Party Over?

Over at the Tao of Poker Pauly is lamenting the withdrawal of Party Poker from the US. As he says the fishing was great there.

But, being a privileged European, still welcome at Party (and thanks to them giving me some free money to play with, now playing there), the fishing has got even better. The standard of play in the US must be better than in the rest of the world, because there now are even more fish at every table. The withdrawal of our American brethren has just concentrated the Eurofish in one place for us. I can log on for half an hour, and, playing at the 0.10/0.25 NLHE tables (I know, I'm pathetic, but I am working up the limits!) I can be $20 up without very little effort. Of course, you are still vulnerable to the bad beats, idiots calling your set down to the river with King high and then they river a straight, but, overall, I'm winning.

I'm going to transfer my Mansion bankroll over to Pokerstars - I like the atmosphere and interface on 'stars, though the players are better than Mansion. I'm going to continue to dabble with PKR. Its got a fabulous looking, animated interface, with highly customizable avatars, and I think its great the way the view swings from player to player as they act, with appropriate gestures, selectable emotes and tricks with chips. I know its nothing to do with the actual playing of poker, but it looks great. Population is extremely low at the moment, but I'm sure as word gets around it will increase, and its the sort of site that will pull in the fish. You do need a decent PC to run it though; all that animation takes a lot of resources.