Everest Poker Review

Everest Poker has been hosting online Texas Hold'em and other popular poker variants in a no-nonsense virtual poker room environment since 2002. Everest Poker offers solid support and promotions, and takes great care to reward the loyalty of ongoing customers. The competition is among the softest in the internet poker room industry, which most players take as a positive.

Everest Poker Game Variety

The variety of games are probably the weakest factor for Everest Poker, because it only feature Texas Holdem and Omaha events. It's extremely important to have those two games, but I would like to see 7-Card Stud tournaments added, at the very least. Eventually, Everest Poker should expand to the capacity for all the major poker events, included H.O.R.S.E. tourneys, too. This shouldn't be too difficult to add into their system, because the Everest Poker software is powered by Grand Virtual, a respected online card room software provider. I have to assume this is a business decision to cater to the largest section of the gaming public.

Driving this decision is the relatively small number of players you'll find on EverestPoker.com, compared to Pokerstars and Party Poker. You'll find upwards of 5,000 players on in the peak hours, so it's no surprise Everest Poker caters exclusively to the games which drive the most customers. It might be hard to fill out Razz events, so I understand the decision for now.

Summit Points Loyalty Program

Where Everest Poker excels is the retention of longtime players. The Summit Points program gives money back to the players every time Everest Poker takes a rake from a pot. Many websites use this method, though a player usually has to bet into the pot to qualify for the loyalty points. At Everest Poker.com, every single player at the table receives Summit Points when the website takes a rake. This means you're building up cashback points every hand you play on the site, whether you fold after the deal or not.

Everest Poker Sign-Up Bonus

The welcome bonus at the Everest Poker online cardrooms is basic and easy to explain. If you sign up with EverestPoker, you get $100. There is no minimum deposit, with the minimum determined only by your particular deposit method. There are no percentages you have to figure out or multi-tiered deposit plans, which is frankly a big plus in my book. I get tired of these sign-up incentives which trumpet $777 in deposit bonuses, only for you to realize you only qualify for a small percentage becuase you have to deposit a couple of thousand dollars to meet all the incentives. This might explain why Everest Poker doesn't have as many signups as other online poker rooms.

This is a flexible bonus, too. The Everest Poker welcome incentives allow entry into a freeroll tournament sometime in the first two weeks of your stay at everestpoker.com. These freerolls offer $1,000 in prize money, so they aren't your average online free roll tournament. You create an account and get a freeroll token, which can be used to enter one of four different freerolls over the next two weeks. You don't have to deposit money to create the account, though you will need to make a deposit (once again, with no minimum requirement) before you play.

Everest Poker Money Options

One thing I don't like about Everest Poker is the limited number of deposit and withdrawal methods on their site. This is becoming more widespread in the industry since the U.S. gambling laws were changed, so I understand this to a certain extent. But the only options to withdraw or deposit besides a credit card are Neteller, Click2Pay and MoneyBookers. I've seen it stated that ECO and Firepay are also available, but that does not appear on the Everest Poker site, so that information is dated. Players can use their PaySafe card to pay and a Cheque to withdraw, though the cheque will probably take a month-and-a-half to receive.

Everest Poker Software

The pokerroom software for Everest Poker is a little bit different than the software you'll see at many of the largest virtual card rooms online. Actually, this is one of my favorite parts of Everest Poker, because the visuals have a 3D feel to them instead of the flat effect of most poker rooms. Also, you can change to "camera angle" during play, which is novel. This might not matter much to many players, but it's nice to have the option when you're sitting in the same virtual seat all afternoon.

Everest Poker Analysis

Everest Poker has some of the problems that many of the mid-sized virtual cardrooms have, but it also has many of the advantages. Your options will be somewhat limited to what you're used to at Pokerstars, though the incentives and promotions are sometimes more customer-driven. You can still enter satellite tournaments to qualify for the WSOP; it's just you have no option but to play Texas Hold'Em or Omaha. It wasn't so long ago that Omaha wasn't available, so I'm guessing Everest Poker will expand their games list again in the near future.

Overall, this was a positive experience for me. Despite not having a name like some of the whales of the online poker room industry, Everest Poker has been around for six years and has a solid reputation. Because it catches many gamblers tired of losing at Party Poker or Pokerstars, you'll get lots of soft players coming through into the Everest Poker virtual lobby. So if you have any skills at poker, you can probably take advantage of a lot of the low-end gamblers in the Everest Poker web cardrooms.