Review of Full Tilt Poker

Our review of Full Tilt Poker will describe the poker room of big signup bonuses and plenty of sponsored professional players. The bonus structure from FTP is great, but you'll find some of the tightest games online at this site. This shouldn't be a big problem with the right adjustments in your play, but many players just can't seem to beat these tables. I do pretty well at this site, and I find their software to be very appealing.

Categories Reviewed at FullTiltPoker.com

Fish: 1
The lack of fish is probably this site's biggest drawback. Most tables have a flop percentage between 20-40%, even at the lowest limits. While this doesn't necessarily mean that you can't win at Full Tilt, you'll have to deal with a lot of tight players. Fellow sharks: do not come to this site on an empty stomach. Tend to mix up your play and change gears more often against these players.

Sharks: 4 (inverse rating)
The fish-to-shark ratio at Full Tilt is not what you'd ideally hope for. There are many good players on this site, and the rest of them are tight players. Most pots aren't very large unless more than one player has a great hand, and many hands are decided preflop or on the flop. While the level of play is tougher than the average online poker room, I still enjoy playing here and wouldn't suggest that you stay away from Full Tilt for this reason alone.

Bait (promotions): 4.5
The initial signup bonus is currently one of the highest online at 100%, up to $600. You do need to play raked hands to earn it, but one excellent feature of the Full Tilt software is the ability to see how much bonus you have earned down to the penny. They also have the best lineup of pros in the industry with names like Phil Ivey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, and Howard Lederer. Occasionally, you can find these players online at the tables, and their names will appear in red in the table player list. They also offer a few WSOP seats that are given to the top finishers in a freeroll, which I think is a great offer.

Skin (software): 4.5
I give Full Tilt high points for the originality of their software. They spent the time to develop a unique product with a great hand history feature. The avatars have a very animated-looking feel to them, and you can actually click a button to make them show a few different facial expressions at the table. One aspect I really like is their hand history feature, which shows you the entire table and card graphics as opposed to just plain text. The games also move along pretty quickly.

Prey (tournaments): 3.5
Full Tilt doesn't offer a large number of tournaments, especially during off-peak hours. They also cater mostly to larger bankrolls, as the buy-ins are typically steeper than average. While I can see their logic in promoting their site to serious poker players, a lot of us enjoy playing lower limits and smaller tournaments. I usually stick to the ring games at this site.

Overall Full Tilt Rating

Pearls (positives)
They give an excellent signup bonus, provide original software, and give you the chance to play with lots of top pros.

Hooks (negatives)
One of the tightest sites around, you definitely will be lacking in your Omega-3 intake if you play here exclusively. What are Omega-3s? You call yourself a shark and don't know the staple of a fishy diet? That's why us hammerheads stick around so long.

The Hammer (overall rating): 4

♣ Visit fulltiltpoker.com

Tips for Playing at Full Tilt

Meat (tips)
I have had much better luck with slowplaying hands at Full Tilt. While I usually dismiss slowplaying online as being too dangerous in terms of potential draws, you won't make much money here unless you're willing to gamble on that chance. Potential hands to slowplay include top pair with top kicker, two pair, a set, and definitely a straight or better. I will put up my token defense if I see two suited or connected cards on the flop, but if they're not there, I'll try to trap my opponents on later betting rounds.

Blubber (babble)
While I give kudos to FTP for including a shark in their assortment of avatars, it's such a generic-looking shark! I mean, have you seen how great I look in my Hammerhead portrait? Why was I not chosen as the model for this avatar? If you do end up going to the shark avatar, be sure to choose a facial expression that looks real mean.

♣ ♣ For further details and ratings for FullTiltPoker.com, you can visit our basic Full Tilt Poker review.

     

More Poker Reviews by Hammerhead

♣ Return to the index page listing all of Hammerhead's poker room reviews.