Full Tilt Poker is the second highest traffic online poker room in the world, second only to parent company PokerStars and is a great option for recreational and professional poker players alike, since there is enough to like about the room for both types of players.
After Black Friday Full Tilt Poker is one of the poker sites that stopped accepting US players but most other players from around the globe can continue to play at the site. You can regularly see ‘The Professionals’ Gus Hansen and Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom playing at the nosebleed tables. It is because of this reason that FullTiltPoker.com has grown to be one of the biggest online poker sites and become renowned for its high stakes cash game action.
There is no direct rakeback for players to take advantage of, however, there is still an incentive to play through the use of the Full Tilt Poker rewards scheme. When you play in any raked real money cash games or tournaments you will accumulate Full Tilt Poker (FTPs) points, which can be used to purchase items in the Full Tilt Poker store, as well as to exchange points for cash back to boost your bankroll.
Tournament fees and cash game buy-ins are included in rake that goes towards accumulating FTPs. You can also use the poker points to purchase ring game ticket and tournament tokens to buy-in to MTTs/SNGs.
Tournaments
This is a great site for tournament action. If you participate in a lot of guaranteed prize pool tournaments, be expected to have a lot of choice in the Full Tilt Poker lobby. There are tournaments to suit players of all bankroll sizes with sit n go’s from as little as $0.25.
The Sunday Majors on Full Tilt Poker is when you see thousands of tourney players at the tables. It is usually the peak traffic day of the week since there the biggest guaranteed online tournaments are hosted. If you can’t afford to buy-in to these big sunday major tourneys with your own money, there are always satellites you can play to try and win a seat into one of them.
Software
Full Tilt Poker’s software was built by poker players for poker players and its evident in everything about their software client from the quirky player avatars to the mass multi tabling features to quick seat options to join tables at the same game and stakes.
The more serious online poker players would be happy to know that HUDs such as Holdem Manager and Poker Tracker are compatible with the software, so you can see real time statistics of opponents while playing, which is handy when playing at multiple tables. Even when multi tabling the gameplay is smooth and very responsive.
The Full Tilt Poker lobby is very intuitive even for new players who have never used the software before. You can easily navigate between play money and real money games, and the detailed table statistics help with finding the juiciest tables that are full of fishy players.
Additionally, any time you see a table in the lobby that is highlighted in red, you know a professional player is currently playing at the table. Small icons are displayed next to each table in the lobby to differentiate the various types of tables, such as 6-max, new to the game, capped, and deep stacked games. These features are great and make it very easy to navigate through the tables.
Game Variety
You can play Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, H.O.R.S.E., 5 Card Omaha, Badugi, Irish Poker, plus a few other less commonly played poker variants in both the ring game and tournament sections.
With more than 10,000 players online at most times of the day, there are always plenty of active tables for players to choose and play on. This is especially true for Hold’em and Omaha games.
In ring games, the full ring, short handed, and heads up tables are all active, although the 6-max games are by far the most popular choice for cash games on the site, because the action junkies like to play at these tables as you get to play more hands.
A new game that was recently added to their lineup of games that is definitely worthwhile checking out is Adrenaline Rush, a variant of Rush Poker, that is sure to generate a lot of interest with players on Full TIlt.
In terms of the level of competition at Full Tilt Poker, it would be considered average when compared to other online poker sites. At the micro stakes ring game tables, there will be fishy players that aren’t very good, but as you move up in limits, there will be fewer bad players.
Bonuses
When you make your first real money deposit a Full Tilt Poker, you are eligible to receive a sign up bonus of 100% up to $600. So, if you were to deposit $600, you’d have a $1200 bankroll to play with once you cleared the bonus.