I just started playing on this site a little while back. My experience so far is with Party,
Noble,
Full Tilt, UB and
Pokerstars.
Maybe it will grow on me, but right now, I am a little jaded. The one positive is they seem to have a lot of players. Certainly more than
Noble (but I like
Noble) and so they have a lot of MTTs, but unlike
Noble's MTT they aren't all Rebuy Tourneys (I think, but for lack of info I can't tell if they are Rebuys or not).
Here are my comments.
1) Site Generated Passwords: As above. If I cant't change it, I can't remember it.
2) No Remember Me Function: If I can't remember it, at least they could remember it for me.
3) No Instant Hand History: I really like this feature because I have bad cards, don't remember them and just get curious. Why don't they have it? Seems pretty standard everywhere else.
4) Awkward Chat: It opens in a new window. Seems to be no way to default it to "on" so every time the switch you tables, ex MTTs, you lose your chat altogether and need to go through the steps to re-open it.
5) Awkward Lobby: They have a ton of games. If I sort MTTs by Buy-In amount, I need to go into the game to see the payout structure...fair enough. But when I go back it has resorted to default, so I need to take the extra step of clicking on the header again to re-sort. Not only that, but whenever you resort, there is a 2-3 second lag time (I guess while it reloads from the web). This is very simply put, very annoying.
6) No Automatic Updating Payout Schedule: Unlike
Noble Poker which updates the payout schedules with each sign-up. They default to the lowest common demoninators saying..."We'll tell you when Registration ends" Well OK, but I want to know the payout structure first, and how much I stand to win.
7) No Multi-tabling tourneys: If you register for two and are doing well in the first, you get booted out of the second. (At least they say they refund your buy-in)
8) Lack of Basic Info: The site's homepage is certainly dim of information about the site. I can't find out how to do the things that are basic on other sites. How do you request hand history? Can you get Hand hoistory. Are these tourneys freezeouts or re-buys?
9) Slow Dealing: Lots of lag. Needs to have higher production values and become a lot smoother. And then you only have a split second to see the results before it removes the winning hand from the screen. With no instant hand history a lot of the time I was left saying "Well I guess I won" I have the chips.
10) No Flip Over on All Ins: As above they only show the players cards for about 2.3 seconds. Even a seasoned blackjack dealer couldn't digest the combinations in multi-way pots that quickly. Before I look at all the people's cards they are gone. I'm left asking myself "Wha' 'Appened" (PS I get really annoyedit when playing with a fast BJ dealer that adds the cards in their heads and removes them and my bet from in front of me before telling me what I had, or letting me add them up myself and see that I lost...and I am a fast adder. It feels the same here)
11) Incomplete Dealer Chat: The dealer tells you who wins and what they had, but not their cards, or what hand the loser was holding. This just adds to the "Wha Appened" factor.
12) Lots of Disconnects: Everytime I tried to visit BlindBetPoker.com in a browser behind the Pacific UI, the Pacific UI crashed...What is that all about? The way I knew I was disconnected was I would look at the table, I would time out, but there would be no action buttons for me to fold/check/raise etc. (Someone else mentioned this above) The good part is that once I was disconnected/crashed, the site would log me back on and take me to my table in a split second. With
Noble, when it crashes, I need to close the program, go through their lengthy update process and then wait to get to the table.
Noble frequently tells me I am already logged on and doens't let me log back on.
Noble gives me frequent 15-20 minute disconnects. Major time when in tourney play. So props go to Pacific for figuring out how to handle disconects better than anywhere else, but fix your problem with IE running in the background!
13) Multi-table SNGs. I really like these. They have a lot of them going all the time. One of my peeves is their short payout schedule. They have these 35/40 person SNGs, great But they only pay the top 3. I like
Pokerstars where they would pay the top 7 or something like that. I would like this place a lot more if they had some options that paid a little deeper. Especially among Fish, (er ah novices) who play the 35 person $1 SNG. Give them an opportunity so they will feel good and stick around a little longer.
I could go on, but I just got here and I probably will have some other germain comments as I build on my experience and maybe even find I am wrong about a few of the above.
The graphics are about average. But I could care less about them. They show cards around a table. About all you need in my opinion. The problem is with incomplete dealer chat, too quick showdowns, and no instant hand history. This makes the UI feel incomplete and leaves the player wondering what is going on.
But after all of this, I am still playing here. So it must be OK. The currently offer a 25% bonus up to $100 and you have to make bets in excess of 20x your deposit to cash it out. A little steep I guess, but not so bad in my opinion.
Good Luck except against my
