Expekt
A site that I have long meant to review but more often than not I was just far too busy playing on it. I joined this site back in January 2005 on the recommendation of an online friend and I have to say what a find it was, I have made far more money on this site over any other, undoubtedly I have had a lot of luck in the process but still I'm very fond of the site.
So what exactly do I find so good about Expekt? Let me explain.
Expekt is a sign up of Prima poker who have a shared player group , not quite up their with the big boys like Party Poker, PokerRoom or Ladbrokes but it still has enough going on to keep the online poker player interested, the other added advantage is that you get to know the opposition a lot more easily, of course they get to know you too, still overall I feel familiarity with your opposition is a good thing if you are a good player.
The standard of players here overall is not great, still the standards does get tough once you hit the $5-10. No Limit games (i.e. max $1000 buy-in) and the majority of players involved here are either full-time online pros or guys who make a decent extra income from poker, so be wary about going beyond the $800 Max buy-in even if you have the bankroll.
One of the things I most like about Expekt is the ladder system, I haven't checked out all the online ladders, but in a comparison with Party Poker and Ladbrokes. I rank Expekt 1st, Party 2nd and Ladbrokes 3rd.
So why do I rate Expekt as having the best online ladder format?
I rank Expekt higher because
a. Typically more players go through to the next round so sensible play is more likely to get rewarded.
b. If you don't progress to the next round in Expekt you are typically eliminated rather than dropping back rounds as you sometimes do in Party, from the recreational players perspective dropping back a round might seem like an extra chance a consolation prize if you like, but to me it's just a nuisance and takes up valuable poker time moving up and down the ladders
c. You get more chips starting off in Expekt which of course is an advantage to the better player.
Party Poker's ladder system does have a few things going for it over Expekt
a. The percentage fee is lower on Party, though I have detected that part of the prize to the next fee for that round which I think is very naughty.
b. There is more activity on Party than Expekt which means you don't have to wait so long in the latter rounds as you do on Expekt.
As for Ladbrokes ladder system, they seem to have it working well now but it doesn't seem to have recovered from it's poor launch where the system looked very badly thought out, for those of you unfamiliar with Ladbrokes original format typically only 1 or 2 players were progressing to the next round making it really tough to progress. Nowadays this has changed but they seem to have really cutback the ladder system the highest buy-in available is only $150 making a top prize of $600, not exactly a mouth-watering prospect, when you compare the top prizes on Party of $25K and Expekt with $12K.
Special attention, I will provide freerolls on Expekt for those of you who join up via my site on Expekt from which I will redistribute most of the revenue I get from Expekt. So if you sign up via one of the expekt adverisements and also when you register if you enter that you were referred by firbolg (N.B This must be done at registration as you cannot go back and do it once you have signed up) then we can all benefit by expekt's excellent refer-a-friend bonus most of which as I have mentioned I will give back in freebies on expekt, the pokerrooom which I play on more than any other!
