There weren't many (if any) better bonuses than the Crypto monthlies.

Haha, no... that's Dan Fleyshman. It was a big night for him.



But you are not the first person to notice how much he looks like Barry G there. Even when I posted that photo on PokerRoad -- a site of which he was part owner -- people thought it might have been The Bear.

That was great. They had decent traffic and very soft games around 2008-2011. I even quit my shitty job to play mostly in there.

There was Wingows Poker which was the main skin on that network.

They had a bad beat jackpot (quad jacks or better beat) and low but steady traffic.

Then one day there was no way to play at a bad beat jackpot table, although the jackpot was still listed.

Several months later it all vanished and the money too.

Not a weird site per-se but does anyone remember when PartyPoker introduced the 'beginner only' tables back in the day? In theory, they were supposed to be a 'safe space' for new players to learn the game. In practice, they just normal tables with the exception that sitting at one made it so you couldn't open up any other regular NL tables. However, the client still let you play ZOOM, MTTs, SNGs, etc. with no table cap.

What inevitably ended up happening was all the regs would just play one of the 'beginner' tables on the side and print money. I have no clue how Party thought it was a good idea to mark tables with a big sign that essentially said "PLEASE COME BUMHUNT HERE". Didn't take them long realize the tables were doing way more harm than good for the ecosystem and they were removed after a few weeks.

Pretty sure iPoker has something similar even now. Just nobody sits in

Jet Set Poker was the best! I sure do miss those days...

Bugsys Club is another great site that died.

Yeah some skins do, to sit your account has to be under 90 days or so but that doesnt mean your're a beginner at poker.

paradise poker was so cool, not sure if still appears

I remember there was one site around 2008 that held a tournament where they said if you get a royal flush at the final table, you win a billion dollars. Lmao. That was funny. Cant remember name of site.

I too got my start on pokerroom.com. they used to gave a freeroll everyday with 1000 player max, and in order to make it into the tournament, you had to be sitting there ready to press the register button a split second after registration opened. I think 1st place paid 25 bucks. I got 7th once and was stoked lol.

This! I remember having 10's under the gun and raising and getting the rest of the table to cold call me and having a brick board and not betting as there was no way my 10's were holding at a limit game. This wasn't even the micros it was 2/4 limit.

My only regret about this site is not playing there when nl became the rage as I heard stories about the crack head level play when that was new, shoot Party had the same idiots but it was at much lower stakes.

A bunch of sites had this with husband and wife teams, I even had an account and let a buddy play and he played like a semi lag and I cleaned up when I played tag and guys thought I was playing lag.

Some sites had props playing who only played Group 1,2 and 3 hands and that was about it and they had a steady profit plus their free rake.

They used to have a free roll that paid the first 4 or 5 spots and I knew of a few players that placed a few times in this and started a bankroll while underage or playing with another persons info.

Back then the internet was the wild west and nobody took the terms and conditions seriously that the sites had(I don't even think they did).

i remember this and at the time was like zomg watching the recs use their avatars could give a good edge but it was unplayable since so slow

The Fish Tank was a skin on the same network with Golden Palace and some Euro sites, Tribeca maybe? Then it went to another network after that, but that's been at least 15 years so memory may have faded a bit. Loved the table effects on Paradise too.

Word on this. Rake was brutal though.

Eurobet was a Party skin, as was PokerNow back when Party was huge and then cut their own throat . Party and skins allowed only 4-tables open at a time, but one could open the Eurobet client on their computer multiple times, thus being able to 4-table multiple times. The rakeback affiliate was more than happy this glitch existed.

The memories in this thread. iirc Littlewoods was a Cryptologic skin (not the crypto we know now!) & they had £150/300 LHE games that would run regularly, someone sat with £1m. It was rumoured it was a footballer or big sportsbettor.

I played online since 2003 so played at most of these in the thread but my personal fav sites:

Betfair (pokerchamps software) - was a ridiculous place, with a find a 'friend' thing like Party/ipoker used to have but you'd be literally notified in the client of the table the 'friend' was sitting at lol as soon as they sat - they removed it I think shortly after when they realised how dumb that was, it was missed.

PKR amazed me how long it took for people to catch on to this site, I beta tested it in 2006 and stayed until it closed. Pre EU countries pulling out it was unbelievable

iPoker - still until 2012/13 this was an insane place full of Chinese whales, even if you did get cheated by bots on every 6m/4m table

Bodgog/Bovada - they did allow players outside of US to play iirc at one point and it was like stepping back in time by 10 years

Doyles Room - the way your hole cards popped up in a sort of fanned out way was nice, and it made a lovely sound. Soft as **** mid stakes nl games.

Still exists for backgammon.

lol at unplayable, many players made mid 6figs-7figs here playing mid stakes

Well if you've made that much you could have afforded a PC that could run the terrible bloated software

ugh, guess i should have stuck with it, just remember getting super annoyed at the speed and execution

Cake Poker was awesome. I built my first real bankroll there grinding.05/.10 up to 2/4. They sent me a cake poker branded birthday cake with their logo on it, and I have no idea how they were able to get it delivered or where it even came from. I miss being able to buy swag and electronic for putting in volume. I still have my full tilt bathrobe, PS3 from stars, and a dslr camera from one of the rakeback affiliates.


I also miss the iteration of the merge network from 2010-2012ish. They ran NLO8 games which were amazing. So many people shipping all in blind every hand when they were on tilt. That network saved my life after black friday when i had mid 5 figures seized from UB where i stupidly kept 95% of net worth. I had a $100 balance on carbon poker I forgot about and ran it up to 5k in a day, then immediately bought a plane ticket to canada to open a bank account, get a UPS box, and baller ass router that wouldnt drop VPN connections so i could get my life back together grinding on the euro sites. Merge affiliates used to run these ridiculously lucrative rake races where if you put in any kind of decent volume you'd easily make an extra 500-1000 per week.

Post-BF, there were 2 crazy sites I played on where anyone with a brain could just print money. One of the italian sites ran 5/10 and 10/20 nlhe games that played like play money tables. I got kicked out off that site for winning too much even though all I was doing was playing 50% of my hands as opposed to 90% of hands like the rest of the punters. The other site was cristal poker, cant remember what network it was on. It was the first time I ever saw 5% rake with no cap online, yet the games were so good it was still profitable to play there.

I remember that Italian site (though blanking on the name atm), I never played on it, but had a few friends who did - they had uncapped rake, which was absurd, but the games were so soft that it made up for it super easily. There was a rumor that it was run by the mob, not sure if there was something to it.