3D poker has been attempted in the past but it never really caught on because the people behind those poker sites never put everything they had into it. When the new 3D site PKR Poker was announced, almost everyone thought this would be another gimmicky site featuring cheap graphics, clunky animations and a limited life span.

Instead, PKR turned out to be a resounding success. The owners of PKR Poker invested in a powerful graphics engine and went to great lengths to make the experience as realistic as possible. Rather than making a quick 3D poker room, the creators made PKR poker a highly interactive and customizable experience.

One problem with 3D poker has always been that it scares off players who like to play more than one table at a time. Sure, casual players love it, but multi-tablers bring in way more revenue for poker sites. What PKR did was simple; they added an option to turn off the 3D tables and play with the normal overhead view that other poker sites use.

Graphics can only take a poker room so far, though. Under all the glitter, there needs to be a solid poker site that offers fair games, a steady player base and competitive promotions. In those areas, PKR Poker does well but it doesn’t blow away the competition. Continue reading for our take on each of those areas and several others.

Deposit Bonus – 100% up to $800

All new players who sign up at PKR Poker and use the bonus code play3d get a 100% deposit bonus for up to $800 extra. This means that if you sign up and deposit $800, you’ll get an extra $800 on top of that. The minimum deposit amount for this bonus is $10 but it’s recommended that you take full advantage of this generous bonus.

Your bonus money will be placed in a pending account and then released after you earn a total of 225 PKR Points per $1 in bonus money. You’ll have 60 days to clear out the entire bonus. After you earn the required number of PKR Points, the bonus will be awarded to you in a lump sum. Beware: no partial bonuses are awarded. Keep an eye on your progress and make sure you clear this bonus before 60 days pass.

As scary as that sounds, clearing the bonus is actually not too bad. In tournaments, PKR Points are earned at a rate of 100 PKR Points per $1.00 paid in tournament fees. In cash games, players earn PKR Points based on the rake, up to a maximum of 300 points per hand.

Software

The PKR Poker software package is fairly large but once you get it downloaded, it runs like a champ. The graphics are impressive and the player characters are much more lifelike than anything we’ve seen yet. The way your character looks and dresses is completely customizable, right down to the facial expressions and chip tricks. You can even set your character’s mood at the tables and give off fake tells. It’s seriously just like playing live poker.

The orbit mode allows players to play up to four tables at a time, with one table showing at a time in the middle of the screen and all four tables shown in mini-mode on the right side of the screen. When the action comes up at a different table, all you have to do is click on that one to switch to it. It’s not quite as intuitive as multi-tabling at other sites but it gets the job done.

Tournaments

No limit Texas Holdem tournaments are by far the most popular at PKR Poker but you can also participate in limit tournaments, Omaha tournaments and Omaha Hi/Lo tournaments. The types of tournaments include standard freezeouts, bounties, satellites to major events, rebuys, freerolls and special guaranteed tournaments.

The guaranteed tournaments at PKR are especially popular because you always know that the prize pool will never be less than the stated guarantee. The biggest regular guarantee tournament is “The Masters” and it is held every other Saturday. The prize pool for this bad boy is never less than $100,000 and the first place prize is always at least $25,000.

In addition to its selection of multi-table tournaments, PKR Poker also hosts many Sit n Go tournaments every day. The SNGs are offered for all the same poker games and can be played as turbos, satellites, freezeouts and in the 10-person or 6-person format.

Cash Games

PKR has a large player base but there aren’t yet enough players to offer a huge variety of game types. The only games offered are Texas Holdem, Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo. The limited selection is fine because the vast majority of players stick with those three games only.

Cash game tables are available at all stakes but the small and medium stakes tables are definitely the most populated. There aren’t as many high stakes players here yet but as the site continues to grow, you can expect to see more high stakes players join the ranks.

Fishiness

The 3D software attracts tons of casual, fishy players. These are the players who aren’t worried about playing 12 tables at a time and extracting every last bit of edge possible. The emphasis at PKR Poker is on having fun, not on offering multi-tabling machines a place to feast on each other.

This applies equally to tournaments and cash games. Tournaments are always softer than cash games but at PKR Poker, they are ridiculously soft. If you can handle the big swings that come with playing against tons of fishy players, you can do very well at PKR.

Support

So far, PKR has gotten a pretty glowing review but unfortunately, that ends with this section. The customer service team actually isn’t bad and they can be reached 24/7. The problem with PKR support is that they only offer live chat and e-mail support. You would think phone support would be an obvious feature to include in a poker site but PKR Poker has yet to offer a help hotline.

It’s nice to know someone is on staff 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but it’s a pain not being able to give them a quick call. Complicated questions and simple questions alike are so much easier to deal with over the phone compared to trying to chat with someone online or wait for e-mails.

Deposit Options

The list of deposit options at PKR Poker is exhaustive. The methods listed below are the most common but there are also dozens of country-specific deposit methods in addition to those. To find out which deposit methods are available in your country, visit the PKR cashier and click on the “deposit” button.

Common deposit options:

Visa / MasterCard
Maestro, Switch and Solo
Click2Pay
Moneybookers
Neteller
Entropay
Paysafecard
ClickandBuy
iDeal
Ukash
Paypal

Visit PKR Poker and be sure to use bonus code play3d to get your $800 bonus