Party Poker's little sister. Empire Poker has been revamped by PartyGaming (who run Party Poker), Empire Poker is in fact exactly the same as Party Poker but with different, and in my opinion, superior graphics. When PartyGaming were able to accept players from the USA Party Poker was the biggest online poker site. With the demise of the US players there was initially a sharp drop in numbers but, steadily, Party Poker has been gaining strength and may well be on their way to becoming the number one poker site again. They have all their biggest tournaments at Euro friendly times which is  drawing in a lot of new European players.

The software is stable and easy to find your way around, although it doesn't show made hands or show cards at a showdown when a player has gone all-in until after all the cards have been dealt. You can play Blackjack at your poker table which can keep you interested while having a dry run of cards and helps you avoid making bad decisions simply because you are bored.

Tournaments. Empire Poker has a full tournament programme with big daily tournaments, plenty of guaranteed tourneys and the Euro friendly 200k Sunday MTT 6.30pm UK with satellites running all week from $3, 50 points or buy in direct for $215. For the beginners Empire Poker will give a full month access to their Rookie freerolls and a weekly 1K freeroll when you make your first real money deposit. With over $50,000 a month in country freerolls, the freerolls program Empire Poker is bigger and better than ever. You'll find exclusive $250 freerolls for players from specific regions running all week, with tourneys in Limit and No Limit Texas Holdem offered to UK, Canadian, German, Nordic, Oceanic, Alpine, Russian, Dutch & the Americas (not USA) players, Party is truely becoming the European players best choice for a poker room.

An important change has taken place at EmpirePoker.com. The charges for all single table tournaments over $200 now have a flat fee of just $10. With buy ins at Empire up to $5000 this is good news for all big game hunters.

The Sit and Go's at Empire Poker have a good amount of traffic, with the additional benefit of Sit n Go Steps tournaments where you work your way up through 6 levels of Sit and Go's for a grand prize of up to $2000 from an initial buy-in of just $3.

Now for the busy poker player there are Hellkat timebased Sit n Go tournaments, choose the length of tourney you want to play from 5mins to 30 mins with low buy ins from $3 to $11 and start playing! After the final hand, and the tournament will not stop mid hand, the top three will share the prize pool in proportion to chips held.

Win your place at the weekly $200K Guaranteed Sunday Tournament in the 50 Seat Frenzy when there are 50 seats to play for every Saturday at 6.35pm GMT (1.35pm ET). With three ways to get into the 50 Seat Frenzy Tournament, the choice is yours. 1. Buy in direct for $15. 2. Play in one of Party Poker's Country Specific Freerolls where the top 10 claim a seat. 3. Play in one of two $2 qualifiers, one on Friday at 8.25pm GMT (3.25pm ET) and one on Saturday Morning at 3.55pm GMT (10.55am ET).

Cash Games. As you would expect from such a large site, there are plenty of Texas Holdem tables to choose from at Empire, with both the Bad Beat Jackpot and normal tables always receiving high traffic. Unfortunately the other game variations, such as Stud and Omaha can be disappointing, with quite low traffic even in peak hours.

Live Game Satellites. Play live poker at the following events with a prize package from Empire Poker, you can be on your way by taking part in the daily freerolls, low cost qualifiers or buy in direct to the once a week tournaments where the all inclusive prize packages are won.

• WPT Vienna, Austria - February 19th to 24th
  

Promotions. One of Empire Poker's biggest draws is the Bad Beat Jackpot. Get beaten with quads 8's or higher and you'll receive a share of their unrivalled Bad Beat Jackpot. I've seen this get as high as $664,000 which is phenomenally high considering you are eligible for the jackpot with blind levels as low as 10c/25c and everyone active at the table receives a share of the jackpot as long as they were dealt in. Just pick a jackpot table when selecting your game and you're in with a chance.

PartyGaming are the kings of promotions and are introducing new promotions all the time. They also regularly offer reload bonuses which can be tracked easily through your Empire Poker account.

Competition. Varies although overall Empire Poker has some very soft competition. However, it can be difficult to choose your game wisely as the cash lobby doesn't display the 'player per flop percentage'.

Empire Poker Bonus Code details. Directory of Online Poker can give you a bonus that will entitle you to 30% up to $150 - just use Empire Poker bonus code: 30EMPIRE when you make a minimum deposit of $25. Remember to check out the weekly 1.5k freeroll exclusively for new depositors.

Refer a Friend. $50 for you, $25 for your friend.