Texas Hold'em Sites

These days there really is a huge amount of Texas Hold’em sites in the market and as a new player it’s pretty confusing as to which site offers the best bonuses, games, players and so forth. When I first started playing poker I played on a now defunct site called Pokerroom. This was in around 2001 and it was one of the secondary rooms but was pretty damn busy for the time.

Listing the Best Texas Hold'em Poker Sites

Anyways the point of this page is to help YOU find a decent poker site to sign-up with. Above I’ve listed some of my personal favourites, each offering something a little different than the next which you can see in the bullet points. If you are curious about what sort of factors make up a good online poker site, skip down the page a little for some pointers on selection.

Finding the Best Hold'em Sites

To be completely honest, choosing a great poker site is something that is highly subjective and in the end boils down to your personal tastes and needs as a poker player. That being said, there are a number of factors that I consider important in forming the foundation for a legit and worthwhile poker room. While I don’t profess to be an absolute expert on the topic, I’ve had enough experience in the industry to know the good from the bad sites.

Brand – This is somewhat of a no-brainer but is far to often overlooked by new players getting into the game. In general, you are going to want to stick with major brand names in the poker industry. As the market has grown, most of the smaller poker rooms have either gone out of business or been swallowed up by the big boys, so chances are if you stick with a major room you are going to have a good playing experience. To put it simply, don’t sign up at “Joe’s Poker” just because they offer a slightly higher bonus than PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker. This is a sure-fire way to end up at a poorly managed room and create a bunch of headaches for yourself.

Sign-Up Bonus - While I’d say this is a somewhat important factor when selecting a poker site, it’s definitely not the most important. Look for a room that has an industry standard bonus (usually 100% up to $500/$600) and stick with that choice. Make sure that you read the terms and clearing requirements for the bonus so that you don’t get stuck with a ton of expired bonus money that you can’t use. Almost every poker room will offer a points based VIP program whereby you accumulate points for playing on their site. These points are usually used to convert your bonus to real money and they will spell out exactly how you earn the bonus. There’s no point in taken the maximum bonus if you cannot realistically play enough to get it, so be smart on your first deposit.

Game Selection – Back in the old days of online poker, some poker rooms didn’t offer less popular variations of poker games, however these days most sites will offer a good variety of games. If you are looking to play a very specific game like H.O.R.S.E you should check before hand to ensure that the room you like offers it to players.

Player Traffic – This is a pretty important point to consider at each poker room since it sucks to join and deposit at a site only to find out the games are barely full every time you sign in to play. Depending on your location and preferred time of playing, you’ll want to do a bit of research to make sure that the site has full ring games or tournaments at your own personal peak hours. A good site to check out with regards to this is Poker Scout which lists the traffic statistics for a number of different poker sites and networks operating throughout the industry.

Competition – The level of play competition at the poker site is a huge factor in determining how profitable or un-profitable you may be at the tables. Only you know your true skill level, however I personally recommend looking for sites with generally weak opponents to increase your bankroll before moving to the tough sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. It really depends on whether you are looking to make money in cash games or are a tournament player looking for the biggest and best options. If you are the latter, your going to have a tough time finding high value tournaments with big prize pools, however cash game players can still really clean up at some of the notoriously easy poker rooms like Party Poker and Titan Poker.

Deposit Options – This is really only an issue if you are located in Canada or the United States since the regulations are a bit tighter in these jurisdictions. If you do reside in one of these countries, become familiar with some of the options available to you like eCheck or MoneyBookers and ensure that the poker site you are looking at offers them to players. Typically PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have the best options for players in North America, although Titan Poker has good options for accommodating Canadian players.

Customer Support – Not really a huge factor if you don’t need them, but if you do you are really going to crazy if you end up at a crappy site. Most poker rooms only offer email support but as long as you stick with the major rooms you shouldn’t have any issues and although the response might be slow your problem will be solved.

So there you have it, my personal tips on choosing a great Texas Hold’em poker site. As I mentioned in the beginning of this section, it’s best to use these factors in conjunction with your own personal tastes to find a poker room that is right for you as a player. The great thing about online poker is there are a ton of different options out there for you so if you are ever unhappy with one poker site there’s plenty others to choose from.