Haven’t been able to play very much poker this weekend, but I did find some time to log a couple hundred hands at Paradise. The next poker blogger tournament will be the Grublog Poker Classic II on November 21 at Paradise Poker. Sign up today with the bonus code on Grubby’s page and get a 50% bonus up to $100. The bonuses are cleared $10 at a time for every 100 raked hands you play.

I’m not above doing a little bonus whoring, so I moved some money over to Paradise. There are some things about the interface I like very much. The whole package seems very well thought out and feels like a Windows application. Sure, Party does, too, but on Paradise the little things really make a difference. One thing that’s superior to Party is the notes function. A single right-click opens the notes window. Hovering over the player’s name shows much more of your note than on Party (haven’t run into a character limit yet). Unfortunately, the games are a little slow, moving at a rate of 50-55 hands per hour at a full table; the animation effects are probably partially responsible. Hand histories have to be requested the old-fashioned way.

Of course, the important thing is the quality and quantity of players. In my very limited experience, the games seemed rather loose-passive, with the exception of 2-3 loose-aggressive types at the table tonight. Once it became obvious they were raising pre-flop and betting the flop with crap, it was easy enough to call to the showdown or check-raise the flop or turn and make money with second pair or top pair, weak kicker. In the loose-passive games, I found I was able to take many pots without showing. Again, I should note that I’ve only played a couple hundred hands, but so far it’s been going well. If you’re planning to play the Grublog Classic anyway, you might as well get the bonus and make enough profit for some first level re-buy/add-on madness on the 21st. Unfortunately, it’s a much smaller “poker room” than Party, and you may find table selection somewhat difficult.