and The Score. Presumably they considered Canada full of players ready to try their hand on money poker sites. Because of this, many of the players on the site are Canadian, and they don’t have lot of experience at the game.

Traffic can be bad at times, especially if you play mid or high stakes. However, if you’ve just gotten into download free poker sites and you want to start small, you should be able to find plenty of action from 2 to 25NL. It is common for there to be between three and six NL25 tables open and between four and eight NL5 tables. If you want to play 50NL, it’ll be a little bit trickier. You’ll be lucky to have two 50NL tables to choose from. Finding no-limit games higher than this is next to impossible. Sometimes there will be a NL100 available but very rarely. They offer $1000NL games but I’ve never seen it run, so these players will just have to download Full Tilt Poker.

I will just go ahead and tell you that the traffic for the other games is pretty awful. 7 Card Stud is available for those interested, but its tables remain empty day after day. Omaha is not quite as bad. Occasionally there is one table of Omaha running, usually of the 0.1/0.2 pot-limit variety. If you enjoy these non-Hold’em games, you might need to download PokerStars instead. Regarding the special games like Chinese Poker, at peak hours it is not hard to get a game going. As Tiger is the only room that offers them, the traffic is much better. The classic gambling game of Guts typically has two or three tables going, with minimum bets of between 10 and 50 cents.

Overall, the action on Tiger Gaming is not good but if you are a lower stakes player, it is not bad either. If you are just starting out with poker, you should first start your bankroll at Tiger and then you can go for a Bwin Poker download once you’re ready to move up in stakes.

I hope you enjoyed my blog today! In a couple weeks I’ll write about the interface at Tiger.