Everest Poker
Anyone ever play there? I did a freeroll there this weekend, finishing 11th out of 200 (woo-hoo!), and have extrememly ambivalent feelings about the site. In fact, it's the best and worst site I ever played at.
First, the bad: I knew going in that the freeroll was putting up "bonus dollars," rather than actual dollars you can invest in cash games and tourneys, especially since it was a $500 prive pool freeroll that runs multiple times a day (IIRC). Most freerolls don't have the kind of prize pool unless it an infrequent one.
So, after I won $5 "bonus dollars," I figured that I would have to make some sort of qualifying deposit to be able to claim it or use it. Boy, do I.
It turns out that you do indeed have to make a deposit to claim it, but more to the point, you have to wager $100 for every dollar to be released to you from your "pending bonus pool" , and you only have 180 days to do so.
My $5 aside, I believe first place was $100. If I am understanding the terms correctly, you would need to wager, over the course of six months, ten THOUSAND dollars IN SIX MONTHS to fully claim it all. I look at that and laugh. It's not a ripoff, because it's a freeroll, after all, but uh.....such terms are pretty ridiculous and unreachable for all but the best and/or most bankrolled players, who probably aren't playing on Everest, no? Or am I misunderstanding the terms, or is (I don't think so but I'm still new-ish to online poker) is this condition par for the course?
(Note: I know that I should've read the terms beforehand. But I'm not disappointed I will not get this five dollars, that's not the point. I'm just wondering if these terms are typical or exorbitant, as I suspect?)
Anyway, I'm thinking of making a deposit there anyway, because beyond that, the site had a quality that I really liked that I haven't seen elsewhere, and that's its international flavor. You scroll over a player's name, and you learn what country he/she is from (it's not a free text field, so you can't replace your country with Buttland or something like you can at most sites) and what default language they are playing with. It made it a bit like playing in the Poker Olympics or something. I was one of two Americans that I saw, and I noticed, in this tourney, players from Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and China. Very cool, if you dig that kind of thing. And I do.
So, are there sites I am missing that play up the worldly aspect of it? If you've played Everest, what were your impressions?
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"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." -Malachy McCourt
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