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Gaming
Site Reviews
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Cake
Poker
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Summary and Review
Cake Poker started in 2005. The Cake Poker marketing team has some of the most innovative ideas the industry has ever seen. Site traffic is small compared to a monster site like Poker Stars, but their tournament features make up for smaller numbers. Peak traffic has doubled in the last 6 months and is now over 4,500 players. Cake Poker caters mostly to Texas Hold'em players. Cake Poker has a unique Gold Card loyalty program worth over $50,000. Cake Poker is growing fast.
Cake poker uses a proprietary software and owns their own network. Sportsbook.com has joined cake pokers network. They are a very refreshing site. The software uses great 3D models. You can choose where you want to sit at the poker table. The graphics are above par, and the player notes feature is easy to navigate.
Cake has good tournament guaranteed prize funds. Cake Poker has offered a small amount of ownership to the players. This is done via tournaments where a player can win up to 1% ownership of Cake Poker. This could be worth millions in the coming years.
Cake Pokers signup bonus goes up to $500. They issue cake cards several times a day to RNG and tournament real money players. These cards can be redeemed for entry fees into tournaments and prizes. Anyone who collects all 52 cards can turn them in for $52,000.
Strengths - Cake Poker has some of the best loyalty programs the industry has ever seen. Their game functionality is nice. The bonuses and tournament entry fees are competitive. Ownership slices are huge.
Weaknesses- Low player volume that will undoubtedly and hopefuly grow in the future.
Ranking 9.5 out of 10
Cake Poker Detailed Review
Cake poker is one of the newer online poker websites, having opened for business in the summer of 2006. Thus far, their growth has been pretty slow, however, that doesn't mean a good game cannot be found. They offer fantastic bonus programs, starting with the initial Cake Poker deposit bonus, which is a matching 100% deposit, up to $500.
In addition, because they are still relatively new, and looking to expand their business, they offer a few different bonuses for referrals. If you refer a friend to play, both you and your friend will receive a bonus of up to $100. This is in addition to the initial deposit bonus. Cake poker also has a program called "ShareCake".
This program enables you to receive bonuses from the people you refer. You don't even have to play to receive these bonuses. Basically, every time your referral earns a "Cake Point", you will receive credit for that point. Then, if the person you referred to Cake Poker refers the website to additional players, you will also get credit for those players.
The amount of referrals is unlimited, and your share of those points is deposited into your real money account at the end of the month. As with other sites, Cake Poker offers a frequent player program. At Full Cake poker you earn Frequent Player Points (FPP) at all real money ring games, and you get points for your entry fees for tournaments.
As you earn FPP's, you will start to fill your Gold Chip Meter, and once your meter is full, you earn a Gold Chip, and it is yours to do with whatever you would like. You can redeem it or save it. Chips can be redeemed in the Cake Shop, which carries everything from Cake Poker apparel, to poker paraphernalia, to iPods.
You can also use your chips in special weekly giveaways and tournaments, or you can redeem your chips for a shot at their weekly chip buy-in giveaway. Cake poker is still fairly small, and therefore does not have the huge membership of many other sites. During the peak hours, you will normally find approximately 2000 players.
Cake Poker plays all the basic games, including Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, Seven Card Stud, and Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo. However, Hold'em is really the only game with a lot of action, but it does have action in No Limit, Pot Limit and Fixed Limit games. They also have some great tournaments, with guaranteed weekly payouts, as well as satellites for the big tournaments.
One of the great things about Cake Poker is that is recently merged with a sports book, and the sports book brings over many new and loose players. The software at Cake Poker is excellent, and as realistic as a game could be. The graphics are top, and you have many choices when customizing your avatars and backgrounds.
The offer a fantastic lobby, that gives you a clean shot of all the games being played, and the details of each particular game. When the players who started Cake Poker began developing this site, they made sure that security and integrity were on the top of their list. The utilize all the top security programs to ensure that all your information and financial details are safe and secure. You are completely protected against spam and hackers, as well as collusion.
Their customer service is 24/7, and much like most sites, available only via email. However, Cake Poker prides itself on it's excellent customer service, and you can expect a response from them in less than 12 hours. Their website also offers a very basic FAQ section, which will hopefully grow as the site does. There is no avoiding the fact that Cake Poker is still a new site, and doesn't have the membership that the other more established sites have.
However, this can be an advantage to many players. You will often play with people that you have played with before, and you can learn their quirks and habits very quickly. Also, Cake Poker is offering some fantastic incentives and bonuses, ones that the larger sites simply do not have to offer anymore. The rewards program is a terrific way to earn extra money and prizes, and they have many promotions that simply keep you coming back for more.