Looking for a new place to play online poker? Then this review of Lock Poker might convince you to give them a try. Lock Poker recently opened its operations and are happily accepting US players. Though you won’t just find Americans playing on the site as I discovered in my first online texas holdem session.

Players
The first couple days I noticed that the site had many overseas players that were just awful. Now, don’t take that as a stereo type because the US based players were just as bad, if not worse, not to mention more plentiful. It was a sweet reminder of the good old days when the fish were plenty and the action was heavy. With Lock Poker being relatively new to the online poker scene there is a small player base. You’ll find piece of mind knowing that they are a licensee of Cake Poker’s network. There are plenty of fish to be found as the network peaks with 8,000 + players.

Overall = Great (Easy games for a decent low stakes grinder)

Lock poker ring game

Software
The software was quick to download and installed even quicker. I was up and running with the online poker download and within a few minutes I was playing in a tournament. The client is well laid out and easy to move around. There are simple filter options to find the game you are looking for. Overall, it’s very very easy to use. The game speed was also good. There are a few issues with the software that can be a little annoying but don’t effect my opinion enough to change my rating from “good” to bad. For example, sometimes clicking on info, chat, and promotion tabs have a slight delay. Table resizing doesn’t’ work correctly when multi-tabling. Other than that the software performed as it should. I tend to be a little tougher on this subject given my profession involves testing and breaking software.

Overall = Good

Lock Poker main lobby

Game Selection
Lock Poker has a little bit of everything. I would say that the site better suits low to mid stakes players. Texas Holdem, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo all have limits varying from $0.02/$0.04 to $100/$200. They also offer seven card stud and stud 08 though texas holdem is definitely the game that most are playing on this site. If you’re not a texas holdem player then you may find the other games to be slow going at times.

Lock Poker Ring Game Lobby

If you’re a tournament player then you will also find plenty of multi-table tournaments as well as sit n gos. My favorite tournament is the $6,000 guarantee Rebuy and Add-on ($5.50) I’ve cashed and gone deep each time I’ve played it. They have the standard sit n go tournaments that you’ll find on larger sites. I found the kamikaze SNG a great way to blow off some steam. You put up your buy-in and leave the rest to the RNG because every player is forced to all-in every hand!

The only downside to the game selection is when you are playing on off peak hours. A single table SNG can take a couple minutes to fill up, which sucks when you want to multi-table. A good side is that there is some overlay on the guarantees tournaments.

Overall = Good

Lock Poker Tournament Lobby

Frequent Player Benefits
The system is a little confusing and you can find more info by clicking on the rewards tab. Basically you earn FPP (frequent player points) for every $ in rake or tournament fees you pay. You earn gold chips for your FPP and these can be used to enter freeroll tournaments. You can also earn gold cards while you play ring games which will give you a shot to win a cool $52,000 jackpot.

Overall = Good

Support
I work in tech support for a software company so this is very important to me. I received a quick and accurate resolution to my problem from support. The response from Lock Poker support took less than 3 minutes. Now this was my one and only time dealing with support, but I was very pleased.

Overall = Great

Overview
Pros - I think that Lock Poker has a huge potential to become a player in this industry. The games are really good (read: easy) and the software is really a breeze to use. The tournament schedules and guarantees are at convenient times and very beatable. The frequent player benefits are good but a little confusing at times. Support did a great job in meeting my needs.

Cons - Software has a few small kinks that should be resolved. It doesn’t effect overall user experience but should be fixed. The major one I noticed was using the cascade tables option when multi-tabling. Games are sometimes slow to fill up off peak hours. People who play the other games (stud, omaha, ect) may find this more often then regular texas holdem players.

Overall = Good

*This has been a paid review*

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