Absolute Poker Review

Visit Absolute Poker

Summary (7.76)

Absolute Poker has quickly become a fast-growing, medium-sized poker room due to their advertising campaign and decent software. The team behind Absolute Poker has created an overall high-quality poker room and offers a well-organized and thorough Web site.

The action at Absolute Poker is still heavily concentrated on Texas Hold'em, in particular short-handed games. The software is of good standard, with features such as "find a player," playing statistics, hand history, and more.

Absolute Poker allows you to play at six tables simultaneously and multi-table play runs relatively smoothly. The action at the tables is fairly loose with high viewed flop percentages at the lower stakes tables.

Presently poker pros such as Mark Seif, Michael Mizrachi and Sean McCabe endorse the site. Real money player statistics show 1,500-2,250 ring-game players during peak hours, and 7,500-10,000 tournament players during peak hours.

Ring Game Traffic (6)

Traffic has now reached considerable volume and currently play is available at pretty much any No-Limit Hold'em and Limit Hold'em blind or limit level. A majority of the ring games are six handed, but there are also 10-handed tables. There is typically 1,500-2,250 real-money, ring-game players during peak hours, out of which at least 90-95% are in the Hold'em section.

Game variety (9)

The site's game variety is essentially standard for the industry. The games offered are Texas Hold'em (one-on-one, Pot-Limit, No-Limit, Limit, and short-handed), Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo, Seven-Card Stud, and Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo.

The games range from six-handed to 10-handed games in No-Limit, Pot-Limit and Limit style. The fixed-limit Texas Hold'em games vary from $50/$100 down to $0.02/$0.04 although most games are still concentrated on the micro- and medium-limits. The No-Limit games vary from $5/$10 down to $0.25/$0.10, but again most action is in the lower limits.

AbsolutePoker started out having almost all their action concentrated to the low- and micro-stakes No-Limit Hold'em, but as the site has matured, players have found the other games as well, and decent action has developed at the Omaha Hi and Hi/Lo tables in particular.

Soft competition (8)

The traffic is still greatest at the micro-limits where the games vary from fairly loose to just plain loose. Games in the lower limits often have a viewed flop percentage reaching 50-60% or more. This translates into very action-packed, juicy games for the small stakes player.

You can normally find decent Hold'em games up to the $25-$50 limits and for No-Limit up to $5-$10. At the full-ring games and the middle-limits around $5-$10, the games become much tighter and will average around 40% or less for the viewed flop percentage.

The site has grown very fast since opening and now accommodates almost anyone's demands for stakes and limits.

Loyalty bonus (8)

AbsolutePoker offers the 'Absolute Rewards Loyalty Program': While playing for real money you earn points, so called Absolute Rewards Points (AR Points). Points are earned in two different ways; either through hands played at real money ring games, or from tournament buy-in fees. Points are earned as follows: (1) one point is awarded for every hand played in a real money ring game with a limit of $2/$4 or lower that has collected at least the minimum rake ($.25); (2) two points for every hand played in a real money ring game with a limit of $3/$6 or higher that has collected at least the minimum rake ($.25); (3) four points for every dollar in the tournament buy-in fee ($10 $1 tournament would earn 4 points); and, (4) special tournaments that award points to the winners. In addition, once you have played a minimum of 500 hands, AbsolutePoker will mail you an 'Absolute Reward Card' which reportedly gives the holder VIP-treatment at live tournaments, etc.

Support (10)

Currently, the only support function available is via email. Their respond time is fairly quick and accurate. Their website is informative and covers most important topics.

24/7 support: Yes
Support Features: Email
Email confirmation/receipt: No
Speed: Very fast
Knowledge: Good
Avg. NETeller pay out time: 24 hrs

Deposit & withdrawal options (7)

Deposit options: NETeller, CentralCoin, FirePay, VISA, MasterCard, Electronic Check, Bank Draft, and Wire Transfer. Cash out options: NETeller, FirePay, and Check.