OnlyPoker Review

Update: OnlyPoker has shut down!

Summary of the OnlyPoker Review

After trying to find a reliable online poker room that accepts poker players from the United States, next to the rest of the world, we're happy announce to have teamed up with OnlyPoker.

OnlyPoker is a fairly new online poker room running on the Cake Network and offers everything a poker player may look for. We will go in-depth in the reminder of this review, but cover some of the most important details about OnlyPoker in this short introduction.

First of all, and according to us one of the most important factors, OnlyPoker has it's own payment processor. We like to emphasize this as CakePoker, which is the owner of the poker network, has a very bad reputation when it comes withdrawals. The OnlyPoker's cashier offers a mere amount of payment methods, although they do have the most common ones available. Worthwhile mentioning is the fact that they accept deposits with American Express (AMEX) credit cards, as one of the very few in the online poker industry.

So, once you're ready to make a first deposit at OnlyPoker, then you're entitled for a first deposit bonus of 110% up to $600. Besides that, the rewards program includes Gold Cards, Gold Chips and Gold Stacks. It's a pretty nifty rewards system.

One of the things that could be a bit better are the amounts of promotions offered. They always have something up and running, be it some kind of huge online poker tournament, or be it satellites to major live events.

The rake structure at Only Poker is very decent. If you are a Fixed Limit penny player, you will like the fact that games below $0.04/$0.08 will not be raked at all. Above those stakes, the pot will be raked for 5%, which is kind of standard in the online poker industry. No Limit and Pot Limit games are raked from $0.01/$0.02. OnlyPoker has the rake capped at $5, but it actually depends on the limit you're playing. Stakes of $0.25/$0.50 for instance have a capped rake of just a $1.

In the following part of our OnlyPoker review you can read in-depth information about OnlyPoker's client, website, security & integrity, traffic & games, bonuses & promotions and support.

Poker Client

OnlyPoker Review

OnlyPoker uses the software developed by Cake. Poker rooms on the Cake Network have seen exceptional growth in the past year and the software has matured a lot.

As usual, industry standard features as realizable tables, four color decks, player notes, statistics and hand histories.

Next to that, OnlyPoker lets you choose the setup of the poker table. Do you want to show avatars, or would you rather play in simple mode? The tables can be adjusted to the size you like, and you can tile or cascade them - if you are into multi tabbling.

One unique feature we've discovered is that you can reset your screen name. This can be cool in case you've lost too much with a particular screen name and would like to have a fresh start at some point.

The lobby is acceptable. Results can be narrowed down with the filters, although it would be much better if the lobby remembered it last status. Each time you change a lobby (i.e. from SNG, tournaments, or cash games) you will have to reorder the list of games again.

Once you've found a nice table to sit at, you will see that it has different betting options; big buttons to fold, call and raise, and options to bet half a pot, the entire pot, or move all-in. Ofcourse, there's a betting slider for placing custom bets.

There are several pre-action buttons present, but these can be somewhat dangerous. You might risk to call a hand by clicking Check/Fold (when you are a fraction to late) and the player in front of you has placed a bet - or even worse, has moved all-in. If you're hand is too bad to be true, you can check the Fold to a Bet checkbox, and in the mean time concentrate on another active table.

OnlyPoker First Deposit Bonus and Promotions

We already brought it up in our introduction, the OnlyPoker bonus offer. With 110% they're a tad bit higher than most other online poker rooms are, and with a maximum bonus of $600 you are in fat city after clearing it.

So, to get the full $600 bonus you will need to make a deposit of at least $550. Any lower deposit is also possible, but then you won't be enjoying the OnlyPoker bonus to it's full potential.

We wish we could tell you a bit more about OnlyPoker's promotions. There are not to many to mention, except for the occasional satellite to a land based event. If promotions is what you care about, then you should definitely have a look at Full Tilt Poker (which also accepts US players). OnlyPoker is more or less recommended for their multi-table poker tournaments, which are known to have a relatively soft competition.

Security and Integrity

As you can expect from a reliable poker room on a reliable poker network, integrity has one of the highest priorities. OnlyPoker is certified by Technical System Testing (TST). TST is an independent an highly respectable auditing firm. A TST certification ensures a fair gaming policy, and more specifically ensures players a fair distribution of cards.

The Random Number Generator (RNG) used by the Cake Network, which OnlyPoker is part of, is Microsoft's CryptoAPI RNG. This RNG is validated by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and guarantees that the RNG is so completely random.

All data transactions between the OnlyPoker client and the poker servers are protected with the latest encryption technologies (256-bit TwoFish encryption algorithm), which are similar to the ones online banks use.

OnlyPoker have implemented several measurements to prevent unfair advantage, such as poker bots or other programs that are created to Artificial Intelligence gaming.

The biggest thread for online poker players is to end up playing against players that play together, this is called collusion. OnlyPoker employs a hand full of preventative security techniques, including complex algorithms, random security checks, and log file analysis, to detect irregular plays (such as abnormal betting patterns).

Traffic and Game Variation

The games selection at OnlyPoker isn't the largest. They only offer Texas Hold'em and Omaha. Omaha is available in the regular format, as well as Hi/Lo. All poker variations offered can be played in Limit, No Limit, and Pot Limit.

Most traffic can be found in the medium stakes ($1/$2 - $3/$6) games, although if you're a high stakes player you can find heads-up action up to $500/$1,000. Lower stakes players might find it amusing to rail and watch people blow away $10,000 pots with air.

The reason we decided to promote OnlyPoker on our site is because they're widely known for their very soft level of competition. This counts for both cash games, and tournaments.

The most interesting tournaments offered by OnlyPoker are:

  • $10,000 Guaranteed (daily, buy-in $50 +$5)
  • $20,000 Guaranteed (daily, buy-in $100 +$9)
  • $125,000 Guaranteed (weekly, buy-in $162)
  • $250,000 Guaranteed (monthly, buy-in $268)

Furthermore, you can find plenty of different tournament formats; multi-table tournaments, sit 'n gos, heads-up, rebuy & addon (R&A), freezeout, shootout, and bounty. OnlyPoker also offers satellites for their online tournaments, but satellites for packages to live events (such as the WPT and Aussie Millions) too.

Support

OnlyPoker has a support staff on hand 24/7. You can get in touch via e-mail (support@onlypoker.com) or via a toll free telephone number (1-866-321-4639). Because of the fact that they don't offer a live chat feature, we would recommend you to call them over the phone when you need support. This way you're sure to be assisted right away.

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