With over 50 different online card room networks offering poker these days, it is often difficult to choose where to play. According to the results of a current poll at PokerVote.com, two of the factors that seem to be influencing poker players the most are great tournaments and quality software (see poll results here).

Most online poker rooms offer multi-table tournaments, however the features and information offered by each room’s tournament software can be quite unique. Usually a lot of software features and information available to players is an asset, however some card rooms over-do this concept and tend to overwhelm some users. The ‘big three’ in online poker, Party Poker,PokerRoom and Poker Stars have all been successful at offering their tournament players a fully professional yet fun environment that has been under constant improvement since their inception. We’ve reviewed some of the elements that have helped these rooms get to the top of the online tournament market:

Party Poker hosts more fixed limit Texas Holdem tournaments than anyone else in the world. This experience in tournament play has led them to release a highly regarded ‘deal making’ software feature, where remaining players can pause the tournament to complete prize money deals amongst themselves.

A fantastic PokerRoom software invention is a random delay in the automated pre-selected actions a client can take, not to give away any extra information via an immediate check. PokerRoom is quickly becoming a leader with their card room, as they have added yet another feature, showing hand match up percentages in all-in situations during play.

A long-time favourite tournament feature introduced at Poker Stars prevents the tactical slowing down of tempo with individual time banks (after time bank is up you must act in the normal allotted time or else the hand will be folded). The end of the tournaments are also played "one hand at a time" so no table can wait out the others to escape the dreaded last no-pay "bubble" placements.

With the continued growth of the online poker market, we are sure that the ‘update’ race being held by card rooms to suit the needs of their online poker tournament players is far from over. As internet poker rooms have finally managed to meet the technology demands needed to handle the connection consistency and speeds of its huge number of players, we will now see a phase intended to improve the graphics, sounds, lobbies and tournament features of the software.

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