PartyPoker’s constant traffic is the main reason most reviewers give this behemoth high marks. (Some 70 percent of all online-poker players, in fact, make regular appearances at its tables).
But Party’s all-out dominance on our charts has more to do with its scads of top-notch features. Its unique “Average Pot” option, for instance, has wowed the folks here at GP Poker because it solves one of the most basic problems players have: Rather than having to join a table and blow your wad learning whether it’s playing loose or tight, you can just click “Average Pot” in the lobby for an instant summary of every game’s chip counts.
Party also originated in-game options like “Auto-Post Blind,” “Fold Any Bet” and "Show-Muck," all of which have become standard in every poker room created since its inception. These little tweaks, in addition to Party’s outrageously large $5,000 Freeroll, make for some darned good enticement.
Still more compelling are Party Poker's connections to the World Poker Tour and its huge Million Dollar Guaranteed house event. Granted, competition is fiercer at Party than at most rooms, but you certainly can’t dismiss the possibility of winning your way into one of the world’s premier tournament circuits or scoring yourself a million big ones. From our standpoint at least, a chance to win these high-caliber prizes is well worth the requisite sign-up money.
While other, less popular poker rooms might have more attractive graphics and play environments, Party inevitably wins out simply because of its unparalleled table selection. Fish abound in its lobby lists, as well as world-wise veterans willing to test a serious player's mettle.
And, for the truly hard-core among us, there's a multi-game option that let's players participate in up to four tables at once. Multi-table play may sound a little crazy to the uninitiated, but as those of us who have been around the cyber block know, it ultimately improves your chances of finding an easy table and pulling in a bigger purse.
As for downsides, Party’s bonuses do leave something to be desired. Its pint-size maximum sign-up bonus, after all, looks pretty minuscule beside the 3,390 euros in raked hands you have to play before you get paid. Meanwhile, news that Party co-founder Anurag Dikshit has admitted to violating the U.S.’s Wire Act of 1961 raises some questions as to what the room’s future might hold.
And yet Party still makes the top of our list because of how definitively it outstrips the competition in almost every area and because of all the improvements it’s made to its security features. These upgrades, in and of themselves, would have won us over enough to recommend it. But on top of everything else, they knock the proverbial ball straight out of the park.
