Fortune Poker Review
If you are considering taking part in our online poker league but want to know a little more about the place you will be depositing your hard earned cash before you do then please allow me to explain the reason that I chose Fortune Poker as our sponsor.
First of all I considered many poker rooms before deciding on a suitable place to host our private tournaments. I read many reviews of many different rooms and spoke to the marketing managers directly about getting the best deal for our players.
Reviews
I had read numerous reviews on Fortune Poker and they were all saying the same thing. That it’s full of fish. Time and time again I was reading this. Here are just a couple of examples of the types I things I read:
“They have excellent support staff and their low stakes tables are full of fishy players.” FlopTurnRiver.com
“Fortune Poker is well known for their player base – and not for their incredible skill. There are plenty of fish here, meaning you can make your fortune playing whatever games you like most.” UltimatePokerSearch.com
Now when you are playing against your friends this doesn’t really factor in. But if you want to get some practice in before your games or whether you just fancy playing this is a fantastic factor for you guys. Assuming that you are looking to win money when you play, who’s better to play against then fish?
For those of you that don’t know what a fish is, it’s poker terminology for a weak player. As long as you are patient and are confident in your game, you’re going to be able to make money here. I tried it for myself and deposited £80.
Me playing at Fortune Poker
I started by depositing £80 which exchanged into €90. I have been playing here on and off over the last couple of weeks and have played many many hands. I have had swings up as high as €260 and as low as €0, which happened just last night on a hand where I got all the chips in as a 90% favourite. When I did go bust I had just completed enough raked hands to complete the first €10 bonus after 343 raked hands and about 1,500 actual hands. So my balance is currently €10.
In terms of the standard of play at these tables I can say that a steady poker player can find themselves profiting quite easily at these tables. I began by wagering a little wildly but once I started playing a steady game I saw my account balance rise steadily. The thing with No Limit is that the swings can take you up and down, which is the reason why it’s such an appealing game because being on that upswing is a great feeling.
Unfortunately I went on swings both ways. It’s great going up and frustrating when you go back down. I wasn’t implementing any bankroll management rules as I didn’t have the amount of funds to put 30x the full buyin at the level I wanted to play and I tend to play wrecklessly at the lower levels as I just don’t care about winning or losing a pittance. So I was gambling outside of my means with regards to bankroll management. But I didn’t invest enough money where if I lost it all it would matter. It would have been nice to end up in profit, but an £80 loss isn’t going to break the bank.
It is important to consider these things when you play and I would highly recommend to any player playing seriously with the intention of making a long term profit to employ a bank roll management system. I will write a further article explaining how to do this in the coming weeks. In a nutshell it assures you play at a level where you can employ your best game without risking your bankroll when the swings go against you.
I’d highly recommend any recreational or professional poker player to test out Fortune Poker because it is a game that players of only an average standard can profit.
Will I play again? … I’m playing right now 
The Software
At first I wasted a bit of time trying to find a table with an empty seat. I have since learnt the best way to go about this is to scroll down to the tables at the stake you want and click the “join waiting list” button. Then I select 6 people as the minimum amount of players to join a table. As soon as a seat becomes available you will see a popup message that will ask you if you want to go to that table. Simply click “ok”
As with all online software you get prompted for your choice when it is your go. A sound prompts you but this can be turned off. Everything is very clear and it is easy to follow the pace of the game.
Depositing Your Money
Fortune Poker accept all major debit and credit cards such as Visa, Maestro, Solo and Mastercard. They also offer a number of ewallet solutions which can greatly increase the speed of your withdrawal requests to just 24 hours.
I use an online ewallet called moneybookers and as I already had some funds in there I chose to use moneybookers as my payment method to deposit into Fortune Poker. Moneybookers is a fantastic tool to have for anyone who chooses to gamble online. It is free and instant to deposit to most available gambling websites out there, and of course Fortune Poker is one of those.
The benefits of moneybookers as opposed to using your debit or credit card is that funds are usually returned much quicker than they are to your bank. I’ve withdrawn money and received it back in my moneybookers account within 24 hours about 90% of the time when using it on other accounts.
Withdrawing
I have tested this today and I will come back to continue this review at a later date. At time of writing it is 21:50 on Tuesday 16th February. When I first deposited I was sent a text message which is a security code to be used when it comes to withdrawing. I thought I would need this but it seems you only need this if you are withdrawing more than €500.
The cashier is very easy to navigate to and it all seems very easy and professional.
Update: Well that was very quick. I received an email at 14:31 on Wednesday 17th February saying the withdrawal request has been processed. I logged into moneybookers and it is sitting in my account. It took only 16 hours and 29 minutes from requesting the deposit before it was back available in my account.
Customer Support
Fortune Poker has customer support available by email, live chat and telephone 24/7. I decided to test their support so that I could write an honest review of how they rate for this article.
I rang their freephone customer support number on and told them that I was unable to login. They began by asking me for my email address which we had to use the phonetic alphabet to correctly verify it. A little frustrating because my email is long, but what alternatives are there?
I then told them I was struggling to login and I was told as this was an account security issue it would need to be carried out over email. I was told that an email would be sent out to me in about five minutes and I should reply to it answering the questions to confirm I am the account holder. This email arrived after about one minute.
I replied instantly and 27 minutes later I received an email detailing my username and instructions on how to follow their “lost password” procedure. I didn’t follow the procedure as I hadn’t forgotten my password. But I was very happy with a 27 minute response time and knowing they are available by phone in case of any emergencies is satisfying also.
I queried their live chat support team with two questions.
- Where can I find my PIN number
- Where can I find how many hands I have played
They answered 1 to my instantly and they forwarded me to an email address manager@fortunepoker.com for question 2.
All in all a very impressive customer service.
Rakeback
Fortune Poker offer 30% rake back to it’s players. The rake is the money the poker room takes from each pot. This is how online poker rooms make their money. At the end of each month you can have 30% of the rake you have paid credited back to your account.
If you would like to opt in to this please contact us to request it. We will not automatically set you on to this because you must clear at least €100 worth of rake in any given month to be awarded rake back and ‘frequent player points’ can be earnt and spent with no minimum requirements.
Bonuses
By default you will be set up to the 200% first deposit bonus up to €1,000. This bonus will be released in increments of €10 for every €50 worth of rake that you contribute. This is considered to be an industry average and will require many hours of play if you would like to clear it all.
But this is definately recommended! If you take poker seriously and would like to grow your bankroll. You will be playing at one of the fishiest poker rooms around so if you can deposit €500 and get €1,000 bonus then definately do. If you are able to clear it all, that €1,000 would be a welcome addition to your bankroll and if your a solid poker player you can easily profit from the other players here in the meantime whilst you are clearing the bonus.