Lock Poker

Lock Poker Review 2011

With all that’s gone on in the poker business lately, particularly with the decision by PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to no longer accept American players, there’s been a lot of upheaval in the business to say the least. Fortunately, there’s still places who don’t turn anyone away regardless of where you are from. If you’re from the U.S. in particular, the best news about Lock Poker is that they don’t lock their doors to anyone.

If you are looking for more info on the the bonus code check out our Lock Poker Bonus Code page.

If you want to know more about Lock Poker itself, continue reading our Lock Poker review or watch our Lock Poker video review.

 

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The Merge Poker Network Is Really Taking Off

The Merge Poker Network has been around for quite some time now, and although it’s been decently popular, the recent developments that have taken place in the industry have placed it in a position to really benefit. There has been several options available to the Americans who wish to continue playing online poker, and Merge has picked up most of this extra traffic so far.

So they appear to be the clear winner in this, and will continue to grow as more and more players get their money out of the other poker sites and have it to deposit elsewhere at a poker room that still welcomes them. It’s been no accident though that Merge has won out here, as it’s the best choice overall really as far as what the current options are.

So the impact upon the traffic has been noticeable already, and right now at the time of this writing, Merge has far and away the most traffic among poker sites still accepting Americans. You want to follow the money here of course, and this is where it is going.

Lock Poker Is A Poker Player’s Poker Room

Lock Poker was put together by poker players for poker players. Among the choices on the Merge Network it’s definitely a very good place to play. The poker room manager is none other than Eric “Rizen” Lynch, who is not only a very accomplished online poker pro but is also a poker author and was one of the three people who wrote Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand At A Time., which is one of the best tournament strategy poker books ever written. With Eric running the show there, versus who the heck knows at other poker rooms, this really grabbed my attention and it’s great to have someone managing the place who has an intimate understanding of online poker players.

A Lot Of Big Name Online Pros Are Flocking To Lock Poker As Well

Aside from a lot of everyday Joes moving to Lock Poker recently, what’s even more telling for me is how many top online pros have moved there lately. Now a lot of poker sites have sponsored pros where they pay these people to play there, this isn’t what’s going on at Lock Poker though. These pros are moving there of their own free will, because they want to play at Lock Poker. This says a lot actually. Many of these people are Americans of course and were left homeless lately, but they could have picked from any number of poker rooms that would still take them, and they chose not only the Merge Poker Network but Lock Poker specifically.

The Merge Poker Network’s Fishiness, A Well Kept Secret

The competition on the Merge Poker Network has always been pretty soft, which a lot of people didn’t really know about, although the word is certainly getting out a lot more lately. Traditionally, a lot of the players at Merge have come from sports betting operations, which is a pretty sweet deal if you’re a poker player as these folks aren’t very good at it, and are only playing on the side. I will tell you though that there’s more good players there lately, but there’s still plenty of fish to go around.

In fact if you’ve been mostly playing at Stars or Tilt, you’re going to really be surprised at the difference in the amount of donkeys at the tables, and this isn’t just at the lower stakes either. If you play mid stakes or higher, you’re probably used to players having moved up the stakes to play at your level, which means that they are at least decent players. There’s a lot of gamblers on the Merge Network though who have plenty of money and are just looking for some extra action, and they’ve never heard of Cardrunners, 2+2, or Hold’em Manager. Needless to say, this is exactly what you want to see.

Lock Poker Bonus Code

For starters, Lock Poker offers a nice 150% welcome bonus up to $750 in bonus money if you use Lock Poker Bonus Code “PNREPORT“. The industry standard is 100% up to $600, so this is above average for sure. The thing that a lot of players don’t realize though is that it’s not a matter of choosing between welcome bonuses, as there’s no reason why you can’t just do several of them. This one though is definitely well worth taking advantage of as it’s better than most.

Even more importantly, since Lock Poker appeals to a more sophisticated breed of poker player than a lot of other poker rooms, they figure that if they set up this bonus deal so that the money is too hard to free up, as some poker sites do, people aren’t going to be fooled. So they’ve got it so it’s not too hard to play the required amount of frequent player points to cash in on it. What’s even better, instead of only releasing it in big chunks like most other poker sites do, they give it to you in $5 increments, and smaller increments is always better. This is the smallest I’ve ever seen as a matter of fact.

Lock Poker Reload Bonuses

In addition to the nice sized welcome bonus, they also offer frequent reload bonuses where it’s pretty much the same deal to get your hands on some nice extra poker money. A lot of poker sites offer reload bonuses but a lot of them only do so infrequently. Lock Poker is hungrier for your business than the average poker room though and they are out to prove it. By the way, even though you may have plenty of money in your bankroll at a poker site, you still always want to take advantage of reload bonuses whenever you can, and you can take the money out later when you’ve freed it all up.

Lock Poker Promotions

Lock Poker features several ongoing promotions at any given time. Among what’s running now, they have the Battle of the Ronin, which is a rake race with some very nice prizes attached to it. In all, there are 1,400 individual prizes to be given away totaling a half a million dollars. You can even win a seat to the WSOP main event. The more frequent player points you earn, the bigger the prize you can shoot for, so how well you do in this event isn’t just a matter of luck, it’s completely in your own hands. If you clear all the hurdles, you can get an extra $45,000 in your poker account. Most players don’t play enough to shoot for anything this big, but even a few hundred extra here is very nice.

They also are running the Tourney King promotion, which is a tournament leader board event where players of all levels are given a shot at prize money. They are running both a low limit and higher limit leader board, so you don’t have to play big to be able to cash in here. There is over $20,000 up for grabs with this one. If you prefer Sit n’ Go’s, there’s a separate promotion and leader board for that as well. This is all just a sampling of their promotions of course, and new ones are being added all the time.

Lock Poker Software

The Merge software itself is one of the best out there, and is fully up to date with all the features poker players appreciate. Players often will use mods though to get a cooler look, but there’s no need for one at Lock Poker. This site is by poker players for poker players, as I mentioned, and this extends to the look and feel of the poker software at Lock Poker. In fact it looks like a cool mod, which players who play a lot will really appreciate. Overall the software here is excellent.

Lock Poker Customer Service

In addition to the usual options, Lock Poker offers live chat, and if you have any experience dealing with customer service at poker rooms, you know how many emails can be exchanged and how much time it can take to resolve a single issue. There’s no substitute for live chat, and a lot of poker rooms don’t have it. Lock Poker does, and even if you don’t end up needing it, it’s real nice to know that you can chat with someone right on the spot when you need to.

Lock Poker Deposit And Withdrawal Options

Lock Poker offers many popular deposit and withdrawal options including Visa and Mastercard, Neteller, Click 2 Pay, Eco Card, UKash, Paysafe Card, Web Money, Click and Buy, Entropay, Instadebit, Paste and Pay, and Western Union. Depending on where you live, these options may or may not be available to you, but the great thing is that they do Western Union which is available everywhere for both deposits and withdrawals, so that alone makes Lock Poker get a rating of excellent in this category.

My Recommendation

I’ve always liked the Merge Network since it’s been around and have played at a few rooms on it, and I especially love all the sports bettors that play there who don’t have much of a clue about what they are doing. Now that the traffic has improved there lately things are even better. Lock Poker is an excellent choice among the rooms on this network and is run by people who really know what they are doing due to their being online poker players themselves. This makes a big difference to me and I’m giving Lock Poker a strong recommendation overall.

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