Pokerstars - Opinions please...

[RicayBoy]

Hi all

Being a bit of an old stick in the mud, my accounts have historically been at "British" sites like Ladbrokes, Virgin and of course Betfair (which I"ll stick with naturally)

However, I"m thinking of opening an account with Pokerstars and would like people"s views.

My biggest concerns are

1) Can you get your money out easily? My only previous experience outside of a UK name was a disaster and involved waiting for about 2 months before a check finally turned up.

2) Do they cater well for the non-US market? Can you set the clock to UK time? Are there enough decent tourneys in off-peak US time?

I"m mainly a small(ish) stakes MTT player (US$ 5-30 buy in) and like to try and satellite into bigger events (preferably not solely with turbo rebuy qualifiers - Betfair please note!!) and play smallish stakes cash (0.25/50 and 0.50/1.00 sort of level.)

I would appreciate any view on Pokerstars especially with regard to cashing out.

Many thanks

JL

[deanp27]

its very safe and has large selection of games. However MTTs will have loads of runners at lower levels (except some nice capped tournies) and multi SNGs. Cash games are fine and lower rake than some other sites (i.e. full tilt) at low stakes. However if rakeback is an issue you won"t get it here.

Would recommend, playability of the software is much better as well than most other sites

[Shonky]

love pokerstars.  never had a problem cashing out, money in my account in just a couple days (will pay back into the account you deposited from.  staggered first deposit bonus.  great for sit and goes as they usually fill up pretty quick.  the mtts have huge fields, so getting final tables wont be easy no matter how good you are, but the payouts up there are huge compared to buyin.  as for rakeback*, they have their VIP system which award points you can redeem for tourney entries, cash or stuff from their store, plus the higher you are in the scheme, the more free stuff you get.  Pokerstars customer support is easily the best in the business, always quick to reply and usually faultless in their approach.  you can play satelites and unregister from the target for tournament dollars you can use on any buy-ins.  final table deal making is possible, though you have to know how.  can transfer funds between players.  there are limited euros games and only occasional £ games, though they tend to be good ones to go for because of the reduced playing fields in mtts and less USA rocks.  you can set your time zone for anywhere on the planet. software is quick and stable and user interface easy to navigate. 

highly recomended.

*edit: forgot to mention stellar rewards, lump sums of cash you release just by earning VIP player points.

[WYoung83]

 Depends what you like playing, agree with all above, but i actually like softwear on fulltilt better. I find it easier to multitable cash games because it seems to be quicker and people dont take as long to make a decision. MTTs are better on stars as is sngs. And the customer service is better on stars, and options for changing the currency is nice. No rakeback options is a bit ****ty,

So if You sign upto Tilt, do urself a favour and get a rakeback deal from raketherake, or rakeback pros. Its really hard to get a deal once u have alrady signed up.

So id say stars is best for grinding sngs and Mtts, but defently Tilt for cash games as they are softer, as far as i know you cannot change clock on Tilt, so a bit annoying when your looking for the MTtts

[countryfeedback]

I"m a recent starter to pokerstars (previously exclusively on PKR) and only play MTTs. Just be prepared to have long tournies in the lower stakes. I came second in a $5+.50 last month for $1800, over 3000 runners and only took almost 11 hours!

[WYoung83]

But thats a good return on $5. i hate it on stars when you play for 5 hrs and get a min cash.