Full Tilt Poker Review


Full Tilt Poker LobbyFull Tilt Poker Game

Full Tilt Poker, est. 2004, is a stand-alone poker room with it’s own proprietary software developed by TiltWare LCC for Kolyma Corp. It is completely unique in it’s design with many graphic features you won’t see anywhere else. Full Tilt Poker is the second-largest poker room in terms of cash games (PokerStars being the largest for just about everything (read our PokerStars review)!).

Full Tilt Poker has it’s own stable of professional players such as Phil “Jerome” Ivey, Howard “The Professor” Lederer, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, David Benyamine, Andy Black and many, many more. If you feel like taking them on, just sit down at their table and get busy. They can be found playing all stakes and just about any game, from $1/2 Razz to nosebleed limits No Limit Hold’Em (”NLHE”). There is a separate section where, if you are lucky, can chat it up with your favourite pro player.

Games And Tournaments

Full Tilt Poker offers a wide variety of ring games, [NL]/[PL]/[FL] Hold Em tables and Omaha Hi & Hi/Lo ones from $0.05/0.10 to $1000/2000. The Stud section features both Stud Hi, Stud Hi/Lo as well as Razz games, all from $0.25/0.50 to $1000/2000. There is also a Mixed Games section where HA/HO/[HOSE]/[HORSE] is being played. As Full Tilt Poker is the second largest poker room overall, traffic is extremely high, all games at practically all limits run around the clock, every day of the year.

Full Tilt Poker tournaments run 24/7 with buy-ins from a single dollar to several thousand, both [MTTs] and [SnGs]. Full Tilt runs both [World Poker Tour qualifiers] and [World Series Of Poker qualifiers]: in fact there is a plethora of satellites/qualifiers to major online and live events such as the “Aussie Millions”, the [WPT]/[WSOPC], “Poker After Dark” and the “1 Million Guaranteed”. There is also a monthly [MTTs] leaderboard where players earn points towards cash prizes, tournament seats and the right to participate in a $12,000 freeroll.

Promotions & Service

Full Tilt Poker offers a standing 100% sign-up bonus up to a maximum of $600. Quite frankly, this poor bonus is one of the worst in the business and is extremely hard to clear, especially at the lowest limits. For every dollar that is raked from the pot you receive 1 “Full Tilt Point” and for every 16.67 Full Tilt Points earned you are awarded $1. If you are a penny player, don’t expect to clear this bonus without putting in an enormous amount of hands and hours. However, there is a small upside as this bonus clears in increments of $10 or 10%. I recommend comparing this sign-up bonus to others and then decide if you want to go for it or not. Reloads are scarce.

Support and customer service leave a lot to be desired. There is no telephone support at all and no live chat. If you try to contact them by email, consider yourself lucky to receive an answer within days. And if you do, chances are it’s a generic one which doesn’t address your issues at all. A whole poker world is waiting for, and expecting, Full Tilt Poker to improve on this.

Banking

When it comes to funding your [Full Tilt Poker] account, there are a few options. Credit Cards, Neteller, Moneybookers, Click2Pay, Epassporte and Cash Transfers are all approved methods. Withdrawals to all e-wallets are fast and will not take more than 48 hours. Withdrawal by cheque is quite the opposite, there are many stories of players having to wait for months to recieve a requested cheque and there are no signs that points to this changing in the near future. Consider other withdrawal options if you are looking for a fast cashout.

Conclusion

Despite the poor customer support and the average sign-up bonus, I’m going to give [Full Tilt Poker] an above average rating. Why? Simply because of the multitude of games offered, low-mid stakes games always run and not many poker rooms can offer that. The second Full Tilt Poker opens up a functional support service and revises the sign-up bonus, I’m going to up the grade by quite a few points.