TPR's Online Poker Ratings

This category is less affected by the volume of players (which we apply more to “Games: Variety & Action”), and more with the general competition that one can find playing various games, tournaments, limits, and during all hours. While some may argue that it may be to your benefit to play on a site with more weak or loose players, we think for all things to be considered, a pool of players balanced with loose/tight and weak/strong ones is more desirable. It takes time to figure out what kind of table makeup (types of players at a table) works best with your style, and if your preferences become more narrow, then you will have less options to play, especially for online poker. So for the sake of the balanced player, we preferred the sites with more balanced games. When a game isn’t overrun with one style of player, it allows more room for you to adjust, experiment and/or bluff. And if you like to rely on a more mathematical approach to poker, then it helps to have some factors relatively predictable, and not have a table full of wild variables. As a general assumption, lower limit tables and tournaments will more likely have a wider spectrum of player types, particularly the less skilled and/or more reckless variety. Correspondingly, the higher the table limit or tournament entry fee, the more likely you will encounter stronger players, who may be still be aggressive or passive, but in a more skillful way (you'll have to me more on your toes).

This can be a very tricky category to score, and while we tried to be as objective as possible, the best judge would be a matter of personal preferences and perceptions. Generally speaking, the higher the limit or buy-in is for a game/table, the more skilled and tight players you will encounter. That very flexible rule even more loosely applies to tournaments, although it should be safe to think you won’t find too many reckless players paying a $100 buy-in for a tournament.

With PartyPoker having the largest pool of players, games and 24-hour traffic, they generally have a good balance of loose/tight and weak/strong players. That is to say, you will likely find a balance of loose/tight – weak/strong players on more tables of different limits than you would anywhere else. For example, late night at PartyPoker you might easily find three different $3-$6 7-Car Stud games: One with mostly weak/loose players, one with more tight players, and one with more of a balance of strong/weak players. While at Paradise Poker, you might only find lower limit action for 7-Card Stud late at night, with more weak/tight players, and thus less for you to win overall.

I think that overall, as far as the kind of competition you will encounter playing on different sites, there’s some continuity between them. Here’s one way to view the player competition on a site: On one hand, there can be larger pools of players to provide various kinds of action (somewhat balanced over time); computers and Random Number Generators that not only provide integrity, but tend to balance the competition as well; and on the other hand, your personal preferences and experiences playing against the competition will ultimately sway you towards one site over the other.

So if I am to sum up this category by simply saying, “check them out for yourselves,” and you are to take my advice, then I would suggest starting with a poker site with more traffic for the games you prefer to play…But then that is already a big part of the advice of this site anyways.