I am going to keep talking about the Everest Poker download, with the focus on their rakeback program. You might notice that their rewards program is among the very best available online. You earn Summit Points (SP) for playing real money poker, and more points mean more benefits. When you reach the highest VIP levels, you can get up to $5k/month in cash bonuses as well as an SP multiplier of 750%. This means you will be getting up to 50% rakeback!

To receive the benefits, you need to enroll yourself into the VIP Summit Club. To do this, go to “My Account” and click on the VIP Summit Club button. This differs from the Full Tilt Poker download where you are automatically enrolled in the VIP program.

I think it is time for me to tell you what can you get for all your hard work at the tables! I will now list the VIP level and their benefits.

Base Camp – If you can earn 500+ SPs in one month, you will earn your way into the Base Camp. The first thing you receive is a 250% bonus multiplier for all the SPs you earn. For instance, if you get 100 SPs one day, you will actually be credited with 350 Summit Points (a 250 point bonus). If you have too many SPs and want to actually get something for them, why not trade them in for cash? You can get $50 for 12,500 SPs. You also get an increased $50 refer a friend bonus, and you get entry into a $1,000 weekly freeroll. Like the VIP program you get when you download PokerStars, you get the benefits for each Camp level for a month.

Camp I – You will be put into Camp I once you collect at least 3,000 SPs in one month. This VIP level increases your SP multiplier to 500%. This time earning 100 SPs would net you a bonus of 500 SPs. You can convert SPs into even more cash in Camp I: $250 for 62,500 SPs. You also keep the same benefits as Base Camp players.

Camp II – If you want to become a member of Camp II, you will need to earn a minimum of 10k SPs on Everest, one of the softest online poker rooms around. Your bonus SP rate will increase to 600%. The bonus cash increases to a whopping $750 in exchange for 187,000 SPs. The benefits really start to improve at this level, and there is a good chance they are better than on most US poker sites. Your refer-a-friend bonus is now $100, you can play a $10,000 monthly freeroll, and you get in game chat access to support and priority customer service.

Camp III – Be prepared to earn 20k SPs to get into Camp III. You will earn a bonus of 650% on all Summit Points. When you exchange SPs for cash rewards, you can earn up to $1k, which usually cannot be matched by any given Roulette bonus. You will have to exchange 250k SPs to get the $1,000 bonus. And, as expected, all the Camp II benefits stick around.

To be continued next entry.

The site I talk about in this entry is the same as Tiger Gaming in that it is not US friendly. Everest Poker is targeted mostly at people learning to play poker for the first time, which is great for those with a solid game looking for an easy profit. No Limit stakes start at $0.10 - $0.10, and the highest stake available is $50 - $50. Most people won’t need to play any lower or higher than the stakes available here, and those that prefer to play higher will need to look at other online poker rooms. And just so you aren’t confused: all NL stakes are detailed by stating the same value twice, but this is in fact the amount of the big blind while the small blind is half the same amount. I thought you should know that before you make the download and spend half your night being confused.

You’ll be pleased to know that the Limit stakes are stated quite normally. They begin at $0.02 - $0.04 and the highest limit is $50 - $100. Once again, this won't suit the players with the biggest bankrolls. Sit and Go's can be entered for as little as $0.04 + $0.01 and as high as $500 + $30. I have already stated that, similar to Tiger Gaming, Everest Poker is not on the list of US friendly poker sites. In addition to the U.S., players from Russia and China are also not allowed on Everest.

The Everest Poker download has expanded considerably since coming into the poker world, and it is Everest's goal to be considered a top notch poker site. Unlike a lot of new poker sites, they chose to create their very own Everest Network rather than become a skin of another site. They've become the sixth most-played network on the Internet in the past few years. If you are new to money poker sites, Everest is a solid starting point.

There are a few negatives however. One downside is that only Holdem and Omaha are offered. This is strange considering that most online sites out there offer at least Stud. Also, if you do not own a computer on the newer side, the program uses more resources than a Full Tilt download. But overall you should see that the pros outweigh the cons on Everest Poker.

Welcome to my blog! I’m a huge fan of online poker, and I will be updating this blog on a regular basis with poker articles. For my first entry, I will write about Tiger Gaming, one of the sites on Action Poker. Please note that this site does not accept wagers from Americans.

The designers at Tiger Gaming did well to create a site that’s easy to navigate and nice to look at. Similar to the PokerStars bonus code, there is a large deposit bonus, and it is not too hard to earn. You should find the customer support quite accommodating when you need something taken care of. Tiger Gaming is unique in that it offers some different games that you won’t find on any other site. Included in these games are Guts, Big 2, Chinese Poker, and Pan. You won’t find Internet slots here, but this will become your site of choice if you enjoy any of the other games.

In addition to the unique games mentioned, Tiger Gaming has Limit and No Limit Holdem, Limit and Pot-limit Omaha and 7 Card Stud (an unpopular choice for some reason).

Tiger Gaming has recently been advertising aggressively in Canada, encouraging people to try online poker in commercials on various TV networks. Presumably they considered Canada full of people interested in money poker sites. The aggressive campaign is still going on and has resulted in a poker site full of Canadians, many of whom really can't play poker well at all.

Traffic is definitely an issue, especially if you play mid or high stakes. However, if you’ve just gotten into download free poker sites and you want to start small, you’ll find plenty of company below 50NL. You will usually have three to six 25NL tables to choose from, for example. The same can’t be said for finding 50NL tables. You’ll be lucky to have two 50NL tables to choose from. And you’d be wasting your time if you want to play even higher than this. 100NL pretty much never runs, and when it does, there’s only one table. I have never seen the NL1000 table populated in my time at the site, so these players will just have to download Full Tilt Poker.

I will just go ahead and tell you that the traffic for the other games is pretty awful. They offer Seven Card Stud tables but nobody, literally nobody, plays them. Omaha is almost as bad. At most you will find one or two tables filled, and it’s usually Pot Limit with 20 cent blinds. If you enjoy these non-Hold’em games, you should download PokerStars instead. As for the exotic games, you’ll almost for sure find them running during peak hours. Since Tiger is the only room you can play them, the player base is more reliable. My favorite game, Guts, often runs two or three tables at once, and the minimum bet is usually from 10 to 50 cents.

To sum it up, the player base on Tiger Gaming is okay if you are a lower stakes player, but it’s also nothing to write home about. If you are just starting out with poker, it would be a good idea to start your bankroll at Tiger and then go ahead and try a Bwin Poker download when you want some stiffer competition.

I hope you enjoyed my blog today! In a couple weeks I’ll write about the interface at Tiger.