Poker for Beginners


Empire Poker

Empire Poker is one of the largest poker rooms out there, its well established and has around 40,000 players online at any time. This ensures that you can always get a game at just about any stakes.
Empire offers Texas Holdem, 7 Card Stud and Omaha, as well as Single and Multi table tournaments. As on of the major players they also have regular tournaments that are satellites for Televised games at the Bellagio.

Sign up

Setting up the poker client is easy download from their site and once installed you need to register a new account. Once done you can play on their free play tables.
To play for real money you will need to click the cashier button and you will be taken to a secure web page where you can register your card details and make a deposit (The minimum deposit is $50 US)

Poker Client

The poker client on Empire works well though I found it a little too busy for my liking, especially with the person view switched on! The buttons are clear and easy to use, but everything looks like it was squashed in at the bottom as an afterthought.

Playing on Empire Poker is easy and straightforward, the following features are available through the client.

  • You can see your hand value whilst playing
  • Player notes are available by right-clicking on the player
  • Chat box - summarises the action for the session you are playing, you can copy all of this at the end of your session if you want to analyse it later
  • The Pot Value is shown centre table
  • You can view the hand history for the session you are playing in a separate window
  • When playing there are tick boxes for you to auto play a hand before the turn comes around to you.
  • Games

    The lowest stakes games are $0.10/$0.25, though they are not easy to find, in the list of Texas Holdem games find the $25 NL/PL games at the bottom - these are actually your $0.10/$0.25 stakes games

    You will find people at all levels of play and at all types of game on Empire Poker as they have so many members, so getting a game is easy.

    There are plenty of Sit and Go Tournaments on Empire ranging from STT and MTT at $5 up to STT $200 and MTT $50. Empire also offer Special tournaments for TV satellites, $1 entries, and $200,000 guaranteed prize pools.

    Deposits and Cashouts

    Deposits and Cashouts are handled through Empires Secure Cashier website, deposits can be made through any major Credit Card/NETeller/Bank Transfer/Wire Transfer. (Minimum Deposit = $50)
    Cashouts are handled in the same way, and include cheques by mail. (*** Minimum Cash Out = $50) If you've got less than $50 in your account your going to have to keep playing because you cannot withdraw less than that - I think that is a little mean!

    Bonus Codes

    Empire Poker offers various bonus codes, these can be found dotted all around the internet (Google "Empire Poker Bonus Codes").