Visit RakeTheRake, the rakeback professionals, offering up to 60% rakeback
visit Neteller
Visit Full Tilt Poker

Screenshots

(click to download)


Screenshot Full Tilt Poker lobby

FTP lobby
(123 kb)

Screenshot Full Tilt Poker default table

Default table
(107 kb)

Screenshot Full Tilt Poker: 9 resized tables on 30 inch monitor

30" monitor, 9 tables
(720 kb)

Screenshot Full Tilt Poker: 16 resized tables on 30 inch monitor

30" monitor, 16 tables
(786 kb)

Did you know...

...that you can also sign up for 27% rakeback at Full Tilt Poker through PokerSavvy and recieve a one month PokerSavvy Plus membership as soon as you rake $300 in one month?

Take me there

Full Tilt Poker review

Reviewed August 10th 2009
Last updated: January 30th 2011

Player base

Being the second largest poker room on the internet, Full Tilt Poker always has plenty of games running at every limit they offer. I've read more than once that players on Full Tilt Poker would be better than on other sites, but I could never notice a big difference with say PokerStars up to 50 nl full-ring. What is a nice feature of Full Tilt Poker is that a lot of well know professional poker players play there of whom some are Full Tilt Poker pro's (with their name in red in the lobby such as Phil Ivey, just to name one...).

Games offered

Cash games - Full Tilt Poker offers play money and real money games in most of the poker variants including: hold'em, omaha H/L, omaha hi, stud H/L, stud hi, razz and several mixed games such as HORSE. The lowest no limit games that are offered are 2 nl (1 and 2 cent blinds) and 5 no limit (with blinds of 2 and 5 cents). These stakes are a great home to start and learn the basics of the game and build a bankroll.

Tournaments - Full Tilt Poker hosts a lot of tournaments throughout the day from micro to high stakes. There are little to no tournaments with a buy in less then $1, which could be a disadvantage for starting players with a very small bankroll. The blind structure of regular multi-table tournaments is very good which doesn't make these tournaments a 'crap shoot' al too fast. Levels last for 10 minutes and it takes 20 levels to reach blinds of 1000/2000 with a 250 ante. A big plus in my experience is that on Full Tilt Poker the tournament breaks are synchronized, meaning that in every tournament the breaks take place at the same moment. Therefore you can always take a short break every hour, even when multi-tabling. At Full Tilt Poker you can also find knockout multi-table tournaments and sit & go's where part of your buy in becomes a bounty for the player to knock you out. Most tournaments at Full Tilt Poker don't have the huge fields you will see at PokerStars, which will increase your chance of getting to a final table. A very big series of tournaments regularly organized by Full Tilt are the Full Tilt Online Poker Series or FTOPS with high buy ins, huge fields and even bigger prizes. For the smaller bankroll there are the equivalent mini FTOPS, with a buy in 1/10th of that of the FTOPS events.

Tournament structures at Full Tilt Poker.
Tournament type Starting stack Level dur. (min.) Level # 1K/2K blinds Antes
MTT's regular 1500* 10* 20 y
turbo 1500 5 19 y
deep 3000 10** 15 y
SnG's regular 1500 6 19 n
turbo*** 1500 3 19 n

* Starting stack and level duration can be higher at medium/high stakes tournaments.
** Level duration increases deeper into the tournament to 12 (level 13) and 15 minutes (level 31).
*** Visit SuperturboSnG.com for some more information about Full Tilt's super turbo SnG's and how to beat them.

Freerolls - Full Tilt Poker offers freerolls with a direct real money prize pool. There are freerolls open to everyone and country restricted freerolls. The open $100 freerolls pay 27 places and usually fill up with 2700 entrants, which doesn't give you a high chance of winning any money. They run several times a day with different games (no limit hold'em, omaha, HORSE and razz). The country specific $100 freerolls ($250 for US residents) have a smaller field size and therefore offer more value when playing them. These run once a day for the different countries.

Software

The software of Full tilt runs smooth most of the time (see below). It is generally regarded as 'the best of the rest' behind the software of PokerStars.

Lobby - Full Tilt's lobby offers a lot of filtering options so that finding the game you want to play is a breeze. With a recent update they implemented the option to choose between different lobby views.

Poker tables - There are several table views you can choose from, all looking good with buttons placed in logical places. There is a very useful option for color coding your opponents when taking notes (or as a note). There are a lot of options from customizing your slider (betting-) bar to automatically reloading. On top of that tables are resizable with a minimum resolution of 480 x 350 pixels, a default resolution of 800 x 570 pixels and no maximum resolution.

Multi-tabling - The maximum number of tables you can play at Full Tilt is 16 (after you e-mail support asking to up your limit). As already mentioned, the software mostly runs smooth but it can be a bit slow/laggy from time to time especially when multi-tabling in combination with tracking software. There are AHK-scripts which can be used at Full Tilt Poker, such as a betpot script. Together with the automatic reload function multi-tabling at Full Tilt will be a breeze.

Tracking software - Full Tilt's software can be used in combination with tracking software such as PokerTracker and HoldemManager.

In the right hand side column you can find a screenshot of a default sized and styled table. For the multitabling grinders among you there are also screenshots provided of 9 and 16 poker tables: with a different look and resized as to not show any overlap on a 30" poker monitor.

Promotions

First deposit bonus - Full Tilt offers a 100% first deposit bonus up to $600. It clears at a rate of $0.04 per Full Tilt Point (FTP) earned in real money games and is released in 10% or $20 increments, whichever is the smallest amount. It remains valid for 120 days. In cash games, whenever you get dealt a hand you earn FTPs (including partial points and even if you folded pre-flop). For every $1 in rake that is collected from the the pot, 10 FTPs will be equally divided among all the players dealt in the hand. In tournaments you receive 10 points per $1 rake paid. I remember clearing this bonus about two years ago at 10 and 25 nl full ring. I wouldn't say it is impossible at these stakes, but it does take quite a number of hands (around 60.000-75.000). Just so you know.

Loyalty bonus - Other promotions for every player at Full Tilt Poker include happy hour, where you receive 2 or 3 times the normal amount of FTP's and the Iron Man Challenge. This challenge consists of earning a certain threshold of points for a certain amount of days every month. The higher your amount of FTP's and the more days you achieve this, the higher will be your Iron Man status. The highest status (Iron Man) will be achieved by earning at least 250 FTP's during 25 days of the same month or 500 FTPs/day for 20 days. Achieving a certain status will result in medals (spendable in a store) and a bonus at the end of the year for every month you achieved one of the Iron Man Challenge statuses. Together the Iron Man promotion will be more beneficial for low stakes or low volume poker players than for players who generate enough rake to earn well over 500 FTPs/day. For those players the Black Card promotion will be the most valuable promotion on top of a standard 27% rakeback deal.

Rakeback - If you open an account at Full Tilt Poker by signing up through a rakeback affiliate (for example RakeTheRake) you will receive 27% rakeback. Other promotions such as bonuses, using FTP's to buy items in the point store and using Iron Man medals can significantly increase your total Full Tilt Poker rakeback, although they will be deducted from your MGR before your rakeback is calculated. A lot of players were not aware of the possibility of getting rakeback when signing up through a rakeback affiliate and missed their opportunity to get it. Although Full Tilt is slowly starting to give existing players without rakeback their 27%, make sure you do it right from the start! The combination of rakeback and other promotions more than make up for the fact that Full Tilt charges a little bit more rake than the industry's standard at the micro stakes up to 10 no limit (1 cent for every 15 cents in the pot instead of 5%, view Full Tilt Poker's rake structure).

Read more about the total value of Full Tilt Poker's promotions

Cashier

Full Tilt offers most of the usual deposit options including Neteller, moneybookers, iDeal and MasterCard. I have never experienced any problems depositing or withdrawing at Full Tilt Poker using Neteller.

Support

You can e-mail Full Tilt support. It may take a day before you receive a respons however. Calling them to speed things up when you have an urgent issue is not possible as they haven't got a phone number. The times I contacted support things were always resolved to my satisfaction.

In summary

Full Tilt Poker will be a very good poker room to start your poker career because of the nano stakes games they offer. The first deposit bonus will be relatively hard to clear at the micro stakes (up to 25 nl). However, the combination of rakeback with other promotions such as the Iron Man Challenge will result in a good part of your paid rake back into your pocket, even if you are a micro stakes player that does not play high volume. People with a tiny bankroll might miss the availability of tournaments with a buy in below $1. Other than that Full Tilt hosts a lot of multi table tournaments with a good blind structure and nice features such as synchronized breaks and knockouts. The software is very good and keeps getting better with every new update. Full Tilt support is not quite as responsive as you might wish or would expect from such a top poker room.

If you think that Full Tilt Poker might be the poker room for you based on this review, then open an account for free with 27% rakeback by signing up through RakeTheRake.

You can also visit Full Tilt Poker directly and sign up without 27% rakeback (which, of course, is not recommended, but hey, I can at least offer you the option)…


Further reading at First Time Poker Player:


[back to top]