Poker Sites Compared.

I've now played on three different sites, Pokerstars, Titan Poker and Party Poker. The difference between the three is very pronounced.

The first one I joined was Pokerstars. Until this weeks update, the interface was very basic, but, I like that - No annoying avatars, no distractions. Even after the update, the interface is still very clean, you just get some skins to customize the table and the cards. You can now resize the window. Theres a quite a lot of chat between players, most of it good natured, and I find the standard of play is pretty good. Buy-ins for SNGs and tournaments start at $1, and in the cash games start at £0.01/0.02, so you can get going fairly cheaply.

Over at Party Poker, you've got chairs and avatars (though you can switch the avatars off). The window isn't resizable. The lowest buy-in is a huge $6, and cash games start at $0.10/$0.25, so it can get expensive. There's very little chat that I've seen. The best thing about Party is the standard of play seems significantly lower than 'Stars.

The last site I joined was Titan, and that was simply because I had a code for $50. I've played a bit loosely here, as I'm playing for free, so to speak. More chairs and avatars. There is a single button to click to go all in, which can be dangerous, but this can be switched off. The standard of player here seems to vary much more widely. The thing I really don't like about this site is it seems underpopulated - I have sometimes waited half an hour for a 20 player SNG to fill up. On 'Stars or Party, this would take no more than 5 minutes. Buy-ins and limits start low like Pokerstars.

So, where do I prefer to play? Probably Pokerstars - it seems more friendly than either of the others, there is more choice of games than Party Poker, and a better population than Titan. I'll just have to keep improving my game.