If you own a Mac, then your options for playing online poker on a Mac are growing quickly. Existing rooms are offering a variety of ways for you to fire up the virtual felts, ranging from a fully downloadable client similar to what your Windows counterparts use to a browser-based alternative. The latter – dubbed “Instant Play” by most sites – has become one of the most widely used ways for Mac online poker players to access the world’s top sites. It’s safe to say mac poker sites are more popular than ever.
Web-based clients have a lot of drawbacks, however. On Bodog, for example, only one cash game table can be opened at a time, cutting off Mac tournament players entirely and limiting the potential to “grind.” On UB.com and Absolute Poker, several features are lacking and, although the web-based client receives upgrades, its capabilities are capped. PartyPoker, which does not accept real money action from the United States, was one of the first sites to offer an “Instant Play” option.
Despite its limitations, web-play clients are convenient. Most of them are compatible with Safari and Firefox; just make sure you have the latest version of each browser installed on your Mac. Many Windows and Linux users have even employed “Instant Play” to avoid having to download any software. If you’re away from your home computer or are in a situation where downloading UB.com, for example, may be frowned upon, web-based interfaces provide an easy way to access major sites.
Two online poker rooms, however, have gone well above their counterparts and offered a fully functional downloadable client, the best solution that a Mac poker player can hope for. Surprisingly, the two sites to offer feature-packed downloads are the two largest in the industry and home to a variety of high-stakes pros.
PokerStars
PokerStars is the world’s largest online poker site and is home to tens of thousands of cash game players at any given moment. PokerStars is where Main Event champions play, including Tom McEvoy (1984), Chris Moneymaker (2003), Greg Raymer (2004), Joe Hachem (2005), Peter Eastgate (2008), and Joe Cada (2009), all of whom are sponsored site pros.
PokerStars offers some of the industry’s richest promotions and runs two major tournament series annually, the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) and World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP). Total prize pools for these have topped $50 million in the past, making for life-changing paydays and challenging competition. PokerStars also sports one of the top customer service teams in the business.
Another reason to play on PokerStars is access to major live poker tournaments. PokerStars sponsors roving tournament series in North America, Latin America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, and the entire European continent. Its signature event is the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, held each January in the Bahamas. It’s a prime opportunity for cold weather poker players to make their way to one of the globe’s top tropical destinations and, with a legal gambling age of 18, the event attracts a variety of young guns from North America.
For more information about Poker Stars, please read our Poker Stars Review.
Full Tilt Poker
Play with the pros – literally – at Full Tilt Poker. If you’re looking for the industry’s most recognized professionals, then look no further. Play alongside Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Huck Seed, Erick Lindgren, Phil Gordon, and others at the world’s second largest online poker site.
Full Tilt is a tournament player’s haven four times a year during the Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or FTOPS as it’s commonly called. The quarterly tournament extravaganza attracts the top players in the industry and features a variety of games including Hold’em, Omaha, HORSE, Stud, and Razz.
Full Tilt also is a Mecca for high-stakes players. With David Benyamine, Dwan, Ivey, and Antonius headlining much of the action, Full Tilt has also had players like Justin “Boosted J” Smith and Mike Matusow join its team to liven up the high-stakes scene. The only drawback to playing on Full Tilt Poker – and its fully downloadable Mac client – is a lax customer service team that falls well short of PokerStars’.
Nevertheless, if you’re a Mac online poker player, be sure to sign up for PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Both happily accept players from the United States and host games that will fit your bankroll and budget around-the-clock.
For more information about Full Tilt Poker, please read our Full Tilt Poker Review.
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Hey Dan, how’s it going?
Nice piece, but did you know that Full Tilt recently cut off Mac users with PowerPC computers like mine. Only Intel-based Macs are supported now. They had been supporting both types of Macs since at least 2006 when I started playing on FTP.
To keep playing there, I either had to buy a new Mac (no thanks, my iBook G4 is working fine), or buy a “regular” PC (don’t need two computers at home). So, I cashed out most of my still-active account and am playing exclusively now at PokerStars.
I discovered I couldn’t log on to FTP on May 29 and sent an unhappy e-mail to them that day asking what happened and what my options were. This was their reply (received just 6 hours later):
“All MAC Power PC users have been unable to use the Full Tilt Poker software since 27th May 2010 (just two days prior). The reason for this is that in 2006, Apple announced that it would be retiring the MAC Power PC in favor of Intel Xeon-based MAC Pro. Accordingly, we are following the trend set by the software manufacturers in what they see as technological progression. We can confirm that all accounts belonging to MAC Power PC users will remain active unless the players affected instruct us otherwise. Thank you for your understanding.”
I love my Mac laptop and it’s showing no signs of slowing down. I have to believe this decision left a lot of players still using long-lasting Macs on the outside looking in. That sucks.
Miss FTP, though. I liked their FTOPS and regular 7-card stud tournaments better than PS. BTW, I’ve always had good results with FTP’s customer service team over the past 4 years — except for when they cut me off without sending an e-mail warning that I was about to be axed as a customer. That was bad.
Russ,
Thanks for that note and reading the site. It’s too bad that non-Intel Macs aren’t supported. Still, having a fully downloadable client is a major step in the right direction for any site.
– Dan Cypra
Thanks for the post Dan. I am using an iMac. Agree that FT and Stars are still the best sites for the mac computers out there. The other sites which offer the instant play options either doesn’t boost enough traffic for multi-tabling or have poor customer service teams.