Absolute Poker - Review
Absolute Poker welcomes U.S. players.
Game Selection, Limits and Rakes
Absolute Poker spreads a decent amount of games on its site. Along with the usual Texas Hold'em, Omaha and Seven-Card Stud variations, it also offers Razz and mixed games such as H.O.R.S.E. and H.O.S.E. Heads-up, six-handed and nine-handed games are available in No-Limit, Pot-Limit and Limit games in the different poker variations. Stakes range from 2¢/4¢ to $500/$1,000 in the Fixed-Limit and Pot-Limit games, while No-Limit games range anywhere from 1¢/2¢ to $200/$00.
The rake at Absolute Poker is pretty standard for the industry. The rake is 5% on all game types to a max of $4 for all limits and number of players. The online poker site also uses a "no flop, no drop" policy.
Tournaments
At Absolute Poker it's almost impossible not to find a tournament you want to play in. The poker site hosts multi-table tournaments as well as sit&gos in a wide range with various buy-ins ranging from $1 to $5,000 and all are usually pretty juicy for players as they fill up and play loose and fast.
Absolute Poker sweetens the pot each week with a $75,000 and a $150,0000 guaranteed tournaments. Since the poker site moved to the Cereus Network, it has also bumped up its weekend tournament guarantees to $500,000 total.
The poker site also hosts regular qualifier tournaments for live events around the world, including the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour.
Rewards
At Absolute Poker players will find a VIP program that offers great rewards for loyalty. The program offers three different levels depending on how much someone plays on a monthly basis. Every time you play, you earn points that you can cash in for bonuses, tournament entries, prizes and other gifts. What you can do with your points just depends on what level a VIP you are - VIP, platinum or elite.
An interesting reward for players that reach elite status at Absolute Poker is that you'll earn annual interest on the money in your account as well.
Absolute Poker also usually offers a reload bonus each month for its players.
Traffic
When UltimateBet and AbsolutePoker moved to the Cereus network, Absolute Poker essentially doubled in traffic. It now has more consistent traffic with more action around the clock.
Texas Hold'em games are still the most popular on the site, with cash-game traffic mainly in the low are middle stakes for No-Limit games and in the micro to middle stakes for Limit and Pot-Limit games. The Omaha and Stud games get less traffic, but players can usually still find a game to sit in. The traffic in Omaha games is increasing as more U.S. players are picking up the game as well.
Software
Absolute Poker runs on the Cereus network with its sister site UltimateBet. The software seems to have very few glitches with very little downtime making for fast and reliable game play.
The platform is a nice clean design that is easy for players to use and be able to find the games they want. Along with that it offers features like find a player, hand history game stats, not taking and even allows for private tournaments. Tables are resizeable to accommodate multi-tabling up to 10 tables at once and there are custom downloadable skins.
There is not a no-download version of the software.
Support
Absolute Poker only offers e-mail support for its customers; however, their response time answering e-mails is fast and efficient. The poker site also has a database of questions and answers on the site for players.
Pros
- Allows U.S. customers
- Great traffic on Cereus network
- Lots of weak players
- Good selection of games at various stakes
Cons
- Low traffic at higher stakes
- No live support
- Traffic is concentrated mainly in Hold'em games