I like DoylesRoom

Back in February, as I reported here, I created an account on DoylesRoom, but couldn't use it for anything but the stupid free games, because they were banning Nevada residents from real-money play. A few days ago I was browsing the list of online poker sites that still accept U.S. residents when I noticed that DoylesRoom had, at some point, quietly dropped the 11-state ban. It's part of the Microgaming network. Their sites have an odd assortment of 2-state bans, 3-state bans, and 50-state bans; see the complete list here. Nevada residents are accepted at DoylesRoom now.

So I made a $50 deposit, and tonight played there for the first time. They had a bounty tournament in which one would collect $500 for knocking out Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, or Mike Caro. I had received an email offer for a full rebate of the $27 entry fee, whether I won or lost the tournament. This seemed like a pretty good deal, so I signed up.

I played a micro-stakes cash game for 30 minutes or so before the tournament started so that I could learn the interface, tweak the table settings, etc. In both the cash game and tournament, I found myself liking the site quite a bit. The tournament lobby, for example, may be the nicest design I've ever seen--all the information presented clearly and easy to find. (The exception is that there seems to be no easy way to check on how the bounty players are doing. You have to know who they are, then slog through the pages alphabetically to find them.)

I started the tournament off nicely, as you can see from my status on the tourney page above, then took a bad beat and lived in the cellar for a long time. Finally doubled up by putting my own bad beat on somebody when I was just trying to steal the blinds with an all-in raise and ran into J-J. But my K-6 offsuit found another king on the turn, and I was back in it. A couple more steals, and I had gotten to just over the average stack, when I made an incredibly stupid move and got bounced just as the first break started. Oh well. That's one of the problems with knowing that I was playing for free--losing didn't seem like such a bad outcome, so I wasn't focused on winning. I should know better than to let myself get to such a sloppy, lazy frame of mind.

The average level of play seems pretty bad--definitely worse than Stars or Full Tilt, based on my very limited experience with the site so far. I think a good player would have a ton of advantage here.

Other good things about the table layout and controls: The color changes in players' avatars make it unusually easy to follow the action. It turns bright red when a player is all in, orange for a raise, green for a call, yellow/gold for a fold, regular avatar for players who haven't acted yet. The players in the blinds have their avatars replaced by "B. blind" and "S. blind." Couldn't be any clearer than that, although I wish the dealer button were larger. The pot has two numbers, one for the amount in the pot at the beginning of the current street, and one for the total amount put in, including current bets that haven't yet been called. This is just the way it should be, because both numbers are important for bet/raise sizing.

When it's my turn, I can just type in an amount to bet or raise without having to click on a stupid box first. I wish I could then just hit "return" to register the bet, but nope, have to click on a box to have it go through. That's annoying. Lots of good flexibility in colors, chat options, animation and sound options, etc. I found the sounds more pleasant than those of most online sites. Even better, you can adjust the volume of the alerts without changing your computer's internal system settings or touching the speaker volume knob. Why doesn't every site give you this control?

When looking for a cash game, I found the lobby kind of confusing, but maybe it's just a lack of familiarity.

Unfortunately, they don't seem to have razz or HORSE games, unless I missed something.

I'm really doing very little online these days other than razz and HORSE, so I probably won't use the Doyle account much, but when I feel like indulging in a hold'em tournament or cash game, it's going to be one of my top choices.