| PokerSchoolOnline is a play money site but there is more to the story here than just play money games. Anyone knows what play money games look like: at least five players are all in before the flop. Not so at PokerSchoolOnline. Here you pay a monthly fee ($15) to play and to play in the higher stakes tournaments and ring games you have to manage your bank roll. There is an emphasis on tournaments though: very few ring games are going but quite a number of tournaments. There are lots of places that don’t charge for play money games but I still think it’s well worth the money to play here because you get a whole lot more than just play money tables for the money. You have lessons on several levels of expertise and you have a lot of poker content written by real authorities that are not found anyplace else. You also have a forum, a newsletter and player leagues to mention some of the features. When it comes to endorsements there is definitely nothing to complain about here: they have a whole galaxy of poker stars listed including Mark Napolitano, Rolf Slotboom, Bob Ciaffone, Lou Krieger, Daniel Negreanu and so on and so on. If you are looking for a place to learn poker at a low cost I’m pretty sure that this beats spending the same amount on micro limit real money games. |
The PlanetAce software is used by the poker rooms that are affiliated with Bugsy’s Club. The lobby presents you with a large list view with tabs and in addition to the usual tabs for selecting game types and tournaments you also have tabs for accessing the games hosted by other partners in the network. At present: FreePlay at PokerPages, PokerSchool Online and Bugsy’s Club. Of these, it is only Bugsy’s Club that offers real-money games. The lobby works well although the black text on a white background gives an unnecessarily Spartan impression. I’m not a fan of overly rich interfaces but it doesn’t have to look like a Notepad text file either. Functionally, the list is however very good. You get a nice overview and easy access and if you select tables and tournaments in the list, the information area to the right of the list displays all information that you could possibly ask for except possibly rake information. You have a drop-down main menu where you’ll find most of the settings and information that are available and in addition you can also request hand histories and statistics.
The overview and amount of information in the tournaments section is good and you can access information either via the information area beside the list view or by double clicking to bring up the tournament lobby. Payout information is provided also for tournaments that have not yet started but as percentages for scheduled tournaments rather than in real money amounts. For started tournaments and sit’n go tournaments you get amount information as well however. You also get information about largest and average stack, the blind levels, level time, antes and break times and durations which is very good. You join a scheduled tournament from the lobby and from the lobby you can also view tables. You can easily find players by sorting the player list alphabetically which is done by clicking the “Player” column header. Unfortunately you can however not view the table at which a player is playing by double clicking his or her name: you have to look through the tables. Sit’n Go’s do not have lobbies but they are not joined by sitting down in a seat (as one would expect) but through the “sign-up” link to the far right in the list entry. This is different but it works.
When you join a table you quickly notice that, contrary to what the rather sparse lobby might suggest, the graphics in the games is excellent. Also, the controls are wonderful! One odd thing that I quickly noticed though, which isn’t really a feature of the software but still, you can sit in with LOTS of money in the big bet games. Usually the maximum you can bring to the tables is 100 times the big blind – here it is 1000 times the big blind! Thus, beware what might look like very low limits here. The player turns are indicated by a the name plate flashing and this works well, the action is displayed in the name plate but disappears after a short while. I really appreciate the rooms where the action remains displayed but can not really hold this against PlanetAce since most clients don’t do this. Discrete and logical sound effects allows you to keep track of what happens even when you aren’t looking. Unfortunately the focus transfer between the tables doesn’t work perfectly but it’s not worse than what you can live with. The controls are exemplary. The slider is smooth and the type in option is quick without any strange behaviour. Furthermore, you can use the slider and type-in at all times! This means that you can prepare your bet out of turn – something that surely makes the games a lot quicker and I’m surprised that this is not standard on all clients. I actually hadn’t even considered it before I saw it here, but it’s great. When you change the bets the text on the buttons are updated real time so you see that something did in fact happen when you acted. The only thing that can be complained about with the buttons is that they are a bit small and that they are not as visible as they could have been. They do however have mouse over effects and once you figure them out there are no problems. The animations look great but they are a bit slow as default – this can however be configured in the settings. There is also a wide range of out-of-turn predefined action check boxes, where those that don’t apply are shaded. Bringing in chips is done by clicking the “Get Chips” button and there are no unnecessary complaints about you being in a hand or similar – if you are in a hand you are simply informed that the chips will be available when you’re back. The chat box is clear and you can set filters so that you get the information level that you want using a combobox selector.
In summary, the PlanetAce software is very good. It isn’t the best client out there but it is among the best. There aren’t very many counter-intuitive functions and multi table play works ok. The controls and the graphics are very good. |
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