Absolute Poker Review

Absolute Poker Deposit Bonus: 100% Up to $500 FREE Bonus Code: SOURCE Deposit Options: Bank Wire CartaSi Check Click2Pay ClickandBuy Delta Eps Giropay iDeal Laser Maestro Mastercard   Moneybookers Neteller Nordea Pay by 4B Paysafecard Poli PostePay Przelewy24 Sofortüberweisung Solo Switch Ukash Visa

Download Absolute Poker Visit Absolute Poker

	So, you don’t want to spend your money for on-line poker then try our free money promotions. We will give you cash so you can start your on-line poker bankroll.
	The free gift promotion is a great option for players who already have a bankroll but would like to try other rooms, we offer free gifts for signing up through PSO.
	For die hard players, you can earn a percentage of all the rake you contribute while playing online poker

Name Absolute Poker Country Costa Rica Network CEREUS Established 2003 Support email support Telephone N/A

Overall Rating 4.70 Software/Interface 4.7 Ring Games 4.5 Tournaments 4.9 Game Variety 4.7 Soft Competition 4.5 Signup Bonus 5.1 Frequent Player 4.5 Promotions 4.8 Customer Support 4.6 Deposit & Cashout 5.0

Absolute Poker was started by poker players in 2003 as a stand-alone site designed to run proprietary software. Early on the AP team brought in poker pro Mark Seif as an endorser and consultant, and since then they added Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi, who was named Player of the Year in 2006. They have added a couple of skins within the last year or so, as well as the casino game Blackjack. As of August 2008, Absolute Poker has combined with its longtime sister site, UltimateBet to form the monolithic Cereus Network, the third largest online gaming network in the world.

In general, real money action is concentrated at the Texas Hold’em games on Absolute Poker.

One of the most alluring qualities of AP is their openness to a truly international contingent: namely, that they have remained committed to serving the US market and in so doing have welcomed many ‘refugees’ from other sites. Absolute Poker is a comprehensive, interactive online poker room, providing features such as hand history, stat retrieval, player notes, chat, player search, six table play, and representative image selection to provide the poker player with a full online gaming experience.

Absolute Poker offers the following games: Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz , H.O.R.S.E and H.O.S.E along with both tournament and ring game blackjack.
Absolute Poker’s Texas Hold’em lower Fixed Limit and NL traffic (like $.25/$.50 - $2/$4) is relatively strong at peak hours but keep in mind that the games have a reputation of being fairly tight so it can be tough to clear some of the bonuses. There is a good selection of Texas Hold’em tourneys, with a fair amount of guaranteed tourneys offered daily and even a few big guaranteed tourneys offered on the weekends – in total Absolute Poker offers over $1,000,000 every month in Guaranteed Tournaments.

They support both re-buy and non re-buy tourneys along with a large selection of satellites if you do not want to pony up the full buy-in for the bigger tourneys.

The 1, 2, 3, and 5 table Sit & Gos are quite popular and fill up quickly, especially during peak hours (peak hours vary from site to site, but generally speaking they are between 8 and 12 pm EST for US sites.) Absolute Poker has a wide selection of Heads-Up action, and also allows players to create their own tourneys, which is a very popular feature.

The Omaha action is better at the lower stakes in both regular Omaha and Hi/Lo. In 7 Card Stud the action is quite limited at any level, and the action for RAZZ is non-existent outside of peak hours.
They offer frequent reload bonuses in the 20-25% range and even higher for VIPs. They have recently changed the bonus clearing schedule and it has become more difficult, but players are still given 60 days to try to clear what they can. The VIP program is extremely solid. Players earn Rewards Points every time they play real money cash games and tournaments, and these points can be used to buy into special tourneys or buy merchandise in the AR Store and the exclusive VIP Store. Absolute Poker now supports a 9% interest bearing account through their player store.

Absolute Poker has many advanced features such as multi-table play (up to 6 ring games) and hand replay, and the software can integrate with Poker Tracker. The software had a reputation of being 'buggy' but with the formation of the Cereus network, all of those issues have become things of the past.

The dealer speed is average and players have a longer time to act than in most sites. It is also more PC-resource intensive to run than many of the other top sites.
 
In addition to the past “buggy” reputation, Absolute Poker has also been the butt of jokes for having some of the ugliest tables in the industry. The graphics looked like they were designed by a Nintendo programmer back in 1985. In August 2007, however, Absolute finally released a long overdue update to its software client (dubbed Absolute Poker 8.0) which introduced a sleeker looking interface at the virtual tables. Two new table views were added, in addition to the “classic” view: a three-quarter view and a second overhead view. “Fold” markers were added so that it is easier to tell who is no longer in the hand (the cards in front of the seats are small), but they tend to be distracting to multi-tablers, especially because they overshadow the dealer button.
 
In the “classic” view, players can download different skins to customize the look of the tables, but those skins are not available yet for the new table views. Players can also use a personal avatar, which is rather large and can be annoying to some, but they can be turned off.
 
Sound effects are clear, but the ‘check’ sound makes two rapid clicks that can be misunderstood as two players checking instead of one. A visual 'check' graphic has been added to minimize this confusion.
Absolute Poker has done a nice design job with the lobby, which is very easy to navigate. There are separate tabs for Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, Tourneys and Sit & Gos; and each tab has sub tabs for more detailed searches. Columns can also be sorted by table name, stakes, numbers of players, etc. The game information display includes players per table, wait, average pot size, players per flop and hands per hour. The tourney lobby is very functional, and you can easily find whatever you are looking for, whether it is a special satellite, one of the many guaranteed tourneys, or even a satellite into their big weekly $150k tourney.

Absolute Poker offers both tournament and ring game Blackjack, but if hitting on soft 17s is not your thing (or if you find it too tempting) the icon can be blocked from view.
 
Absolute Poker has offered a chat feature since their inception but if you so choose you have the ability to block anyone from chatting with you. The chat feature is easy to use and can provide some fun banter, just make sure you keep it clean or you may lose your chat privileges.

Absolute Poker has a number of features to protect your privacy. The client software uses the certificates issued by their own Certificate Authority (CA) to authenticate their servers. Absolute Poker software authenticates their servers by using the industry standard DES combined with AP's custom encryption algorithm. They use 256 bit encryption to ensure the highest level of privacy and confidentiality of data both to and from Absolute Poker's servers.
 
It should be noted that both Absolute Poker and its sister site, UltimateBet have recently suffered substantial security breaches. Despite these breaches, both sites have been cleared by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and neither has lost much in the way of player traffic.

In addition to the variety of deposit and withdrawal methods, Absolute Poker customers can also transfer funds to and from real money accounts at UltimateBet.com. The accounts may belong to the same player or different players who wish move funds between each other’s accounts.

They offer live chat support in addition to email. Their support can be slow at times, but the assistance is usually accurate and helpful.