ESPN Poker Club Review and Bonus Code

Overall 93 Software 84 Features 97 Tournaments 91

(Click photo to enlarge.)

Please note: this is a play-money review.

Overview
ESPN Poker Club is hosted by ESPN, the network that airs World Series of Poker episodes. The player pool is on the small side of average. They offer a nice array of poker variants, but often Texas Hold'em is the only one drawing players to a seat. This is one of the best sites out there for serious players. The competition is as close to real-money poker as you're likely to find on the Internet.

Software
From a standpoint of functionality, this is great software. The gameplay is fast and crisp, though the graphics leave a little be desired. The seats are positioned close together on the software, which gives one the feeling of being cramped.

Customer Support
Like most play-money poker sites, ESPN's customer service is conducted entirely through email.

Promotions
Currently the ESPN Poker Club is holding a promotion to send one player to the semi-finals of Daniel Negreanu's Protégé 2 promotion. If the player wins the semi-final single-table tournament, they will reach the final table of Negreanu's Protégé promotion. Whoever wins that final table will receive personal tutoring from Daniel Negreanu as well as paid entry to at least 5 major live poker tournaments.

Each Sunday a tournament will be held in which the top 25 finishers advance to the final qualifier on October 29th. The winner of the final qualifier tournament advances to the Negreanu semi-final single table satellite. In order to qualify for the Sunday tournament in which 25 players advance to the final qualifier, one must either play 1,500 hands, win 10 single-table tournaments, or win one multi-table tournament.

Competition Level
This site quite possibly has the most realistic competition out there. Players tend to take the games very seriously. The largest no-limit hold'em game on the network is so big that a starter account's balance is less than half of the size of a small blind in the big game. It could be theorized that the competition is fairly tough across the network because players are striving to accumulate enough chips to sit down in this large no-limit game. The fact that ESPN only lets players reload their accounts once every 24 hours is also a big help with regard to promoting serious competition on the network.

Poker School
The extent to which ESPN educates players about poker stops at explaining the rules. However, the poker coverage on their website often features scheduled chat sessions with professional poker players who are generally quick to share strategic insights.

Tournaments
Tournaments are very popular on this network. Single-table tournaments are so popular that often there will be more than 50 active tournaments. There is an average of three scheduled multi-table tournaments each hour. One downside to these multi-table tournaments is that many of them are capped at 150 entrants, so it might be hard to get a seat during peak hours.

Unique Features
This is one of the strongest sites for scheduled multi-table tournaments. A new one starts about every twenty minutes during peak hours.

ESPN also offers nice promotions, such as their current one, a chance to become poker superstar Daniel Negreanu's protégé.

Starting Balance
1,200 play-money chips

Reload Policy
Users are eligible to receive more chips once every 24 hours, but only if their account has dipped below 500 chips.

Ring Games Offered
Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, 5 Card Stud

Fixed-Limit: 0.25-0.50 up to 500-1,000
No-Limit: 0.05-0.10 up to 2,500-5,000

Tournaments Offered
Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha hi-lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo

Single-Table: 100+10 up to 5,000+500
Multi-Table: 50+0 up to 1,000+100