Overview: Providing online poker services since 1997, Party Poker was the largest online poker room in the world from 2003-2006 and still remains to be one of the biggest poker rooms in the world today, with its substantial volume of players, attractive promotions and variety of tournaments. They aim ‘to be a leading digital entertainment company that anticipates market demands and delights our consumers by offering smart, safe and fun real money games’.

The Competition: Listed as having 1,100 daily average players at any given time, but traffic is in reality much higher. There’s generally a huge number of players even at off-peak times. There is arguably an attractive choice of consistently easy games, allowing players to easily increase their winnings.

Cash Games: The usual suspects of Texas Hold’em. Omaha Hi/Lo, Pot Limit Omaha, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, as well as Blackjack. Buy-ins range from $1 all the way to $5000 and more.

Promotions: New players are offered £20 free with first deposit of £10. Party Poker also offers a 100% up to $50 first deposit bonus. The bonus releases at a rate of 8 Party Points for every $1 in bonus, which expires after 60 days. Players can work their way up though Party Poker’s ten different VIP levels, including Bronze, Silver, Gold and Palladium Loyalty Levels (collect points to earn rewards). Party Poker offers the 2nd Chance First Bet (the idea being, if a first bet is unsuccessful, a player can win a £5 or £10 free bet).

Tournaments: A schedule of Daily Majors, with 70 tournaments spread throughout the week offering $475,000 in guaranteed prizes. Saturdays bring tournaments in Omaha, Hyper Turbos, 6 Max with $1 buy-ins, and Sundays have guaranteed prize pools of over $200,000. The site’s Pokerfest is an impressive schedule of 80 tournaments bringing with them over $2.5 million in guaranteed prize pools for the winners.

Software: Easy to install and use. Includes option of 1 Click Lobby (access your game in just one click).

Banking: Easy deposit options and guarantee fast cash outs. All payment processing transactions are transmitted by and stored in secure, proprietary cashier system.

Customer Service: The usual options exist of email, live online chat and telephone.

Why Join?: Party Poker is a fairly exciting and efficient poker site where new and inexperienced players can avail of a helpful poker school as well as a blog of daily tips from Party Poker’s team of professional poker players.