Party Poker Review

The Quick Summary
After review, Party Poker is highly recommended by TightPoker.com (overall score of 7.1). They have the most poker players of any of the poker sites out there, large tournaments and also easy competition. It's really hard for any site to compete with Party Poker due to the fact that they are such a big site and can offer so much to their players. The party poker bonus and other sign up promotions make it a great all around site to play at. You won't find many sites that give Party Poker a bad review.
Popularity: 9 of 10 - Excellent
Through the early days of the World Poker Tour, Party Poker was able to advertise on TV and get a head start against all the other poker sites when it came to appealing to the viewers on TV. This helped propel Party Poker overnight into a smash success, putting them as of this month at over 70,000 players playing simultaneously.
Security: 7 of 10 - Good
The biggest factor in any security review, is determining whether or not the site's random number generator has been verified by another company. In English, this means finding out if the site is opening it's doors to verify that the deck is not rigged at the site. Party has gone through and approved their program with iTechLabs, which is good. Their website publicly states they use a high level of encryption (128-bit) to communicate traffic, which means your data is much harder to hack into.
The poker download does install icons into some areas that can be annoying, but the icons are still easily removed if needed. Updates and upgrades to the software happen almost every month as well, so you can be sure that they are constantly putting in new features and security patches.
Collusion and bot detection are both decent, but Party is pretty closed lipped about these things, so it's impossible to tell how advanced their detection schemes are. A number of users who reported collusion and bot detection to customer support get varying responses.
Player Competition: 8 of 10 - Excellent
In the early days, the players at Party Poker were some of the worst poker players on the net, bar none. However, with the popularity of poker on the raise, many of the players have wisened up and Party isn't as 'fishy' as it once was in it's glory days. That said, the competition at Party Poker is still quite beatable as this reviewer easily noticed when playing at the site.
Site Software: 7 of 10 - Good
Reviewing the software for Party Poker, we found that there wasn't anything very special about the features with Party but nothing wrong at the same time. Some other sites add some very neat or unique features, but Party Poker focuses on making a solid program that rarely ever has any reports of crashing or going down. Crashing during your game is disasterous as you can imagine, so we're happy to report that Party has been crash free for as long as we've used it.
Pros: Instant hand history reports, sound options, four-color deck option, avatar on/off option, multi-tabling capabilities, waiting lists and private games.
Cons: Annoying permanent blackjack icon, blocks certain 3rd party poker software tools, is considered malware or adware by some companies.
Customer Support: 5 of 10 - Ok
Unfortunately, Party Poker scores low in our review of their customer support. Most of Party's support is outsourced to India, so phone calls to Party Poker or emails to them will often be answered by support personnel that aren't always fluent in English. This has caused quite a few complaints in Party Poker's past, although most people do get their issues resolved in the end. Our advice is that you be aware what to expect should you contact Party support.
Company Ethics: 6 of 10 - Ok
Ethics is an interesting thing to review, because it requires knowing intimate knowledge of the internal workings of each site. Party Poker is no exception, but TightPoker.com does have some good information on how Party Poker does buesiness. Our feeling is that as a whole, the company does try to treat it's players well, although it's impossible to ignore that Party has been known to step on toes in order to get it's way with players.
Some examples of this, are Party Poker's VIP program, which rewards some of their top players. This program has been highly controversial, as Party has often promised players VIP players certain bonuses for hitting monthly quotas, only to not follow through, change their agreement or other things. Party Poker affiliates (third party promoters) have also had a list of troubles with the company that has been a thorn in their history. As a result of certain acts on Party, we can only give them a 6 of out 10 rating.
Site Promotions: 8 of 10 - Good
A unique offering, is that the company issues Party Poker bonus codes, which can be used by new players to pick and choose between different sign-up bonuses with the site. In addition to these new player promotions, Party also offers quarterly reload bonuses that range from 10% up to 25%.
In our review, the sign up and reload bonuses are the best promotions that Party Poker offers, as these are easy bonuses for you to get. Their other bonuses like Bad Beat Jackpot and VIP programs are more for show and not very good however.
Other promotions: Bad beat jackpot tables, special event promotions and VIP program.
Overall Review - 7.1 of 10 (Good)
Everything considered, you can't go wrong by playing at Party Poker. The software works, the tables are full and the competition is poor. What else can you really ask for? A number of review points for customer and support hurt Party Poker's rankings, but for the most part, this will not affect your experience with the site. If you are looking to play some fun poker and have the best chance of winning money, Party Poker is the spot.