Carlos Poker.com Overview
is a part of the Prima Poker/Microgaming network. It is important to note that NO U.S. players are allowed in any real money games due to the October 2006 legislation in the United States.
As part of the Prima Poker network, you can expect to find a suitable game at Carlos Poker. Connected players generally average around 4000 and there can be over 8000 during peak hours. Carlos Poker offers a variety of games to choose from: Limit, Pot-limit, and No-limit Hold’em; Limit and Pot-limit Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo; 7 Card Stud; and 5 Card Stud. During the afternoon in EST, there were only 3 tables to be seen running any games other than No-limit Hold’em. Most of these players were playing $1 - $2 and below, but there are generally a few high stake games always running.
It was surprising to see how little traffic there was for Carlos Poker’s Sit & Gos. While there were nearly 4000 people connected, there were only 75 tournaments running. Interestingly, despite the small number of tournaments running, they were actually fairly spread out limit wise. Compared to other sites, we noticed a greater than average number of high stakes ($55 and up) running. Also you’ll rarely, if ever, see SnG limits as low at any other poker site, with buy-ins as minuscule as $0.60. One has to wonder why people bother to actually grind these out, but even if you only have $10 to your name you can find a game for your bankroll at Carlos Poker!
Multi-Table Tournaments get more traffic than the Sit & Go action at Carlos Poker. Everyday they have various guaranteed prize pools ranging from $1000 ($2 rebuy) up to $20,000 ($10 rebuy). Also, there are weekly and monthly freezeouts as high as $250,000 guaranteed, which has a $430 buy-in. These daily tournaments have a lot of action and the guarantees are usually broken every time.
has a Frequent Player Point system, which they call Loyalty Points. The LPs are currently used just to release bonuses, but more uses will develop as Carlos and Microgaming lengthen their relationship.
Carlos Poker has also added a lot of new features to its software. First thing you would notice that the chip animations are unlike you have seen before. They bounce and move gracefully across the table. Whether this is good (because they are moving towards you) or bad (because they are moving away from you) is a different thing. There is also a new kind of waiting list, in which you can manage all the tables you are waiting for in one location. Also a new bet slider has been introduced, which you can customize to your heart's liking. And of course there is the now obligatory auto top up feature for cash games.
Tournament players need not be angry, however, as there have been numerous improvements added to tournaments as well. These include auto double buy-in into tournaments and a "Guaranteed Tournaments" filter which allows you to easily and effortlessly find tournaments with a guaranteed prize pool. Immediate prize payouts allows you to collect your prize upon finishing, meaning you no longer have to wait for the tournament to end. Also, there are new survivor tournaments. They run for a fixed amount of time and therefore play very different compared to standard, even turbo, tournaments.
All in all, tons of great features and modest player traffic makes Carlos Poker one of those sites you have to check out for yourself. You will find something you like here.
Carlos Poker.com Software Interface/Usability
‘s lobby can be arranged in three ways. The first would be in a vertical kind of three-pane cascade. You choose your game using drop down menus in the left most pane, see the actual offered games in the middle pane, and get table and waitlist information on the rightmost pane. The second one divides the game types in the upper part of the lobby, in which you would now have 4 panes: Cash Games, SnG, Scheduled Tournaments, Private. Once you click a pane, a variety of filters will appear giving you birds-eye views on which games are available according to your chosen filter. The third is the simplest one, where the lobby itself gives you recommendations as where to play. With a series of clicks, you will arrive at whichever you wanted to play.
You can sit at a variety of tables: 10 max, 8 max, 6 max, and heads-up are available for almost all limits (with the exception of heads-up, for which the lowest limit is $.25 - $.50). Almost every limit was full of shorthanded play and only a couple of full ring tables were open.
The tables at Carlos Poker are the standard size you will find at most poker rooms. One thing you notice right away is the built-in avatars, which most players tend to find very distracting. These can be turned off through the options button while at the table, or you can download your own custom avatar. Some other nice features found were warning displays and mini-mode. Warning displays are one way to help prevent the dreaded mis-clicks from happening. If you make what the software deems to be a rather large bet, it will prompt you to make sure you really want to bet that much. If you’ve made one of these mistakes in the past you know that anything to help prevent this is good. Also, while the tables are not resizable by dragging, you can select mini-mode for multi-tabling. Although this can be nice for people who do not have large monitors, it can be very hard to follow the action with such a small table. It would be an improvement to see custom resized tables added.
In the options menu you can select to locally store your hand histories on your computer. There is an instant hand history viewer available right at the table; however the layout is very confusing. Instead of using the standard text hand histories for easy viewing, they have an image display which shows action on every street. Some may find it confusing and not use the instant HH feature because of it.
CarlosPoker Poker Room Action
As stated earlier, has a decent amount of action for No-limit Hold’em ring games. Most people play mid and low stakes. If you are a side game fan don’t look too seriously at Carlos Poker, for they lack traffic going to anything besides Hold’em. There is a ssmaller amount of action compared to the major sites (mainly because of the ban of US players) but there is still enough to grind out their large bonuses.
Carlos Poker's Ease of Game, Ease of Making Money, Fish Rating
The fish rating on seemed to be average compared to other sites. It would be easy for anyone with some poker knowledge to come and crush the tables, however don’t expect an abnormal amount of fish. One thing that was noted was at the mid stakes level most of the bad players were buying in for less than the standard 100 chips, making them easier to spot. A lot of the tables had many half buy-in fish sitting at them. You will also find the occasional bluffing maniac, and the tight rocks. The good players are few and far between, which means the opposition at Carlos Poker is soft enough to make some consistent profits.
CarlosPoker.com Bonus Code and Promotions
currently offers a 100% initial deposit bonus up to €1000! Be sure to use the bonus code 1000 when making your first deposit.
In order to release the bonus into your account you must earn the required amount of Loyalty Points within 60 days. LPs are Carlos' version of Frequent Player Points and they are earned by playing in cash ring games and tournaments. Exchange rates between the USD and EUR are also taken into consideration when calculating LPs, so no one player is at a disadvantage for playing with one currency over another.
The bonus clears at a rate of 16 Loyalty Points per Euro. This means that in order to clear a €200 bonus, you have to earn 200 x 16 = 3,200 LP’s within 60 days. After you meet the requirements, you have to manually email helpdesk@Carlos Poker.com to get your bonus released.
Periodically, Carlos Poker also offers a ‘Rake Race’ for highest rake contributors during the month. See their website for details.
Click here to join !
Carlos Poker.com Customer and Technical Support
The support at was way below average. We tested them by sending a couple of e-mails with questions and both times it took over 12 hours to hear anything back – one took over 20 hours! Furthermore, those e-mails seemed like copy/paste responses and they even didn’t bother to answer a couple of the questions we posed. Their support could definitely use some work.
If you need to contact them, their e-mail information is below:
E-mail: helpdesk@carlospoker.com
Carlos Poker Review by givememyleg on 30 Mar 2007
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