A lot of U.S. players saw the events of Black Friday as shutting down access to online poker for Americans, which simply shows how closed minded most of them were. Since almost all of the skilled regulars played at such mega poker sites as Poker Stars and Full Tilt, and to a lesser extent Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, life without being able to play at these big sites was unthinkable.
Therefore, when they couldn’t play at them anymore, it became as if there were no more good options. Many were aware of some of the sites and networks still around, but due to their huge misunderstanding about how much traffic a poker site actually needs to make it a good choice, and even more notably, their inability or even outright refusal to adapt their game to what is required to do well at these other sites, most just simply curled up in a ball and lost themselves in self pity.
Many of these players simply let themselves get trapped in the misguided thinking that they could only play at sites where you could play a massive amount of tables at the same time. Where they went wrong in their thinking is that while it may have been necessary to play this many tables to be able to grind out a decent hourly rate at the toughest sites, this is not the case at all at the easier ones to make money at.
In fact it had gotten to the point that very few players, even those of outstanding skill, could even beat the rake at these massively popular poker sites. So what they would do is play a ton of tables so they could at least take in big payouts in player rewards. Even those who showed a net loss after all this felt that they were at least helping themselves with the frequent player points, and if not for this their losses would be even bigger.
What escaped these players though is the fact that they could be making a lot more money playing fewer tables elsewhere. The big problem, and what caused their feeling that they need to play so many tables in the first place, was that these big sites over the years were always quite a bit tougher to make money at anyway, and as the skill level of players rose in general, it rose a lot faster at these sites.
So what you would see is entire tables full of very good players, who didn’t just give their money away and generally played a pretty solid game. There were very few bad players and the few that there were soon lost it, as the ratio of sharks to fish was extreme. This left sharks vs. sharks almost all of the time, which is not a pretty situation at all.
So now U.S. players are forced to either play at sites which have good but not massive traffic, and unfortunately for them but unfortunately for us, most have foolishly decided that giving up the game for now while they wait for regulation to kick in is the better way to go. This is great for us because we don’t really want these players at the sites we play in.
So the wisest of us were already playing at these easier sites, and those who weren’t now have an opportunity for redemption. If you are among these players, in other words are from the USA and are now looking for a new home, we have some great recommendations for you as to the best places to play right now.
Poker Sites With The Most Traffic For NHLE
No limit holdem is by far the most popular poker variant on the internet today. Any and all good poker sites will have a huge selection of NHLE games running, provided that they have enough traffic to start with.
There are even some sites which don’t have a great deal of traffic but what they do have tends to be almost all NLHE, and if the action is loose and crazy enough there, they are definitely worth looking into for those of you who can maintain more than one account at the same time.
For instance I have accounts at quite a few different poker sites, which allows me to pick and choose a lot more. At peak times, for instance, there may be some real juicy games at a certain site, which I do not want to miss out on. This site may not be that busy in off peak times, and there may not even be anything running then that I want to play, but that’s why you need more than one.
So at these times I simply look for games at the busier ones that I have accounts at. During the peak times though I get to choose between these and the lesser traffic ones, and the net result is that I get to play in the easiest games out there at any given time. This is a beautiful thing in fact.
You do need to have a good size bankroll to pull this off though, as you don’t want to spread yourself too thin and end up delaying your progress of moving up the stakes. However, if you are still in the process of building your bankroll to a level where you can do this comfortably, a situation that many players are in, you can definitely take advantage of the bonuses we have arranged for you to get simply for trying out our recommended poker rooms.
Even more importantly, your bankroll will only have the opportunity to grow if you are playing against weaker players. Otherwise it will just shrink, and in fact you’ll need to keep putting more money in over and over again just to keep it as small as it is now. So that’s hardly the ideal situation, and you can see why I stress playing at the weak sites so much, rather than playing at the tough ones and just beat your head against the wall over and over again until you have had enough.
Poker Sites With The Most Traffic For MTTs
Multi table tournaments are actually the most popular form of poker online, as it not only provides you the opportunity to make money playing poker, it also is laid out in a structure that poker players find a lot more entertaining than grinding it out at cash games.
It’s certainly true that watching yourself climbing the leaderboard, in addition to all the extra strategy involved, ends up making things a lot more fun. There’s also the fact that you can make a lot more money than you can in cash games if you do very well in a tournament, and some offer prizes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Regardless of the stakes you play though, winning tournaments or even just making the final table can pay off huge for you.
In a way, MTTs offer all of the fun and excitement of popular casino games without the negative expectation. In other words, as fun as casino games are, you are set up to generally lose money over time. However, you can still strike it rich, like the lottery, which is another negative expectation game. When you look at how many people play these games of chance though, you start to get an idea of how appealing and fun people find them.
With poker though, luck evens out over time, and where your results become a matter of how skillful you are. So you either are skillful enough now to be profitable, or are planning on being there at some point. So MTTs are really the best of both worlds, which is a game that is this much fun and one that you can make a profit over time at as well.
Of course, playing at poker sites which feature the easiest MTTs to make money at will help you quite a bit. As is the case with everything, poker sites differ quite a bit as far as the ease or difficulty at doing well at a particular game or variation of poker goes. So we’ve put together a list for you of the best poker sites to play MTTs at, and in particular, those who both have lots of MTT traffic and the right kind of MTT traffic as well.
Poker Sites With The Best SNG Traffic
SNGs, or sit and go tournaments, are another very popular poker format. They offer the additional excitement and entertainment of multi table poker tournaments, along with not having to wait for a scheduled time to play them, and also not having to commit such a large amount of time to a poker tournament.
While SNGs do not have the large prize structure of MTTs, they do offer some real advantages over them as far as being able to play them regularly. It is difficult to have MTTs as your main game due to the big swings in your bankroll that they bring.
While you can have some real big scores, you can also go quite a while in between them, and therefore this really isn’t the best type to have as your everyday bread and butter game if you are a serious player looking to move up the stakes.
If you are just a casual player who looks at poker as primarily a form of entertainment, then playing MTTs exclusively is fine, but if you are looking to protect your bankroll, SNGs are actually the ideal thing to play. Your chances of finishing in the money are always very good, so this provides you the opportunity to safely move up stakes faster, and even faster than playing cash poker.
Doing well at SNGs and being able to move up like this is once again a matter of your first needing to be playing at the best sites, which have a lot of SNG traffic and also feature weaker SNG competition in comparison to other poker sites. So feel free to check out our list of the best SNG traffic poker sites.
Poker Sites With The Best PLO Traffic
PLO, or Pot Limit Omaha, has become more and more popular over the last few years. While it used to be quite difficult to find a lot of PLO action online, nowadays if you know where to play, there’s quite a few games and tables running. It isn’t even difficult at all now to just focus on PLO and play it exclusively, which will allow you to really develop your skills at it and pound your competitors at the poker table, watching them spew off their chips while you rake them in.
Of course, you need not only a good amount of Omaha traffic, but also need access to the loosest and worst Omaha players on the internet, something that following our top recommendations of Omaha traffic poker sites will give you.
Poker Sites With The Most Traffic For Mixed Games
There are a lot of different other variations of poker, and all poker players owe it to themselves to at least sample the pretty wide variety of these forms of poker. For instance, within Holdem, there is not only no limit but pot limit and fixed limit as well. With Omaha, there is Omaha Hi, and Omahi Hi/Lo, where the high and low hand split’s the pot.
There are also other forms of poker available online, such as Razz, where the “worst” hand wins, seven card stud, which is similar to holdem other than there are no community cards, five card stud, draw poker, HORSE, which is a mixture of five different games, and so on.
So if you like to experiment and try new things, you are going to need to be playing at the poker sites which have the most traffic for these other forms of poker, especially if you are looking to try out some of the variations that are off the beaten track so to speak. So check out our top recommendations which have good traffic for mixed games, as well as all of the other types that we’ve mentioned previously.
#1 Poker Room With The Most Players – Pokerstars
Pokerstars (www.pokerstars.com) has the market cornered, when it comes to player bases. The largest online poker room in the world has a full 50% market-share of online poker players, and nearly doubles the amount of their nearest competitor Full Tilt Poker (which has a sizeable player base in its own right). PokerStars has had days with over 100,000 real-money players sitting at their tables at any given time.
Online poker players who sign-up at PokerStars by following the link we have provided below will receive one of PokerStars’ best deposit bonuses of all-time: A 100% match bonus up to a maximum of $600! So, not only will you be playing at the world’s largest poker room with a ton of fishy poker players, you’ll also be eligible for up to $60-0 in free money!
| >> Click here to visit Pokerstars << |
#2 Poker Room With The Most Players – William Hill Poker
William Hill Poker (www.williamhill.com) are right behind PokerStars in terms of traffic. They have a huge player base that constitutes 25% of all online poker traffic in the world. So, even though PokerStars doubles the traffic that William Hill has, William Hill Poker has the same amount of online poker players as every other online poker room combined!
If you sign-up at Will Hill Poker and make your first real-money deposit by following the link we have provided on this page you will also receive a special gift; a 100% up to $1000 deposit bonus, in addition to all of the site’s other terrific promotions.
| >> Click here to visit William Hill Poker << |
#3 Poker Room With The Most Players – Party Poker
Party Poker (www.partypoker.com) not only has a very strong player base, but the site has a lot of potential for growth, and has been coming on like gang-busters as of late. With a recent merger with Bwin, Party Poker could once again challenge PokerStars and the Ipoker network for online poker supremacy.
Party Poker players are also eligible for one of the best poker deposit bonuses if they sign-up at Party Poker through the links we have provided on this page. Right now their deposit bonus stands at a massive 100% up to $500!
| >> Click here to visit Party Poker << |
Why play at an online poker rooms with the most players
The reason it is so important to choose a well-trafficked online poker room is to insure that you are always able to find a good game regardless of the poker variant you play, or the time of day you log on to play online poker. It’s a well-known fact that the vast majority of poker players are poor players, so in poker the more players there are, the more fish there will be at the poker tables.
Also, you can be fairly certain that if an online poker room has a large player base they will also have a very good reputation, use fast stable software, and run a variety of player-friendly promotions.
