Absolute Poker

I wouldn't deposit a penny there. The
support is useless and they attempeted
to cover up a security breach.

I don't play at Absolute, never have.
But in light of recent events, I
recommend no one deposit there and
anyone with significant parts of their
roll there cash out. Please check out
these threads and others on
twoplustwo.com:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/view
topic.php?p=585366

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/foru
m/poker-60478.htm

Recently, the online poker operator,
Absolute Poker, has been discovered to
have certain players able to see the
hole cards of other players.

It is still unclear whether the actual
staff and/or owners of the site were
directly responsible for this but at the
very least they turned a blind eye to
it.

At the beginning of this debacle they
flat out denied everything but facing
the mounting evidence and media coverage
they gave up and have admitted their
security has been compromised and will
take action.

WARNING! Do not play here until some
MAJOR changes occur in every level at
Absolute Poker's organization.


View this site for more information:
http://www.absolutepokercheats.com/

What can i say, The slowest most boring
site I have ever seen, Ive seen faster
snail races than their tournaments

Updated the Absolute review in August
2007.

Dude, this interface is weak. Players
are pretty good, decent action.
Tournaments aren't that great and
support is horrific. Twice have I not
even received a response. Payment
system right is now is a mess too.
Paper checks only that takes 21 business
days?! VegasPoker247 is a skin and they
treat their customers way better. But
I'm going to Full Tilt. Later.

I signed up with Absolute to get the
$750 bonus, plus take advantage of a
rakeback offer. It was also one of the
rooms that will accept US customers
after the UIGEA was signed. Absolute
doesn't seem to get quite as much
traffic as Stars does now. Playing $100
FR, there are only 5 or 6 tables running
at any time. There is usually a good
selection of 6 max tables, though. I
play mostly FR, but having to play 6 max
has been a good addition for me. The
players are a mix of rocks and fish, and
it seems slightly looser than the Ongame
network, where I played most of my
poker. The bonus clears at one point
per hand raked at .50 or more, so at
$100 it clears reasonably fast. I
understand the reloads are plentiful and
you get rakeback while clearing bonuses.
Support was prompt in response to my
email, so I was pleased there as well.
I think the software is much faster than
Ongame as well. The only trouble I had
with it was figuring out how to stay on
the waiting list once I sat at a table,
but I have that squared away now too. If
there were more traffic here, I would
consider playing here more once my bonus
clears. As is, the best incentive to
play here is the rakeback.

I had just previously signed up for
Absolute Poker to get the 100 %
bonus. By reading your review of the
site plus information from other
sources, I thought it would be easy to
get the bonus. Not so. You get
one point for a $10 sit-n-go and 1 point
for every hand you play that
has a .50 rake. To get $ 10 bonus
released - you need to accumulate a
100 points. Which for me to get the
$100, I would need to play 1000 -
$ 10 sit-n-go's. I was assuming you
needed to play a certain amount of
hands to get points released, but I
misunderstood the concept. I played
at the .10-.25 limit table (playing on 2
table at same time) ( and I hate
limit) for about 2 hours and acculated a
total of 2 points. I didn't think I
wouldl live long enough to get my bonus
released - so I cashed out and
will look for new site. The bonus
sounds good, but unless you want to
risk a reasonable amount of your own
cash or more than the $100
bonus you will receive, there must be
better sites.

All of my remarks are as they purtain to
single tqable tourneys or sit and goes
as that is primarily what I play.
Summary - will not go back if and when
my initial deposit runs out. So far
Doylesroom and Ultimate bet are the ones
I like the best overall.

the good: site has disconnect
protection, stats are easy to see and
use, intant replay of last hand, use
your own picture of anything as an
avatar.

The bad: No player profiles or
information, bet slider is a PITA as you
have to backspace over it to place bet,
No $ labels once you are at the singlt
table tourney tables-for those playing 2
tables that can be a pain in the behind
not knowing which is a $10 table and
which is a $1. Play feels slow and
bulky, tables are dark and cards are
small, tables are way to "busy" do not
need to see drink tables extra chairs
etc, if disconnected and you reconnect
you have to find the table you were on
as the site does not take you to it,
chat is a pain to use, does not show
your folded cards, no blind timers so
you have no idea how much time is left
before they go up, low stakes STT have
HIGH rakes like 40 cents on $2 table -
double what most sites are. NEVER clear
their bonus structure, charge a fee
withdraw by check,

Absolute Poker is the BEST, well maybe
not the best but close to it.

If you havent been there recently DO IT,
they have made lots of software upgrades
and the player base is GROWING, The guys
at AP really are sweet

To start off, Support is amazing-Dont
know what the guy below me is whining
about, support is very helpful and WILL
get your problems solved, also AP has
their own forum where the PRM Richard is
really cool and makes sure you get taken
care of if you have problems.

AP listens, The guys at the forum all
give ideas on improvements to the sites
and they actually have done almost
everything that we have asked them to do
to change the site.

Small and Friendly, you will know all of
the regulars by the first week of play
(including me stop in some time and say
hi) plus there is still plenty of
players to get games going (15,000
during the peak nowadays)

Check out AP it really is a blast

I have been with Absolute for a long
long time. I find it hard to write this
review but I must. I am not at all
happy with absolute support. Let me
tell you what ocurred. I recently won a
satellite tourney that gave me a ticket
to enter into a 100K tourney. The
tourney was scheduled for 4:30pm ET on a
Saturday. Not a particularly good time
to have to sit at home and play poker
when you live in Tampa and the weather
was 81 and sunny. I would have
preferred to go the beach. But I won
the satellite and looked forward to
playing. Sorta my first big chance to
win some good money. Well, about 2
hours before the tourney I went to
register only to find I was unable. I
emailed support and decided to call.
The rep was at the cashier office but
tried to help. He got a hold of support
and suppossedly they corrected the
situation and I would be able to
register in about 15 minutes. This was
now an hour and half before tourney.
Nothing!! I sent another email to
tourneydirector and support. Nothing
again!! I called again and all I could
get was a "Sorry" and email someone
named "Sophie". I was so pissed off
that I withdrew my money. I have not
heard from support and it is 2 hours
post tourney. Absolute support sucks!!
However, I must say this about their
site. The interface is nice, the bonus
is ok and they have good action. Just
don't have any problems they don't do
anything.

AP is a decent site. I've been playing
there awhile - I even recognize most of
the players in the screenshot!!

The interface is nice, functions are
good, the games are good enough at peak
times.

The new bonus req.s make clearing bonus
there more than moderatley difficult.
But there's reloads every single
weekend. If you want to play with
bonuses, then plan for the weekend
reloads. If your BR is tied up on other
sites, or you just don't have $ readily
available in Neteller, you've got to
withdraw your AP money by Thursday to
get it and re-deposit during re-loads.

You get a lot of player (ARP) points
that you can use to enter tourneys, but
the tourneys have pretty measly payouts.
Better off saving them and using them
for fewer bigger tourneys.

One thing that really bugs me is the
ring game lobby. This is not user
friendly at all, as the tables are not
organized by stakes and they are
constantly shifting as they refresh.
So, you might be looking down the list
and find a game w/55% flop rate that you
want to check out. Then BAM, it's gone
because everything just shifted and now
you've got to hunt it down all over
again. If you like to be careful about
selecting your game, this might start to
drive you nuts.

In case this is a concern for anyone -
I'll just add that I've never had any
problem with a payout - they're not the
very fastest, but you'll have it in
48-72 hours every time. Also, the
bonuses clear automatically in $10
increments - no emailing support to
claim the bonus or any of that stuff.

I have been at absolute poker for a very
long time now and find that it is by far
the best site. However, I recently used
their refer a friend program to do just
that refer a friend to their site.
Absolute poker states they will pay you
for your referal. I have written several
and i do mean several emails to support
concerning my bonus credit. The first
response was we can not find your
friends account. Which he had already
made a deposit. Second was you will
recieve the credit once the required
points has been earned. Thinking this
matter was finally resolved I do not
pursue the matter further. Then i get a
call from my friend who states he
received half of the bonus for earning
half the required points. I again email
support to inquire if i would receive
half of my bonus at this time. The
response this time was that someone else
had refered him a private tourney group.
I am the member of this group and not
him and they did not refer him I did.
More emails to support which all have
been responded to in a timely manner but
to no avail. So i would like to say this
BEWARE, apparently giving out this
referal bonus is something that they are
not really interested in doing. I ask
you the reader which would have been
better for Absolute Poker to give the
bonus (which they would get the majority
of back anyways) to keep a member happy
or just say no you do not deserve this
and we are not going to give it to you?
With all the money they certainly make
in one days time a mere $50 would seem
like less than pocket change. So members
satisfaction and integrity of the site
it would seem here is of very little
impotantance. Doing a better than most
job is what has gotten Absoulut Poker to
where they are and they seem to have
forgotten this somewhere along the way.
I can not find any agency to handle this
dispute so i would appreciate any help
in that area. I will be posting this
anywhere I can to let everyone know my
story. thank you.

As others have stated the bonuses at
Absolute Poker are great, however there
are just too many other thinigs that i
don't like about it. Their software is
buggy which causes problems on a regular
basis. A couple of problems are that
the chat window freezes up on a regular
basis, periodically you will get the
popup that a table you are on the
waitlist is for is ready, but the table
doesn't open. The only way to get
around that is to remove yourself from
the waitlist, open the window, leave it
open, and then get back on the waitlist.
I also don't like that there is not an
option to e-mail results of SNG tourneys
to you so you can import them into your
tracker software.

I like both of these sites for different
reasons first Absolute Poker is the
first site that I won a $5. multi table
at with over 150 people in it. Pay out
was a little slow but I had them send me
a check and it took two to three weeks
to get it, so now I use FirePay. I like
their game selection and how most of the
players play the idiot factor is lower
on this site vs others. Customer service
is very fast and effective even though
there are a few gliches in thier
software. I love playing thier single
table tourneys. I finish 1st or second
over 60% of the time. I don't like
thier bonus structure, because if you
don't play for it right away you lose
it.
Now Ultimate Bet I like thier selection
of games, but I don't care to much for
their waiting list. I guess I'm still
trying to get use to them. The players
on this site are mainly maniacs, but
most of them are nice. If you are
patient enough you can catch them. I do
like playing thier single table
tourney's I've won a good 50% of the
time, but I'm still trying to win my
first multi table. I have place several
times but still havent won first.
Customer service is good here too, and I
like the way they do thier bonus
structure. At least it never goes away.

AP is the first site I started playing
at for real money. They have great
bonuses to boost starting bankrolls...
sometimes as much as 200% up to $200 for
starting players. However, they don't
have a lot of games going outside of
peak periods, and the games tend to be
fairly tight. Around 30% flop percentage
and 4-6x big bets is about average for
limit ring games. I get the feeling that
a lot of the people who play at 0.50/1
(which I did) were bonus whores clearing
the bonuses (as I was). That made the
games quite a bit tougher. I've cleared
the bonus and moved onto greener
pastures at party poker. Its a good site
to start off on but I wouldnt play on it
regularly. The sit and go's have a
weird rake structure... you are better
off playing the $2+0.20 or $10+1 rather
than the $6+1 because of the rake
percentages. Customer support and
cashouts are average. Software is
visually uninspiring and sometimes just
plain slow. I agree with other ppl on
this forum... the waitlist system is
just plain screwy. But the bonuses are
worth it =) As long as you are a break
even player, you can clear the $200
bonus fairly easily.

The game Selection is poor for full
table NL. US daytime selection is
allright. The guy that said it dries up
after 11:00 p.m. is telling the truth.
The waiting list issue is problematic,
but it's minor. The software is pretty
fast, so you aren't waiting all day to
play a hand. The bonuses with rakeback,
are the Nuts if you multitable. I
haven't had to use customer support,
and have recieved my cashouts to
neteller in 3-4 days. The NL games are
pretty standard.About the same as the
Cryptos USD tables.

I've made money at absolute, so I
can't really complain, but a couple
things pretty much kill my desire to
play there:

1. Waiting list system is screwy. You
want to multitable? Get on a list, wait
and wait. Only after you get seated are
you able to get on a second list,
'cause when you sit down it boots you
off any lists you're on.
2. Other quirks in the interface: stats
are not per-table. :( Also, click
"don't show this again" when it
starts up. I dare you! It shows it
again. And when you join a table the
windows pile up all screwy. You'll see
what I mean when you sign up to clear
their bonus, which you should do. Then
you should head for the hills.

I guess the people at the top,
talkin´bad about this site, wrote their
rewievs after taking a BAD beat.
I cannot understand why anyone should
rate this site so low? It's by far the
best site I played! Sure people play
REAL suicidal on the FRs, but then again
this is a common problem on ALL sites in
FRs.
Also people who claim having problem
with customer support. I don't get it?
Customer support is EXCELLENT on AP.
Great multi and single tourneys with all
kinda buy in's ... My fave!

I like the site. It's good to see a
newer site compete with the big boys.
Keep up the good work.

I've been playing here for just over a
year and have enjoyed it most of the
time. Customer Support is top-notch in
my experience, and there are a relative
mixture of both good and bad players.
Overall the players are pretty tight but
there are still maniacs in there. I also
like the bonuses and Guarenteed
tournies.

Had some bad experiences with customer
service. I will not be using AP again

This is a great poker site. I have
played at both Empire Poker and Absolute
Poker, and as a somewhat of an above
average poker player, it is a much more
rewarding experience to play at AP. You
suffer less beats and the monstrous
flops of A Q 10 are a rarity in
comparison to Empire.

The downsides are the occasionally
annoying character who chats too much
(block chat option available) and the
fact that there are sometimes not enough
players for your suitable stakes.

Everything else is great. The tournament
sit-n-go's are perfect, with 1500 in
chips and incremental increases in the
blinds. Great site.

I have been playing at Absolute for a
few years now and it is my favorite
poker site. Emails answered quickly.
Action good, Good promos.

i dont understand how absolute is ranked
so low on the list of best poker gaming
sites. i have played at about 75% of
these "alleged" best sites and they
are somewhat of a joke in comparison to
absolute. absolutepoker.com has by far
the best interface of any poker site not
to mention the ease of use and ability
to find any game that u could possibly
want is great! sites like poker room,
empire poker or party poker seem to be
somewhat of a joke to me-especially the
graphics. when i first tried playing at
these poker rooms i could barely stand
looking at the screen without puking
because the graphics are such a joke.
there is no better poker room on the net
than AP if u ask me.

Interface usability: very easy to use
and functional. Some nice touches like
the snack bar etc
Poker action: its usually not a problem
to get a table
Tech support: I have never had a
problem
ease of game: many tight players but
there are quite a few good players that
are regulars. By far my favorite site

Interface - I really like absolutes
software/interface, it looks nice and
works great, ive never had any issues
with dissconects or anything of that
nature, and the player avatars make it
really easy to remember people youve
played before.
Action - One of the downsides of
Absolute is that there are a limited
number of tables, but ive never had to
wait more than 5 minutes to get into the
game i wanted, so it isnt a big deal for
me.
Ease of Game - the players at absolute
are TIGHT. even the .5/1 games i was
playing were super tight, but upon
further inspection, they play very
tight/passive so just crank up the
agression and there is plenty of money
to be made.
Bonus - I signed up and got 35% on my
initial bonus, and it wasnt hard at all
to clear, plus the cashier window lets
you know exactly how far you have to go
to clear the next part of your bonus
(they release $10 for every 100 raked
hands of .25) Overall ive had a great
experience at Absolute, and the tight
games are actually a nice change of pace
from the loose party games ive become
used to.

I have only played a few sites and I
like Absolute the best. They have great
bonuses and I like the player avatars
since they are easier to remember than
names of other players. I have had a few
questions and their support e-mail has
been prompt. I am new to online poker,
but think that settling in to this site
is a good decision for me.

I've been playing at Absolute on and
off for 3 or 4 months. The interface is
fine, but not great. My only complaint
is that sometimes it seems slow.

I've found very easy games there and
some not so easy. At low limits I'll
see pre-flop calls range from 20% to
40%, so I can't say it's fishy or
tough. It can be either.

I do like their promotions. They have
one almost every single weekend! And
they don't really take all that long to
clear. Playing at a single table, I can
clear $10 every 3 or so hours. Not
great, but not too bad either.

I like their support. A lot. When I
deposited money for a bonus, only to
find out that my withdrawal the day
before made me ineligible, they were
willing to meet me halfway and give me a
bonus on the difference between the
deposit (which was big) and the
withdrawal (which was little). They
could have just said "The rules are the
rules", but they were willing to work
with me.

My only real complaint about the site is
that there's not a lot of action.
There's enough, but just barely.

Hey guys, I kinda like this site. I
played in the NL ring games over there,
and I was surprised how soft the games
were. It's not maniac-style,
super-loose and throwing money away, but
more like a tight passive game. At
first I thought the game might be tough,
since everyone was playing pretty tight,
not seeing too many flops. But then I
noticed they would fold to most bets.
And they would fold to re-raises.
Obviously, this is when you turn up the
aggression a notch and win every hand
you play. It was a nice, easy game,
IMHO, and I think I'll play at Absolute
for a while longer. Especially cuz that
bonus is so large and will take a while
to earn. Definitely worth checking out,
though, at least if you're interested
in the no limit ring game.

The action and fishing at Absolute are
pretty damn good! There are usually
plenty of players. One thing I noticed,
though. The interface is a bit slow. It
stalls quite a bit. And, one time, I was
playing a MTT and the interface stopped
responding to my clicks after I was
moved to a different table. I had to
quit and re-launch AP to get back into
the game. I think the stupid pop-up
windows has something to do with that.
The pop-ups come up each time you're
moved to let you know you've been
moved. That's just silly.

I put 600 dollars in absolute poker so
that I could get the large bonus they
offer. I found that the players there
are incredibly tight. I found it very
tough to make money there. The bonus
was pretty tough to clear because of the
fact that you only get 10 dollars for
ever 100 raked hands you play that pay
the house at least 25 cents. This is a
slow and tedious process playing the nl
tables. I suggest going to a Party skin
if you are looking to make money and the
bonuses are a lot easier to clear on
party.

Just started Absolute in November but
I've logged enough hands to get a good
feel for low limit games including
no-limit, limit and tournaments.

Interface: Interface is average.
Tables seat 9 max. I think it was
previously mentioned that the slide bar
is not easy to use and you have to
backspace and delete to manually enter
the amount bet. In any event, the table
is crisp, clear and colorful. The
action is easy to follow. The
"action" buttons are very large and
easy to read. I don't have any problem
with the interface. One problem I do
have is when you are multi tabling and
you are on another wait list, I have
difficulty joining the second table.

Poker Room Action: As of November,
there is a lot of action. Nothing
compared to Party Poker, but there is
usually no difficulty finding a game
whether it is limit, no limit or SNG
tournament. They have micro limits
which is good for beginners. They also
have very cheap MTT's with buy-ins in
the $1-3 range.

Customer Service: I only had one
question and I recieved a quick e-mail
response. I have not contacted Absolute
over the phone.

Ease of Game: Average. I find a mix of
good, average and poor players and the
low limit games ie. $.50 and $1 NL and
2-4 limit. I am not prepared to call it
a "fish pond" but an average player
should not have any problems.

Bonus: Very good. 35% bonus on initial
deposit and they always offer additional
bonus. Bonus is easy to clear. You get
a "reward point" for every hand you
are dealt into that has a rake of $.25.
This can be easily cleared at limits as
low as $1/2 limit or .25/.50 NL. Bonus
is released in $10 intervals after every
100 points earned. The 'cashier'
keeps very accurate record on where you
stand on reward points.

I don't have anything particularly bad
to say about Absolute except for maybe
the fact that they are constantly
updating their software which slows down
the start of many sessions.

Interface:
The interface is not too bad. The
animation and sound is not
objectionable, and the chat feature is
easy to use. I like that player
comments appear beside their avatars in
a ballon (sort of like comic strips), so
you don't have to follow a box with
action and chat intermingled. The
standard auto-play buttons are there,
and you can set an option for the tables
to pop up when action is required. I
really like that the lobby shows the %
pf players seeing the flop for each
table. I prefer this stat to average
pot size for table selection. That
said, there usually aren't a whole lot
of options for different tables for a
given limit.

There are some things that I don't
like.

First, there is no option to not show
uncalled hands automatically. This
means whenever you win an uncontested
pot, you have to click a button or wait
to not show your hand. This causes
unecessary delays.

Second, I don't like that the login
screen has no option to remember just
your login name. It either remembers
your login name AND password or
neither.

Third, I don't like the combination
slider-bar and text-edit box used on the
no-limit table. On almost every other
site, the text in the text box comes up
selected so that you may type in (and
automatically replace) the initial
amount that appears in the box. The
slider is hard to use to get a specific
amount, and typing takes time since you
typically have to backspace and type
rather than just type.

Finally, when a player takes action, the
avatar changes to the word (Call, Raise,
etc.). At least one player (and perhaps
more than one) who plays regularly on
the site uses "Raise" as his avatar,
presumably to angle shoot and get others
to fold their hands. If you multitable,
this avatar can be confusing.

Action:
At first I wasn't really happy with the
site because there were not always low
limit games available. Through time, I
found that if I am willing to vary my
play (some limit, some no-limit), it's
pretty easy to find a good game.

I particularly like that the NL tables
have relatively high max buy-ins
compared to other sites.

Technical/Customer Support:
I have never used this.

Ease of Game:
Absolute falls somewhere in the middle
in terms of players seeing the flop at
the lower limits. Typically, 3-4
players will see the flop at the $1/$2
to $3/$6 games. I find that a lot of
the players are reasonably tight and
pretty easy to read.

Bonus:
I signed up with Absolute specifically
to collect the 35% bonus - up to $210.
What is particularly good about this
bonus is that you collect it in $10
increments. If you fail to play the
required number of hands before the
bonus expires, you still collect a
portion of the bonus, unlike other sites
that are all-or-nothing. Lately
Absolute has been offering a lot of 15%
reload bonuses, which is rare compared
to most sites.

Absolute also offers Absolute Points
that you can use to buy into freerolls
and WSOP subqualifiers.

The interface at Absolute is kind of
cool, I like the avatars. The weakness
at Absolute is the lack of action. No
room is as big as PartyPoker but
Absolute has a ways to go to even get in
the same ball park. The technical
support is fairly responsive, they
usually get back to me fairly quickly
when I send emails. The tournament
players that I ran into weren't very
good but the players in the cash games
were not bad. I got the 35 percent bonus
which was really nice. It was paid out
in increments of $10 for every 100 hands
which is a decent pace.