As all the poker sites on the internet call themselves poker rooms so that is what I'm going to call them too.

The first thing you have to do to check out a room is to download their software. You should download at least five rooms but ten is better. Set up accounts in each one so that you can enter their rooms to get an idea of how they operate.

The first thing to look for is the layout of the “home page”. Does it make you feel comfortable? Is it easy to understand? These are not important points but they need to be thought about.

One very important point is the ease of navigation inside the room.

Can you find the game schedule easily?
Is help readily available?
Do they break down the free games from the money games?
Do you have to search through the entire list of games to find what you want?

Write down your impressions of each room so that you can make judgments later .

Now play in some of their free games to get a feel for how the software works. This will help you decide whether you want to play at the room or not. There's no use going any further in checking a room out if you don't like playing there.

After you have done the above you have probably eliminated one or two rooms. Now you have to decide what games and what type of games that you want to play.

Do you want Hold'em, Stud, Omaha?
Do you want tournaments or ring games?
Do you want freerolls or money tournaments?
Or do you want some combination of all of them?

Look at the game schedule. Does it have enough of the games that you want, when you want them? Are the limits that you want, there when you need them? In short, can you use the room when it's convenient for you?

The next thing you have to do is look at the number of players that are playing in the room. Check out the total number of players on their schedule page at different times to see if it is a popular room or not. The less popular a room is the less chances you will have to play. A good rule of thumb is if the room has less than 1,000 players, at their slow time, you will not have enough games going on to give you a choice when you need it.

Go to the cashier window. Check out the methods available for depositing money into the room. Do they have many options or just a few? Are the methods expensive or do they have some free ones? How difficult is their system to use? Is it very complicated?

Now you have to look at how to withdraw your money. This is very important as many rooms make it very difficult and complicated for some of their methods of withdrawal. Check to see if they have Neteller, as this is the easiest and least expensive method of all. In fact, it is free to the user.

These are the most important points to look for in selecting an online poker room. There are many more, but they are based on your personal wants or needs and have to be found by yourself.

Good Luck.


About the Author



Authored by: Robert Myer, Webmaster of Beginner's Online Poker Guide,
as well as a poker player for over 20 years.