Review Date: August 14, 2005

I’m sitting here trying to think of a way to describe my first thoughts when Bodog Sportsbook announced the opening of their online poker room in 2004. It’s kind of like what I thought when Eddie Murphy, the actor/comedian, recorded his pop album. Sure the guy has talent for acting, but singing? Give me a break. So when the online sportsbooks started adding online poker rooms I just assumed that the poker rooms were just going to be some kind of lower quality room. But when you think about it there are so many good online poker rooms that the sportsbooks poker rooms would not be able to survive if they could not compete. Sure there are B-list sportsbooks who have B-list poker rooms, but Bodog, being one of the best sportsbooks on the Internet, should have a poker room to match. They did not let us down. Bodog’s lobby is similar to many of the other online poker rooms. You are presented with tabs across the top for the different games (Hold’Em, Omaha, and Stud) and tournaments (Sit and Go, Multi-table, World Poker Tour satellites, World Series of Poker satellites, and special). A neat feature is when one of the main tabs is selected you have a series of sub-tabs to further filter the visible tables. Under Texas Hold`Em, for example, there are tabs for limit, no limit, pot limit, and one on one. Under the Sit and Go tournament tab there are tabs for Hold`Em, Omaha, Stud, and Qualifier. This just makes it easier to find the table that you are looking for.

Unfortunately the action at the higher limit cash games is less than what I like to see. This is probably due to the fact that the poker room is new and it takes time to build up a good player base, especially at the higher limits.

This means that your wait for a seat could take several minutes. If you’ve come to play 3/6 Hold’Em but all the tables are full, you can put your name on the wait list, which nicely gives you the option of specifying that you’d like to be added to the wait list of all 3/6 tables. Of course, one of the big advantages to online poker is that you can be very selective about the table you play at based on the statistics, such as average pot size, players per flop, and hands per hour. If that’s the case then adding your name to the wait list of all tables is not necessarily what you want to do.

The table layout itself is similar to many rooms, however the smoothness and speed at which it operates is excellent. The table is clean with no chairs or drink tables, just an oval table and the player cards. The window in the lower left corner serves as the chat window, stats window, and the player notes window. You can adjust this by selecting the wide screen layout. The rest of the window is where you select your action. When it’s not your turn you are presented with various next play buttons, but like just about every other poker room, the next play buttons are dynamic. The check button changes to a call button and the call button changes according to the number of bets. Stay away from these buttons if the action is near you because if the player in front of you raises you could find yourself calling a bet you did not want to.

As time goes on the culture of a new online poker room is likely to change, but my impression after playing many hours at Bodog Poker is the skill level of the players is medium, somewhere in between the fish at Pacific Poker and the skilled players at Poker Stars. If, besides poker, you also enjoy sports wagering and/or casino games, with one Bodog account you can gamble to your heart’s (and your disposable income’s) delight.

Feel free to write your own review or opinion by leaving a comment below.