The Honest Pokerbros Review

The Pokerbros App Overall

PokerBros is essentially a free-play mobile poker app that gives you the option to play in real-money games as part of private poker clubs.

While the play-money platform provides plenty of fun variants and a good user interface, the real-money platform is not one that I can recommend.

In this review, I will cover the things that we like about PokerBros and the red flags that the app presents. Read on for a totally honest review of this brand.

User Interface

The lobby of PokerBros is well-designed, and not overly crowded like you tend to see with many other poker apps. You can scroll through the different lobbies from the home screen, which are sorted by variant. Your history of poker tournaments, messages, and challenges are all located along the bottom of the screen for easy access.

When you click on a lobby, every open poker table is listed along with all of the important information about the game. Limits, stakes, number of players, minimum buy-in and all other pertinent data are displayed prominently here. You can also control which tables you want to see in the lobby based on these criteria.

At the Table

Once you’re inside a table, lots of fun customization options are available. You can change the look of the table, the background, the cards and the button. It is also easy to change your avatar, access the chat and see the history of all hands played.

Games Available at PokerBros

There is a wide range of poker variants available at PokerBros. On top of the standard poker game variants like that you’ll find anywhere in the world of online poker, like Texas Hold’em and PLO, there are many niche variants available here, with a wide range of play-money stakes available.

Open Face Chinese Poker

In recent years, the popularity of Open Face Chinese (OFC) Poker has really blown up. It’s not a game that you’ll find on many poker apps or sites, so PokerBros really stands out here.

How to Play OFC Poker at PokerBros

The site has quite a cool interface for playing OFC online, with spaces to play your Top, Middle and Bottom hands laid out in front of you. You can also see the cards of your opponents, so it’s not a game where you need to worry about learning how to bluff.

Once all of the cards have been dealt, everyone compares their hands and receives a score. You can take a look at the Scoring tab in the rules section to see the royalties (how many points you get) for which hands you have in each row, here’s a quick look at how OFC is scored on PokerBros:

Top Row

	Two	Three	Four	Five	Six	Seven	Eight	Nine	Ten	Jack	Queen	King	Ace
Pairs Points					1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Trips Points	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22

Middle Row

Hand	Trips	Straight	Flush	Full House	Quads	Straight Flush	Royal Flush
Points	2	4	8	12	20	30	50

Bottom Row

Hand	Trips	Straight	Flush	Full House	Quads	Straight Flush	Royal Flush
Points	2	4	6	10	15	15	25

Playing OFC Poker online on an app like PokerBros is a great way to learn the ropes. The scoring can make it a pretty complicated experience for beginners, so we appreciate that Poker Bros does it all automatically for you, as you get used to the unique gameplay of Open Face Chinese Poker and work on your poker skills.

While I’m not a big fan of how PokerBros operates its real-money games, I can at least appreciate its OFC interface.

Mixed Games

When you play mixed poker games, multiple variants are played one after the other. You may play Pot Limit Omaha for 10 hands and then Seven Card Stud for the next 10, before moving on to Texas Hold’em for another 10.

This is a really fun variant that keeps things interesting. Especially when you’re playing poker online for hours, games like Texas Hold’em can get a little monotonous – so mixed games are a really good way to hold your attention.

Crazy Pineapple

In this variation of Texas Holdem, players are dealt a three-card hand and must only discard a card once all of the action of the betting rounds are over. It’s usually the kind of variant you would play in a home game, but has become more and more popular over time.

Overall, PokerBros has one of the more extensive collections of poker variants we’ve seen in the gaming market. In addition to the above games and tournament variants, there are also tables where you’re able to run it a number of times, the board is played out twice and straddles are mandatory.

This is a very player-centric poker platform that features all sorts of interesting mechanics that allow you to play just like you would in home games with your friends. So, it’s no wonder it appeals to thousands of players across the web.

Does PokerBros Offer Real Money Games?

There really isn’t a straightforward answer to the question of whether or not you can play for real-money on PokerBros. It is mainly a play-money app but there are private poker clubs and unions where it is possible to cash out. 

When you play games in the main lobby of PokerBros, you’re in public poker games with other play-money users. Whether you win or lose, no money changes hands. It’s similar to social casinos like Funzpoints Casino.

Joining Private Poker Clubs at PokerBros

For the opportunity to win actual cash, you have to join a private poker club. It is invite-only, so there is a lot going on in these clubs that the general public can’t see. There are also poker unions, which consist of several clubs.

When you play in a poker room belonging to private clubs on PokerBros, there are club managers (also called agents) that you purchase chips from. Similar to making these “deposits”, you can also make withdrawals from the manager via e-wallets and cryptocurrency wallets.

There is no set value for the chips, though, meaning that are no hard-and-fast rules for how poker chips convert to real-money currency. You have to negotiate this with the club manager, which sounds to me like a lot more trouble than it is worth.

What is the Rake at PokerBros?

There is no specific rate of rake at PokerBros. It’s totally up to the club managers how much they want to change, so rake can be as high as 12%. That is egregiously high and dwarfs mainstream poker sites, which usually set rake caps at 5% or $3-4.

How Do Players Deposit And Withdraw Money From PokerBros?

There are two types of currency on the PokerBros platform:

• The first currency is called gold coins which can be used to play in ring games and MTTS for play-money prizes
• Diamonds are the second type of currency, which can be purchased using actual money

What this means is that, for the most part, you won’t be able to make real money playing in cash games and tournaments here. What I mean by “for the most part” is that it is possible to cash out of games that you play with chips purchased from a club manager, which I told you about earlier and still believe there are much better ways to play online poker for real money. 

Buying Gold Coins and Diamonds

To buy gold coins at PokerBros, head over to the Shop. First. you’ll have to buy Diamonds, which are available at the following price points:

• 60 diamonds for $0.99
• 300 diamonds for $4.99
• 600 diamonds for $9.99
• 1300 diamonds for $20.99
• 2988 diamonds for $46.99
• 6468 diamonds for $99.99

Once you’ve purchased diamonds, you can then use them to buy gold coins in the following packages:

• 6000 coins for 60 diamonds
• 30000 for 300 diamonds
• 298000 for 2980 diamonds

The cost of the diamonds will be processed through your Apple Pay or Google Pay wallet. So, whatever payment processor you have hooked up to that account (credit card, debit card or PayPal) is how you will pay for the currency.

Since the orders are processed through the Apple App Market and Google Play store, you can rest assured that they are handled quickly and securely. Still, these in-game currencies have no actual cash value and you’ll have to win chips in a private poker club or room in order to withdraw tangible money.

Withdrawing Winnings from PokerBros

When you’re playing in the private poker rooms and clubs on the app, it is possible to withdraw the chips you win. This is a much more complicated process than purchasing gold coins and diamonds, as you have to get in touch with the managing agent of the club for them to send you what you’ve won.

Payments are processed only through e-wallets and Bitcoin. These types of only payment platforms are safe and reliable, but that’s about where that warm feeling of security ends.

Player Complaints About Withdrawals

In my research, I’ve heard from many, many PokerBros members across the greater poker community that the withdrawal process is a huge issue. For example, here are some of the complaints I’ve come across from speaking with other players and reading user reviews on forums and Reddit.

• The club manager has claimed that they sent the full amount of the withdrawal when they only sent half (or less)
• The manager claimed that they sent the requested withdrawal but no money was sent
• A player is kicked out of a club for no reason and their winnings have been ‘seized’

These are just a few of the issues that players have had while trying to cash out their winnings from PokerBros. So, it’s not an ideal place to play for people looking for a place to play poker for real money online.

Should You Play at PokerBROS?

This is actually a tough one. While the play-money platform offers some great opportunities to get stuck into a huge range of unique poker variants and has an easy-to-use interface, the real-money poker services leave a lot to be desired.

It is difficult to recommend a poker site or an app to anyone if I see more negative reviews than positive ones when it comes to the withdrawal of funds.

There are actually plenty of highly regarded online poker rooms available to US players, where withdrawals are handled by the site’s secure software rather than through a single person who may or may not be handling your money with good intentions.

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