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Ultimate Bet Comments And Observations
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Author: Marc Weinberg
Full disclosure (regular readers of this column have surely both come to expect nothing less): I consider myself an online poker professional but have never played at Ultimate Bet. Since we also promote Ultimate Bet I thought it was high time to join. Here are some initial observations and comments about one of the largest online poker rooms in the world.
First of all they have a fantastic sign up bonus, which you can get hold of by following this link and joining through the Insider. 100% match bonus for initial deposits up to $500 free. That was good enough for me.
Earning the bonus might take awhile based on their rewards program. You earn 0.5 points for every raked hand at the max level of $3. You need 10 bonus points to get $1 from them, so that's 5000 points or 10000 raked hands to get the $500. They seem slightly more generous when it comes to points earned from tournaments like Sit N Go's. I'll let you know how it works out.
If you earn 4,000,000 (4 million) ultimate bet bonus points they will give you a Harley. If anyone has come within 3 million points of this prize please let me know, and I'll send you an Ultimate Bet medallion made out of solid brass. Please note, if you're Annie Duke's boyfriend and you're reading this then you do not count, both in terms of my write-in competition for the medallion and in general terms as a stand-alone person.
Isn't it slightly dubious when the house-husband of the spokeswoman of an online poker room (I can't remember his name) wins their guaranteed mega-tournament (he made well over $100,000 playing on Annie's laptop from their bed)? It's not wrong or even unethical, it's just uncool - kind of like admitting that you acted in A Perfect Storm as one of the minor drowning fishermen (When he's not looking after her four kids fathered by someone else or winning online poker tournaments he does a little acting).
But I digress from my Ultimate Bet experience: The download was smooth and easy enough. Their graphics have a homely, pre-21st century feel to them. This must be what they mean by "1st generation poker room". No wonder these guys felt threatened by Poker Share and their glitz - Ultimate Bet are online poker Luddites when it comes to look and feel. They have a validation process before you can deposit and play for real money.
This validation process would be fair enough if it worked, and by worked I mean worked immediately without me checking my email 5 times to see if they had sent it. Then I went back into the software and asked for it again. I have a netzero account that allows all kinds of crap to spam its way into my mailbox from email addresses that end .ru and promise me eternal hard-ons, and yet I cannot get the validation email from Ultimate Bet.
This is their problem not mine, but I wrote to their customer service department and in spare prose I demanded the code. To their ultimate credit they sorted it out in 10 minutes. Good job! Now I was ready to play.
Unfortunately my username of choice "masterbets" is no longer available. That's not me if you play at UB. Instead, look for the following username (I think this is very funny, and basically my entire reason for writing this article): "JKOffTheNuts"
My only hope is that I win a huge satellite for a WPT event and my online name is read out by Vince VanPatten. A prop bet says that a producer has to explain it to him.
Back to my comments: Their look and feel is not great. I played a few hands of no-limit and it took me a few minutes to work out what was going on. There is no timer bar, and the dealer doesn't say how long someone still has to act, or even if they are still connected or not. I rely on this kind of information. There were plenty of other omissions that every other online poker room seems to have, and in general the software looks dated.
I reserve judgement on this poker room because the bottom line is the player volume and the standard of those players. So far, after a profitable 10 minute session I love Ultimate Bet and intend to play there for the rest of the month.
It's clearly a huge poker room with lots of action and an excellent sign up bonus, plus I can personally vouch for the customer service team. So what are you waiting for? Make a deposit at Ultimate
Bet today and start hunting for JKOffTheNuts - I'll never check raise you if you identify yourself as a loyal Insider reader.
Related Poker Articles And News Items:
> Poker Share - Justifying The Hype
> The Curse Of Partial Withdrawal
> Harrington On Hold'em, Help My Poker!
> Hollywood Poker - New Player Observations
> Rebuy Tournaments - The Crack Cocaine Of Poker
> Tournament Poker Strategy - First Impressions Last
> Hold'em Strategy - Playing Average Cards Out Of Position
> Doyle Brunson's No Limit Poker Genius
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