Review of Noble Poker

Our review of Noble Poker will cover this excellent iPoker network site. They're gaining a good reputation among regular players for their promotions and customer service. The main disadvantage of iPoker sites is the lack of traffic, but all of them seem to be making big promotional pushes, so I expect that to be less of a factor as time goes on.

The main advantages are the big promotions and the general poor play. I love to lay the Hammer down on these fish and sink my teeth in!

Categories Reviewed at NoblePoker.com

Fish: 3.5
Overall, these players seem pretty inexperienced. Mostly, the traffic seems to be made up of newer players who were drawn in by some of the publicized promotions. Surprisingly, the action is mostly made of fixed-limit ring game players, although you can occasionally find a decent no-limit game going on. While certain tables can get tigh, most of the action is loose and soft: calling stations playing hands they shouldn't. Against this type of opponent, you need to raise your strong hands to limit the field. Flop percentages for smaller games frequently top 50%, and larger games hover at around 40%.

Sharks: 2 (inverse rating)
The fish-to-shark ratio is good at Noble, and you typically won't be gobbled up by a larger shark. Much of the action is at the smaller limits, so you won't find big players at this level. If you do enter a larger fixed-limit game, I would recommend trying out the smaller games and mastering them first. Overall, I don't grade the player quality very high at Noble.

Bait (promotions): 5
The promotions at Noble are numerous and often very big. They offer a deposit bonus of 50% up to a maximum of $250. Typically, bigger players will have an easy time earning this bonus, whereas it will take a while for micro-limit players to be eligible for any of the money. Even bigger players will have to play about 125 hands for each $10 of the bonus, which is somewhat stingier than many other sites. Noble is also holding a $1,000,000 Jackpot for anyone who pulls off the small miracle of winning 7 $10 Sit 'n Go tournaments in a row. I haven't seen a feat like that since my 452 A.D. performance in the Ocean Series of Kelp Keep 'em. Still, you can earn smaller bonuses for winning a few events in a row. Also, Noble has just started publicizing their $100 Million jackpot, in which a player can earn millions of dollars for hitting certain hands in their upcoming Las Vegas live tournament. Of course, you can qualify through satellites online.

Skin (software): 4
The software is pretty well detailed graphically, with semi-3D avatars in a classic overhead view. I used to really enjoy their full 3D mode that would actually place you at the table, but apparently this feature has been disabled indefinitely. One positive this may have brought is increased game speed, which tends to run at over 65 hands per hour at full ring games. The hand history feature is also very detailed, and you can also edit chat features very easily. Noble also offers an "all-in" button that tends to be clicked altogether too often by the fishier players at this site. There is nothing better than a big dumb tuna with all his money on the table…

Prey (tournaments): 3.5
I like how the tournaments are run at Noble, as they tend to move along quickly with a good prize structure. However, as the general site traffic is still low, tournament traffic also tends to be pretty sparse. Primarily, the $5 and $3 tournaments are fairly popular, attracting about 100 players during peak hours. Naturally, their freerolls always fill up to capacity, which is 500 players. I like how these are run, as the entire event only takes about 3 hours. In my opinion, freerolls with small prize pools ($100 or $200) should have an extremely fast blind structure, as the small rewards for placing in the money don't warrant a larger investment of time.

Overall Noble Poker Rating

Pearls (positives)
Noble Poker offers one of the biggest deposit bonuses online with some other interesting promotions. Also, they have strong software with pretty soft competition.

Hooks (negatives)
The main drawback with Noble is the smaller player base, which often forces you to play at smaller tables than you normally would.

The Hammer (overall rating): 4

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Tips for Playing at Noble Poker

Meat (tips)
Many of the players at Noble will seemingly play without paying attention to your cards. If you run into one of these players and don't run into a horrendous beat, consider yourself lucky. If you do run into a trash hand that draws out on you, realize that it probably wasn't your fault. If you bet enough to discourage his draw and raised at the right times when you had the best hand, don't kick yourself. That's just what we call a "bad beat" in poker. It's going to happen - especially online.

Blubber (babble)
As I write this review, I'm in a comfortable coral recliner playing a hand or two on Noble to refresh the site in my mind. This is a .50/$1 NL full table, and I'm on the button with A-7 of clubs. Normally, I wouldn't touch this hand, but no one has entered the pot yet. I took a stab at the blinds with a $4 raise. I get called by the big blind and see a flop of A-8-2 rainbow. I bet $10 into the pot and get immediately called. I just knew that he didn't have the Ace, so I kept up the aggression. The turn came with a K and I put in the rest of my stack at $30. He quickly calls again, and the Q shows up on the end. He turns over K-Q for two pair - meaning that he put in another $10 (the size of the pot) on the flop with no pair and an Ace showing. He was a 33:1 underdog at that point. What did I learn from that hand? I'm not sure, exactly - maybe you can help me with this one.

♣ ♣ For further details and ratings for NoblePoker.com, you can visit our basic Noble Poker review.

     

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