It can be intimidating to play poker at a real life venue unless you have a certain amount of experience. Play online, however, and you neatly sidestep all of these problems.

Which is one of the reasons why online poker has experience such a phenomenonally high growth rate over the last 5 years or so.  Online poker rooms allow players to play for low stakes as low as 2¢ and also attract professional players into their high stakes games. Poker freeroll tournaments (where there is no entry fee), attract novices who learn as they go, and who still have the opportunity of winning a big prize..

And it´s a competitve market- poker rooms market feircely for new players through bonuses, satellite tournaments and freerolls.

But what makes a good poker site? Well, the back-end, obviously, but it will depend on your level of expertise and what you want from a site. We reckon that alot of the same essential components that make up a good online casino site make a good online poker site, and indeed many operators on the net run both casino and poker operations.

A good network of players, strong liquidity 8the amount of mney sloshing around the tables), plenty of tournaments, safe and secure transactions, expert advice, a lively forum or chat function, and top notch bonus offers for new players AND rich loyalty offers for returning customers: these are all thing that you should look for in an online poker site.

Anyway, enough chat- above and to the side you´ll find below reviews to our favorite poker sites and our choice of the top places to play poker in the UK and from around the world. If you are new to the game, the Internet is the perfect way to hone your skills. Most of the better sites have poker schools and boards where you can inprove your play. And if you are an intermediate to expert play, you´ll want to play online to keep you r skills sharp and to get into some of the big money tournaments that are played around the world.