PokerStars boast the world’s largest poker site, award winning support, the best software and game selection plus secure deposits and fast pay-outs. PokerStars has a wide variety of poker tables. You can play Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha High-Low, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw and 2-7 Triple Draw, Seven Card Stud High-Low, Razz, HORSE and a variety of poker tournaments. If you don’t know the games listed above detailed descriptions of the game rules are available on the PokerStars website.

PokerStars also offer ‘pot-limit’ and ‘no-limit’ poker on their free poker tables. They also offer a large selection of real money poker games with limits from a tiny $0.02/$0.04 blinds up to a massive $100/$200 blind cash games. PokerStars are also industry leaders in satellite tournaments featuring live tournaments from around the world. They sponsor the EPT (European Poker Tour) and games are running constantly for qualification to the tournaments. Qualifications to other tournaments are available for PokerStars members including: the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA), the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), the World Poker Tour Championship (WPT), the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and the World Series of Poker (WSOP). In fact you can be sure that if there is a high stakes live tournament going on somewhere in the world you could have probably qualified for it by playing on PokerStars. At the 2007 WSOP there were 6,358 entries into the main tournament, 616 of these players qualified directly through PokerStars. That is almost 10% of the runners in the whole tournament, this is many more than any other online poker site.

PokerStars have a host of successful players at their tables. You will find 2003 World Champion Chris Moneymaker, 2004 World Champion Greg Raymer, 2005 World Champion Joe Hachem and the newest member to Team PokerStars and one of the most famous names in poker Daniel Negreanu.

PokerStars has a customer service team available 24 hours a day 7 days a week answering player’s questions. They are efficient and accurate in their replies (questions are usually answered within 24 hours). They have a detailed list of FAQ’s which answer most of the queries you may want to ask. Topics include technical support, online chat rules and information about free-play and real-money cash games. If you have a question about your banking it is always best to email the support team.

A poker strategy guide helps you understand your own game or figure out what your opponents may be up to. This is very useful as the PokerStars strategy guide includes some core essentials to the game that players need to get right. I would recommend that everybody playing a game of 7 Card Stud High-Low read the rules before playing!

Lastly, there is a comprehensive online poker dictionary for reference purposes. As you will probably know there is a great deal of jargon within poker talk and by using the online poker dictionary you can find out just what each term means.

The two main feature tournaments on PokerStars are the Bigger Deal played monthly on a Tuesday and the PokerStars Sunday Million.

The Bigger Deal offers you the chance to play against Tony Holden, author of Big Deal: One Year as a Professional Poker Player. The monthly tournament will pit you against Tony and other Bigger Deal bloggers in a ‘friendly’ $10 tournament featuring a prize pool of $2700. During the game you will need to mix it up with the other players and with topical banter including Tony’s books, poker in general and anything else you may want to mention!

The PokerStars Sunday Million was the first regular Hold’em tournament to carry a prize pool of $1,000,000. First place leads to a payout of around $200,000. Usual buy-in to the tournament is $215, at the end of the month this rises to $530 and four times a year it carries a $1050 buy-in. While many players prefer to simply pay the buy-in, others try to win entry to the tournament. Sunday Million is an event that everyone can take part in and during the week leading to the Sunday tournament players have the opportunity to win an entry to the event for as little as $3. If you make the final table then a member of the PokerStars support team will be on hand to facilitate any deals that players may want to make (splitting the remaining prize money more evenly, usually in relation to the chip stack).

PokerStars also offer a great loyalty bonus scheme.

If you are a first time depositor you will receive a 100% bonus up to $50. To achieve this you need to earn 500 Frequent Player Points (FPPs). The $50 bonus certainly isn’t an industry leader but nevertheless is easy to release and more rewards soon become available.

The PokerStars Frequent Player Program is a loyalty program where players earn FFPs in return for their tournament house fees and rakes. The more you play on PokerStars the more you earn. You can spend your FPPs on tournament entries, apparel, electronics and a whole lot more.

The top gift for a dedicated player is an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, yours for a mere 5 million points! If this seems out of your league there are a many decent prizes which a regular player can grasp. Video game consoles, LCD TVs, clothing, books and tournament entries are among the prizes on offer for a manageable amount of FPPs.

There are different levels to the loyalty program. Everybody starts out with a Bronze Star, once you have earned 1500 FPPs you become a Silver Star Player up to a Supernova Elite player at one million points. As you progress through the rankings you earn points much quicker which allows you to press on for the best rewards.

All exchanges between PokerStars client software and their own servers are encrypted using the industry standard SSLv3 protocol, this is a great security feature allowing you to play games and transfer funds and personal information in safety.

PokerStars use their own random number generator (RNG) and random shuffle algorithm to provide an advanced and fair gaming experience. Terms and conditions are outlined in detail providing information on game rules, collusion, the use of poker ‘bots’ (automatic players), chip dumping, fraudulent behaviour and security on your account. With PokerStars being such a massive company they have to provide you with the most up to date security measures for your account accessibility and banking.

PokerStars have a variety of ways to buy chips. This is done through the downloaded software in the cashier section of the lobby. Accepted deposit options are NETELLER, EPASSPORTE, VISA, MasterCard, Diners Club International, SOLO, Maestro, Western Union, Local Bank Transfer, PaySafeCard, Money Order or Cashier’s Check, MoneyBookers and UseMyBank. Different deposit limits apply to certain cards but they are usually $600 in 24 hours, $1500 in 7 days and $2000 in 30 days. If that isn’t enough the highest limit is a cashier’s check for a limit of $50,000 dollars over 30 days.

All cash-in and pay-out requests are accompanied with an email containing the amount and a reference number. Pay-outs are usually in your bank account within 3 to five working days.

Along with the strategy sections and reference guide you can visit www.PokerStarsblog.com to read about the EPT, PCA, APPT and the WCOOP. Further to this you can also read other peoples blogs about their time in big tournaments, archives of all the blogs over the last two and a half years or email the blog team with any questions.

The PokerStars blog features links to other poker sites that may be of interest including the home pages of some of the Team PokerStars players and information on poker bonuses, hand odds, tournaments and the World Series of Poker.

As you would expect from a popular poker site the lobby is clear and easy to use. Along the top of the interface is a list of the different types of Poker games you can play. Once you have selected the game you want you are asked whether you want ‘fixed-limit’, ‘pot-limit’ or ‘no-limit’ tables, an option for those games define your stakes. You can simply select all a list of all stakes in that particular game, ‘high’ for the high stakes all the way down to ‘micro’ for the smallest stakes available.

In both the ‘cash game’ and the ‘tournament’ sections of the lobby there is a filter which you can apply to your search results. For example, if you know that you are only going to be playing ‘no-limit’ Hold’em games then you simply check the boxes of all other games which are on offer and they will vanish from sight. This is useful as there are usually over 20,000 tables on the go at any one time.

Once you are sat at the tables the software is simple to use. If you click on the ‘dealer tray’ then various in game options appear. Here you can add more chips, look at hand histories, request statistics, change the colour of the deck, choose the theme of the table (artwork) and if you wish, call a moderator to assist you. There are further options that can be applied including your preferred seat at the table!

Features such as the chat facility are easy to use by simply typing into the text input box and pressing return. Also available on demand are some basic statistics on your game, information about the table and a notepad for noting the behaviour of your opponents.

There are various standard pre-selection boxes for your actions; folding, betting and raising are done by clicking the mouse, a slider bar or by typing an amount into a number input box. It really couldn’t be easier.

Once you have played on PokerStars it is easy to see why it is the most popular on the web. There is something here for everybody from low-limit players to high-rollers. PokerStars have established themselves as the breeding ground of the World Champions and I wouldn’t bet against it producing a few more.