PokerStars vs. PartyPoker ring games

[cognito20]

About 2 months ago, I made an initial deposit of $50 at Poker Stars and have run it up to about $250 since then, basically just by not doing much fancy and sticking to solid hand values. I was up as far as $400, but then took a pretty big hit playing 0.50/1 PS limit. I was down 58 BB in 8 sessions despite a VPIP of 17.36, preflop raise of 8.13 and postflop aggression factor of 2.91, although with the tiny sample size of 2459 hands I'm waiting for someone to reassure me that I was just running exceptionally bad. :P lol What with that and cashing out some money to purchase Poker Tracker after the 1000 hand trial period, and paying off my brother with online bankroll money after losing a couple heads-up live mixed game tournaments to him, I decided to drop back down to 0.25/0.50 for a bit to retool.

I am considering making a $300 deposit to Party Poker, a site on which I have never played, and delving into their 0.50/1 ring games there, because of the going rumor that it's a veritable aquarium at those levels. Basically, I'd like to hear what you think about the quality of the games at Party as opposed to PS. Are the games at PokerStars really that much tougher than at Party in your opinion and experience? And are the .50/1 games at PS supposed to be that darn good, at least considering the monetary level?

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Hi,
I have played much .50/1 lately at both sites (bonuswhoring). The play at PS is much better than that at Party.

That said, different styles must be used. At PS it is tighter and thus more stealing & bluffing pays off.

[istewart]

I played on Stars for awhile and found it fine, but I only played the nanolimits there. I have never played the .5/1 game at PS. Rumors have always had it that Stars is fairly tight compared to Party, though. The Party .5/1 is amazing, and you sound fairly prepared for it, so I'd advise you to take a careful shot.

Good luck [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Arnfinn Madsen]

I did not add that in my response, but I found .50/1 at Party to be very similar with .25/.50 at Stars. It is heavily raked at Party though, so play with bonus.

[aK13]

I just deposited 600 for the bonus at stars (and also for the HU tourney), so I'm going to test the waters on their .5/1, 1/2, and even possibly their 2/4 tables soon. I've played about 5k hands at party .5/1 and 1/2, so I think I got a pretty good feel of what the tables are like. Overally, I'd say the overwhelming consensus is that .5/1 at party is probably the softest out there.

EDIT: I also recommend waiting until you have 500 to receive the full bonus at party.

[Rev. Good Will]

if you want to move to a softer site, take $200, and deposit it at paradise, scoreing the nice %50 match with the granny bonus.