One of the most important things when playing poker online is to choose the online poker room to play at. The software and the interface is definitely one of the parameters in the decision making, and thus quite a few poker rooms should be downloaded to try out the different options before choosing where to deposit. Below we have listed the poker online rooms we recommend new players to download. Brand new players should without doubt create accounts with Party Poker and 888 poker, since both these online poker rooms have some of the weakest opponents in online poker and a great sign up bonus.

In addition PokerStars, Party Poker and William Hill Poker is recommended, as they are among the biggest online poker rooms and offer the most valueble promotions and biggest poker tournaments. It is common for poker players to have accounts on 5-10 poker online rooms, as the different brands have different offers all the time, and it make sense to switch rooms quite often to take advantage of the bonus offers available from time to time in the poker online environment. New offers and reload bonuses are posted in our news section, whenever they are available.

Best Online Poker Rooms

Online Poker Integrity Statement

The most popular and respected poker sites and poker bonus deals can be found on the aforementioned section! On this section we include the best poker deals for the running month from which players can benefit and get maximum poker bonus and overall maximum value for their deposits.

Our long term relationship with all major poker rooms, and our long term expertise in the online poker and online gaming industry have given us the edge to be today offering our players what we pride as the worlds best poker deals!

We maintain very close relationships with representatives from all the above card rooms and we would like to hear your feedback either positive or negative. Players who might happen to have an unpleasant experience with any of the above poker rooms or any other poker site listed on bonusriders.com are kindly requested to inform us immediately. All complaints are investigated immediately by an experienced member of our team. If you prove to have been mistreated by the card room, the particular operator will be included on a blacklist and he will be automatically removed from the index of our pages. We are categorically strict with the operators we list and we do not tolerate any sort of mistreating to our referred players.

The history of Poker Online

In 1998 the first online poker room was established. Planet Poker was for a long time the only option if you wanted to play poker online. Endorsed by Mike “The Mad Genius of Poker” Caro players began to come to “his Planet”. In year 2000 Paradise Poker opened the doors for poker online players and soon they became the market leader in the poker online space. Paradise Poker did not seem to fully understand the potential of poker online and struggled to keep their position when brands like Poker Stars and Party Poker opened their poker online rooms in 2001. Party Poker had a million dollar marketing budget and managed to become the world’s biggest online poker room. A position Party Poker continuously and successful maintained until 2006 where US legislation (UIEGA) forced them to pull all poker online activities from the US market.

In the period from 1998 until 2003 the popularity of online poker grew on a steady pace. Year 2003 however was the year where the interest for poker online exploded. The reason was down to one single person, namely the winner of WSOP Main Event 2003- Chris Moneymaker. Chris could tell the world that he had won his WSOP main event ticket through the poker online company Poker Stars for $40 and took home the WSOP first prize of an amazing $2.500.000. Today it is still many online poker players dream to qualify for WSOP for pennies playing poker online and take home a monster win. WSOP has grown significantly since the champion Chris Moneymaker took home the trophy and today the WSOP main event tournament have more online poker players attending than ever. 2009 saw the Danish 22 year old poker online super star Peter Eastgate winning an astonishing amount of 9 million dollars.

New online poker companies saw the daylight during the last few years and today the market consist of a little more than 15 major networks. Many of those are very reputable companies listed on stock exchanges around the world. One of the new online poker rooms that opened for players was Full Tilt Poker(We recommend never to play there). Using the “come and play with the pros” marketing message the site picked up online poker players at a fast pace. Major names from this famous poker online room like Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, John Juanda, Howard Lederer and lots of other profiles were and still are endorsing the site. The success is measurable as Full Tilt Poker today is the 2nd biggest online poker room operator.

Without UIEGA it is doubtful that Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker would have been able to catch Party Poker as the biggest poker online community. Party Poker had brand awareness all over the world that beat the 2 main competitors with lengths. Losing all their US online poker players was a catastrophe for Party Poker who not only dipped in player traffic but also had to spend millions on ceasing their poker online operations in US. Party Poker was not the only company who had to pull out of US. Cryptologic, Paradise Poker, Entraction, Ipoker and many others had to block US citizens from creating poker online accounts. Party Poker however showed how strong a company they really are when they overcame all the hurdles and now are back as the 4th biggest online poker platform in the world.

A great part of online pokers popularity can be credited WPT. The World Poker Tour invented a poker table where it was possible to see the player’s hole cards and poker now became a TV sport. Players flocked to WPT events to gain glory and fame on TV. Winning a WPT event is to be considered almost as prestigious as winning a minor WSOP event.

About Poker Online

Playing poker online is an extremely fun sport that has taken the world by storm. In reality the online poker boom began in USA back in 2003 and with the history of home games that US have it is not surprisingly that as of today the majority of poker online players are from the US. Slowly the popular poker online games spread to Europe and today all European countries have a fair part of their population playing poker online. Many poker online activities take place every day on the much different online poker software’s available for poker players who enjoy the game. Tournaments are amongst the most popular poker activities online because poker players have the ability to win a big amount for a small buy in. During the years the prize pools in poker online tournaments has increased to astonishing amounts and as of today a few online poker tournaments have seen guaranteed prize pools of $.10.000.000 with more than $1.700.000 to the eventual winner. Sundays are the big poker online tournament day of the week. All online poker networks host a special guaranteed online poker tournament on Sundays where first prizes range between $25.000 and $.150.000. It is actually possible to qualify for such Sunday poker online tournament for a few dollars which many thousand online poker players do on a weekly basis.

Playing poker online gather people together from all over the world setting records which are published in Guinness Books of Records and with 65.000 simultaneously online poker players in the same tournament, poker online giant PokerStars hold this record which will unlikely be beaten by anyone but PokerStars themselves in near future. PokerStars are by far the biggest poker online software and sometimes see more than 300.000 players playing poker online at the same time. Other big online poker companies are Full Tilt Poker who sponsors more than 200 world class poker players which all play poker online every week against the other users who are able to compete against the best players in the world without risking a fortune. No other sport give “normal” people a chance to compete against the worlds most famous stars and poker online is quite unique in this respect.

William Hill Poker is another big company who entered the poker online scene in recent years and after a move to the I poker online poker platform in 2009 they are now considered part of the third biggest online poker software in the world. This whole new industry have created many new job and the William Hill Poker online team consist of many highly qualified poker enthusiast that know what kind of entertainment online poker players are looking for. It is fair to mention Betfair as well. Not because they are extremely big but more because other online poker players will find some of the easiest competition in the poker online world on Betfairs platform. The core product Betfair offer is a revolutionary sports betting exchange where punters buy and sell sport bets between each other and many of these sport bettors like to play a little poker online too. The same is actually the situation on Pacific Pokers online software which is frequented by many casino interested people who of course are inexperienced online poker players.

Poker online is a great way to spent some leisure time and with the right strategy and patience players will be able to show a long term profit without a lot of study needed. Becoming a world class player require many hours of study and online poker play but players do not need to be extremely skilled to show a profit playing poker online as there are always someone more inexperienced than yourself. Just remember that playing poker online should be used as a great way to spend some free time and not as a way to earn fast money.

The Origin of Poker

There seem to be differences of opinion on the origin of Poker. Moreover, there seems to be no clear or direct early ancestor of the game. And it is more likely that Poker derived its present day form and name from elements of many different games. The consensus is that because of its basic principle, its birth is a very old one. There are as many variations regarding the possible birthplace of Poker as there are of the game itself. The most popular belief is that the Chinese invented the game around 900 A.D., possibly derived from the Chinese dominoes. Others state that Poker originates from the Persian game “as nas”. This is a 5-player Persian game, which requires a special deck of 25 cards with 5 suits. However, this is only recorded back to the 17th century.

A French game named “Poque” and a German game named “Pochen” became very popular in the 17 & 18th centuries, both developed from the 16th century Spanish game called “Primero” which involved three cards being dealt to each player. Bluffing, or betting high stakes whilst holding poor cards to deceive opponents, was an integral part of the game. Primero dates back to 1526 and is often referred to as “poker’s mother” as it is the first confirmed version of a game directly related to modern day poker. French colonials imported the game to the new world when they arrived in Canada. Their beloved “Poque” was the national card game of France and from the beginning of the 18th century, when a hardy group of French-Canadian settlers founded New Orleans, it spread from the state of Louisiana up the Mississippi river and then throughout the whole country.

In 1834, Jonathan H. Green made one of the earliest written references to poker when in his writing he mentions rules to the “cheating game,” being played on Mississippi riverboats. The “Cheating Game” quickly began to supplant the popular cardsharp game of 3-card Monte on the gambling circuit. Gamers embraced the new game as it was perceived as a more challenging and ‘honest’ gamble than the notoriously rigged 3-card game. Green took more than a passing interest in the new game and took it upon himself to formally name and document the ‘Cheating Game’ in his book ‘An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling’: Poker was born. During the Wild West period of United States history, a saloon with a Poker table could be found in just about every town from coast to coast. It was extremely popular during the Civil War when the soldiers of both armies played. European influence of poker ended when the joker was introduced as a wild card in 1875.

In 1910, Nevada made it a felony to run a betting game. The Attorney General of California declared that draw poker was based upon skill and therefore the antigambling laws could not stop it. But stud poker, he said, was based on mere chance. Therefore it was illegal. Naturally draw poker games flourished, and more emerged. In 1931, Nevada reversed itself and became the only place in the U.S. to legalize casino gambling, until 1978, when Atlantic City joined in. Today, poker is carefully regulated by gambling laws, and saloons have given way to casinos and card rooms, but poker is played more than any other card game in the world. It has grown into a sporting event, with competitions and tournaments all around the world.

Technological advances have revolutionized the viewing of poker with it now winning huge Television audiences. The introduction of a new under the table camera gives the spectator a unique opportunity to view the hole cards of each player. This opens a window into the minds of the players as the hole cards represent the tools used for betting and bluffing, and for the spectator to see them dealt creates huge excitement when stakes are high. Poker looks like it is here to stay and its popularity has never been as widespread nor growing as quickly as it is right now. There is no time like the present to join the poker craze.

Pker

In the world of online games the definition of a Pker player is ..” A PKer is one who kills other players for the enjoyment of killing them or causing them grief” The definition is taken from the Urban Dictionary. This definition suits the card game poker as well. Of course online pker is meant to be for fun and leisure but when it comes to the bottom line it is all about killing each others pker tournament chips or pker cash game chips.

The remaining article will keep the misspelling of poker because I actually find PKer (player killer) to describe the game of poker in a beautiful and meaningful way. In online pker there are actually a few pker tournament variations where it is more profitable to get rid of opponents than in normal pker tournaments.

Classic pker is one of the rooms who has HeadHunter pker tournaments. Kill as many opponents and be rewarded for each and every head you manage to take out of the tournament. This tournament form has many advantages. Online pker players do not really need to reach the final table to be rewarded but can win a substantial amount by killing opponents left and right. How to play pker online in these tournaments actually requires a small adjustment to normal pker tournament strategy. Other pker players with short stacks should be called more light as long as you have them covered. In many situations it can be mathematically correct to make a sick call even with the knowledge that you are behind in the hand. I am not going to discuss pker hands or pker strategies in dept in this short story but it is still worth mentioning that pker strategy always change according to the pker rules and the pker game played. All gamers and players who like to kill opponents should try a few pker tournaments on Classic pker. The 3 big pker rooms; Partypker, Pkerstars (Pker stars) and Full tilt pker have not yet invented headhunter pker tournaments but all of them offer close variations. I hope this small analogy about Pker will always make you remember that online pker played on Party Pker, PkerStar or Full tilt Pker is all about killing your opponents. Bet and raise and make sure your opponents bleed their chips away, by taking advantage of our poker bonus codes.