What's going on guys welcome to the channel! Today this video is all about where I think is
the best place to play online poker mainly for cash games. I always get asked on stream where
the softest place to play is where the rake's the lowest what sites have good bonuses and
rakeback etc. So I thought I'd do a video on it if you haven't seen me before i play mid stakes
cash games and tournaments for a living, stream on Twitch and create content here on YouTube. I
live in the UK guys meaning I've got access to pretty much all the sites regulated or
otherwise. I think it's important to mention guys I'm not sponsored with any poker site,
I do have affiliate links which I'll leave in the description below, and all that is is if you sign
up using my code I get a little bit of commission from it. You will actually get extra cash from me
as well if you sign up with these but I'm still gonna try and be as honest as I can throughout
this review regardless. The main sites I'm gonna cover in this review are going to be PokerStars,
PartyPoker, GGPoker and ACR. I will touch on 888, Unibet and Run it Once. The reason I want
to cover those main four is that I play on these sites pretty much daily. So if you found this
video helpful guys please give it a thumbs up, please share it if necessary, make sure
you subscribe to the channel. But other than that guys let's get into it starting with the software
So guys here's a short clip of me six tabling across some of the major sites. Unibet doesn't
have FastFold anymore they got rid of it because I don't think there's enough traffic. 888 does
but it wouldn't let me play it for whatever reason, I couldn't figure out why something
to do with my account I believe. So software's obviously gonna just come down to preference,
some people are going to prefer some sites more than others. Across all the sites you
can view the chip stacks in big blinds or cash, they all have an optional four colour deck,
all have customizable bet sliders and layouts. So PokerStars is generally considered to be
the industry leader in software. Aurora seemed to cause up quite a stir, but I've had no issues with
it at all, and we have the optional throwables as a little gimmick. I'm not really into any of these
things but some people do enjoy them. The lobby is very easy to use and I've encountered no problems
since I've been using Stars. PartyPoker for me seems very outdated. They haven't really had any
major improvements in god knows how many years. The tables for me are actually quite sluggish
and slow. I have issues pretty much on a daily basis with PartyPoker, just in that sometimes it
won't let me close a table or reopen a table and stuff like that; same with the lobby as well the
lobby can be really frustrating God knows how many times I've nearly misclicked into the wrong MTT.
I also found that the text and note box in the bottom left corner won't just go away,
so every time I minimized it when I clicked fast fold it would just reappear, and it has its own
version of throwables which I think actually they had before Stars if I'm not wrong but I don't,
again it's not really my thing. The GG Poker software is actually really good in my opinion,
they've made huge improvements over the past years and they have updates quite often.
It runs really smoothly, I couldn't edit the rush colour tables which kind of annoyed me, because
I wanted it to be black. They've obviously got all the emotes different ones now with Negreanu
and I think Elky, and plenty of other gimmicks like run it once, twice or three times, the
pre-flop card squeeze and the river card squeeze, which once you get used to it is actually quite
fun. The ACR software is kind of old-school but I like it. It runs pretty smooth for me, I've heard
some people say it's quite demanding in terms of PC resources but I've had no issues since playing.
Easy to edit the lobby is not great, it's not as good as say PokerStars, but it is pretty easy to
use. But I think the FastFold is a pretty decent experience. So the Unibet software for me I'm not
really a big fan of. It feels quite clunky and slow and it's not as customizable as some of the
bigger sites. That being said it's still pretty clear what's going on and is obviously playable,
but yeah it's not really a site where I've spent a lot of time just because I don't really like
the aesthetics of it. 888 for me is probably the worst software. I really don't like this new look,
its old look was a lot better for me and just seemed to run a bit smoother. I don't really
know why they changed it to this, but I'm just not a fan at all. Again maybe it's a preference
thing maybe you guys like the aesthetic a bit more than I do, but it's definitely a factor that stops
me playing there because I really don't like the software. So I will touch on deposit options guys,
you are limited with some of the smaller sites. The industry leaders which I would say are Stars,
GG and PartyPoker have a lot of options, but 888 and Unibet will accept things like PayPal
and I think MuchBetter. ACR on the other hand will only accept card deposits or Bitcoin, which
is kind of frustrating but I know that a lot of people on ACR will buy and sell to other people,
so if you're involved in the poker community it's pretty easy to send and receive funds.
So now moving on to rake and the skill level of the pools. So I found a pretty good site
here Prime Dope which has an online poker rate comparison. I did go and actually manually check
all of the sites to make sure it was right, it was a little bit off with Unibet, I don't know
if they changed it recently. For example the formal rake at the micros here is actually
three percent not three and a half percent, but it was capped higher I think at €1.50. Which doesn't
actually affect the net rake all that much. But the rest of the site seem to be spot on. So,
rake at the micros, Unibet actually is the lowest overall. Obviously Unibet doesn't have FastFold,
all the other sites do, and the rake for FastFold is same as regular tables on all sites except GG.
GG the way that they do it is they have a three big blind cap on their Rush games,
meaning that in this case the cap is only 30 cents which brings down the net rake quite
a bit. So up to the mid stakes GG actually has pretty reasonable rake on the Rush and Cash games.
It should be noted that GG is the only site that rakes pre-flop, that's if a three-bet takes place.
You also pay an extra one big blind for the big hand jackpot if the pot gets over 30 big blinds,
but this doesn't actually affect the rake given that this is zero EV, that you should get it back
variance dependent. So looking at low stakes, it's actually PokerStars that has the lowest
rake in regular games, but again if we look at FastFold, because GG caps it at three big blinds,
it actually ends up being the lowest, whereas the cap for GG games at regular tables is quite high.
At the mid stakes it's all very similar again, with the exception of GG here where the cap is
still quite high. At 200NL it doesn't make a difference either when it whether it's fast fold
or not, because FastFold three big blinds is again still $6. So with these stakes the rake is the
same between Rush and regular tables. As we get to the high stakes they're all again very similar,
except for GG which has a pretty high cap. And whilst I'm not going to touch on them too much,
Run it Once and 888 throughout this is actually quite high rake.
So in terms of skill level of the pools guys, I'm just going to give you my subjective opinion.
I'm not going to touch too much on micros because i literally haven't played them,
but I have gone through the small stakes and the mid stakes. so from easy to tough guys I found GG
the softest, followed by WPN which is America's Cardroom, followed by PokerStars and then the
toughest I found was PartyPoker. Obviously this is just my opinion, but I do know other players
that have said similar things, especially with PartyPoker being one of the toughest.
It might not be as tough now on Party given that they've taken away the cash game leaderboards,
but from my experience it is pretty tough to beat. With the mid stakes guys, I haven't played too
much on ACR yet so I'm not really going to put it in, although it does seem relatively soft,
but I would say that GG is the softest followed by PokerStars followed by PartyPoker. Again
PartyPoker really really tough especially at 100 FastForward, but I did flick around in
the pools the other day, and I noticed that a lot of the regs that used to play aren't really
playing that much anymore. Because they've taken away the cash game leaderboards and replaced it
with effective splash pots, I do think that in the long run it'll create a better ecosystem,
meaning that I think that the games are probably going to be softer than they were when I played.
So guys on to bonuses and Rakeback and such.
So for PokerStars the sign up bonus depends on the location. So I checked the website using a
VPN just for different locations, and I noticed that some countries Canada, Brazil for example had
a $600 play through bonus, whereas the UK and the rest of Europe seem to get the £20 offer,
and even some there's no mentions of bonus, I'm not sure if that has something to do with laws of
those countries. But yeah it's going to depend on where you are for a sign up bonus. They are
notoriously bad for Rakeback after axing Supernova a couple years ago, and some of us like myself
naively believed they were doing it to improve the ecosystem. But they further reduced rewards
by about 50% under the guise of "simplifying the rewards program". Rakeback they give are rewards
"tailored to you" meaning that they don't actually really give full disclosure. I think
they have a PVI system in place, something to do with net withdrawer versus net depositor:
For example if you are a net withdrawer you will get less Rakeback than a net depositor,
which I think makes sense but it's not really fair. There's a good article on this guys
which I'll link you to in the description. The exclusive poker challenges are pretty good though,
I've had quite a few recently which is basically 40% Rakeback, but it's completely random it seems
on who it gives them to. The promotions seem to be mixed and honestly not very good, they've had a
recent Spin and So leaderboard, I'm not sure what they've got on now they did have things like Card
Hunt which was absolute trash, you'd be getting 50 cents. So yeah all in all it's just really a
mixed bag it's very difficult to say exactly what you're gonna get in terms of bonuses and Rakeback
On PartyPoker the sign up bonus does seem to be universal. There's no playthrough bonus,
it's just $30-$40 or £ in free play. I think you get some Spins and some MTT tickets,
but literally the biggest one you'll get is a five dollar ticket. In terms of Rakeback they
have Cashback up to 40% depending on how much you rake. You'll need to rate $1200
a week to get the full 40%, but if you're a big time player and you're planning on raking $100k
over the course of a year, it will top it up to 50% so you will get a 10k
milestone reward bonus. And if you can make $200k you'll get Diamond Club Elite,
where you can get 20k milestone rewards on top of the 10k you can get for Diamond Club,
as well as a Millions Bahamas package with a $5.3k seat and a $5k online MTT on top of that. In
terms of promotions, they've got $60k weekly MTT leaderboards. It's pretty good value but you do
need to play the same MTT's pretty much daily to have a chance of coming on the top spot. They've
got $100k weekly leaderboards over Sit and Go and Spins, but all of these prizes guys mentioned are
paid in MTT tickets, which is not really any good if you are not planning on playing tournaments.
The cash game leaderboards have been stopped, they replaced it with "Hot Tables" which is effectively
splash pots. I think this is reasonable in terms of the ecosystem, it stops Rakeback grinders
so the pools will get a little bit softer, but obviously in terms of Rakeback here the
cash game leaderboards were just really really good if you were a very high volume grinder.
On GG Poker you can get 100% bonus up to $600, which as far as I'm aware is universal. You get
90 days to complete it which is pretty generous and it's paid in $5 increments.
If you want to sign up to GG Poker guys I do have an affiliate code in the description,
and once you deposit I will literally give you $25 extra for FREE on top of these bonuses. If
you don't want the play through bonus you can pick a hundred dollars in tickets instead. I think you
get about $50 or so straight up, and then you have to play All-in or Fold for like six days
and then you get the rest in cash. In terms of Rakeback they have the Fish Buffet tiered system
where you can climb through the ranks and get flat cash back. You have to get the spins on the
way through which can be really fun, if you're a degenerate like me it's a pretty good sweat,
and the levels aren't really that hard to hit I'm actually the second to top level
and I actually don't put much volume in there. It should be noted that there is a PVI system,
so the amount of points that you actually get and so how fast you climb is based on certain factors
probably just if you're a winning player or a losing player, which again I think is reasonably
fair if losing players get more Rakeback, but the way GG go about it there's honestly just a
lack of transparency. I'll leave a link to a good article on the PVI system in the description. In
terms of promotions guys, GG offer really quite a lot. They have daily leaderboards for pretty much
all of the games so Rush and Cash, regular tables, short deck and Omaha.
On ACR they have a 100% bonus up to a whopping $2,000. I think you get
60 days to complete it paid in one dollar increments. If you want to sign up guys,
again I've got an affiliate code down below where I will send you $25 as soon as you deposit,
on top of the 100% bonus. In terms of Rakeback ACR offers an elite tiered system, or a 27% flat rate,
so you have options guys depending on what games you play and how much you would rake.
In terms of promotions, they have The Beast leaderboards which are ridiculously good
value. So I checked last week over the beast leaderboard and the sit and crush leaderboard
they gave away over $200k. This is paid in mainly cash, the top 40 in the beast got paid $500,
so it's not like there's any fighting for the top spots by putting in ridiculous volume and you know
only to come up short. And it paid a total of 2000 players so even if you play low stakes if
you put in a decent amount of volume you'll still get on the leaderboard for fifty dollars or so.
In terms of other sites guys there's Unibet. They have 100% bonus up to £500.
Rewards are based on challenges, so you don't get flat Rakeback as such, but I know there's a lot of
affiliate sites out there guys that you can sign up to and get more Rakeback, so check those out.
Run it Once you can get 100% up to €600. They state that they have €10k weekly leaderboards,
I added up the prizes and it came to a bit less than €9k,
and the Rakeback is Road to Legends. You start off with 10% Rakeback plus the 30% you get from
splash pots, which is technically 40%, and you can get up to I think 30% plus the splash pot as well.
888 they have 100% up to $400. Their Rakeback system is 888 Poker Club,
where they've got a point system with club level free rolls. Honestly I don't think
it's particularly good, I never really liked it when I was playing on 888,
I didn't feel like I got any Rakeback at all. The absolute maximum you can get is 36%, which is VIP
Diamond. To get to that level you have to rake $150k. Now when you consider that's 36%
but if you rake $100k on PartyPoker you would get 50% along with your 10k milestone.
All right guys in conclusion where do I think you should play online cash games. Honestly it's gonna
depend on the person and what they value most, for example with me software is a big issue. I
think poker should be fun even if you play it for a living, and bad software for me really takes
out the enjoyment. Keep that in mind guys but here are my opinions on which sites suit which stakes.
So the micros Unibet seems like a pretty solid option. It's got the lowest rake and obviously
a pretty reasonable bonus if you are gonna put in a decent amount of volume. I haven't played a lot
of the micros on Unibet, but when I was making this video I played maybe for about an hour
and it seemed very soft, there was a lot of limping on the tables I was on.
So for low stakes guys I would go with probably GG Poker or PokerStars.
The rake seems pretty similar at these stakes for most of the sites,
but obviously these two are probably the industry leaders now, and with the amount of promotions on
GG available and the softness of the fields, I think that's probably the best place to play
At the low stakes guys, I'd probably avoid 888 Poker given that the rake
is slightly higher and the bonuses, and in my opinion software, are just trash.
At mid stakes plus honestly I would probably go with ACR.
The rake's pretty reasonable and whilst there's obvious downsides to unregulated sites,
they have less of a tax burden meaning they can have just insane bonuses like the Beast is
just a really really good promotion, not to mention their $2k sign up bonus. If there's
one to avoid I would say GG because of the high rake cap, but honestly the games are so soft I
think you can easily profit in them. I myself have always played in high rake environments at
the casino I used to play in in Manchester had the highest rake out of most of them,
I played on GG in the early days when the rake was I think uncapped and still managed to
absolutely smash the bankroll challenge we were doing, because the games were just super soft.
If you're an MTT player guys I think all sites are reasonable, PartyPoker's probably got the
best promotions in terms of tournaments but Stars and GG are both very very soft in terms of MTT's.
Well guys I think that about covers it if you enjoyed the video guys if you found it
helpful please like it please subscribe to the channel and share it if you feel it necessary.
Any questions you've got just fire in the comments or you can always find me on Twitch,
we stream four to five days a week. And if you're planning on playing on
PartyPoker guys new and existing customers can get 15% extra cash back with the link
to Universal Affiliates, and any commission I get obviously helps support the channel!
you