Review of Golden Palace Poker

This review of Golden Palace Poker will address the poker site front of one of the most popular online casinos. They're probably best known for their viral marketing attempts (remember the pink bunny… or how about the writing on the boxer's back?), but behind the scenes they are pretty professional. Some of the positives of their poker room include some awful competition (mmm… albacore tuna) and decent software.

Categories Reviewed at GoldenPalacePoker.com

Fish: 4
Most of the competition would best be described as maniacal on this network. They actually share a player base with poker sites like Doyle's Room, but Golden Palace Poker provides most of the aquatic life. Many of the players are crossover customers from the casino, and thus are inexperienced poker players. Casino players turned poker players also tend to be on the aggressive side, which makes these players poor in terms of skill, but also very unpredictable with their routine reckless game play.

Sharks: 3 (inverse rating)
The lower limits are pretty safe for the tight-aggressive player. You'll often run into maniacs who will gladly throw their money at you with very slim draws, or perhaps no draw at all. As the limit increase, the competition tends to stiffen somewhat. Many players still tend to hold onto that aggression, but they generally don't make as many mistakes. I recommend scouting these games out for potential predators before you sit down and invest a decent amount of money.

Bait (promotions): 3.5
Golden Palace tends to offer a few interesting promotions each month, but nothing extremely original. You're eligible for a first-time 25% deposit bonus, which is modest. You'll need to earn Action Points, which are based on rake, before your bonus is released. It may take single-table small-stakes players beyond the expiration date to earn your bonus, although middle and higher stakes players will earn this bonus pretty quickly. They also host a $50,000 guaranteed tournament every week, and the buy-in is pretty low if you can resist the re-buys. Besides that, they're currently offering a jackpot for repeat Sit 'n Go tournament wins. This has become a fairly common poker site promotion, but at least through GP you'll only need to win 5 in a row. That's a pretty tall feat, but if all else fails you could just eat the rest of your opponents. Oops, I forgot about who I'm writing to… that's what I can do if all else fails.

Skin (software): 3.5
The software is fairly simplistic, but it does have all the necessary features. Graphics aren't extremely detailed, but they do have some unique options such as a chat lobby, buddy list, and custom avatars. One recent upgrade that I like allows you to view the active pot at all time. Also, the games do run very quickly, which I give them points for.

Prey (tournaments): 3.5
This network has become more popular as of late, but the tournament traffic is still fairly low for the larger buy-ins. They offer many $12-15 re-buy tournaments that seem to be quite popular. Golden Palace also hosts a number of mini buy-in events of $1 or $2 that attract a lot of entrants. Probably their most interesting tournament draw comes from the bizarre buy-in events, like 1c re-buy tourneys or 10c Sit 'n Go events. These are fun to play as a warm-up or second table. Overall, I like the tournaments they offer, but they need to attract greater traffic for them to really succeed.

Overall Golden Palace Rating

Pearls (positives)
Golden Palace offers very poor competition, fast games, and large pots. You should be able to make a large amount of money here in a short time.

Hooks (negatives)
They could improve on their promotions, and much of ring game play is dominated by shorthanded tables. Tournaments could also stand increased traffic.

The Hammer (overall rating): 3.5

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Tips for Playing at Golden Palace Poker

Meat (tips)
Against overly aggressive players, you can mostly predict that they'll push the pot at every chance. You can safely assume that they don't always have the cards to warrant a raise every time. However, I see a lot of players that overlook when these players slow down. Other players tend to see it as a rare chance to push these players back. Be careful! If you've seen a player raise 10 times out of 10 and then he just weakly calls, he probably has a reason. Sure, he might just be mixing it up with a mediocre hand, but more often he'll really have a monster hand and wants you to take control this time and pay him off. Don't do it.

Blubber (babble)
Many of the tournament players on Golden Palace will throw caution to the wind in small buy-in events. As a good poker player, you probably won't share their carelessness and will play your top game at all times regardless of the buy-in. Unfortunately, the play can become so wild that you don't have a chance to play your good cards without 3 or 4 others calling your all-in raise. This greatly decreases your winning chances with premium cards, so sometimes you just have to throw in your chips with garbage cards as well and try to ride it out. A while back on this site, I busted out a guy who held K-K to my J-2. I ended up taking over the chip lead, which allowed me to play more comfortably and end up winning the tournament. Just hope to get lucky once or twice so you can calm down and play your game.

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