ABSOLUTE POKER FULL SITE REVIEW

SITE HISTORY

With sweeping changes from the top down starting with the site's management, Absolute Poker has seen a renaissance of life that is quickly turning into a comeback story that is making waves in the poker industry. Widely regarded as having one of the best customer service departments in the business, Absolute Poker is part of the Cereus Network (along with Ultimate Bet) and is the 7th largest poker room in the world and presently the 3rd largest that accepts players from the United States. With lucrative bonuses constantly running and an impressive software platform, Absolute Poker is a very profitable and action-packed poker room.

GAMES OFFERED

Both tournament and cash game players will have plenty to choose from at Absolute Poker. The predominate game of choice is No Limit Texas Hold'em with limits ranging from $.01-$0.02 all the way up to $200-$400 games at the cash tables. Tournaments run constantly at the site with a nice spread of limits for all bankrolls and include a variety of games including Hold'em, Omaha, Stud and HORSE.

TRAFFIC

Through some savvy marketing and great promotional offers on the Cereus Network, the site is seeing more players logging on and plenty of full tables runnin around the clock. Absolute Poker's traffic essentially doubled when they merged with Ultimate Bet in 2008. Although it may not have the mega-traffic that the biggest rooms on the internet might boast, the numbers remain strong and the players are definitely a notch or two below the usual competition elsewhere. The cash tables, due to the site's decision to award "contributed rakeback", are more populated at the 6-handed games. The combination of contributed rake plus 6-handed tables translates to universally looser action at every table.

VIP PROGRAMS & BONUSES

Absolute Poker does boast one of the higher rakeback deals in the business at a whopping 30% here at Absolute Incentives. The site uses the "contributed" rake method, meaning that players only receive a portion of the rake back if they put any money into the pot. This method is great for players that actually like to play poker and get into the pot, as opposed to the super-nitty types who only play AA or KK, and make the tables looser than they are on other sites for similar games and buy-in levels.

The promotions at Absolute Poker are amongst the best in the business in the form of the almost never-ending reload bonuses the site offers. Often times the site will offer 100% reload bonuses multiple times per week, which can mean hundreds if not thousands in bonus dollars unlocked per month, depending on the amount of poker (and level) you play. There are also leader board promotions, step series tournaments and usually a big-money tournament satellite promotion constantly going at Absolute Poker. Don't forget about the famous Bad Beat Jackpot which awards a cash prize to players that take a horrible beat of losing with quad 8s or better. The jackpots have been known to grow huge, awarding the losing and winning players with many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Finally, the rewards program known as FAME awards "points" to players every time they play in a raked hand. These points are accumulated every time they play in a real-money game and as players earn more points in a month, they move up in the FAME status ladder from Bronze, Silver (2x point multiplier), Gold (3x point multiplier), Platinum (4x point multiplier + 10% off at the Rewards Store) and finally Diamond Elite status (5x point multiplier + 9% interest bearing account). The points can be redeemed for prizes and consumer products or even turned in for cold hard cash.

LOBBY & TABLE SOFTWARE

The lobby software at Absolute Poker is one of the better ones in the industry. With recent upgrades and design changes, everything you need is now hosted within the lobby including the cashier which opens up in a special window. The games are laid out in tabs at the top, and games with different play types (No Limit, Limit, Pot Limit) are segmented out on sub-tabs. Most of the larger areas such as Holdem and Tourneys have a "Filter" sub-tab that allow a player to filter through tables by game type, stakes and buy-in types (freerolls, points, etc).

The table software at Absolute Poker is easy to use and best used in the traditional "top view" which is just one of the few options players now have to select a custom layout. The buttons at the table are very easy to interface with and the betting slider is compatible with your mousewheel and also come with half pot and full pot shortcut buttons to make betting easier. The cards and animation graphics are very pleasing to the eyes giving players the ability to upload their own custom avatar picture.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

When adding up the new-and-improved customer service that has drawn recent rave reviews, the tremendous amount of promotions and bonuses plus the impressive lobby and table software, Absolute Poker is now one of the best places to be playing online poker. When one thinks about the potential of just bringing in bonus money plus rakeback without even being a winning player, the argument for making this poker room your regular stop definitely sways in the favor of Absolute Poker.