Several years ago PokerStars.Net exploded onto the online poker scene when an accountant from Georgia turned a $39 satellite buy-in into a $2.5 million dollar WSOP Championship. But Chris Moneymaker is not the only WSOP champion bred at Poker Stars. This site has also produced the WSOP Champions Greg "Fossil Man" Raimer and Joseph Hachem. While PokerStars.Net is know for tournament play, it also offers a wide variety of cash games from which to choose. PokerStars.Net is a large site with lots of options to explore.

While there are many Poker Stars reviews available on the internet, most simply give you a quick description and a rating. Here's a complete PokerStars review to help you decide if this site is right for you.

PokerStars.Net was founded in 2000 and is located on the Isle of Man in the British Isles. While it has ranked as one of the internet's top poker rooms since its inception, Poker Stars' real break came after the legislation in the United States banning online gambling. PokerStars made the decision to continue to allow US players and that decision helped make them the largest poker room in the world, stealing the title from their long time rival Party Poker.

Today PokerStars boasts over 100,000 players online at any given time and over 3,000 tournaments running. That means that you can find the game you want anytime day or night. PokerStars is truly an international site offering game play in 14 different languages.

The PokerStars download is a fairly large file at 6.6 megs, but that information translates into some pretty cool features for the online poker player. When you first log in you're greeted with an easy-to-use screen that gives you the option to join Hold'em, Omaha, Stud, Other Games, Tourneys, SNGs, or Special Events. Each of these options is further subdivided so you can find the game you want quickly.

The PokerStars software also offers a unique filter system that allows you to choose between heads up games, full ring games, and 6-max games. You can also hide full tables to make your search a bit easier. However the best feature on the PokerStars filter is the fast table/normal table option.

Gone are the days of waiting forever for your fellow poker players to decide whether to bet or fold. If you're the impatient type, you may find the fast tables at Poker Stars more enjoyable than standard tables. Here are the differences:

You can see how all of those seconds add up. The person who would benefit from this feature the most is the professional or semi-professional online poker player who multi-tables. Fast tables offer more hands per hour on average than normal tables thus raising the number of big blinds per hour that you can make.

Enhanced search and game play features aren't the only things that come with the PokerStars.Net download. You're also able to customize your game play. One very useful feature is the 4-color deck. When you select this option you'll see hearts in red, spades in black, clubs in green, and diamonds in blue. Four color decks make it a lot easier to notice the flush draw; especially when you're playing multiple tables.

In addition, Pokerstars.net gives you the option to change deck colors, auto-muck losing hands, never show winning hands, and turn off tournament announcements (which can get annoying).

You've probably seen comments typed in your favorite poker room's chat window along the lines of "typical poker stars BS" or "there's another party poker special." These players are suggesting that the site is not totally random and that the software will do things such as favor a new player over an old player in order to hook them on the site. These accusations are usually unfounded, however the fact remains that it's difficult to create a truly random shuffle method with a computer program because all computer programs use rules (and rules are always predictable over time). PokerStars solves this problem by entering truly random information into their shuffling algorithm.

The two sources of random input that PokerStars uses in its algorithm are a summary of mouse movements from the players and a random number generator developed by Intel that uses thermal noise to get its data. When you combine these two methods you get a completely random shuffle that's second to none! As an added measure of safety, PokerStars has its algorithms verified as random by two independent companies.

PokerStars offers about 13 different methods of depositing your money. Here's a list of some of the most popular deposit options that PokerStars.netPoker Review offers along with the restrictions of each:

eChecks, ClickandBuy, Moneybookers, NETeller, Major Credit Cards, WebMoney. PokerStars.Net will accept Solo and Maestro debit cards from the UK and Ireland only.

Tournaments are where PokerStars.Net really shines! At any given time PokerStars offers over 3,000 tournaments to choose from. You'll find the same game variety in the PokerStars tournament section as you found in the cash section with, of course, Texas Hold'em and Omaha making up the majority of the tournament offerings.

If Sit-N-Goes are your bread and butter, then Poker Stars is definitely the site for you. This site offers games ranging from $1.00 + 0.20 to $2000 + 90. The low and mid limits fill up fast and even the $500 + 30 level sees some decent action. You can choose from full ring games (10), shorthanded games (6), Multi-table games (up to 180), and heads up.

PokerStars also has a range of regular tournaments being offered and any given time and you can get into a lot of the higher dollar tournaments by winning satellites. Who knows, you might be the next person to roll a $39 buy-in into a $2.5 million dollar championship!

Like all poker rooms, PokerStars.Net offers deposit and reload bonuses on a regular basis. PokerStars offers all new players a 100% $50 poker bonus to get you started.

The bonuses at PokerStars are generally pretty easy to clear. To clear a bonus, you have to earn 10 Frequent Player Points (FPP) for every dollar. For example, if you have a $50 bonus to clear, you need to earn 500 FPPs to clear the bonus. The number of FPPs you earn in cash games depends on the size of the rake, so higher stakes generally clears bonuses faster than lower stakes. You can also earn FPPs for tournament play at a rate of 5 FPP for every $1 paid in tournament fees.

Just like any site with almost 100,000 people, there's bound to be more than a fair share of donkeys. In the past, I've found that the lower limits are dominated by loose-passive players with a few loose-aggressives. However, the players get much better as you move up the limits.

Tournaments, however, are a different story. The very nature of a tournament weeds out the weaker players early so after an hour or two of play you're left with the best of the best. Since PokerStars.Net is such a big tournament site, you'll be up against some of the best tournament players that cyberspace has to offer. The fact that three WSOP champions have come out of PokerStars.Net should alert you to the fact that these aren't your usual online donkeys.

Overall, PokerStars.Net is one of the best poker rooms on the net. As I stated in this PokerStars.Net review, you'll always find the game you want on this site. Perhaps PokerStars greatest advantage lies in the sheer number of players on the site. A large number of players guarantees that Sit-N-Goes fill fast, tournaments have large payouts, and cash games always have a seat open.

PokerStars is also one of only a handful of poker rooms that still allow US players to play. Depositing is easy, the cash games are soft, and the play is fast. What more could you want. Pokerstars.net is the one to play.

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