Empire Poker

Empire Poker - With the boom in popularity of Poker online and on TV, everyone wants in on the action! My search for the best online Poker sites led me to Empire Poker, and its sister site Empire Poker School (empirepokerschool.com).

Empire’s home page is clean enough, with all the standard bits in place- the screen is dominated by the “$2 Million Guaranteed” banner, promising $2 million every month on Empire. The features are nice enough, and the download is easily accessible- all the better to get you playing sooner.

After you’ve completed the moderately quick software installation, it’s off to the tables. The selection is reasonably good, with plenty of Hold’em, Omaha, and 7-card stud. My first impressions of the game play on Empire were less than exhilarating- it appears to be the same as Party Poker. That’s not to say that Party (and Empire) isn’t a great site, but it comes off a bit blah compared to some of the competition. The layout and graphics mirror Party Poker in almost every way, with only subtle colour differences separating the two. It would appear they are on the same server also, as the population of Empire was very impressive…

Navigating the main site, it’s obvious that Empire is geared towards the Player more so than the Enthusiast of Poker. There is little mention of current events in Poker, and with the WSOP taking place, I would expect at least a section for updates. There is however a large section of promotions for the site, and an extensive calendar of upcoming events and tournaments. Speaking of promotions, Empire offers a daily $500 freeroll, which is nice, but a bit underwhelming considering its “only” $500, and there are player requirements for entry. They also offer WSOP satellites, and entry tournaments, which, once again, is a nice but common feature.

After playing a few hands at Empire, I opened up their Poker School site. I would say that this is definitely the highlight of Empire- there are lots of instructional articles and tools for beginners to get acquainted with the game. It’s a very helpful, well laid out and useful site for any beginner, and most players in general.

While it may seem like I’m bagging on Empire, that’s not the case; what we have here is a very good site, but unfortunately for Empire, the competition has been working overtime. This means that while this is a good site, a site like Full Tilt Poker simply outdraws it in important categories like News, Promotions, and Gameplay. The school section scores some points for Empire, but it won’t be at the top of my list for online play.