After a long day of poker, we finally have our TV table set for the Mirage Poker Showdown.
The 27 that made the money in this event is not exactly a who’s who of poker. Sure, there are many great players on the list, but very few who have broken through, and are super known. In fact, I believe of the 27 people in the money, only two (Ted Forrest and Phil Laak) have any WPT final table experience.
Technorati Tags: Mac Poker, WPT
The Mac Compatible Poker Rooms below have mostly been vetted by Poker-Mac. Poker on a Mac continues to be a Java dominated experience. The PokerNetwork has an excellent Java Mac
Poker Client and many new Poker Rooms are opening up with downloadable software.
So the future is bright for Mac Poker Freaks…
HoldEm Poker: Up and coming pokernetwork skin. Specialty is Micro-Limits.
Full Tilt Poker: Bonus Code: MAC -The newest fully downloadable Mac Poker client…People are loving it. Unlike GamesGrid and Pacific , Full Tilt has plenty of traffic from it’s PC fish. Excellent deposit bonus right now %100 up to $600. Not sure about clearance rate. From FTP: “Full Tilt Poker for the Mac® is no half-baked Apple-compatible web-based program like you’ll find at some other sites. We’ve designed our native downloadable software specifically for the Mac, and it includes all of the great games and features PC players have come to know and enjoy, including the ability to take notes on other players, view instant visual hand histories, and choose your own avatar from our extensive list.”
Poker Room: The flagship site of the PokerNetwork. They use a java client that is pleasant and easy to use. I can eight table games if need be. Right now Poker-Mac Members recieve a special 30% first deposit bonus up to $300 (from a baseline of 20% up to $100 if you just sign up on your own). Let me know if you don’t get the bonus for some reason and I can try to straighten things out. Both the Macintosh friendly and PC based sites are formed into conglomerates based on a system of software. They share not only the software, but players as well. This is important for the Mac enthusiast, because pokerroom is simply the most prominent of a group of sites based on the “Poker Network” software developed by a Swedish Company. The other sites all have their own flavor. Some of them are: Future Bet, Hollywood Poker, Poker Gaming, Power Player, Caribsports, Holdem Poker, Betsson, BetonBet, BayouPoker, West Coast Wagers and CherryCasino. Some I like better than others, but they each tend to have a bit of their own flavor with the benefit of the Pokeroom player base. Most of these websites are compatible with the Mac Poker Analysis tool MacPoker Pro.
Hollywood Poker: is a great new pokerroom skin. The key difference here is that every now and then you run into celebrities playing the tables with you. Their big name is the poker afficionado James Woods. The Java client is excellent and supports multiple browsers and multiple table play. You don’t need to download a client as long as you have Safari. It would be nice if they went further and actually made a Mac based client. Sadly, they haven’t. Simple, intuitive and fast it is a pleasure to use. With 2000-4000 online at any one time, their player counts are among the highest. There is also a first time player bonus available. As of right now, it is an unbelievable 500% bonus up to $1000.
EuroPoker: Another pokernetwork skin. Caters to European players. Think the Finns are an easy mark? Try a couple of hands at EuroPoker.
Games Grid: A brand new site with a downloadable client for OS X. I thought Hollywood’s bonus was huge - they are offering a 1000% Bonus right now to a max of $5000. So if you are a medium-high limit player who likes ring games this is a great place to put in $500. If you aren’t…they also have a really fast bonus clearance if you are just getting started. See you there.
Bugsy’s Club: Bugsy’s was one of the earliest innovators to offer a Mac compatible downloadable client. The big benefit over Poker Room’s java client is that the software will track your statistics. Also this site is affiliated with Poker School Online. I can’t comment on the Poker School, as I haven’t joined. It is $15 a month, and offers lessons, and play among school members with incentives not to play like an idiot, which presumably makes for better “non-cash” games. Another nice benefit of the Bugsy’s/Poker School site is that you can FreePlay and win Bugsy’s Player Points through freerolls, then play BPP limit games and tourneys to increase your BPP stack. Eventually, you can turn this into cash (100 BPP= $1). Nice way to get started.
MyPokerPlace.net is a brand new site. Honestly, its so new that there aren’t many people playing (i.e. great time for freerolls and incentives). Their hook is RAKE FREE poker. Their info notes that this is partially altruistic and are hoping that they have the effect of decreasing rakes throught the online industry. However, to deal with their costs, they do charge at time of deposit (the cheapes is a 3.9% charge via Neteller). They do have a downloadable client - but the software is on the new/rougher side. Their client is Java based and can be run from your browser (like pokerroom). But, when I tried this in safari, it downloaded the client which I can now open from my dock. Easier than navigating to the site every time. Needs improvement, but promising - check them out.
A Poker-Mac reader suggests the following: If you’re using a slightly older Mac, Virtual PC is such a resource hog that it’s actually faster to open a Remote Desktop Client (RDC) to a PC on a local network (and in some cases the only way to get it to work). Of course, this assumes the situation is rather specific, eg, you have an iBook/PowerBook and want to play in a room other than the one you’ve got a desktop PC sitting in. The main reason I mention this is because it’s how I typically play (on my PB 800MHz in the living room, with the PC upstairs in my office). VPC grinds to a halt as soon as I try to open Poker Tracker (PT), much less add Game Time+ (GT+) into the mix; however, I can run PT/GT+ with a poker client without a problem via RDC.
Victoria’s Poker: Offline. This site is actually for sale if you’re interested.
Live3D Poker: In beta testing right now. You can sign up to b-test it. Again, let me know what you think.
Party Poker: The counts at Pokerroom are high, but Party Poker is the biggest site on the web. Their counts are closer to 16000-18000 at any time. Check Poker Pulse for the latest updates. If you want to play at the pool with the most fish (and sharks), you will need to go the Virtual PC route. Your decision should be based on the processor you have, and how many games you want to play at any one time. Running the Party Poker client with multiple windows open will put a strain on your RAM and CPU, so a hefty dual G4 will come in handy here. The bottleneck is not the DSL line in this case. Virtual PC will run you about $200 at this writing. Installing it is fairly simple, and the Party Poker client installs and works well as long as your Mac can handle the load. If you are going to sign up at Party Poker, use the BONUS CODE: WSOPCHAMP for $25 with deposit.
Neteller: Finally, you will need to break out the credit card and put some hard earned cash at risk. The online sites do not accept credit cards directly, and the most convenient intermediary is the online bank Neteller. They charge ~9% per deposit, so make sure you win from the beginning and don’t have to deposit more than once 
