Party Poker is attempting to challenge PokerStars and Full Tilt with a monthly million dollar guaranteed tournament. This tournament will take place the first Sunday of each month.
The buy-in for this tournament is $600+$40. So in comparison to the PokerStars Million, the buyin is much higher, but there are fewer entrants.
It’ll be interesting to see how often this tournament overlays.
In full disclaimer, this post isn’t an advertisement for Party Poker, though it may seem like it. But hey, this blog is about Party Poker, so let’s talk a little about why Party Poker deserves a blog written about it to begin with 
In the poker world, most of the online poker sites are very similar. Some are a lot bigger than others. Poker Stars is a heck of a lot bigger than say the Cryptologic network, but as long as a site has a critical mass of players where you can find a game at most limits, it doesn’t really matter that much.
There’s a few things that Party does to stand itself out from the crowd. None of these things are particularly amazing, but hey, it’s better than nothing:
1. It’s bonus is relatively easier to clear. A lot of poker rooms try to entice players with a 1000% bonus up to $5000 or something that would take forever to actually get unless you just play poker all day and night at their site. Party’s bonus is much quicker to clear, generally among the fastest in the industry, so you actually get your money. Their bonus isn’t just to get you to make a deposit, it’s to give you a ‘happy’ feeling when you’re first playing of getting extra money.
2. The games are relatively easy compared to most sites. They aren’t as soft as the 888 network, but they are a lot easier than the US-facing sites like PokerStars at least.
3. The software is fast. This used to really make it stand out, but other sites have since increased the speed of their software.
4. It’s more transparent, “legitimate.” Party Poker is owned by Party Gaming, a company that is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. There’s no fear that it might disappear overnight and it’s just more regulated than sites like Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker, which had those disasterous scandals last year.
Anurag Dikshit (haha I know) is going to pay $300 million to the DOJ in a settlement. He plead guilty to illegal internet gambling. He probably won’t serve jail time. Kind of surprising he’s doing this considering he doesn’t live in the US and Party left the US market over 2 years ago.
If you’re ready to join in the fun of online gambling and card game competitions, poker may be a great choice for you. However, you’ve got to learn to pick up the game quickly if you want to establish yourself as a good player in online and offline tournaments.
If you aren’t yet familiar with a standard deck of cards, pick one up and take a look through it. You’ll see four different designs – or “suits” – consisting of diamonds, hearts, clubs (3 leaves) and spades (1 leaf). Within each of these suits, you’ll find cards numbered 2-10, plus a jack, queen, king and ace in each design. As with many other card games, the key to playing poker is to come up with certain combinations of these cards in order to score points.
The exact rules of all the different types of poker change slightly, but in most cases, the card combinations – or “hands” – you want to come up with are the same. The following are some of the highest scoring hands you can get during a poker game:
Simple Straight – Also known simply as a “straight”, this hand involves five cards of any suit that occur in sequence. For example, you could have a two of clubs, a three of diamonds, a four of spades, a five of diamonds and a six of hearts. Although this is a good hand, it’s beat out by many other more desirable hands.
Three or Four of a Kind – These hands are pretty straightforward – you’ve either received three or four cards bearing the same denomination, such as a five of diamonds, a five of hearts, a five of spades and possibly a five of clubs.
Full House – A full house is another solid poker hand to hold that typically beats out three of a kind. In this hand, you’ve got two cards of one denomination and three of another – for example, twos of spades and clubs and threes of clubs, diamonds and hearts. Eventually, as you learn to play poker better, you’ll find that this isn’t an uncommon hand to receive.
Straight Flush – A straight flush is the second best hand you can receive in poker, short of a royal flush, which we’ll discuss next. In a straight flush, you’ve received five cards of the same suit, with numbers in a sequential order. As an example of this hand, you might hold a five, six, seven, eight and nine of diamonds. This is a very strong hand to receive, and you should be able to win most hands with a straight flush.
Royal Flush – As mentioned previously, a royal flush is the best hand you can be dealt in a game of poker. In this hand, you hold the ten, jack, queen, king and ace of the same suit – any other sequence of numbers is considered a straight flush, not a royal flush. It’s pretty much impossible to beat this hand once you learn to play poker.
Outside of the different hands you can score with, you’ll need to know the specific rules of the type of poker you plan to play. In Texas Hold’em Poker, for example, there are four rounds of betting play, with each player receiving two private cards and the whole group being dealt five community cards to use. Five Card Draw – another popular poker variation – involves an initial ante, preceded by two betting rounds. Each player is dealt five cards face down and can draw and discard up to five cards after the initial betting round. Before you start to play any poker game, make sure you familiarize yourself with the exact rules of that variation.
For a long time, Party had a bonus of 30% up to $150 or a flat $25 signup bonus. To attract more depositors and new players, Party has decided to amp up its bonus offering to players.
To claim this bonus, players should use signup code tips500 when opening an account. The clearing rate for the bonus is the same as the old one, just 5 Party Points per bonus dollar. This is one of the easiest to clear and overall best signup bonuses out there.
