is betfair the worst site ?

They have staff????????[:o][:o][:o][:o][:o][:o][:o]

yep, far worse than ultimate bet or absolute.

stts, you cant really beat stars imho for variety of games , some of which are only charging 4% rake.

mtts i've been playing on 888 for 6 weeks, and managed to get myself one of them sharkscope sharks, so it must be soft.loads of variety, you can see where players are based, and most importantly for me overlays and late registration,which means i can join a game after the kids are in bed and skip the dull early stages. final tabled a couple of 1000+ runner fields, and won a 470 runner event in the last fortnight, and really enjoying playing again.

there's also a 4k and 10k freeroll every saturday night for anyone who logs in and plays 6 days out of 7 and generates 5 points, which is about $2.50 in rake, both of which have reasonable structure and loads of no shows.

the stt lobby on 888 is dead, so may try entraction next week. apparently theres a lot more fish than on stars.

the whole place has become a joke, the poker site is diabolical, how anyone still plays on it is beyond me, and the betting site is catching up.

Doylesroom has the best setup.[:D]

What network is 888??

888 is pacific. like i said good for lower end mtts, but stt traffic is very weak bordering on non existent outside peak  hours.

For people like Klup betfair is the best site as several times a year they buy him a beer and give him access to a free buffet hahahaaa

i withdrew 500 dollars from 888 last week and transfer took 2 days. have to say the exchange rate shocked me, was expecting more.

Hate the 5 player, avatars, unable to see cards after folding and replaying hands as text only.
Betfair before ongame was far better.
Now ocassionally dip in but play Lad, Paddy or **** poker in preference

Apparently **** is a profanity?

chipfire - if you withdrew the money in USD, any bank that recieves it will give you a crap rate (the same as their selling rate). That's why I like stars or ft, you can withdraw in sterling and they only apply a tiny uplift to market rate (around 0.5 cents so say 1.645 instead of 1.65)

Scrub that, it would be 1.65 instead of 1.645 but you get the idea.

sorry but i dont understand any of this. i deposited using my bank card on 888 on the first of april, mainly to play apat, and got 1.55 dollars to the pound for the small amount i deposited. at the end of april i withdrew $500 of my winnings as there seemed no point in leaving a boatload of money in there ( thinly veiled i run good post ). when i checked my bank statement today was alarmed to see was buying £'s back at just over 1.7. i assumed u.s. currency had lost 10 per cent against the pound, but what you are saying is that this is incorrect, and its actually the bank that have fked me over ?

if that's the case why in the name of the sweet baby jesus would anyone ever play on a site where they are paying 10 per cent commision to a bank ? that's madness. and what should i do with the rest of the money i got in my 888 account ?

if it helps i deposited £77.15 on 1st april which got me $120, i withdrew $490 on 2nd may, which was £287.22 when it hit my bank account, which was nearly £40 less than i was expecting.

sorry should say £20 less than expected.

Market rate on 1st April was approx 1.61, so your deposit should have got you around $124, so that sounds normal if you were getting bank buying rates.

Market rate on 2nd May was approx 1.67, so your withdrawl should have got you about $293, again this is about normal for bank selling rates. So not as bad as you though.

That is the problem when you can't withdraw in sterling, you get whatever foreign currency rate they decide on the day, which will always be about 3% different to market. It was bad timing in that the date of your withdrawl on 2nd May is about the highest point for the dollar in recent months.

Glad to hear you are running well, I think I'm not far short of £1k down in ev playing $5 and $10 stts on stars in the past couple of months (and a broken mouse)

In other words, it is not the fault of the site, other than the fact that you can't withdraw in sterling.

(I don't have an account there - might be worth asking if you can withdraw in sterling and point out that the two main ones let you?)

It used to be the case that you could only withdraw from ft in dollars, then they fell into line with stars and allowed you to choose. If enough people want to do this and request it, they'll do it to ensure they don't lose business, especially if they can make a small margin at the same time)

*so your withdrawl should have got you about £293

fk that for a game of soldiers. i want to play poker not the financial markets. thought the site seemed to good to be true and wondered why there were so few brits playing on there.

got about 400$ left in there will withdraw it tomorrow. bit naughty they dont mention any of this when you are making your deposit.

Problem is as far as they are concerned your account is in dollars, the deposit they get from you is in dollars, and they pay you back in dollars. What rate your bank / card company gives is nothing to do with them.

I know it sucks. I was fed up when it used to be like that on FT.

All you can do is to either get a bank account in dollars, (but you'd need to withdraw big sums for it to be worthwhile unless you can get a fee free one), or use a site where you can withdraw in sterling.

I used my nationwide account for the first time a couple of months ago to deposit $1500 into microgaming and they charged me £18, when i withdrew $500 the next week they charged me another £6.

Pacific? Not familiar...what other sites are skins for that network...the most recognisable one...just trying to get a handle on if ive played that network before. Would appear no. Unless its same as entraction/dice/pokersens etc?!

main skins for pacific seem to be 888, littlewoods, and racing post in the uk.

2/149 in an 11$ mtt yesterday means i got even more money to withdraw when i get to grips with exchange rate.

still some decent mtt overlays on there, especially during the day.

Cheers, you're the second person to recc them to me.

Have you played on 'zki-bet'? I read that is a stand alone network with the incentive that some tournaments are shown on TV. Must be full of betting fish.

Finally pkr? All gizmos...again must be fish full.

Poker lives imo. Poker lives.

when i first started i used betfair and bet365. of the two 365 was deffo the softer but i found myself pishing away poker winnings on horses wheras bf had the sports betting loss limits.

tried full tilt for a while but its the only site i couldnt win on. after a brief flirtation with vc poker went to stars,  primarily because you dont have the temptation of sports betting.

the demise of bf has encouraged me to try out a few other sites. as i  seem unbeatable on 888 will stick it out there for now, but i do want to try entraction at some point.

im still playing the odd stt on here to keep my masters status till the end of the month, but no more than 10 games a week at present.

WSOP are a Pacific skin and will throw money at you to start playing with them if you're a UK customer. A combination of there and Party Poker do it for me these days, having got out of FullTilt the other week when things looked a tad pear-shaped.

PKR isn't what it was since it lost the French players and because of all the fricking about with animation, games seem to take forever.

Betfair
Betfair staff
There must be worse sites out there because at least with Betfair you feel your money is secure and it's easy to deposit and withdraw but as a poker experience it's somewhere alongside eating sand.

actions always louder than words and seems that the  falling player numbers says a lot.Have to give WSOP a try love it when money is thrown my way..

No doubt about it now ! wicked upgrade !! looool..

Betfair / Ongame is all set up to fleece you. Have you noticed you have small pair - flop is high cards. You have small stack - turned & rivered by worse hand to make you reload. Not just occasionally but most of the time. It's not variance, so don't start me off. Variance my arse. Not over such a long period of time. Just watch any table - you can predict the outcome and you will lol.
All tweaked to make you deposit more. The depressing thing is all the books & blogs tell you that good play will be rewarded. Not on this network it won't.

Triple8 standard is woeful but getting rivered left right and center

Betfair IS the worst poker site in the UK. But only if you are a reasonable player. The RNG is geared to randomise the player and not the deck. This means that the game is still 'random' ie Betfair break no rules by not setting a site advantage, but the drawback is that if you are a half decent player, you are doomed to lose as the cards will be setup to force play and ultimatley give the weak player the pot. This ensures that the 'numpty' type players think that they can actually play and continue to use the site. Ask yourselves why no 'high profile or celebrity' players play on Betfair. That is because the site won't allow the embarrassment of their losses, beacaue if it is seen that 'expert' players lose every time they play, the site would be rumbled.

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[;)]TonyC - fair point about lack of high profile players on the site. People always bitch about how the board would never play consistently like that in a real game and I believe they have a point relating to what I have seen here.As I said variance is part of the game but the prolonged bullshit even tight players experience is awful. It is only a site for recreational play really and the losers who get fed up of laying winners on the nags. [;)]

As far as setting up holdem manager goes it is awful. It is over complicated. Pokerstars, William Hills and Virgin set up automatically, with betfair it is a pain in the ass.  I tried before without luck when the software swithed and decided to have another bash tonight.  Another fail.  I am going to disapear back to hills if I cant get this sorted soon.