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Visit Celeb
Poker
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Overall:
3.5/5
Bonus and Promotions:
3.5/5
Fish Rating:
 
3.5/5
(Nemo Inc.)
Tournaments:
3.5/5
Software:
3.5/5
Payouts:
4/5
Customer Service:
4.5/5
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Overview:
3.5/5
Despite disallowing US players in 2006,
Celeb Poker
has continued on as a fairly popular poker room for Europeans. This
is also one of the oldest poker rooms still running the Boss network
software, which contains just a handful of remaining skins.
Celeb Poker
may be more of a niche site catering to loyal players but they do
still attract a fair amount of ring game traffic with no-limit
tables active up to the €5/10 level. The overall quality of play is
also below-average with higher flop percentages and larger pots.
European players should also appreciate one of the few poker rooms
that specifically caters to using Euros for gameplay and tournament
buy-ins.
The "Celeb" part of the
Celeb Poker name
originally tied in with
their marketing gimmick of sponsoring B-level actors and sports
professionals to promote the poker room. Fortunately, those efforts
have fallen by the wayside with promotions focusing on poker-related
bonuses and tournaments. The initial deposit bonus is also doubled
for our players at 200%, good up to €1,000. Other main promotions
include a bad beat bonus and weekly guaranteed tournaments. Overall,
Celeb Poker
may not have the promotions or traffic of the larger networks but
Europeans looking for a smaller site with loose tables might give it
a chance.
Bonus (200%
up to €1,000) and Promotions:
3.5/5
The actual initial deposit bonus offered from
Celeb Poker
is pretty generous to begin with at 200% up to €500 but new players
coming through our links have the bonus cap doubled to €1,000. This
can be a substantial increase for players depositing more than €300.
Please note that the €1,000 bonus is only valid for players visiting
from our site. Interestingly, the bonus is cleared directly
according to rake. For every €50 of rake generated €10 is released
into the player's cash account.
Larger players at
Celeb Poker
with a bankroll
can earn the full €1,000 fairly quickly as rake piles up quickly at
levels higher than €1/2. With only 90 days allowed to clear the
bonus micro-stakes players will have a difficult time earning much
because of the low rake at smaller limits.
Other promotions include a €10,000 freeroll for players
participating in 1,500 raked hands in the previous month, free
guaranteed tournament entries for those depositing with Moneybookers,
and a bad beat jackpot financed by higher-rake tables.
Fish:
3.5/5
If you can protect against
the regular draws, you can expect to build your bankroll pretty
quickly against the
Celeb Poker
competition. The flop percentages for full tables are a bit above
average at about 30-35% at middle-stakes tables. Since you usually want to be
playing the opposite style of the rest of the table, you should
tighten up and play strong cards from the proper position.
As pots
usually grow quickly at
Celeb Poker,
cautious players can choose a smaller blind-level, play
less hands, and still expect a sizeable hourly win rate. The average
pot size for full no-limit tables is about 15-20x the big blind. I recommend
that you start out at a smaller game than you typically would in
order to get used to the looser style of play. Overall, the poor
competition is one of the main reasons to play here.
Tournaments:
3.5/5
As with most almost every poker room,
the best value will be found in the guaranteed events. You'll find 3
or 4 daily guarantees of around €4,000 that don't offer rebuys. The
buy-ins range from €15-40. The rest of the daily guarantees are
rebuy events, which are often too wild for my tastes. Nevertheless,
the €10,000 guaranteed daily rebuy is an excellent value with only a
€10 initial buy-in. Just resist the urge to spend 4 or 5 times that
to stay in. Overall, the daily tournament structure at
Celeb Poker
will be extremely attractive for rebuy lovers but about average for
the rest of us.
The weekly guarantees at
Celeb Poker
are certainly smaller than the US-facing poker rooms but still
provide a decent €100,000 prize pool. They run a dozen or more
satellites to this event daily but the direct buy-in is reasonable
at €140. Once per month, the buy-in changes to €300 and the prize
pool escalates to €250,000. Finally, a €1 million is run every few
months with a €1,000 buy-in.
Software:
3.5/5
While the lobby can often become
difficult to read, I give
Celeb Poker
credit for creating an original software package. I've always found
the table graphics the be sharp and minimalistic, a
combination that I prefer. One big positive to me is the addition of
5 card draw tables, which remain popular up to the €5/10 level. They do
give a visual timer for each player's actions in order to speed up
the games but game speed is below average with 40-55 hands per
hour being the norm.
A feature that has always seemed
unnecessary to me is the assortment of flags that appear next to
each table. Unfortunately, the country shown has little correlation
with the language or players allowed to sit there. Overall, however,
this is a perfectly playable software package with sharp graphics
and a graphical hand history feature.
Payouts:
4/5
As
Celeb Poker is on a
financially-secure poker network payouts seem to be handled smoothly
and efficiently.
The average time for my NETeller withdrawals was about 24-36 hours.
Customer Service:
4.5/5
This site gets high marks because of
their extensive telephone support. While you can get a pretty speedy
response from their e-mail department, I appreciate the ability to
call the poker room directly if I have an immediate concern.
Celeb Poker
has added live chat support but it is only available during certain
hours of the day.
Player Traffic
Celeb Poker
suffered greatly when they were forced to disallow US players in
2006 but has since built up again with respectable numbers. Online
player counts reach up to 10,000 during peak European hours with
shorthanded no-limit games filling up to the €5/10 level. Smaller
limits have up to 10 simultaneously filled tables. Tournament
traffic is decent with up to 500-600 players showing up for the more
popular guarantees.
Best Features
Very bad players. While the competition has tightened over the years this
network is still a haven for fishy players and trash
hands.
High flop percentage. Even at
higher limits, this can often reach 35-40%.
Good deposit bonus. If you can take
advantage of it by playing regularly here, the 200% bonus is quite
generous.
Popular 5 card draw tables. This is still one of the few networks
attracting higher-stakes draw games.
Game Selection: Hold'em,
Omaha, Stud, 5 Card Draw
Limits: Limit:
10c/20c up to €1,000/2,000 No-Limit: 2c/4c
up to €1,500/3,000
Deposit Methods:
NETeller, Moneybookers,
Click2Pay, PaySafeCard, Ukash, ClickandBuy, major credit cards, and
wire transfers.
Tips: Often, you'll
run into a difficult situation on the flop with A-K at a looser site
like Celeb
Poker. Even with your standard pre-flop raise of 4x the big
blind, players will still stay in with Ace-anything. Normally, a
flop of A-8-4 would be very strong for your hand. Unfortunately, you
always have to be cautious at this site when you only flop one pair
with Big Slick. Hands such as A-8, A-4, and 4-4 have you dominated
at this point and even though you would have easily folded these
hands preflop to a raise weak calling stations on this site don't
have that same discipline.
You should lead out on this flop with a bet,
but you should reconsider your hand if you run into a big raise from
a player who just smooth-called you pre-flop. I would call a 2x
raise and and check on the turn. While you'll usually have the best
hand, this isn't a good hand to get reraised for all your chips.
While it may be tough to do with so much money already invested
you'll need to consider folding in this scenario if
you run into too much pressure, especially from multiple opponents.
Visit
Celeb Poker
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