This matchup of Poker Stars vs FullTilt was last updated in Summer, 2010. This comparison has been inspired was inspired by putting up the two largest USA friendly online poker sites against one another heads up, in a winner take all battle royal… Ok, maybe that is a bit much, but we will take a look at these two rooms and see which features make each room stand out above one another. There is also a good poker forum thread comparing pokerstars vs fulltilt, feel free to check it out and to leave your comments about which room you like the best.

Of course, you can also visit www.pokerstars.com and www.fulltiltpoker.com to download the software yourself to test them yourself.

For another good Online poker vs Online poker matchup in the Bodog vs Sportsbook.com Poker matchup or check out this comparison of PartyPoker vs PokerStars for another of the top online poker sites compared to one another.

These two rooms are the two largest and highest quality online poker rooms, it’s going to be a good battle to see who comes out on top. We are comfortable with you playing at either of these rooms as they are secure, reliable and have excellent reputations from the online poker community.

Poker Room vs Poker Room Categories

• Software / Game Download
• Poker Players
• Traffic
• Game Selection
• Tournaments
• Bonuses
• Customer Support
• Deposit and Withdrawl

PokerStars.com and FullTiltPoker.com Software

PokerStars.com download at: http://www.pokerstars.com
FullTiltPokerdowload at: http://www.fulltiltpoker.com

Let’s start with screenshots from both online poker rooms.

The PokerStars.com Poker Table – Fully resizeable tables, easy to multi-table. Upload custom image. Responsive, fast and easy to use game interface. Good sound scheme as well, not annoying as some other sites. PokerStars.com is my personal favorite poker software. It is sleek, easy on the eyes, extremely stable, extremely user friendly, functional and with a large number of options. I really like it. The PokerStars lobby, tons of options in the ‘request’ file like look up a player, search for a tournament, get hand history as well as the standard features for the lobby like avg players per flop, hands per hour, avg pot size etc… PokerStars is Mac Friendly (so is Full Tilt) PokerStars does not offer a no-download version of their software (neither does FullTilt) PokerStars does offer ability to re-size your table (so does full tilt) Now lets take a look at the screenshot from FullTilt Poker. The FullTiltPoker.com Table. Screenshot of a high stakes table, common on FullTilt Poker. This screengrab is from the “Racetrack” option with “Steel” Background. They also offer 4 other categories (reviewd below).The FullTiltPoker.com Lobby – You can also search for players, find tournaments and easy to navigate games.

PokerStars vs FullTilt Poker Software

• Both have tables that you can resize.
• Both offer smooth multi-table action
• Both accept USA Poker Players
• Both offer world class software
• Both offer Player to Player $$ transfers
• FullTilt has more customization options
• Both are Mac Friendly Poker site, – Poker Stars is not, although they are working on a Poker Stars Mac Compatible software. *PokerStars now offers a Poker Stars Mac Software Download
• PokerStars software has a more stable reputation, although it is extremely rare for either of these rooms to be down. Imagine their hourly rake??? no way you’d let your site be down either
• Both have fair, respectable and trusted reputations from the online poker world.
• PokerStar.com allows custom image avatars, FullTiltPoker.com has a selection of graphic avatars.
• Poker Game Software winner – PokerStars.com

PokerStars.com simply sets the gold standard for the highest quality online poker software. Once you play there, you will understand. FullTiltPoker.com is my second favorite online poker software, behind PokerStars.com and they do have more options so you can customize your online poker experience

FullTiltPoker.com offers more options for your table view. You can choose the classic view, with the larger cartoon like avatars that many people still use, and associate with FullTilt Poker.com.

With the classic view, your avatar has 4 facial expressions, from normal, to happy, to sad and to ‘what the fuck?’.

It was fun for a little while, but I switched to the racetrack view with avatars and is what I use mostly now.

Another cool feature of the Full Tilt Poker Game Download, is that you can open up the lobby and easily find out if a “Full Tilt Poker Pro” is playing. If they are, the table is highlighted in red. If you check the screenshot above you’ll see that there is a “Red” $1000/$2000 High Stakes Limit Texas Holdem game going on. Sick.

Pro’s play at PokerStars, but their tables look no different than any others in the lobby, so it is harder to find the pro’s. Also, the ‘named fulltiltpoker pro’s’ will have their real name as their avatar.

Custom Pro Avatars. Pro’s use their real name at Full Tilt. If you see Chris Ferguson at the table, it is really him. Check out these screenshots of Full Tilt Poker Pro’s like Phil Ivey vs Layne Flack.

I really can’t go wrong with recommending either of these poker softwares, so this won’t be the determining factor as to which of these mega giant online poker rooms wins the heads up poker room vs poker room battle. The download speeds for each of these rooms is also similar, although the PokerStars download seems to be a bit faster and leaner than Full Tilt.

Poker Players and Traffic at Full Tilt Poker vs Poker Stars

Poker Stars.com is the largest online poker room in the world in terms of real money poker players. Not only are they the largest, the 2nd place competitor whiThe day that PartyPoker.com left the USA poker market, PokerStars.com became the largest online poker site in the world.

Poker Stars is averaging over 10,000 real money players. That is almost twice their nearest competitor (FullTiltPoker and PartyPoker at a virtual dead heat for 2nd place with just over 5,000 Real money players avg each.).

FullTiltPoker.com has now moved to be in a pure dead heat for the 2nd largest online poker room in the world. At the time of this review, PokerSiteScout shows that both FullTilt and Party have 5200 real money players on average. They have the second most number of USA poker players online, and represent a huge portion of online poker players online poker site.

Combined, FullTiltPoker and PokerStars make up the vast majority of USA online poker players.

Fish Factor – How bad are the PokerStars and FullTilt Poker players?

PokerStars Players gets a 4.2 / 10 fish factor
FullTilt Players are on average 2.1 / 10 fish factor.

The truth is that with full tilt’s partnership with CardRunners.com, (a top online poker school) and the fact that they offer rakeback has made Full Tilt a place where a large amount of better than average players play in comparison to some of the other skins. Now, while PokerStars does not do rakeback, they do a VIP system that is essentially in-house rakeback done the right way. That doesn’t mean that PokerStars doesn’t have good players, they certainly do, but in my opinion it is tougher to find a really juicy game at Full Tilt than at PokerStars in general. Honestly, there are plenty of good and bad players at both site, considering that nearly all the online ‘pro’s have accounts at both sites as to the vast majority of casual players. Once they get so big, there will always be a spot to find and make good money.

Fulltilt has on average a tougher level of competition than pokerstars, plus there is a huge ratio of professionals that play on Full Tilt Poker.

Ok – I knew about let see about 6 or 7 “big name pro’s at PokerStars, but I’ve heard of nearly all of those guys at FullTiltPoker.com.

Alright, so that is a recap of the players at these rooms, Stars is slightly fishier in my opinion but only barely. There are plenty of bad players at both rooms. Plenty of traffic across all levels, all games.

Poker Game Selection at PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker

Massive game selection at both rooms. Texas Holdem, Limit and No-Limit, Omaha, Hi-Lo, Stud, HORSE, Ring Games from SNG’s, Tourneys, Satellites and Multi-Table events. However, Full Tilt Poker does have something that no other online poker site has right now and that is called Rush Poker, or as I like to call it a true game of Speed Poker and they just introduced Full Tilt Rush Poker Tournaments, which sound pretty odd in our opinion. Full Tilt Poker does excel by offering RAZZ ring games, but my god why anyone would want to play Razz…. You think Holdem is Brutal?? Start playing Razz.

PokerStars Limits range from $.02/$.04 limit up to $1000/$2000 with steady traffic up through the $100/$200 levels. No Limit traffic starts at $.01/$.02 up to $200/$400, with steady traffic up to $25/$50 although a game breaks out at the highest levels every so often.

FullTiltPoker is the place to play for the highest stakes cash games online, PokerStars.com is the place to play for the biggest tournaments online anywhere.

FullTiltPoker wins the “Game Selection Category” offering a wider variety of games and traffic up to the highest levels on a regular basis.

Poker Tournaments at Poker Stars vs FullTilt Poker.

PokerStars.com has the largest weekly tournaments online. The “Sunday Million” tournament at PokerStars is their flagship weekly tournament and there is an incredible $1,000,000 guaranteed in the prize pool. They also offer warm up events with $500k and $250k guaranteed.

FullTiltPoker offers a $500k guaranteed on Sundays and nightly $50k guaranteed events called the “Fifty Fifty”. I personally like the Fifty Fifty because it is a $50 buyin and guarantees $50,000. Not bad.

PokerStars.com offers SNG’s from heads up through 180 man events. Buyins start at the $1.00+.20 up to the $2000+90. Note that the lowest stakes SNG’s have the biggest rake… if you can play at the $5+.50 level you’re only paying 10% rake, which isn’t as bad. 1500 chips, 10/20 starting blinds and 10 minute rounds, turbos half that.
FullTiltPoker.com offers SNG’s from $1+.25 up to $5000+200. Worse rake at the lowest stakes. SNG starting chips are $1500 starting chips and 15/30 starting blinds. 6 minute levels. Turbos have 3 minute rounds.

Overall Tournament Structure goes to Full Tilt Poker, because as this Full Tilt Poker Review says,

“Full Tilt Pokers blinds never double, leading to friendly blind to chip stacks in the all phases of tournaments, early, middle stages and late stages. Think about it, those pro players up above not only play at FullTiltPoker, but many of them were involved with the game design and creation, including blind structure(s). It’s very player friendly”

PokerStars vs FullTiltPoker Bonuses

These two bonuses are different as night and day. now pretty much the same with the match being 100% up to $600
Both match at 100% percent.
PokerStars is a $600 bonus match bonus that is medium to easy to clear.

To earn this bonus, you will simply need to play on PokerStars and collect the number of Base FPPs equal to 10 times the bonus amount. You have six months after your first deposit to earn all the FPPs you need to cash out your bonus.

FullTiltPoker offers a $600 bonus that is moderate difficulty to release, I think it more of the industry standard bonus for an established poker site.

At FullTiltPoker.com, Each player point is worth $.06, so you can earn up to $18 per hundred hands. The bonus amount will be automatically credited to your Bonus Account where it will be held and released to your cash account in increments of 10% of your initial deposit, or $20, whichever you earn first. So if you do a one-time deposit of $100, each $10 (10%) earned will be instantly released into your account. Deposit the full $600 and your account will get credited for each $20 of bonus earned. At three points per hand, each $20 increment can be earned in fewer than two hours of play at only one table.

PokerStars.com Bonus code = stars600
FullTiltPoker.com Bonus code = KICKASSPOKER

Here is more detailed information on different Poker Bonus details.

PokerStars & FullTiltPoker Customer Support

Both offer email only customer support, as well as live support during game play. Both sites allow you to ‘chop’ near the end of tournaments, with live support at the table while the tournaments are underway.

Full Tilt Poker vs PokerStars.com Deposit and Withdrawl

Not a whole lot of comparisons to be made here as these two rooms have virtually the same deposit and withdraw methods including bank wire, debit cards, epassporte and pokerstars.com sometimes offers ‘e-checks’. The short answer is visit the cashier once you have an account and I’m quite certain you will be given plenty of ways to deposit. Withdrawls come via check, bankwire, epassporte and a few other options. Checks take about 2 to 3 weeks from both rooms.

PokerStars.com vs FullTiltPoker.com Final Recap

• Overall Winner – PokerStars.com
• Software / Game Download – PokerStars – the gold standard
• Poker Players – PokerStars
• Traffic – PokerStars (biggest in world)
• Game Selection – FullTiltPoker
• Tournaments – Wash – Both kick major ass
• Bonuses – FullTiltPoker (bigger)
• Customer Support – Wash
• Deposit and Withdrawl – Wash
• Both offer a Mac Friendly Download

Our Choice for Best Poker Site, PokerStars or FullTiltPoker

The winner is PokerStars.com. They are the largest online poker site in the world for a reason, see for yourself.

http://www.pokerstars.com
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com

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