Review of Tiger Gaming

Our review of Tiger Gaming addresses this largely Canadian site with extremely soft action. They also offer a nice deposit bonus, although it is somewhat difficult to clear. For now, the player traffic remains low both in terms of tournaments and ring games and is largely dominated by small-stakes no-limit ring games. Probably due to their television advertising, the fish are out in full force waiting to be swallowed.

Categories Reviewed at TigerGaming.com

Fish: 4.5
The competition is pretty awful at this site. If you don't like squid, take your pick of tuna. If you don't like tuna, there are plenty of swordfish. The point is that you'll find bad players of all sorts at this site. Most of this site's traffic comes from north of the border, as Tiger Gaming aggressively coveted the television poker crowd. The result is extremely inexperienced players who like to build large pots. The flop percentage is usually very high, and if you play here you'll only wish that there were enough players to fill the high-stakes seats. I highly recommend that you raise your premium hands more than average to limit the potential field of drawing hands.

Sharks: 1.5 (inverse rating)
Of course, where this is awful competition, you will find other sharks taking their shots at scooping up the fish in one big net. Fortunately, these players seem to go away as the night goes on. By the time you've reached the nocturnal hours of the Hammerhead, there are usually only 2 or 3 tables going full of lousy competition. Naturally, as the stakes increase, the competition stiffens somewhat, but the fish-to-shark ratio is very high on Tiger. You have my blessing to put the Hammer down on each and every one of them!

Bait (promotions): 3
While the 100% deposit bonus is nice, it can be difficult to work off. They don't put a restriction on the maximum that you can earn, but you only have 6 weeks or so to clear it. You'll need to earn 12 of their player points for each $1 of bonus, and that be tedious. The bonus is calculated on rake, and seeing as they only really have traffic at the smaller limits, you can't earn too much. This is their main promotion, although they do also offer a Vegas sweepstakes for depositors and a step-structured satellite entry to a WPT event.

Skin (software): 3.5
The software is fairly attractive, although it is essentially a skin of Paradise Poker. The betting action moves smoothly and games tend to run very fast. The no-limit interface is conducive to loose betting, and the lobby is very simple to navigate. While the color scheme is extremely basic, overall the visuals are pleasant. Okay, that's the last time you'll hear an 800 pound, 13 foot hammerhead shark use the word "pleasant". Tiger Gaming also offers a few bizarre poker variations such as "Guts" and "Big2". Surprisingly, they have active games running regularly.

Prey (tournaments): 1.5
The tournament offerings are pretty skimpy at TG. They offer a handful of small-stakes multi-table tournaments under a $10 buy-in. They are currently holding an interesting promotion for a WPT seat that allows you to start at 5-cent Sit 'n Gos, but you have to win an inordinate amount to actually qualify. Occasionally, you can find a good $50 or $200 Sit 'n Go happening, but the tournament traffic is extremely low here. Freeroll players will find a few events, but they have miniscule prize pools.

Overall Tiger Gaming Rating

Pearls (positives)
Tiger Gaming has some terrible competition and pretty nice software.

Hooks (negatives)
They also have an overall low player count, especially for tournaments.

The Hammer (overall rating): 3

♣ Visit tigergaming.com

Tips for Playing at Tiger Gaming

Meat (tips)
With flop percentages exceeding reasonable limits and topping over 60% at some tables, hands can largely turn into a crapshoot. I witnessed one hand a few nights ago in which a K-5 beat pocket Aces when the former hit his fourth five on the river. The Aces had been betting the whole way, but the K-5 wouldn't give up and ended up just getting lucky. Especially at the small stakes, players will almost refuse to give up. For this reason, I recommend buying-in at the maximum, and to not be afraid to show some muscle with your chips. Shoving it all-in may be your best defense at times against a bad beat. If he still draws out on you, don't kick yourself - you couldn't possibly have done anything else to prevent it if you went all-in.

Blubber (babble)
Even though the site is called Tiger Gaming, it's a shame that so many of these players make the owners seriously consider changing the name to Manatee Gaming. That's really a shame, because tigers are sort of the shark of the land-lubbers. They have a fierce bite, enormous teeth, have a strong presence, are generally feared, and are just about at the top of the food chain. Of course, my only fear is that I'll get made into a shark fin soup by you humans. Actually, I take that back. I fear more for the human who has to eat my fin - if you had any idea where it's been I don't think you'd put it in a soup. :)

♣ ♣ For further details and ratings for TigerGaming.com, you can visit our basic Tiger Gaming review.

     

More Poker Reviews by Hammerhead

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