Absolute Poker

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.