Carbon Poker is one of the better options for US poker players. They’ve been around for a few years now, so they’re one of the more trustworthy sites and players have great benefits include a solid deposit bonus and fast cashout times. They’ve also seen a 300-400% increase in traffic since Black Friday. So unlike before, you shouldn’t have any problem finding games running no matter what you like to play.
The rest of this page will give you some details on what you can expect to find at Carbon Poker. My goal is to help you decide whether Carbon Poker is deserving of your hard earned money.
VIP Program at Carbon Poker
Carbon Poker’s VIP program is a multi-tiered program based on the earth’s elements. There are six tiers. Starting from the bottom there is Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Ether and Ether+. Each tier comes with its own benefits. At the highest tier you can get as much as 35% cash back.
Keep in mind that once you earn a tier it’s yours for good. The exception is that if you don’t play for 30 days or more your point starts to decay, and at that point you can start to drop in tiers.
Promotions at Carbon Poker
In addition to their VIP program, Carbon Poker offers other ongoing promotions.
$5000 Deposit Bonus
Carbon poker offers all players signing up and depositing for the first time a 200% match up to $5000. What this means for you is that for every $1 that you deposit Carbon Poker will match you $2.
To earn your bonus you will need to play real money games and earn VIP points. For every $75 in rake that you pay you will have unlocked $5 of your bonus. Bonuses are paid in five dollar increments and this bonus expire in 120 days.
New players will also receive an entry into the $500 new depositor freeroll which is good for one entry daily for 14 days.
Bad Beat Jackpot
The Merge Network is well-known for their bad beat jackpot. It’s often in the six-figure mark, and the highest it’s been has been is just a hair over $1 million.
To qualify for the bad beat jackpot the losing hand must at least be quad sevens and the winning hand quad eights. The loser will keep 35% of the jackpot, 17.5% will go to the winner in the remaining will go to the other players at the table, to reseed the next jackpot and a small portion to the network.
Guaranteed & Satellite Tournaments
Carbon Poker guarantees over $4 million every month in their guaranteed tournaments. Their largest tournament is a $125,000 guarantee which runs on Sundays and has a buy-in of $109, 10,900 VIP points or you can satellite in for as little as $2. On Saturday there is a $12,500 guaranteed tournament. And throughout the week you will find guaranteed tournaments running daily ranging from $2000 up to $7500.
There are a number of live satellite tournaments as well, where you can earn yourself a seat to the World Series of Poker, Aussie Millions and the Asia Pacific Poker Tour. You can buy straight into these tournaments to win a seat, or you can satellite in for as little as $2.
Games Available at Carbon Poker
Like I said above, you shouldn’t have any problems finding a game to play at Carbon. Here are some of the finer details regarding their cash games, tournaments and sit n go’s.
Cash Games
Carbon Poker lists all the major poker games including Texas hold’em, omaha, stud, razz and an assortment of draw games.
Texas hold’em is by far the most popular game. When I reviewed them they had 254 tables with 340 players seated. Compare that to 119 tables and 151 players at the omaha tables, and 15 tables and 42 players at all the other games (combined). Stakes range from .01/.02 to 30/60.
The cash games section only accounted for about 10% of the total traffic at Carbon Poker at the time of writing (12pm PST).
Tournaments
In the tournament section you’ll find the same games offered. Once again Texas hold’em is by far the favorite. There were 640 players in the Texas hold’em games and less than 100 at all of the other games combined.
Tournament variations include satellite, bounty, shoot out, deep stack, rebuy and guaranteed. I’ll cover the guaranteed tournaments in more detail under the promotion section.
Buy-ins range from $1-$109. Most events allow you to buy-in for points, as well as satellites.
Sit n Go’s
The sit n go section of Carbon Poker is more robust compared to what it was a year or even two years ago. Carbon Poker has picked up the slack from other poker sites not being in the US market.
Buy-ins will range from $1-$650. The sit n go’s have the same variations as the tournaments do.
The sit n go section (at this time) makes up 20% of the total traffic at Carbon Poker.
Carbon Poker Software
The software is equally important as the games. If the games are slow, look bad or don’t fulfill your needs, then it doesn’t make sense to play here, right?
What I looked at in more detail is the lobby, table options and whether or not 3rd party software is allowed. Here is what I found.
Lobby
What I like most about the lobby is that the intrusiveness is kept to a minimum. There are few ads and the focus is on the games, as it should be. Everything else including support, promotions, casino and the cashier can be found via links at the top.
The best part of the lobby has to be the game filter. You can filter down to a specific game, speed, betting type and variation.
Table
The Merge Network is known for their features that make the games more fun. For example, Carbon Poker has their emoticons, run it twice and rabbit hunt features. This is one of those small things that help them stand out against the other poker sites.
In terms of actual game play, the software is standard. You can manually re-size the tables, stack or tile them, and you can play up to 18 tables at once. All of the other generic options are there too, including checking your statistics, taking notes on your opponents and chatting in the chat box.
3rd Party Software
If you’re a serious enough player one thing that might be important to you is being able to use third-party programs such as Poker Tracker or Holdem Manager. Carbon Poker allows you to use these programs.
Carbon Poker Support
I contacted support to ask them about the number of tables you can play, as well as the ability to use 3rd party HUDs such as Holdem Manager and Poker Tracker. I received a response no longer than 2 hours later. The email was a little impersonal (they didn’t address me by my name), but it was polite and helpful. Support is available 24/7 by email or using the form on their site.
Banking Options
The banking options available to you at Carbon Poker will depend on where you live. Players in the United States only have the following 3 options for making a deposit, and that was out of a total of 25 options for players in other countries:
- Western Union – Best option for US players.
- Visa
- MasterCard
To find the options available to you, you will either need to sign up to Carbon Poker or visit their website.
After reading this Carbon Poker review I hoped you have realized what I have: Carbon Poker is one of the best poker rooms available in the US player market. With high VIP rewards, a sick deposit bonus and traffic in the thousands, players in the United States will not be disappointed with what they find at Carbon Poker.