The Pacific Poker Network is owned by 888 Holdings, and is named after its flagship room, Pacific Poker. This makes the Pacific Poker Network one of the oldest and most experienced in the online poker community. Below the next section are our picks for the best poker rooms on the Pacific Poker Network!
Pacific Poker/ 888 Poker Network Information
Pacific Poker has been around since the early days of online poker, and has consistently been among the very best online poker sites for all of these years. I’ve played online poker since it first came out, and I’ve played more at Pacific Poker over the years than any other poker site, and continue to play there. While I also have accounts at several other poker sites, and as you develop your game you will find that at some point this is a great idea, to provide you with access to the most profitable games running at any given time, Pacific Poker remains one of my main poker sites. It’s also a great place for beginning players and those who only have enough of a bankroll to play at one site to make their sole or main poker room, as you are less likely to get run over by a bunch of better players and find yourself going broke. Recently, they have renamed their poker site 888 Poker, to bring it in line with their online casino, simply called 888. It wasn’t just the name that they changed though, as they have revamped their poker site from a very good one to one that is now truly world class.
Best Poker Sites on the 888/Pacific Poker Network
Rank | Logo | Site | Download | Mac | Linux | Bonus | Visit Site |
1 | 888 Poker | $600 | www.888poker.comRead Review | ||||
2 | LuckyAcePoker | $400 | www.luckyacepoker.comRead Review |
#1 Pacific Poker Network: 888 Poker
888 Poker (www.888.com) is one of the oldest poker rooms online, having been launched back in 2002. In it’s time, 888 Poker had quite the reputation – one that was in some ways bad, but in other ways, very enticing. The software on 888 Poker was at one point among the worst around, and allowed players to play at only one table at a time. On the other hand, the games were so soft and profitable that even professional players couldn’t resist playing there in order to score huge profits. These days, the 888 Poker software is vastly improved, and is now an excellent client that makes playing on the site a snap. The players have improved a little, too, but this is still a great place to find a good, loose game at almost any limit. They’ve also added a 3D version of their software that provides a very unique spin on the online poker experience! In addition, 888 Poker has launched an exciting VIP rewards program that allows you to earn points on the site that can be redeemed for cash, merchandise, tournament entries and much more. If you’re looking for a great bonus, 888 is happy to put some extra money in the pockets of new players. Sign up for a 888 Poker account right now to receive a 100% matching bonus worth as much as $600.
#2 Pacific Network Site: LuckyAce Poker
LuckyAce Poker (www.luckyacepoker.com) is a fairly new poker room, having been founded in 2007. However, they’ve already made a mark as one of the finest new poker rooms in the industry, and are our pick for the second best room on the Pacific Poker Network. They offer all of the most popular poker games, including Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Seven Card Stud. They also have software that’s both beautiful and functional, making it both easy and enjoyable to play long sessions here. New players are taken care of very well at LuckyAce Poker. Sign up for an account at LuckyAce Poker today to earn a 100% matching bonus of up to $400!
Traffic At Pacific Poker
Traffic at Pacific Poker/888 Poker has always been good, although the main attraction with this poker site has never been with the amount of traffic, it’s instead been with how bad the players have been and how easy it has been to make money playing here. Evaluating traffic has always been a matter of finding the ones who both have soft competition and also have enough traffic to suit your particular needs. So it comes down to looking at both the quantity and quality of a poker sites’ traffic, in order to be able to make a valid comparison between them. For instance, Poker Stars has more traffic than all other poker sites combined these days, and while the level of competition has softened somewhat since they stopped allowing Americans to play there, they still primarily attract the most skilled poker players on the internet, and that has their level of competition significantly more difficult to beat. If you play at the highest limits, this might end up being the only option for you, as for instance, other poker sites may not even offer your stakes, or may only occasionally have tables running at them. However, for the overwhelming majority of online poker players, especially newer ones or those who only play the smaller to mid stakes, there is plenty of traffic at the other major poker sites, which includes Pacific Poker, to make it worthwhile, and even wise, to have accounts there. As a matter of fact, unless you are looking to work on your game by playing against much tougher competition than you have to, it makes no sense to play in more difficult games when you can so easily play in softer ones. So at some point, going against the best competition you can find can make sense here and there, to toughen you up, but until you play at such a high level that you can’t find the action you need at the softer sites, you should be focusing on where you can get the best results. Pacific Poker/888 Poker has more than an adequate amount of traffic for almost all types of players, and given that so many players come over from their huge online casino, which has been the world’s largest for many years, this is definitely the kind of poker site you want to be playing at. Pacific Poker has also seen a big increase in their player traffic since the closure of Full Tilt Poker, as many of the players who used to play there chose Pacific as their new favorite poker site. This has catapulted Pacific Poker from a poker site a little off of the beaten track to the fourth busiest place to play poker in the world. If need be, as your game progresses and you climb the ladder to higher and higher stakes, you may want to have accounts at one or more other softer poker sites, but having one at Pacific Poker definitely is in your best interests.
Software And Graphics At Pacific Poker
Up until recently, the software and graphics at Pacific Poker has been pretty basic, perhaps the most dull of any poker site who ever offered play on the internet. Those of us who have been regulars there didn’t really care though, as the experience of playing at Pacific wasn’t about being wowed by flashy graphics and such, it was about making money. However, Pacific, in the remodeling of their site and their renaming as 888 Poker, has dramatically improved their software and graphics, and now it may very well be the best looking out there. In all of this, they haven’t lost the simplicity that their software has been known for all these years. The action is still easy to follow, something that a lot of poker sites can’t say, but at the same time it simply looks a lot better. Among their new features, Pacific Poker is the only site to offer mod quality customization features, the kind of thing that players have to purchase from third party software companies. In particular, I really enjoy their modern full color deck, where the cards are all solid colors. I’ve no idea why decks designed hundreds of years ago are still the only option at other sites. Overall, Pacific Poker’s software is excellent, with many options that will have you getting it to look exactly like you want it to. Personally I hate the animated card dealing and other such stuff and you can turn that all off if you want. The speed of it is very good, and the player controls are very easy to use as well. Overall, they have gone from a D to an A in terms of their software with this latest upgrade which includes their highly innovative innovative webcam poker tables.
Games Available At Pacific Poker
Pacific Poker offers a full selection of poker games, including variations of Hold’em, Omaha, and Stud. Stakes run from the lowest possible, 1 and 2 cents, all the way up to $500/$1000 no limit, with a standard buy in of $100,000. Cash games run at full table, 6 max, and heads up, and like other sites these days, 6 max is by far the most popular. Pacific Poker offers what might be the most exciting thing to happen to poker in its history, with their Push or Fold variation. While players don’t have to push, and the play proceeds normally, the max buy in at these 6 max no limit tables is 5 big blinds, so the chips very often go all in. So the effect is that all sorts of fish are now playing bigger limits, and you now see some very bad players playing some pretty big stakes, and all of the stakes have really gotten way fishier. This alone is a reason to play here, and a big reason, and it’s exclusive to Pacific Poker. In addition, Pacific Poker also offers a wide range of tournaments, both scheduled and sit and go. There’s quite a lot of variety as far as game selection goes, and with all of the new traffic that Pacific has gotten lately, there’s lots of great games to choose from to well suit all preferences and stakes.
Rake At Pacific Poker
The rake and fees at Pacific Poker are pretty standard. Online poker rooms generally charge 5% of pots which see the flop, with a cap of a certain amount. Where the poker rooms differ is where they set the cap, and the higher the cap, the more rake you will pay in the long run. Just to give you an example, Party Poker sets the cap in all cash heads up games at $1. Pacific Poker breaks this down to a cap of only 50c up to $0.50/$1.00, and $1 above that. So one of the real problems with small stakes heads up is that the rake can eat up everything, resulting in neither player making money, so only taking a max of 50c at these games makes a tremendous difference. So the rake overall at Pacific Poker is set at reasonable levels, and you might find that one site offers a little lower cap in one case and a little higher one in another, but overall, there’s really not that much difference between poker sites to be honest. Ease of competition is what tends to differ a lot more, and unless you are playing smaller stakes heads up, it’s how easy the players are to beat that we need to be focusing on a lot more. So it will suffice to say that the rake at Pacific Poker is decent enough, and in fact poker rooms need to make sure that their rake is competitive or players will leave. I really don’t know of one poker room that charges significantly more than others, although this is still worth looking at, and in the case of Pacific Poker, the rake is fine.
Fish at Pacific Poker
If you like fish, and I’m sure you do, Pacific Poker/888 Poker is the place for you. In my opinion, Pacific Poker has always been the fishiest poker site around, and still is. There are all sorts of casino gamblers who play there, and in fact, that’s where they get most of their players. These are the perfect poker opponents, much more so than even sports bettors. Neither of these types tend to be very good at poker, but the casino players have the added advantages of not minding playing with bad odds and losing regularly. So they will chase all sorts of garbage looking to make a score at the poker table, and will just keep coming back for more, just like a punching bag. Even the regulars at Pacific aren’t very good compared to the ones you see at most other poker sites. If you care about how well you do, then you want to play at the fishiest site you can, and this is it my friends.
Pacific Poker Casino And Sportsbetting
In addition to the great poker that Pacific offers, they also offer their players the opportunity to play casino games and bet on sports, all conveniently at the same site. While most poker players don’t play a lot at online casinos, this option is available to those who would like a little relaxing diversion from the tables, where you don’t really need to think very much. Betting on sports is something that is even more enjoyable, especially if you like to watch sports. If you will be watching anyway, why not make this experience much more exciting by putting some money on the line? For those of you who haven’t experienced this for yourself yet, this takes sports to a whole new level of excitement, and it’s also a game of skill as well, like poker. So you get a chance to prove how good you are and have a blast at the same time.
More on the Pacific Poker Network
The Pacific Poker Network began as a single room – Pacific Poker – way back in 2002. Since the beginning, Pacific Poker was owned by Cassava Enterprises, a subsidiary of 888 Holdings (best known for the gambling site 888.com). Today, 888 Holdings is based out of Gibraltar, and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The online poker branch of the company has expanded greatly, with several rooms joining the Pacific Poker Network in recent years.
My Recommendation
Overall, this is a great site and might be the best place to play online poker in the world. I absolutely love Pacific Poker and I’ve also recommended it to countless players over the years, and have heard nothing but good things back. So if you don’t have an account there, you’d be crazy not to try them out, especially since they will be giving you $8 free without even making a deposit, and up to $600 in free bonus money once you do, just for checking them out. So just click on our link to them and get ready to put in for your free money and find out for yourself why this is such a great poker site.