Full review of Poker Champs

Poker Champs
www.pokerchamps.com 
FREE DOWNLOAD!
Established 2003
Country Malta
Software size 7.4 MB

Special Features
CashFlow bonus program
Membership referral scheme
Endorsed by 4-time WPT winner Gus Hansen
Four-in-one screen feature

Total score (out of 10) 5.50

 Sign-up bonus in $ $0
Deposit bonus in % 0%
Referral bonus per friend $0
Deposit free bonus $0
Paid to play ($/hour) $0

Hits
Futuristic look and design
Fast software
Weekly bonus cash payouts instead of point system
Guaranteed daily tournaments

Misses
No high stakes games
Only Omaha and Texas Hold'em are currently available
No live support
Not a high player volume site

Summary
PokerChamps is a fresh and futuristic poker room designed with the serious poker player in mind. It is endorsed by Gus Hansen, the Danish player who has succeeded in winning the World Poker Tour four times, and the Swedish online poker-wiz Erik Sagstrom (known as Erik123 in the online community). PokerChamps is a new room and, while it does not yet have a lot of player traffic, it has the potential to become one of the most frequented playing sites. They are still working independently and are not yet part of a poker room network. The games are soft and loose and the biggest marketing scheme is the CashFlow bonus program, where you as a player receive cash on a weekly basis. Instead of giving players points and various awards like other poker rooms, PokerChamps makes their players part of a rake-back scheme: The more you play, the larger the percentage of your weekly rake that will be paid back to you (between 5%-50% rake-back). The downside is that you have to start from scratch every week and it is very hard to reach the 50% level. Real money player statistics - July 2005: 600-1000 ring game players during peak hours and 800-1200 tournament players during peak hours.

Software and graphics
PokerChamps’ software is fast and reliable with a futuristic spin. It was created for the serious player and can therefore be a bit overwhelming for the novice. The playability is high quality and you can play up to six tables simultaneously. When you log in you have the option to choose from SingleTable, EnlargedTable, DuoTables, FourTables (4x4PokerPlay), and SixTables mode. In order to use the “four-in-one-screen feature” you need a screen with at least 1152 x 864 pixels and to play six tables you need 1600 x 1200. PokerChamps provides its players with information for each table regarding “viewed flop percentage”, average pot, and hands dealt per hour. Taking player notes is a feature not yet supported.

Ring game traffic
Traffic has not reached considerable volume and play is concentrated on low stakes No-Limit Hold’em at the moment ($1-$2 down to 2c-4c games). There are typically 600-1200 players during peak hours, out of which at least 90-95% are in the Hold’em section.

Tournament traffic
PokerChamps has tournament traffic of 1200-1600 real money players during peak hours.

Game variety
The game variety is low. The only games offered are variations of Texas Hold’em and Omaha. These games range from 6-handed to 10-handed in No-Limit, Pot-Limit and Limit style. PokerChamps plans to launch Stud, Stud Hi-Lo, and Omaha Hi-Lo in the future.

Rake
PokerChamps uses a “no flop, no drop” policy, meaning they do not take out any rake from pots where there was no flop. The rake is at a maximum of 5% on all types of games and stops at $3. In Pot-Limit and No-Limit games the rake is 5%, and reaches a maximum of between $0.50 and $3 depending on the number of players at the table

Soft competition (8)
The traffic is at its greatest at the micro-limits and the games vary from loose to very loose, often with a “viewed flop percentage” reaching upwards of 50% to 80%. This translates to very juicy and loose games for the small stakes player. You can normally find great Hold’em games up to the $5-$10 limits and for No-Limit up to $1-$2.

Sign up bonus
PokerChamps has no sign-up bonus, instead they rely solely on their CashFlow bonus program.

Loyalty bonus
The big marketing scheme for PokerChamps is their so-called CashFlow bonus program. The point of the program is to reward real money players with rake-back on a weekly basis, and also to provide them with the opportunity to sign-up sub-affiliates that will, in turn, convert rake into cash for the player who signed them up. Every player that signs-up with PokerChamps will serve as an affiliate to them. The rake-back percentage starts at 5% every week and then, depending on how much you pay in rake during the week, you can get up to as high as a 50% rake-back. There are 10 different levels of rake-back percentage and you start at level 1 after each week. Rake is calculated as an exact portion of the pot that you personally contributed to and is not based on an average amount. This means that the tighter you play, the less rake will be counted on you. If you play an average of 2-3 hours a day on a $5/$10 table, your direct payout from PokerChamps will be approximately $100 per week. Also, PokerChamps will periodically offer deposit bonuses although these have been on the smaller scale so far.

Promotions
PokerChamps has a referral program where, instead of receiving a fixed cash amount per referred player, you get a piece of all future rake paid by the referred player and the referred player under him and so forth. This means that all these players become your affiliates and there exists a theoretically unlimited growth to this “referral tree”. The system grows according to a tree structure in an integrated system. There are also quite a few free rolls and tournaments with a guaranteed price pool. And, an additional bonus is that you might find yourself playing against established pros, since Gus Hansen and his peers quite frequently play four tables simultaneously at all different levels and games.

Support
Currently, the only support function available is via email. Their response time is fairly quick but a bit lacking when it comes to addressing more detailed questions. The website www.pokerchamps.com is very informative and covers most important topics. In fact, when we tested the support function PokerChamps themselves went back to their website for answers!

Financial security
The site is quite good for a relative newcomer with financial muscle and famous backers.

Deposit & withdrawal options
Deposit options: VISA, MasterCard, NETeller, and Wire Transfer.

Cash out options: NETeller, Wire Transfer, and Cashiers Check.