tragulprepte1980.netlify.com

I’ll admit, I was a bit worried about what I was going to write about this week.
As a blog that has transitioned in an out of being a place where I tell stories about interesting people I meet at the poker table, it’s such a dry spell when I don’t have anyone to meet. Granted, that’s what everyone’s going through right now, but I did have a slight moment of panic when I thought that poker rooms might be closed long enough that I’d have to get a real job once this is all over just to rebuild the bankroll.
It’s been rough for everyone all around these past few weeks with the mass quarantine we have going on, but I’ve used this time to really dive into some of my finer passions: cooking and, of course, poker.
A few days ago, I deposited the limited amount of bitcoin I have onto Ignition Casino. The only reason I have any BTC is because ages ago, when Bovada said they were closing up shop and selling to Ignition, I had to withdraw all of my funds, and bank withdrawals were taking way too long. I set up a wallet, and the funds were transferred shortly thereafter. I was astounded at how simple it was. Since then, I’ve done most of my online play on Global Poker, but a friend recommended Ignition a few days ago; he said the action was great, and the compatibility with PokerTracker 4 was a huge bonus. In the past few days, I’ve put in more hours on Ignition than I had on Global in the previous week because my playing experience has been that much more enjoyable, so I thought I’d do an honest review of the two sites, both of which have their merits.
For the record, I’m only going to be reviewing my experience with the cash games I’ve played so far. On Global, I’ve played anything from 50NL to 500NL. On Ignition, I have only played 25NL. Sample for Global is around 20-25 hours of play, and sample for Ignition is a measly 1,000 hands over 3-4 sessions.

With more than two decades of industry experience, Bovada Poker is basically a US adaption of Bodog.Initially launched in 2004, Bovada Poker is a member of the PaiWangLuo network and does not have a regulated license behind its brand. In 2016, the company decided to move its poker product to a US-facing brand known as Ignition Casino. The Bovada Poker Bonus. The Bovada Poker bonus feels like a work in progress after they added poker back into the mix or not, as they’ve never seemed intent on attracting the bonus-hopping unsentimental rakeback clientele. The Bovada bonus is simple to understand and straightforward in its requirements. You’ll get a 100% bonus on your first Bovada Poker deposit of any size up to $500.

ACTION/SITE TRAFFIC
Global Poker: For global, the site traffic for cash games seems to peak around 8PM-12PM EST. It kind of sucks because I’d rather play earlier, but such is life. In general, I’ve noticed that the full ring games have more fishy players than the 6-max games, and at 50NL-100NL, there are usually 7+ tables running in the mid-to-late evening on the East coast. As for the quality of the player pool, sure, there are some regs, but even when I played 500NL on a Tuesday afternoon, there were some whales in the game. Reg-to-fish ratio at full-ring is usually 7-2 or so, but there aren’t that many players just absolutely punting it off. Nearly every table I’ve played has at least a few fish, and usually if there are no more fish at the table, the game breaks immediately. Funny how similar it is to live. Players have real screen names, so table selecting, and bum hunting exist, but as far as I know, you can’t change seats once you’re at a table. Another thing about Global is on some of the tables, players actually chat with each other – and not just to talk shit about hands. In a 200NL session I played the other day, the players were openly chatting about the quarantine and the insanity at the grocery stores, the loss of sports and the insane NFL offseason we’ve been having, what kind of whiskey two players enjoyed drinking while they played, and other random stuff. It was the closest thing I’ve ever felt to live poker in an online game.
tl;dr: Play in the mid/late evening if you’re EST. Games are fairly soft.
Rating: 7/10

Global Poker Vs Bovada Bonus

Ignition: Because of the anonymous player IDs and the inability to table select, I don’t actually know how many tables of 25NL Ignition has running at any given time, but they do have a 4-table max on their site, and I’ve always been able to run 4 tables of full ring. It’s never been a struggle to find a game. To get seated, you choose a game/stake, table type (HU, 6-max, full ring), and your buy-in, and then the game auto-seats you. This prevents bum-hunting and seat sniping, a move I thoroughly approve of. Nearly all of the tables I played had at least two fish in the game, and games that didn’t usually broke quickly. The regs, for what it’s worth, aren’t great, but the reg-to-fish ratio is usually 7-2 or 6-3, sometimes with even more fish. Remember, however, that these tables are lower stakes that Global. This might be my small sample, but I’ve played at two or three tables where one player was punting it away (ex: I open UTG with AK, BB 3-bets me, I flat, and he goes bet/bet/shove on a K-high board with pocket 99).
tl;dr: Great traffic and soft games.
Rating: 8/10

SOFTWARE
Global Poker: One massive upside about Global is that their software is browser-based. It makes it really easy to play anywhere you go because you can use any device imaginable. Visiting family for the weekend and you didn’t feel like bringing your laptop? You can borrow one of theirs and still play. Mobile play is also easy, and multitabling on mobile isn’t bad either. That said, they just rolled out a new UI, and I’m not a huge fan of it. The buttons are smaller, and the text is a bit smaller too, so when I’m quickly scanning a table to see the size of the pot, it isn’t always the first thing I notice. Multitabling on PC is a bit frustrating for Global; I typically open the tables I want to play, lay them on top of each other, make sure they are all about the same size, and then move them to each corner of my screen. They overlap some, but it’s not a huge deal. It’s just the process of doing this that’s annoying. Ignition has one button to auto-tile all of your windows. However, on Global, there’s no max number of tables you can play at once. You can auto-top up when your stack falls below 95 BB.
tl;dr: Software/UI is not great, but you can play as many tables as you want.
Rating: 4/10

Ignition: Holy shit am I a sucker for a clean UI and nice software. Ignition’s software honestly reminds me of Stars, but maybe I’m just being nostalgic. One-click auto-tile or auto-cascade is REALLY nice. The software is downloadable, meaning you can’t play it on Chromebooks, but they have a mobile app. But I really can’t stress enough how much I simply enjoy playing on Ignition over Global because of how easy the software is to work with. When one table gets bad and I want to open another, I can just auto-tile and the tables will rearrange themselves accordingly. On Global, I have to drag the table out, resize it, etc. while I’m in the middle of other hands. That said, one of my friends said he was playing a few tournaments on Ignition the other day and the site crashed. He ended up getting his buy-ins back, but it’s still a frustrating problem to deal with. Last night, I was 4-tabling (oh yeah, that’s another drawback – max 4 tables), and I got to facing a large hero call when I rivered top set QQ on 9768Q. I decided a fold was best, so I clicked fold, but then I disconnected, even though my other three tables were playing normally. I ended up timing out and the hand auto-folded, but it would have been infuriating if I decided to call. To put salt in the wound, I was reconnected a minute later where I discovered that my disconnect caused me to auto-fold AA the next hand. Sheesh. Could have been my internet connection, but my desktop is hard-wired into my modem, and again, my other three tables were fine. Notably missing is an auto-top up feature.
tl;dr: Sexy UI. Connection/crashing issues are a concern. Max 4 tables at a time. No auto-top up.
Rating: 7/10

DEPOSIT/WITHDRAWAL/BONUSES
Global Poker: When you make a deposit on Global, what you’re actually doing is paying real USD for their “Gold Coins” which is play money. As a “bonus” for those Gold Coins, you receive an amount of “Sweeps Coins” equivalent to the amount you spent in USD with a bonus of 4-5%. So if you were to buy $500 USD worth of Gold Coins, you would receive 520 Sweeps Coins, which have a 1:1 value in USD. Once purchasing Sweeps Coins, you can play immediately. Occasionally, Global will also do Facebook and Twitter polls, and answers will enter you in a drawing for Sweeps Coins (usually $5-$10 or a tournament ticket). There is no rakeback. Withdrawals require an ID and proof of address; once these are confirmed, withdrawals can be executed directly to your bank in a few days. After the initial verification, the process is quite simple.
tl;dr: Instant deposits. Easy withdrawals once verified. Small, instant bonuses.
Rating: 8/10
Ignition: When you deposit on Ignition, you get a 100%-125% bonus on your initial deposit, with the greater bonus going to those who deposit using BTC. BTC deposits are converted using an exchange rate provided for you that is near equivalent to most of what you see online; I think when I did it, they actually gave me an exchange rate that was higher than CoinBase. To make the deposit, Ignition gives you an address which I copied and pasted to my BTC wallet (I use Ethereum), and after making the transaction, I had to wait about an hour or so for it to go through. To receive your deposit bonus, you have to grind it out, paying rake at the tables to “unlock” your bonus bit-by-bit. You have a full year to do this. For those of you who have bonus whored in the past, it’s pretty much the same as all of the old sites. I haven’t done any withdrawals yet, but I’d imagine that doing a BTC withdrawal is quite simple.
tl;dr: BTC is easy. Not sure about USD. HUGE deposit bonus over the course of a year.
Rating: 9/10

PLAYER TRACKING/HAND HISTORIES/HUD
Global Poker: Hand histories have a unique link that is generated once a hand is over. There is no HUD, and as far as I know, no export to PT4/HEM. When taking notes on players, Global gives you a reasonably sized box for notes and a color system to classify players. I know that lack of PT4/HEM support is massive for keeping the regs away and drawing the whales in, but man, it’s just not as satisfying to play online poker for me when I can’t scroll through my hand histories and look for places to improve my strategy. When I play a session on Global, I have to open a separate note on Evernote. As a hand I want to study is completed, I have to copy the link, swap windows, paste the link into my note, and then write a little description (ex: AJ BTN vs. 88 BB trip on J high board) which is cumbersome to do while multitabling.
tl;dr: No HUDs and no PT4/HEM. Hand histories generated after completion of a hand with unique link.
Rating: 2/10
Ignition: I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting it was for me to finally be able to play on a site where the games are decent and the hand histories are exportable. Being able to quickly tag hands and sort through them after a session is SO RELIEVING. I had gotten so accustomed to the system I created while playing on Global that I forgot about what a bitch it was. PT4 finally has Ignition support for grabbing hand histories, but it still doesn’t have a HUD. Fortunately, Ace Poker Solutions has a work around for some price (I was grandfathered in from when it was $9.99 on Bovada, but it might be $59.99 now) that tricks PT4 into thinking you’re actually playing on iPoker, which allows you to use a HUD on Ignition. It’s fantastic. When I first started playing online poker, I was obviously fixated on it, and with the advent of software and all these other ways you could tinker with your game and strategy, I had such a passion for it. I’ve never felt that playing on Global, but now that I can on Ignition, I’m so excited to study the game again.
tl;dr: PT4 support. Use Ace Poker Solutions for HUD on PT4/HEM.
Rating: 8/10

Clearly, if you’ve been following along, I lean way harder toward Ignition than Global Poker. I will say this, however: I think as I move up in stakes, it’s likely that I’ll find the games on Ignition are tougher than on Global. I can’t imagine that the 500NL on Ignition is as soft as the Global game I played. For now though, the compatibility with PT4 is so important for me because it makes the process of improving as a player so much easier and more enjoyable. I’ll be playing most of my hands on Ignition this week unless Global is running a juicy tournament. I also haven’t played any tournaments on Ignition yet, so I don’t know what the pool is like, but quickly scanning yesterday, I noticed this important tidbit: there were a few tournaments that had MASSIVE (read: biggest I’ve ever seen) overlays. I was astounded. I noticed that a few tournaments were canceled due to lack of runners, but yeah; I think there’s some insane money to be made on Ignition tournaments.
Over the next few weeks, I’m not sure I’ll have as much to write about, but I have considered streaming or doing HH reviews on a YouTube channel. I hope you all stick with me on this blog and what becomes of it through The Plague v2.0, but more importantly, I hope you’re all staying safe and not going batshit crazy. See you in the online streets!

PokerStars vs Bovada Poker Review 2021

PokerStars and Bovada (Formerly Bodog) Poker share little in common except for being popular online poker rooms. PokerStars is the world’s largest online poker room and Bovada is the Internet’s second largest US poker site. This PokerStars vs Bovada Poker article will compare the key aspects of each room. They may share little in common, but these two powerhouses each boast a number of strengths and weaknesses.

Learning about these strengths and weaknesses will help you make an informed decision when deciding which poker site you want to play at. I will break this comparison up into different sections. These sections will include all of the information that the average online poker player will want to know about before signing up.

Knowing how these two poker rooms stack up to each other will enable you to choose the room that best suits your preferences. The extreme difference in traffic may answer the Bovada Poker versus Poker Stars question for some players, but I have found traffic to be a poor factor to judge a poker room on. 5,000 players can be just as good as 500,000 because you will likely only play against a few dozen players at once at any given time. Size does matter but like the old adage claims, it’s what you do with it that matters.

Pokerstars Vs Bovada Poker Deposit Bonus Comparison 2021

Each of these poker rooms has taken a unique approach to deposit bonuses. I have claimed dozens of welcome bonuses and very few of them can compare to the sign up bonuses at Poker Stars and Bovada Poker. Bovada Poker has a larger bonus than PokerStars, but you may end up earning more bonus money at PokerStars depending on what type of player you are. I have added the deposit bonus details for each room below.

• PokerStars – A 100% bonus on your first three deposits, up to $600
• Bovada Poker – A 100% match bonus on your first deposit up to $1,000 *

* If you make your initial deposit and one or more deposits on the same day Bovada may count all of them towards the 100% match due to the restrictions on some of the deposit options. So an initial $400 deposit followed by another $400 deposit on the same day may give you an $800 bonus at Bovada.

Bovada ‘s Deposit Bonus is $400 larger so some players will end up claiming more free money there. PokerStars however matches your first three deposits. If you rarely play or tend to play at the micro or small stakes level then this format will definitely help you claim much more bonus money when compared to Bovada’s single deposit bonus. A $200 deposit every two weeks at PokerStars is worth $600. If you were to deposit the same amount at Bovada you would only receive a $200 bonus.

PokerStars Deposit Bonus gives new depositors 90 days to claim and clear all three deposits. Bovada Poker gives new depositors only 60 days to claim their first deposit bonus.
I have looked at the clearance requirements for both bonuses and once again PokerStars seems to favor the average player while Bovada mostly favors high volume players. Here is an overview of the requirements for each bonus.

PokerStars – Earn 17 VPPs for each USD in bonus money. They will issue your bonus in increments of $10. Bovada Poker – Bovada Poker also uses increments, but they increase in value instead of staying the same. There are six bonus levels at Bovada. At 50 Poker Points (PP) you will receive a $10 bonus installment. Here are the rest of the benchmarks: 250PP = $40, 750PP=$100, 1,500PP=$150, 3,000PP=$300 and 5,000PP=$400.

Bovada Poker’s bonus may be a larger bonus, but the average online poker player will not be able to claim the full $1,000.

PokerStars Vs Bovada Poker Promotions 2021

PokerStars scores a big win over Bovada Poker in regards to promotions. PokerStars has always been one of the best online poker rooms for exciting and rewarding promos. Bovada Poker on the other hand tends to run very few promotions. Larger rooms can outspend smaller rooms and this is the case when you compare the promotions at Poker Stars with those at Bovada Poker.

PokerStars spends more money on promotions in a single day than Bovada Poker does in an entire month. PokerStars runs many tournament based promotions like the SCOOP and WCOOP series. They also give away millions of dollars each month via freerolls. Bovada also offers freerolls, but they are not as frequent and do not have comparable prize pools. Bovada Poker does score some points for their Royal Flush bonus and Badbeat bonus, which Poker Stars does not offer.

During any given month Poker Stars will be running 5-10 special promotions, 5-10 ongoing promotions and a wide range of regional based promos. Bovada Poker does occasionally offer a seasonal promotion but for the most part there are only 5-6 promotions that run all year round.

Bovada Poker does not offer anything that can compete with the PokerStars VIP program. This program is the best the industry has ever seen and it beats any other room’s promotions all by itself.

Bovada Poker Versus Poker Stars Cash Games and Tournaments in 2021

The PokerStars Vs. Bovada Poker debate isn’t even really a debate when it comes to cash games, sitngos and multi-table tournaments. PokerStars has the volume and selection to beat any their five closest competitors combined. Traffic and selection are not the only important factors being considered though. The availability of soft action is equally important. Many would assume that it is easier to find a soft table at a poker site with thousands of active real money tables. This is true to an extent, but when I compare the action at both of these rooms Bovada is a clear winner when it comes to the percentage of easy to beat games.

PokerStars may have hundreds of thousands of players logged in at any given time, but how many tables do you plan to play at simultaneously? If you only play at one or two tables then all of that excess traffic is meaningless. The large number of tables gives you more choices, but if you were to randomly sit down at a table at both rooms you will likely find Bovada Poker much easier to win money at. This is in large part due to the number of sports bettors and casino gamblers who frequent the poker tables. Poker Stars only offers a poker room so they do not have a high percentage of loose players based on their overall traffic.

Game variety is another important aspect to consider and PokerStars crushes Bovada Poker and nearly every other poker site. Here is a breakdown of the game variety at each of these poker rooms:

• PokerStars – 10 regular card games, four mixed poker games and Zoom Poker
• Bovada Poker – 5 regular card games

Bovada Vs Global Poker

PokerStars offers twice as many regular poker games compared to Bovada. These include 5 Card Draw, 2-7 Triple Draw, Badugi, 2-7 Single Draw and Razz Poker. PokerStars is also the leading poker site for mixed poker games. Their line-up includes H.O.R.S.E, 8-Game, Triple Stud and Hold’em/Omaha.

Zoom Poker is a new service offered by Pokerstars. It is comparable to Rush Poker. When you fold a hand you are transferred to a new table right away. You will receive a new hand and will be sitting with different players. Zoom Poker doubles the number of hands you can play in an hour and you will not feel rushed at all.

Poker Stars also dominates Bovada Poker in regards to sitngos and tournaments. PokerStars made their name in the competitive world of online poker by running a large number of tournaments and offering huge prize pools. Since then they have also built the best sitngo community in the world. If you added all of the prize pools at Bovada Poker up for a week it would be lower than what PokerStars runs in a day. Pokerstars holds the world record for the largest online poker tournament.

Global Poker Vs Bovada Odds

This includes the number of entrants and for the size of the prize pool. Pokerstars runs several notable tournament series including the SCOOP and the WCOOP, the largest poker tournament series online. PokerStars also boasts a wide range of different formats for both sitngos and tournaments. These innovative formats include Fifty-50 sitngos, Time Tourneys and Hyper-turbos to name a few. Bovada Poker offers some small to moderate tournaments but most people play there for the cash games.

PokerStars Vs Bovada Poker Deposit and Cashout Options in 2021

This section will cover the other major facets of a poker room including banking, support and software. Bovada Poker holds a big advantage concerning support. They simply give you more methods in which to contact support and they have faster response times. Banking is a little harder to judge. Bovada Poker does a good job with deposits and payouts when compared to other US poker rooms.

PokerStars has always been one of the fastest paying rooms, even when they accepted Americans. Their payout speed and the number of options has only increased since they left the US market, but since only Americans will be playing at Bovada Poker I consider them equal in regards to deposits and cash-outs since they are one of the best rooms for Americans.

The software at these two rooms also ranks similarly. The PokerStars software has a few more bells and whistles, but from a poker players perspective they are both excellent when it comes to speed, function and looks.