Games
Offered Rating
6
Empire Poker offers
the leading volume in all games hosted; Holdem, Omaha and 7-Card-Stud in both
High and Hi-Lo. However, Empire Poker does not offer certain games such as
heads-up matches, draw poker, crazy pineapple, etc. Moreover, there is no
pot-limit version in any of the 7-Card-Stud games or the Omaha
High.
Limits and
Rake
For Empire
Poker the rake is not so attractive, as it highly disfavors the low
limit games. The higher limit games actually have a comparably low rake. The
rake runs as high as 10% in $0.50/$1 and $1/$2 games, as 50 cent is raked when
the pot reaches $5. This holds true also for the tournaments, where good value
only is provided at the higher stakes. 20% fee in $5 games and 8% fee in $100
games.
Player
Traffic Rating 10
This is the largest poker site we have
reviewed. They commonly have over 10,000 real-money players playing during peak
hours. When you include play money players, they have over 70,000 players at
times. Most of their traffic is their live games and their single table
tournaments. Their promotions often revolve around sending players to land-based
tournaments, such as the World Poker Tour Bellagio Event and the WSOP.
Promotions Rating 10
Empire Poker has many
promotions for its players. One promotion is their "TV Star" tournament. Each
Saturday, they hold a $100+$10 tournament that awards packages to the WPT
Bellagio event in December 2005. Each of these packages is worth $17,000, and
Empire Poker guarantees that at least one package will be given away for each
tournament.
Empire also hosts daily and monthly cash freerolls. For example, Empire hosts two daily $500
freerolls. They are open to
the first 250 or 500 players who register.
Empire also has freerolls through their VIP Club.
The cost to enter these freerolls is 2000 VIP Points, which does not take too
long to earn, provided you do not blow all of your VIP points on Empire Poker
t-shirts. These freerolls generally give out $10,000 in cash or a seat to a
tournament that is worth $10k (such as the WSOP).
Playability Rating 8
The software at Empire Poker is
reasonably good, with a number of upgrades during both 2003 and early
2004. From a practical standpoint the playability is good. With its
phenomenal growth, Empire Poker has added servers and increased bandwidth in
order to secure full reliability at 50,000 simultaneous players. However, a few
players have complained over delays and disconnections at certain tournaments.
Overall though, Empire Poker has very good quality nowadays in line or better
than most competitors. 3 tables simultaneously per player is allowed.
Unfortunately, the view flop percentages are not presented, neither are hands
per hour rate. (This has the benefit though, that the looser games are
"protected"). You see the average pot size of the last 20 hands. The personal
playing statistics function is somewhat rudimentary, but works well. Player
notes function is included. In sum, the software is good today after
improvements to support the record breaking traffic.
Customer
Service/Site
Security Rating 8
The Customer Service at this site is
used to be first class and very professional. The online floor person was ready
to assist your needs 24/7. However, in recent times the quality of person
answering your questions has slipped. Often it can be a bit of a waste of
time as questions are not dealt with properly. Emailing support might be a
better solution as emails are dealt with promptly. This site is doing well, it is the largest online poker
room in terms of traffic. There has been no indication of any impending problems
at all. To back this up the player traffic is more than enough to sustain this
site.
