Having operated in the American market for the last five years when many other poker rooms had pulled out, Poker Stars and FullTilt became the two biggest online card rooms thanks mainly to their US player base.

On Friday the 15th April the FBI seized the primary websites of Poker Stars, FullTilt, Absolute Poker and UB. The sites are no longer controlled by their owners, but the poker rooms are operating properly and players are still able to log in and play. Both Stars and Full Tilt have suspended cash game activity for their US players, while Absolute and UB currently are allowing all players to play.

It is still early, and most people involved will still be scrambling to find a way forward, but there has been a notable absence of statements by the poker rooms involved.

Of course, the fact that the FBI chose to act on a Friday didn’t help any.

This does not appear to be the end of online poker for Americans though, and a number of sites that accept players form the USA have not been indicted. Sites such as Bodog Poker, Doyles Room, Cake Poker, Poker Host and Carbon Poker are still operating freely and Americans can continue to play on those sites.

That may change as the consequences of this latest attack on online poker is digested by those rooms. Carbon Poker appears to be bullish in their response and are actively advertising that US players are welcome in their poker room.

Players from other countries have been affected by this attack too, as the poker rooms have had to move to new sites and have had to update their poker client software. Players may need to download and re-install their poker software. To do that you will need to go to the new web address for the poker room. These new addresses are;

FullTiltPoker.co.uk
PokerStars.eu
AbsolutePoker.eu
UBPoker.eu

Your existing login information should work just fine, and all your account information will be in your account when you log in.

Bodog Poker could be the biggest online poker site if they continue accepting American players.

Aside from the online poker room, Bodog also has an online casino and a sportsbook.

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One addition worth noting is the new ‘Knockout tournaments’ where every player has a ‘bounty’ on their head. So even if you don’t place in the money in the tournament you can still come out a winner if you take out enough of the other players.

This is not a new concept of course, as it has been available on Carbon Poker for quite a while, but it is new to Poker Stars.

Other improvements are focused on fixing some of the problems that they were experiencing at the heads-up tables, and as these are specific to that game, you won’t care unless you are a heads-up player, in which case you will probably appreciate the changes.

Another great addition to their tournament line up is the ‘Special Multi Event Satellites’. Simply put, if you make the pay in one of these special satellites, you can choose from the main events on offer. So, instead of playing a satellite to one specific main event, and then finding for whatever reason that you cannot play in that main event, now you can have a choice of main events from just one satellite.

Three have also been a number of cosmetic changes, such as an increased lobby size, and improvements to the various poker table skins too.

All in all, these are some good changes, and are definitely worth checking out.

PokerStars Bonus Information

Last year Poker Stars updated their initial deposit bonus, which was long overdue, and increased the maximum amount available to a reasonable amount of $600 at 100% deposit match.

A great feature of this bonus that should be noted is that you can make up to three deposits in order to avail of the full bonus amount. For example, say you sign up for Poker Stars and deposit $50 just to see how you like the room. Then you find you do like, it so you reload another $500. In this scenario on a different poker site, you would get a deposit bonus of $50 and that would be all.

But with the new Stars bonus in the same scenario you would be entitled to a bonus amount of $550. Worth noting.

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