Titan Poker review

By Marc Weinberg

Titan Poker is a fairly new poker room, and as a result playing here has certain distinct advantages as well as some minor inconveniences. Titan Poker offers some of the best promotions of any poker room, including the $100 Million Jackpot Freeroll, with a guaranteed $500,000 prize pool and a $100 million jackpot for showing a Royal Flush of Spades at the final table*. The software is very advanced and looks good, and there are a number of features that distinguish this room from competitors. The standard of your opponents at Titan Poker is weak, and that is a very big plus as well. The inconveniences are a relatively low number of cash players in the ring games, and some functionality issues, but both of these can easily be attributed to growing pains, and Titan Poker should grow into a great site to play online poker.

* The $100 million jackpot, the largest prize ever awarded in any sporting event, is re-insured by the National Indemnity Company, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRKA), one of the world's biggest insurance companies.

Software

Titan Poker is part of the iPoker network, which runs off PlayTech's software. PlayTech is well known in the online casino industry as a leading software provider, and their graphics and usability are of the highest quality. There are poker software providers with a lot more experience but I expect PlayTech to narrow the gap in short order. Currently, Titan Poker sports excellent graphics as well as duel viewing modes and full-screen options. You can play a hand in the standard 2-D manner with an overview of the entire table, or you can switch to a 3-D view* with animated, talking avatars next to you. As far as I am concerned these bells and whistles are not the reason to sign up with a particular room, and often these enhancements actually interfere with the business of playing poker. But, and this is a big but, colorful graphics and talking avatars do entice a certain type of poker player, and that is what makes this type of software worthwhile to serious players. The shiny lights attract the fish, who in turn are blinded by the prettiness and then speared by the pros. Titan Poker is perfect for you if you play poker to have fun or for entertainment purposes. The software was upgraded in July of 2005, and they offer real-time hand histories from within a game that are particularly useful.

*3-D view has been discontinued for the time being due to high processing and memory requirements.

Traffic

Titan Poker shares players with the rest of the iPoker network. This means that a lot of online casino players drift in to try their hand at poker. These tend to be individuals who struggle to differentiate between Video Poker and Hold'em, and if you cannot beat these players you need to consider taking up Keno as your gambling game of choice. So, the standard is low, which is what you want, but unfortunately the entire network is not yet comparable in terms of size to the really big online poker networks. This becomes an issue if you're looking to play in real-money ring games, most notably at the higher limits where player volume is an issue. Titan Poker is not yet beyond the 600-player mark for ring games, and that is at peak times. This will get better, but it is a problem for right now.

Tournament traffic is a lot more robust, which is good news for me since I mainly play in tournaments online. The real-money traffic for tournaments tends to be twice the size of ring games, and there are always a lot of sit and go tournaments. This is where the real value lies in Titan Poker, and if you play single-table tournaments I strongly advise you to open an account here and jump right in.

Games

Titan Poker is not going to win any awards for poker game variety anytime soon. They offer Hold'em, Omaha 8 or Better (High-Low split) and Omaha (High only). If you're a crazy pineapple expert you are going to be disappointed. In terms of limits the very small are well catered for and there are some limit games at the $30/$60 level, but nothing higher. They do offer pot-limit and no-limit ring games as well, but there is generally more variety and action when it comes to their tournament schedule.

Rake

This aspect of Titan Poker impressed me, because their rake is fair and lower than a lot of other rooms, and being handled when it comes to the rake is one of my pet peeves. I resent being ripped off, but more than that, these single dollar differences add up to thousands of dollars if you play online poker full time, as I do. Titan Poker implement a 5% rake taken in increments up to $3 at the majority of their tables, but some of their tables feature maximum rake limits that are lower than this. Titan Poker drops its rake if the table is short-handed, just like a real card room, so if there are only 2 or 3 players at your table you pay substantially less. That's a nice touch, and serious players will stay loyal to that sort of poker room. They also waive the rake if there is no flop, which is humane and correct.

Admin

The customer support on Titan Poker is well above average. They feature "live" floor managers who can be called upon in times of crisis, and there is a very quick response time to problems in general. The fact that Titan Poker is owned and operated by a team with a good deal of online casino experience shows through in terms of the customer support. The financial security of Titan Poker is also above reproach, and they offer all the typical banking facilities.

Summary

There are a lot of compelling reasons to play at Titan Poker, regardless of whether you are a beginner of a serious player. It is only if you like to play at very high limits, and your preference is for cash games, that I would then advise you not to play at Titan Poker, but that is only for now. By contrast, if your primary means of online poker income is derived from tournament play, you should sign up here immediately. The competition is soft, and their tournament traffic is decent. The promotions at Titan Poker are also tremendous, and their sign-up bonus is quite generous and fairly easy to earn. They also know how to take care of their players once you do sign up, and their rake, customer support, and soon-to-be-released player rewards scheme are all well above the industry average. The number of other players can be a bit thin on the ground at times, but watch out for Titan Poker over the year - I have a feeling they will go from strength to strength based on their superior product.

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