Carbon Poker is the flagship site on the US friendly Merge Poker Network. The software is a big personal favourite of mine, with some nice unique features, Carbon still offers some pretty easy to win games too – But it’s a small site.
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The site look is clean and simple offering a good practical playing environment with loose players and good winning opportunities at all levels. The software is really well thought out and very playable with extra features like “rabbit” and good player notes added which are both useful and enhance the player experience.
At 900+ peak daily players Carbon isn’t a huge site and the games are not as soft as they once were, but it has settled at reasonable player numbers with plenty of fish now a couple of grinders site left Merge. It remains one of the bigger & better poker rooms open to US players.
Carbon Poker – Quick Facts
| Bonus: | |||
| Traffic: | 900 | ||
| Easy Win: | 7/10 | ||
| Network: | Merge Network | ||
| Licensed: | |||
| Established: | 2005 / 2007 | ||
| Support: | |||
Ups: Open to US Players.
Downs: Not as big as PokerStars, Party or the ipoker network.
Verdict: Carbon offers many unique features that you can’t find at other poker rooms and has top quality software and graphics. The initial deposit bonus is lucrative, the competition is soft and many tournaments have consistent overlays.
Carbon Poker offers potential to solid players as a profitable poker room as most players are too loose and just there to enjoy the games. Carbon is also the biggest poker room open to US and accepting USA players.
Carbon Poker Bonus:
Tournaments award a fixed amount of Comp Points, which is shown on the tournament details screen when you register and ring games award comp points to every player dealt cards in a raked pot. Every 250 Comp Points you earn is equivalent to $1 of your bonus. The bonus is then released in $10 increments.
Carbon Poker Bonus Code: use links
Minimum Deposit: $25 via card / $10 minimum via moneybookers
Easy To Win: (8/10) Most of the fish are in the low and micro limit games as per most poker sites where the play can be very juicy & tends to be more passive rather than loose aggressive. Now with increased player volumes this extends well into the higher limit games where available the games are still potentially profitable & juicy. However with increased number of former PokerStars and Full Tilt players signing up at the moment the competition has got slightly tougher making it an easy to win site rather than a very very easy to win site.
The players per flop percentages are still quite high, at around 30-40% and even around 50% at the micro-stakes. This means that a solid player could easily build a bankroll at Carbon Poker.
Player Traffic: 3,000
Now a solid mid sized site and the biggest open to US players, growing due to new players finding it a good alternative to Full Tilt and a good choice for US PokerStars players needing a new site. The well funded and regular freeroll tournaments and promos are also a good draw.
UPDATE: (13-04-12) Merge Gaming and Carbon Poker do not accept new players from Utah, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Washington D.C and Washington.
Network: Merge Gaming Network
Carbon is now the main site on the network but there are other smaller sites also on the network and powered by Merge Gaming software.
Software & Graphics: Originally custom built from the ground up, so is packed with unique features and lots of extra features that will keep you entertained. Good user friendly & clear, the graphics are simple and clean. Carbon has very good lobby info and all the important player % and stats.
The tables are re-sizable with no loss in the quality of graphics, which makes it easy to multi-table or multi-task. Carbon does not use avatars, but they do offer a wide variety of unique options. These include: rabbit hunting which allows you to see what cards would have come after the hand is over, the option to expose one or two cards and even the option to deal it twice on certain tables.
Slick software which is user friendly and with good stats. Offers tagging of players and bet 1x, 2x, 4x the pot buttons which is a nice feature taking the “bet the pot” button to the next level and saving button pushing for those “going over the top” re-raises.
Software & Graphics
Mac Version: No
Random Number Generator: eCOGRA Certified
Poker Games: Great range of game variations but the players are mainly focussed on Texas Holdem.
Texas Hold-em (limit, pot & no-limit) & Omaha High (limit, pot & no-limit), HORSE, Razz, 5 card stud, 7 card stud & Badugi.
Carbon also gives you the option of playing games other than poker. These include casino games such as blackjack, roulette and Caribbean stud, as well as video poker and backgammon.
Stakes:
Cash Games: A wide variety of ring games, but the limit and no limit hold-em tables are the only ones where you can consistently find games at various low limits. The average pot, hands per hour and players per flop percentage can all be viewed in the lobby before joining the game and are generally very high relative to other sites. You would be surprised to see how high some of the players per flop percentages are, this makes Carbon a very profitable poker room for a half decent patient tight aggressive player.
Tournaments: Loads of freerolls eg. Daily $3,000 free rolls. (250 raked hands during 7 days eligible to for a daily $3,000 free roll for each of the next 7 days). 12 no strings $100 free rolls. Satellites for the 2006 Aussie Millions. Satellites for the Aussie Millions, European Poker Tour qualifiers and more.
SnG’s both full and 6 seater tables, however the games take quite a while to fill and it is very rare to see a sit and go running with a buy-in of more than $20. If you are a bigger buy-in SNG player then Carbon may not be the best place for you. A large amount of the sit n go tournaments that do run are bounty tournaments, which award half the buy-in to the prize pool and half to the player who knocks you out. If by chance you are into low buy-in bounty tournaments then Carbon Poker could be your poker room of choice.
Loyalty & Promotions:
The new VIP tiers consist of Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Ether, with Earth being the lowest of the tiers and Ether being the top. Carbon Poker rewards players well regardless of the tier that they are on. All players will be able to receive lots of cash back. As you earn points, you will receive cash in the following manner:
Earth 500 points $2.50
Wind 2,500 points $18.75
Fire 5,000 points $50.00
Water 10,000 points $150.00
Ether 25,000 points $750.00
And this is not a one time thing. Every time you hit one of those markers you will receive money back depending on what tier you are in. While on the subject of earning money, one time a month you will be able to convert some of your points for a cash bonus. Here are what your points can convert to:
Earth 10,000 points $100
Wind 20,000 points $200
Fire 30,000 points $300
Water 40,000 points $400
Ether 50,000 points $500
Royal Flush Bonus, hit a royal flush with your pocket cards in any Texas hold-em ring game and earn a bonus of 100 times the big blind. Bounty Grand Master, climb the Bounty leaderboard to win monthly prizes and Bounty Tournament accolades. Freerolls, earn Comp Points to qualify to play in daily $1000, weekly 2K & 10K and monthly 50K freeroll. tournaments.
Deposit Options: Click2Pay, NETELLER, Visa, MasterCard, Fonelinx, Moneybookers, EcoCard, PinDebit, eWalletXpress, PIC-Club & iBankG
Withdrawal Methods: Click2Pay, NETELLER (Instant), Visa, MasterCard, Fonelinx, Moneybookers, EcoCard, PinDebit, eWalletXpress, PIC-Club & iBankG
Established:
Security: They have proved to be very reliable.
Customer Support: Email support which is absolutely superb, staff are quick, efficient and very pleasant.
