Item: PokerStars Network
Rating: 4.6
Author: TopPokerValue

PokerStars Network Review

PokerStars and Full Tilt were two of the three biggest online poker sites (along with Absolute Poker). Following the infamous Black Friday, Absolute Poker was closed, and PokerStars acquired Full Tilt as part of their settlement deal with the US DOJ. Despite implmenting several unpopular changes, this remains one of the largest online poker networks.

Currently, there is little difference between Full Tilt vs PokerStars. Both sites share the same player base, loyalty rewards, sign-up bonus, and other promotions. Click to Tweet

There are three main reasons to play online on the PokerStars network:

PokerStars and Full Tilt are still one of the 3 largest online poker networks in terms of traffic. This means that regardless of the games you play, your preferred stakes, or the hours that you log on, you will almost always have plenty of tables and tournaments to choose from.
When PokerStars scrapped their Supernova program, they dramatically slashed the rewards for their best players. While this was definitely horrible news for online poker professionals, it was great news for everyone else. Not only did this drive many of the toughest opponents off the site, but it also made more money available for bonuses for everyone else. The new Stars Rewards program focuses on giving more bonuses to those players who need them most (i.e. players who are losing).
PokerStars and Full Tilt are two of the biggest and oldest online poker sites. They have top notch user interfaces and security. These sites are the standard that all other sites measure themselves against. Software quality on both sites is extremely high, with clean graphics and logical navigation. Advance action buttons and smooth animations make for a fast game, and multi-table play is well supported. Both sites offer poker software for mac, as well as Android and iOS, allowing you to play on a smartphone or tablet.

Poker Stars Network Cash Games

	Active Tables (Full Table):
	NL Hold'em		1¢/2¢ - $3/$6
	NLH (Zoom)		1¢/2¢ - 5¢/10¢ & 10¢/25¢
	FL Hold'em		2¢/4¢ & 25¢/50¢ - $2/$4
	PL Omaha		1¢/2¢ - 25¢/50¢
	PLO Hi/Lo		1¢/2¢
	FLO Hi/Lo		2¢/4¢
	FL 7-Stud		4¢/8¢ - $3/$6
	FL 7-Stud Hi/Lo		4¢/8¢ - $3/$6
	FL Razz		10¢/20¢ - $5/$10
	FL Badugi		25¢/50¢ & $2/$4

	Active Tables (6-Handed):
	NL Hold'em		1¢/2¢ - $5/$10
	NLH (Zoom)		1¢/2¢ - $2.50/$5
	FL Hold'em		2¢/4¢ - $5/$10 & $50/$100
	PL Omaha		1¢/2¢ - $25/$50
	PLO (Zoom)		1¢/2¢ - $2.50/$5
	NLO Hi/Lo		10¢/25¢ - 50¢/$1 & $5/$10
	NLO8 (Zoom)		1¢/2¢
	PLO Hi/Lo		1¢/2¢ - 25¢/50¢
	FLO Hi/Lo		10¢/20¢ & $2/$4 - $3/$6
	5-Card PLO		10¢/25¢ - $2/$4
	5-Card PLO8		10¢/25¢ - 25¢/50¢
	PL Courch.		10¢/25¢
	PL Cou. Hi/Lo		10¢/25¢
	NL 5-Draw		10¢/25¢ - 50¢/$1
	FL 5-Draw		10¢/20¢ - 25¢/50¢
	PL 2-7 Triple		25¢/50¢
	FL 2-7 Triple		$2/$4 - $3/$6
	8-Game		20¢/40¢, $1/$2 & $4/$8

	Active Tables (Heads-Up):
	NLH (Zoom)		25¢/50¢ - $2.50/$5
	FLH (Zoom)		25¢/50¢ - $3/$6
	PLO (Zoom)		25¢/50¢ - $2.50/$5

PokerStars offers more variations of online poker for money than any other site, both for poker cash games and tournaments. Although many of the games offered are never active, there is still a wide variety of games with a lot of active tables for a wide range of stakes. If you like playing less popular forms of poker, then PokerStars are pretty much your only option for online play!

Despite several PokerStars rake increases, the rake on the PokerStars network remains competitive for all games and stakes.

If low rake and high rewards is your primary concern when selecting an online poker site, then we highly suggest checking out Americas Cardroom (our top pick for cash games). Not only do Americas Cardroom charge less rake, but they also give far higher rakeback rewards! ACR also have solid traffic, but it's about 1/8th the traffic that the PokerStars network receives!

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PokerStars Network Tournaments

PokerStars is the world’s largest poker site and this is never more evident than when playing online poker tournaments. The incredible number of players can lead to amazing prizes (like $215,000 guaranteed for winning the Sunday Million), but when combined with a top-heavy payout structure it also creates ridiculous levels of volatility in your results. This high level of volatility is the reason why even top online tournament professionals go months without showing profit on PokerStars.

Even worse than the insane volatility in results is that the fact that PokerStars tournament players earn even lower rakeback rewards from the Stars Rewards program than cash game players. PokerStars reduced the number of reward points earned by tournament players to 45 per $1 paid in fees (as opposed to the 100 points cash game players get for the same amount). This is likely because cash game players typically pay more rake per hour of play and PokerStars are purely interested in maximzing profits. It doesn't seem to matter to them that rewards per dollar spent should be the same regardless of how you spend that dollar.

If you plan to play lots of tournaments and want to reduce your variance, then our top suggestion is Americas Cardroom. They also offer incredibly high stakes tournaments (with prize pools of $1M or more), run two major tournament series each year, and offer satellites to live events. Americas Cardroom also offer many tournaments with hundreds instead of thousands of entries, allowing you to more effectively manage your variance. Plus, their rewards program is far superior, offering a minimum of 27% rakeback!

However, if you prefer taking a shot at winning life-changing money, then there is simply no better online poker site for tournaments than PokerStars, with tournaments with over $1M in prizes running every single week!

PokerStars Network Sit and Go's

	Sit & Go (SNG) Formats:
	Single Table (ST)
	Multi-Table (MT)
	Rebuys (R)
	Bounty (B)
	Fifty50 (F50)

	Active SNGs (Full Table):
	NL Hold'em (MT)		2¢ - $30
	NL Hold'em (MT/R)		$3.50
	NL Hold'em (MT/B)		$1.50 - $30
	NL Hold'em (ST)		50¢ - $15
	NL Hold'em (B)		$1 - $10
	NL Hold'em (F50)		$1.50 - $30
	PL Omaha (F50)		$1.50 - $3.50
	NL Omaha Hi/Lo (MT)		$1.50 - $3.50
	NL Omaha Hi/Lo (B)		$1 - $3

	Active SNGs (6-Handed):
	NL Hold'em (MT)		15¢ - $35
	NL Hold'em (MT/B)		$1 - $25
	NL Hold'em (ST)		40¢ - $1,000
	NL Hold'em (B)		$1 - $50
	NL Omaha Hi/Lo (ST)		$3.50
	PL 5-Card Draw (ST)		$1.50
	8-Game (ST)		$1.50

	Active SNGs (Heads-Up):
	NL Hold'em (MT)		$1.50 - $7
	NL Hold'em (ST)		$1.50 - $500
	FL Hold'em (ST)		$3.50 - $10
	PL Omaha (ST)		$1.50 - $60
	NL Omaha Hi/Lo (ST)		$3.50 - $60
	PL Omaha Hi/Lo (ST)		$3.50
	FL Razz (ST)		$1.50
	NL 5-Card Draw (ST)		$3.50
	FL 2-7 Triple (ST)		$3.50
	8-Game (ST)		$1.50 & $15

No other site offers as many online Sit and Go poker tournaments as the PokerStars network, especially for full table or heads-up games. There are also plenty of multi-table Sit and Go tournaments, with up to 180 players for regular SNGs, up to 360 for 10¢ Turbo SNGs and up to 990 for 2¢ Hyper Turbos. For most games offered, PokerStars offers a wide range of active buy-ins.

However, unless you're playing multiple SNGs at the same time, you are likely are far better off playing Sit & Go's on Americas Cardroom. Not only does Americas Cardroom offer regular activity for SnGs up to $20 ($200 for heads-up SnGs), you will also earn far better rewards while playing them! They even have a Sit-and-Go rake race called Sit & Crush, where you can earn $1,250 each week with a top tier finish! To start playing SNGs with Americas Cardroom today, simply click the banner below:

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PokerStars Network Review

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