|
BlueSq Poker Review
Reasons to Join |
Very user friendly with great tournament schedule and easy to use table selection tool
Excellant VIP program with player sponsorship |
 | Signing Up |
Having held a sportsbook account with Blue Square for a number of years, I correctly assumed I could use the same login details to play on their poker site.
Downloading and running the installer took less than a minute, I instantly transferred funds from my Blue Square sportsbook into my new poker account and was looking for a juicy game in under a couple of minutes.
Very simple and incredibly user friendly. |
8/10 | Software |
The lobby has a clean look to it, navigation around the site is very straightforward as there are powerful filters which can be easily configured to help you locate the right game for you.
Multitabling is possible, play up to 8 tables simultaneously, there is a robust player note taking facility which is capable of storing up to 200 characters on each opponent, their hand history storage is superb as all data is stored locally in a text file on your hard drive, allowing you to retrieve every hand you've ever played on their site.
So reviewing your game at the end of a long hard day of grinding at the poker tables is a rather simple task. |
7/10 | Ring Games |
Table selection is not only possible but very much advisable seeing as the Texas Hold'em and Omaha are so well populated; the lobby features average pot size, percentage of players seeing the flop and number of hands played per hour.
I suggest using this information to find a game to suit your style(s) of play. I found plenty of tables with a high proportion of either loose/passive or tight/passive players and very few sharks.
I managed to make over $250 profit from an afternoon of multitabling at the lower stake No Limit Hold'em tables simply by employing a tight/aggressive strategy with some stealing/restealing thrown in for good measure.
The rake is an extremely competitive 5% at the lower and medium stake levels, the higher stake games are excellent value with just 2% rake being paid, so this is very much a site where you won't be inconvenienced by the houses' juice when stepping up in in table limit. |
9/10 | | Tournaments |
I found an excellent tournament schedule on the Blue Square website, it helped me to pick and choose the tournaments I entered aswell as the times I chose to play.
I ended up playing a lot of morning sessions where the tournament prize pools are still quite large but the traffic is relatively low, I also played many evening sessions which boast the biggest prize pools but also the highest volume of traffic. I managed to make a few final tables and came close to putting myself in a good position to win a $5,000 rebuy, but the poker gods decided they would prefer I finished 5th of 746 players instead.
I spent a lot of time playing the multi table tournaments, I made over $400 profit for my troubles; with a tad more luck I'm certain I could have tripled my earnings for the week.
Qualifiers for both the ECOOP III (European Championships of Online Poker) and the GUKPT Online Festival (Grosvenor UK Poker Tour) are available, satellites start from as little as $1 and $2 respectively; they are both structured well and present an opportunity to win big for a minimal outlay. |
10/10 | Sit & Gos |
I found the Sit & Go section to be well populated at all times of the day, the bulk of the traffic is definitely at the lower stake tables such as the $1 to $5 buyins, but there is sufficient traffic at the higher levels for more advanced players to consider this site worthy of consideration. I played a handful of low stakes 10 seater Sit & Go's and made a few bucks.
My read of the tables suggests that the turbo format tournaments have the softer opposition and I would advise trying them, so long as your bankroll is resillient enough to handle the increase in variance. |
9/10 | Support |
I was most impressed with the quality of the frontline support, I struggled to find a reason to use their toll free phone service as the live chat facility was so good.
The live chat representatives are prompt and friendly, they correctly answered all my questions on the spot, which tells me I'm dealing with well trained staff. I suggest using the live chat if infront of a PC, otherwise there's a toll free number for customers calling from the UK and Eire, there's also email support if you'd rather have a written reply. |
10/10 | | Banking |
There are plenty of ways to fund your account, they accept Mastercard, Visa, Delta, Solo, Maestro, Neteller, Ukash and Moneybookers.
I only used Neteller but am certain that the other deposit options are as instant as my preferred method. I'm finding that more and more poker sites are accepting Neteller, if you have an account with them, I would'nt dissuade you from using it. |
8/10 | Standard of Players |
The site has heavy European undertones as they don't accept US customers.
I found that most of the players are either English, French or German. The standard was generally weak and beatable, especially in the small stakes multi table tournaments with guaranteed prize pools, plus the turbo format Sit & Go's. Blue Square is well known for their sportsbook, casino and to a lesser extent, their bingo site; this can only help to reduce the standard of play further in the right direction as there will be plenty of novicy players looking to have some fun, rather than playing for profit. |
8/10 | Loyalty Promotions |
There's a tasty 100% first deposit bonus up to $500 which is released in $10 increments as you earn Knockout Poker Points while playing poker on their site.
The Knockout points are also part of the Knockout Boxing VIP Programme where loyal players get the chance to climb up the weight divisions as they play poker, starting at Bantamweight and going through Middleweight, Cruiserweight and Heavyweight on their way to the top tier, Super Heavyweight.
There are many advantages of being a Blue Square Super Heavyweight, such as being able to swap Knockout points for $1,000 cash every month, entry into numerous daily/weekly/monthly restricted freerolls, including a quarterly freeroll for a sponsorship package worth $5,000.
By far the most innovative promotion I found was their player sponsorship programme; basically if you play like a demon on Blue Square and are highly ranked in the VIP programme, Blue Square could sponsor you. They take care of flights, accomodation and buying into the event, they regularly have sponsored players from their site playing in the biggest multi table tournaments such as the European Poker Tour and the World Heads Up Championships. |
8/10 | Summary |
| By far the most innovative promotion I found was their player sponsorship programme; basically if you play like a demon on Blue Square and are highly ranked in the VIP programme, Blue Square could sponsor you. They take care of flights, accomodation and buying into the event, they regularly have sponsored players from their site playing in the biggest multi table tournaments such as the European Poker Tour and the World Heads Up Championships. |
8.6/10 | |
|
|
|
