If you’ve followed our tips on how to choose an online poker site, you may have already compiled yourself a poker room shortlist. If not, we’ve got a few suggestions as to some top sites that are worthy of your attention. The below reviews look at sites that are capitalizing on their different strengths; whether that is the ability to host huge tournaments, provide great loyalty schemes or offer a myriad of poker game variants supported by superior software platforms. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so we’ve offered up a few facts to help you decide on your perfect match.

Full Tilt Poker: Tournament Central

Poker sites base their marketing efforts around big money tournaments and this is hardly any surprise as poker tournaments are the backbone of online poker. One of the most prominent poker sites is Full Tilt Poker that offers millions of dollars in guaranteed money every week culminating in their Sunday $750,000 Guaranteed (which turns into a $1Million Guaranteed on the last Sunday of each month).

Many unique tournaments such as Bounty where players receive bonuses for knocking other players out are available. Cashout tournaments also exist where withdrawal from the tournament can be at any time and one still receives a cash prize equivalent to the value of their chips at withdrawal. Unique to Full Tilt Poker is the automatic dealmaker, whereby if a player goes deep in a tournament they can make deals at the table without waiting for support to arrive and this can take anywhere between 10 and 15 minutes.

Game variety
This site offers tournaments in a variety of games such as Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Card Stud etc. Player traffic is quite high and during peak times there can be up to 60,000 tournaments and 10,000 cash game players found at the money tables. The quality of players tends to be a bit tighter which even though it does not denote necessarily good players, they are harder to beat.

Slick software, big bonuses
The software available runs smoothly and is easy to navigate. Full Tilt Poker also has one of the best bonuses at 100 percent up to $600 by either visiting the site or using the sign up code. Every few months, additional 50% bonuses are offered. Full Tilt’s customer support is available 24 hours a day with fast response times. This site runs dozens of poker tournaments with buy-ins for as low as $0.50. Small buy-in tournaments get a few hundred entrants with the winner getting about 300 times their buy-in.

Absolute Poker: Daily events

Absolute Poker.com offers tournaments throughout the week. If you prefer bigger stakes, everyday they run a $33 rebuy tournament with a $8,000 guarantee, a $55 one with a $15,000 guarantee and a $25 with a $10,000 guarantee. Sunday stakes are higher with a $30 tournament with a $100,000 guarantee, $215 with a $200,000 and a $130 bounty with a $40,000. The site is top of the log when it comes to bonuses even offering a generous sign up bonus followed by a steady stream of redeposit offers. Due to this, one can expect to find skilled opponents at your table. Software wasn’t always their best selling point as in the beginning it would slow down an older computer but over time this has been looked into such that it wouldn’t prevent one from accessing the site. Customer support is also up to speed.

32 Red Poker: Where loyalty pays

32 Red Poker was established in 1995 and is based in Gibraltar. It has a loyalty points scheme aptly named ‘Redbacks’ and these can be used to enter selected tournaments and satellites which gives a little added value for playing here as 100 Redbacks =$1 in tourney fees. They have an Elevator Loyalty Programme based on the number of Redbacks collected in a month. $32,000 is up for grabs for the top players.

Guaranteed tournaments
Guaranteed tournaments provide a big draw as they run regularly all week with prize pools increased on Wednesdays during their ‘Mid Week Madness’ promotion where the daily $40K guaranteed at 3pm ET rises to $45K. The Sunday $175K Guaranteed is at 2pmET where direct entry for $65 or through a satellite for $6.50 is on offer. They host seasonal events too. At Easter they hosted their first ever Easter Mini Festival running between April 2nd and the 5th with 235,000 Euros in guaranteed prizes spread across 9 events.

There is a 3 month period to redeem bonuses at Red Poker. When signing up, you receive a welcome gift of 100 Redbacks.This site also has a freeroll where they are giving away 30 FREE SEATS to their weekly $3K Guaranteed ‘Be the Bounty’ tournament with each seat worth $10 + $1 and a prize pool of $3000 plus $325 in bounty extracts. There are usually 70-80 players hence the value is fantastic. This freeroll is scheduled for April 10th 2010 at 1500hrs (UK Time). You do not need to register any payment method. The 32Red Poker room has over 500,000 registered users so no one can ever be short of a game.

Software & service
They have excellent customer service, quality gaming and secure transactions. Peak times can be very busy and one has to wait longer for a cash game or a Sit-N-Go to begin. They have great value added tournaments. The software used entails table graphics which are simple and there are no avatars to distract. There is, however, the disadvantage that card suits can be difficult to distinguish against if you are involved in multi-tabling. Flipping between tables is easier and there are mini-view tables with the software supporting play at eight tables at a time. Important in clearing the bonus is that the lobby displays the amount of raked hands played.

Traffic
32Red Poker enjoys a huge following with 3000 players at cash tables at peak times and 15,000 at tournament tables. Most popular games here include Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha with competition being soft at lower level which can be attributed to the gambling traffic.

Promotions
In terms of promotions, the site offers a generous deposit bonus structure offering 100%bonuses on the first $320 deposited with increments of $32. The site’s real attractions remain the generous deposit bonuses denoting that the players who delve in deep get free money for just sitting down and playing. Customer support is also offered with live chat, phone support and fast email responses usually within an hour or two during peak times. Average players are kept interested with lots of low and medium stake games.

Read on for more poker room reviews…