Carbon Poker.com Overview
is the former Poker.com rebranded with a new face lift. It is speculated that it was troublesome for them to advertise real money games under the old domain, however, no one knows for sure.
Carbon Poker is part of the Merge Gaming Network, and US players will be glad to know that they are welcome at this online poker room. As far as security goes, Carbon is regulated by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, so you can be assured that the integrity of the games are fair.
Carbon hosts a variety of payment processors which will accommodate all players. Just to name a few, they have credit cards, Click2Pay, NETELLER, ePassporte, Moneybookers, and Ecocard.
As with other rooms, Carbon has the popular Texas Hold’em, Omaha, and Stud variants. However, they also have rarer games such as H.O.R.S.E, Razz, 5 Card Draw, Ace to 5 Lowball, Deuce to 7 Lowball, and Badugi (Triple Draw). In addition to cash games, they have many tournaments and freerolls, mostly of Texas Hold’em variety.
Players earn VIP Points for playing at Carbon. These points can be redeemed for freeroll tournaments, bonuses, reloads, or merchandise at their store.
You wouldn’t guess it, but Carbon actually has a very active poker forum, which has almost 200,000 posts in 12,000 threads! The forum is located at forum.carbonpoker.com.
Carbon Poker.com Software Interface/Usability
The software at is very good, and contains rare features not found in other sites. They have a Rabbit Hunt feature, which will let you see what the river would have been if you didn’t fold. Other features include: Deal It Twice, which allows two consenting all-in players the option to deal the turn and river cards twice; Bad Beat Jackpot, for specially labeled Hold'em ring games; Player Tags with icon labels; Quick Start, which allows four customizable options of Game Type, Table Type, Stakes, and Minimum Players at Table. This feature will send you to the right table without you having to search for it.
Also, and perhaps the coolest feature of the site is one card exposure. Have you ever wanted to show someone that you had a pair of aces, but you didn’t want to because your kicker was crap? Well, on Carbon you can show just the ace.
The resizing of the tables is gorgeous, for lack of a better description. They use vector graphics, which means everything is always smooth and doesn’t get pixelated, no matter what size you change it to.
The buddy list is the one of the better ones in the industry (actually, they don’t have much competition). You can specify the typical notes, but you can also go one step further and give them an icon. There are the infamous fish and shark icons, and even an “on tilt” icon. Another cool feature is that it can notify you when people on your buddy list log on. Unfortunately, you can hide yourself from this feature, effectively making it worthless.
On to actual software usability, it is easily the best I’ve seen. “Wait for BB” is available as an option, which I’m sure will make a lot of people happy. The instant hand replayer is also very good, organizing all the games by player and table. There are also previous and next buttons to quickly go back and forth your hand histories. Oh, and hand histories are stored by default on your hard drive for 7 days.
Animations are nice and smooth, and when you are all in with others, it will display your percentage of winning the hand, which I thought was a very nice touch.
The only annoyance I found with the software is that you cannot type in “3 point 5 0 enter.” The enter key does not register; you must click the button. This is particularly troublesome for people like me who like to add random cents to my bets because I need to switch from the keyboard to the mouse more so than I do on other sites.
As good as the software is, they just recently (April 2009) upgraded a lot of the software when they added the VIP Program. You can now choose a mini version, which has minimal "stuff" on the table for easy viewing. You can also customize tables with a plethora of options. You can choose the felt color, background (carpet), rail, interface, and front and back of the cards. And it's not like there's just 3 or 4 options. There are 40 colors for the table alone and dozens of card designs.
All in all, the software is probably the most comprehensive software I have seen. It’s got everything! But everything comes at a cost. It eats CPU like no other, which means if you do not have a fast computer, don’t even think about having more than 2 tables open. Running the software in performance mode helps, but the CPU usage is still very high. Needless to say, it’s ironic that they do not have a maximum table rule, because most computers cannot handle that many tables anyways. The good news is that every software update gets better and better and the CPU usage is always decreasing.
CarbonPoker Poker Room Action
Unfortunately, this network is very small, so you will not find many games outside of Texas Hold’em. In fact, even the limit games are scarce. You will have a tough time finding any games above $1/2 blinds. is estimated to have anywhere from 300 to 500 cash players playing for real money.
Since the network is small, you will typically face a smaller number of players, which is good/bad depending on how you look at it. The guaranteed tournaments are very good because usually not enough players enter, so there is an overlay of extra cash to be won. Buyins range from freerolls, 6 cent tournaments up to $100+9 tournaments. The sit and go population is minimal, and it is tough to find a game above $20+2.
Carbon has recently updated their guaranteed tournament structure. With the addition of their VIP Program they have upgraded their weekly $20k guarantee to a very nice $50,000 guarantee tournament. Every Sunday they run this tournament for $100 + $9, or 10,000 + 900 VIP Points. The overlay is usually very generous. It's very hard to find a better value for tournament players.
One of the better things is probably the Comp Points for freeroll tournaments. Every last Sunday of the month there is a $50k freeroll, for which you only need 5000 Comp Points to enrol in. Every Sunday has a $10k freeroll for 2500 Comp Points.
Carbon Poker's Ease of Game, Ease of Making Money, Fish Rating
As with most small networks, the average player is very bad. The tables are also much looser than comparable limits at large networks. You don’t have much choice in table selection, but it appears that you don’t have to look very hard for bad players.
CarbonPoker.com Bonus and Promotions
By using the bonus code FTR200, you will get a 200% deposit bonus up to $600 on your first deposit. That’s right! You get up to $600 free! This bonus is exclusive only to FTR members, so make sure you use the links on this page to sign up and the Carbon Poker bonus code FTR200 when making your first deposit! This bonus is earned through the accumulation of comp points (See the comp points details below).
In addition, you will receive one entry into any $1,000 freeroll. You also receive entry into $500 freerolls for new depositing players for 14 days.
eWallet Xpress Deposit Bonus:
An extra 15% bonus up to $150 for your initial eWallet Xpress deposit, even if you are an existing player.
PINdebit Deposit Bonus:
An extra 10% bonus up to $100 for your initial PINdebit deposit, even if you are an existing player.
NETELLER Deposit Bonus:
An extra 10% bonus up to $50 for every NETELLER deposit.
The bonus is cleared by earning VIP Points. The rate of return is 50 VIP Points for every $1 in bonus money. Every time you earn $10 in bonus money it is transferred into your real money account. So you need to earn 500 VIP Points for every $10 of bonus.
You earn VIP Points simply by playing a real cash poker game or a real money tournament. You are awarded points in a ring game every time a flop is seen as long as you are involved in the hand (you must contribute to the pot). You are awarded 10 points for every $1 paid in rake or in tournament fees.
Remember also that Carbon's bonus has no expiration date, but automatically expires as soon as you make a withdrawal. So earn as much of the bonus as you can before you need to withdraw from your account, because the remainder will be forfeited.
Click here to join !
Carbon Poker.com Customer and Technical Support
Live Chat is available to 'real' money players.
Their email support was very professional. They responded to my questions very quick (under an hour), and the representative was very articulate and provided accurate and concise information for the questions I want answered.
E-mail: support@carbonpoker.com
Lots of fish by v diddy on 24 Nov 2008
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