Review of Poker Share

Our review of Poker Share will walk you through this brand-new poker room. I was initially impressed with their original marketing idea. Essentially, they give players financial rewards in the form of Share Points. You earn a higher "share" of the poker room by playing more on the site. Besides earning money every 3 months, they are offering a big deposit bonus and good software.

Since they are now part of the Tain network, players receive the benefits of a reputable online poker room with plenty of traffic. My only caution to baby sharks is that you'll tend to run into tighter players (like me) and less of the tuna and mackeral you've heard me talk about in other reviews.

Categories Reviewed at PokerShare.com

Fish: 2.5
Simply put, Poker Share isn't your typical wild online poker site. Even at the micro-limits, these players are tighter than a half-dozen Morey eels squeezed between a couple of rocks. The typical flop percentages are 30-40% at the medium limits, so don't expect huge pots with lots of players. Generally, the most aggressive player will take down the pot, and many hands don't go past the flop. Of course, you'll still run into the assorted maniac, but you'll find them in fewer number than other poker rooms. The Poker Share competition doesn't consist of a bunch of professionals, but they are generally tight-weak.

Sharks: 3.5 (inverse rating)
Similar to other player networks that have been around for years (with their Tain network association), Poker Share tends to harbor its fair share of shark-like players. I can hold my own on this site, and I don't recommend that players stay away from this site for their fish-to-shark ratio. In truth, it can be refreshing to suffer less bad beats from drawing opponents, and at the small limits that most people play, you'll still run into plenty of inexperienced players.

Bait (promotions): 5
The promotions at Poker Share are some of the strongest online. While they are a new site and their success-sharing scheme is unproven, it should be a nice bonus to regular players. After each quarter, you earn financial rewards based upon how many player points you have in comparison to everyone else on the network. These are called Share Points, which are earned through ring game play. Obviously, you will earn more as you play in bigger games that generate more rake. As for a more immediate bonus, they're matching first deposits with a 100% bonus, up to $300. The bonus is fairly easy to work off, and you can easily see how far along you are. Besides that, they regularly have large tournaments, and lots of satellites into live tournaments.

Skin (software): 4
The software on Poker Share is decent, but not quite as nice as when the poker room was a skin of Ultimate Bet. The lobby is very easy to navigate, they offer plenty of poker variations for game variety, and the game speed moves along quickly. Typically, most full tables run at around 60 hands per hours. The hand history feature is also useful. The table graphics are simple but sharp, and basic tournament information is easily accessible from the lobby.

Prey (tournaments): 3
The Tain network has decent tournaments as well. They offer events with buy-ins as little as $1 all the way up to their $25,000 guaranteed Super Sunday tournament each week. They also offer a large amount of smaller events every day. Poker Share features plenty of satellites to big live events such as the WSOP, and serious tournament players as well as beginners should be satisfied here. They don't have many cash-added freerolls, but overall they give plenty of loyalty rewards to real money players.

Overall Poker Share Rating

Pearls (positives)
Poker Share has clean & simple software, a growing player base, plenty of tournaments, and micro-limit games. Overall, this is a solid poker site.

Hooks (negatives)
Unfortunately for some, the players are much tighter than at other sites. However, the upside to this is that you'll run into less bad beats.

The Hammer (overall rating): 3.5

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Tips for Playing at Poker Share

Meat (tips)
As I mentioned earlier, Poker Share is full of tight and timid players. While I generally don't run into a lot of huge pots here, I like to play aggressively and steal a lot of small ones in no-limit cash games. This is one of the few places online that you can employ an aggressive strategy, since you usually want to be playing the opposite style of the rest of the table. Especially from late position, I'll raise with all sort of questionable hands such as 3-4 5-6, or J-9. This works best when you are the first one into the pot, or no one has shown any aggression. Most of the time, no one will fight back and you can pick up a small pot right there. If they do decide to look you up, you might get lucky on the flop. Even if you don't and they're showing weakness, bet into them.

Blubber (babble)
Did you hear about Poker Share trying to buy the rights to some tiny town here in the states? In return for the several million dollars Poker Share was willing to put up, the town would have to change their name to "Poker Share". The conservative town in question wasn't very receptive to the offer, and basically gave PS a shark bite in the behind. While this poker site does have some good promotional ideas, they should leave this type of viral marketing to the snakes at Golden Palace…

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

     

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