Pacific Poker has earned the eCogra seal of approval.

Pacific Poker has gone through a significant software update since this review was written, and many of the software shortcomings have been addressed. An updated review is scheduled, and should be posted shortly.

Please consider the following review to be out of date.

Pacific Poker Software

The first thing I noticed is that the software at Pacific Poker is quite a bit behind the times. You cannot play multiple tables at PacificPoker.com at all, and the graphics and sounds just have a primitive feel to them, like you're playing on an older computer a few years ago. Playing poker at Pacific has a sort of "retro" feel, almost like playing an Atari 2600 for kicks.

Even the chat function is oddly hard to use, opening on a different screen that's appended to the edge of the poker table. I also didn't like that I received a generated password, and as far as I can tell, there is no way for me to change that to a password of my choosing.

This software is at once Pacific's biggest strength and it's biggest weakness. It's a weakness for obvious reasons (No one wants to play on lackluster software.), but it's a strength too, and here's why:

The software is weak enough that most of the better players are going to play elsewhere. Really good internet poker players maximize their hourly returns by playing multiple tables. They like good graphics and a pleasant poker experience. As a result of Pacific Poker's graphics and software being what they are, they've become what I like to think of as the biggest fish farm on the poker web.

The Players at PacificPoker.com

The software is not the only reason that Pacific Poker is a fish farm. They're also well-known for being one of the most aggressive marketing machines on the internet, and I can't imagine that you haven't seen a flashing banner for PacificPoker.com at some point while you were surfing the web. This aggressive advertising approach from Pacific keeps the poker tables there full of players, and like I say, most of them are pretty weak.

Weak players means more profits for you and me.

Pacific Poker Bonus Codes

You don't actually need a bonus code to receive your signup bonus at Pacific Poker; it's available to all new players there. They offer a standard 25% bonus on your first deposit, up to $100. This bonus offer is pretty much the same bonus offer they've had in place for quite a while now, and it's certainly nothing as exciting as some of the newer cardrooms are offering. But the players are so weak that it's almost like getting free money in the bank and being guaranteed a really high interest rate on it.

Pacific Poker Games

Texas holdem is the most active game at Pacific Poker, but they also offer Omaha and Seven Card Stud, in both high only versions and in high-low versions. There are probably 20 or 30 holdem players for every player of each other game.

PacificPoker.com also has a diverse range of tournaments, both sit-and-go tournaments and multi-table tournaments.

Conclusion

Pacific Poker's software and bonuses would only make it a "C", but the number of weak players playing there is definitely worth an "A". So my overall grade for PacificPoker.com is a solid "B", which is simply an average of the two scores. In fact, I think that having a lot of good games (and by good I mean profitable games full of weak players) should probably be weighted more heavily than whether or not the software is glitzy.

Click Here to visit Pacific Poker now.

This page was last updated on February 8, 2006.