Boss Media, a Swedish gaming company, started out in the online casino business back in 1996, with the launching of Gold Club Casino. This was back in the early days of online gaming, where other companies were looking to get in on the action as well and were looking for partners to create the software end of the business for them.
Boss Media’s software was of a high enough quality that soon other operators came knocking at their doors wanting Boss to create casino software for them. So over the years their focus was more and more on providing software solutions to the gaming industry, and they even ended up selling off their online casino in 2004 to concentrate exclusively on the software end of the business.
Eventually, their custom online gaming offerings grew to include not only casino, but poker, bingo, sports betting, and lottery applications as well. Like some other big gaming software companies, they discovered a need among sites looking to get into the online poker business but who may have been struggling on their own or did not want to take the risks associated with starting out on their own.
So Boss Media was there to take care of the needs of a lot of these operations, providing not only the quality poker software they needed to run things, but integrating these poker rooms into a network sharing common tables and player bases.
Many of the clients of the network were sites specializing in other forms of gambling such as sports betting, who now had an opportunity to expand their operations by now getting into poker as well. This also brought to the table a lot of players who were relatively inexperienced at the game of poker, something good for the online poker business overall, but particularly so for those of us who are looking for softer games than you tend to see at the larger poker sites.
Unlike other poker networks, with a parent company running the network and providing the software, which Boss Media does with their network as well, the expertise of Boss Media stands out enough that they have been hired by operators outside the network to provide gaming software, by companies such as bwin, Sportingbet, and Yahoo Poker.
As time went on, the name of the network became changed to the International Poker Network, which it is now known by today. The International Poker Network is currently a collection of over 35 different poker rooms, and when combined, comprise one of the major poker networks on the online scene.
The Boss/International Poker Network For New Players
There are a lot of different poker rooms and networks out there worth considering, and just about all of them offer pretty generous welcome bonuses to try them out. So aside from that, if you’ve never played on the Boss/International Poker Network before, why should you consider them? Let’s take a look at the biggest sites on the network for now. I’m sure you will recognize some brands.
Rank | Logo | Site | Download | Mac | Linux | Bonus | Visit Site |
1 | Bet-At-Home | €1000 | www.bet-at-home.comRead Review | ||||
2 | Virgin Poker | £600 | www.virginpoker.comRead Review |
If you are new to online poker, it is vitally important to start out playing at an online poker site that isn’t overrun by skilled players. When you are new, or newer, you really aren’t going to have the kind of poker skills to be able to hold your own at a table of good poker players.
Your inexperience will also really stand out at poker sites like this, and not only will the players at your table be pounding you, other good players will be lining up on the waiting list just to get a shot at you. They will smell the blood in the water, and the blood in the water will be your blood, and it will definitely spill.
So what invariably happens is one of three things. You can lose more money than you ever imagined, and hang in there at that site, and hopefully some day get good enough not to get sand kicked in your face at every turn. Second, you might just lose all of your money and give up the game of online poker. This is what generally happens to new players at tough sites by the way.
Or, third, you could be one of the luckier ones who end up getting some good advice and leave these tough sites for greener pastures, where your inexperience really doesn’t stand out, as at these better sites there are more of you, and in fact, a lot more.
So not only will you lose less at these better online poker sites and networks, you will also be in a position to turn things around much more quickly, meaning getting to a position to start making money at the poker table rather than losing it.
Playing at the right online poker sites is by far the most important factor in the life of an online poker player, but it’s an absolutely critical matter for new players, especially those who don’t have thousands of dollars to lose as they learn the game. In this case, it’s just not super important to be playing at the right poker sites, as it is with experienced players, your online poker life may depend on getting the right advice if you are a new or inexperienced player.
So the beauty of the Boss/International Poker Network is that it is about as beginner friendly as you will ever see. When it comes right down to it, playing at a poker site like this can and does make all the difference as far as what sort of success you will have. Let’s face it, it’s no fun to get your clock cleaned and it’s loads of fun beating other players out of their money. So if you want this you need to listen to our experienced advice and play at a site like Boss/International.
The Boss/International Poker Network For Experienced Players
Experienced players can be broken down into two main camps, which are those who are already profitable and those who are not, at least as of yet. Online poker is a lot of fun, and while it’s perfectly fine to lose money consistently over time, where what you get back from it is the entertainment value, much like a casino gambler does, I’ve found that a lot of online poker players truly want to start making money at some point.
On average, due to the effect of the rake and fees, only 1 poker player in 10 makes a profit over time. So players naturally think that what they need to do is get within the top 10% of online poker players in terms of skill, and they will then be on the gravy train.
It therefore may surprise you when I tell you that this is not the case at all. The 10% winning players does apply to the set of players at a given site, but that’s not the same thing as saying that it applies to all online poker players.
Someone who may only be in the top 30% of all poker players may be making a good amount of money, not losing it, if he or she is playing at a poker site or network where the competition is softer. By the same token, someone in the top 3% or 4% of all online poker players might be a losing player because he or she plays at a site with a higher ratio of good players to bad.
From what I’ve seen, these numbers are very realistic, and most online poker players do not realize the big difference that exists out there between poker sites in terms of the relative level of competition. There are some poker sites which have 20, 30, 40, or more sharks for every fish they have, depending on the stakes. There are other sites which may have only one skilled player per many fish. That’s a huge difference.
Regardless of how skilled or unskilled you are, the softer the competition that you play against, the better your results will be. Because the Boss Media/International Poker Network is one of these soft sites, this is why I am spending so much time discussing this very important point, to try to explain why this is a poker network that you definitely should be trying if you have not already.
Other Features Of The Boss/International Poker Network
Just for the sake of letting you know what truly is important, if you think of all of the different features of a poker room or network, and the different reasons to play there, and if you added them all up and it all came to 10, softness of competition by itself should be given 8 of it, with all of the other reasons combined adding up to just 2 out of 10. Softness of competition is really that important.
However, there is still the matter of the other 2 out of 10, so I will now go over those other details for you. First, the traffic that a poker site or network gets definitely does matter. There are several other places to play poker that have more traffic than what you will find on the Boss/IPN Network.
However, if you play the lower stakes, there is enough at Boss, and if you play higher, well you will need more than one account at more than one poker site anyway, unless you play at Poker Stars, which is a terrible idea by the way.
If you are looking to try out a poker site, it’s definitely nice to get a welcome bonus, and pretty much every poker site has these, including the rooms on the Boss Poker Network. It’s also very nice to get paid out rewards for your loyalty and your frequent play, and once again most sites have this, including the rooms at Boss/IPN.
Having good poker software is nice, although this is much more of a nice to have than a need to have. Boss/IPN’s software is definitely one of the best platforms out there, and as mentioned, their software skills are highly in demand by some of internet gaming’s top names. Boss IPN is in fact a gaming software company first and a poker network owner second, but they do very well at both.
Having a good number of options to both deposit and withdraw with is also something that we need to see, and Boss/IPN delivers on this as well. You also need at least good customer service and support, which the poker rooms on the Boss/IPN poker network have.
Are All The Poker Rooms On The Boss Network The Same?
While all the rooms on any poker network, the Boss/International Poker Network included, have a great deal in common, there still are some differences in the individual poker rooms on a network.
Each poker room is individually owned and operated, and while they all share the same poker tables and traffic, and must adhere to a lot of strict rules of operation that mandate a consistent experience across the various brands, there still are factors which differ from poker room to poker room on a poker network, the Boss/IPN network included.
So while we strongly recommend that those who have never played on the Boss/International Poker Network give it a try and also collect welcome bonuses just for doing so, it isn’t enough just to tell you this. We also need to provide to you specific recommendations on which poker rooms on this network would be best for you to try out and play at.
This is because some poker rooms are simply better than others, particularly with regard to the reputation of some poker rooms. So we have selected for you those with the highest reputation and reliability, as well as those who tend to take care of their players better than others, which is another important component of a great poker room.
So we’ve done all the research for you, and all you have to do now is just click on our links to the best the Boss/International Poker Network has to offer, and enjoy!