Cake Poker is a relatively new poker room, but has had enough success to start its own network. This success may be in part due to the fact that Cake Poker is one of a handful of poker rooms that allow US player to join. Cake is great for the low limit player with good low limit hold’em and Omaha ring games, as well high quality, well run tournaments. The competition is fairly soft and the initial deposit bonus is quite lucrative and easy to clear.
Initial Deposit Bonus
Cake Poker offers a 100% first deposit bonus up to $500. The bonus is released in increments of $10 as you earn Frequent Player Points by playing in ring games and tournaments. In ring games you earn 1 point for every $1 that is raked up to a maximum of 3 points per hand. For every $1 paid in tournament fees you earn 7 FPP’s. Each Frequent Player Point you earn is equivalent to $0.06 of your bonus.
Promotions
- New Depositor Freerolls – All new depositors are eligible to play in a $500 freeroll every Saturday at 2pm.
- Gold Chip Giveaways – As you earn more FPP’s you will earn gold chips. You can use these gold chips in the Cake Poker shop or to play in exclusive tournaments. The more gold chips you earn in a month, the quicker you will be able to earn your next one.
- Gold Cards – A gold card is released each time a ring game table reaches a set amount of rake. If the card released is the same as one of your hole cards, then you add that card to your collection.
- Gold Card Daily Lottery – Everyday Cake announces a new gold card, and if you have that specific card in your collection you can win the daily prize which is usually cash or tournament entries.
- Gold Card 500 – Every gold card that you win earns you miles in a weekly gold card race. The top ten earners each week win cash prizes.
- Refer-a-Friend - $100 for you, $100 for your friend.
Multi-table Tournaments
Cake has a pretty extensive tournament schedule, with new tournaments starting every fifteen minutes. Many are rebuy/add-on tournaments, in which there are usually a ton of rebuys (more than the amount of entries). Cake was one of the first poker rooms to introduce bounty tournaments and they take them seriously with half of a players buy-in awarded for every knockout. Cake runs mostly low buy-in tournaments, but there are the occasional $30 tournaments running throughout the day. With Cake’s tournament schedule you should be able to find a tournament to suit your liking at any time, day or night.
Sit and Go Tournaments
Sit and go tournaments are not Cake’s forte, as they take quite a while to fill up and you likely won’t be able to find any with a buy-in larger than the $23 turbo shorthanded.
Ring Games
Cake has pretty good traffic for low limit hold’em and Omaha ring games. There is always traffic right up to $5/$10 games for hold’em and $0.50/$1 games for Omaha. The micro limit games of $0.02/$0.04 are also popular at Cake Poker.
Game Variety
• Hold’em
• Omaha H/L
• Omaha Hi
• Stud H/L
• Stud Hi
*Stud H/L and Stud Hi rarely have games running.
Software & Graphics
Cake’s software is functional and easy to use, but the graphics leave something to be desired. The lobby has two separate sections, one for ring games and one for tournaments. In each of these sections there are two additional menu bars, which allow you to find exactly what you are looking for. The tables can be condensed a little, down to fitting about two tables on a standard sized screen. The one good thing about the resizable tables is that there is no loss of graphics. Cakes offers twenty avatars, all of which are fairly realistic. Your stats are kept as you play and you can find them in the chat box. Cake is constantly updating their software and all the problems from the early days have been fixed.
Competition
When Cake first started out it was full of fish, with flop percentages as high as 60%. The quality of player has since improved, but is still a little bit below average. These days it is common to find tables with about 40% of the players to the flop.
Support
Cake Poker offers quick and accurate email support as well as an extensive FAQ section where you can find the answers to most of your questions. It would be nice to see Cake include live chat or phone support in the future.
Deposits
Visa, MasterCard, Moneybookers, EcoCard, eWalletXpress and Neteller (where accepted).
The minimum deposit is $50 for Visa or MasterCard, and $25 for all other methods.
Withdrawals
Moneybookers, EcoCard, eWalletXpres and Neteller.
Cake Poker also offers the option to request a check, but you must send a photo ID and proof of address.
The minimum withdrawal is $50 through all eWallets and $500 through personal check.