Full Tilt Poker Review

posted in Poker Room Reviews

Full Tilt Poker (FTP) is a fairly young poker-room, established back in 2004 by a group of keen pros looking to expand internet poker horizons. FTP is now the second largest poker room by average traffic (100,000-125,000 players in peak times), and one of the most popular sites to play on.

Referral code:playthepros600

Site Layout and Graphics

FTP’s lobby is very simplistic, yet effectively laid out. Your game of choice is always easy to find, and all necessary information (such as buy-in, limits, game selection, number of players etc) is easily found. The site offers 3 lobby layout choices depending on personal preference, and gives the opportunity for customization to your heart’s content.

Graphically FTP is possibly leading the industry. Many players enjoy the choice of avatars and the look of the tables in comparison to those of other popular sites. Recent updates to the site have made this even more apparent, and this has shown by an increase in numbers of Full Tilt’s tables.

Full Tilt Poker lobby.

Support

Support on FTP is notoriously slow. Despite being industry-leading in some areas, their support is average at best. Support doesn’t work 24h (usually on in US working hours), and emails can sometimes take up to 2 days to be responded to. It is common for some people to be waiting up to a week if they inadvertently sent 2+ emails on the same topic. However, replies are usually helpful and easy to understand.

Tournaments

Many MTT grinders say that FTP has the best tournament schedule out of any of the larger traffic rooms, and I would agree. Although not as high traffic as PS, there are MTT’s to cater to any bankroll size and playing ability, with as many variations as you could possibly want. You want to play a KO 6max super-turbo PLO tournament? You’ve got it. Tournaments run regularly, so finding one to play in is never a problem. Flag-ship tournaments include the $200+16 $750K, $240+16 Sunday Brawl and $1000+60 1K Monday. FTP also hosts a quarterly poker series known as the FTOPS, which attracts some of the world’s best players with high buy-ins and large prize-pools. The series culminates in a $2500+120 2 day event and a $500+35 main event.

Sit-and-Goes

Like tournaments, FTP hosts a wide variety of SNG’s, and is home to some of the world’s best STT grinders. SNG’s are readily available and easy to find, in a wide range of buy-in levels, poker forms and styles such as super-turbo and turbo speed. Popular ones include 9man Super-Turbos, 45man SNG’s and Matrix tournaments. Higher level buy-ins tend to take a while to fill up, so many high-stakes SNG grinders tend to play elsewhere.

Ring Games

FTP is home to the most nosebleed action on the internet, with high-stakes cash game players such as Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius battling it out at limits up to 500/1000 NL. As such, this has filtered down through to the lower stakes, and FTP has reputedly the most difficult cash games on the internet, except this generally won’t be noticed until about 50NL. FTP has games readily available for any bankroll size and playing level. New updates to tables have abolished short-stackers, making it easier to find good tables. The maximum number of tables playable at FTP is 16, so multi-table grinders have tended to stray away from this site. FTP has recently revolutionized poker by introducing Rush Poker™, a non-stop fast paced way of playing cash.

Full Tilt Poker ring game table.

Bonuses

FTP offers many bonuses to their players, including the Iron-Man system for higher volume players (although this is slightly lacking in depth), SNG Madness, Take Two for cash game players, and the recently successful Double Guarantee Week for tournament players. Fulltiltpoker.com also offers a 100% first time deposit bonus up to $600 for new players to take advantage of which is the biggest deposit bonus you can get, and regularly gives bonuses to their players for their loyalty. Use the full tilt poker referral code: playthepros600 and your first deposit will be matched 100% up to $600.