Pacific Poker

Pacific Poker site

Pacific Poker is widely reputed to have the fishiest opposition on the net, owing to its association with a larger online casino. However, bad software, lack of text hand histories, and slow cashouts tend to send many serious players elsewhere.

Ring games[]

Limit hold 'em[]

Everything through $15/30 seems to stay full round the clock.

$0.05/0.10
$0.25/0.50 - 7 or 8 to the flop
$0.50/1 - 4 - 7 to the flop
$1/2
$2/4
$3/6
$5/10
$10/20
$15/30
$30/60

Pacific also offers 6 max tables for each of these limits; at $10/20 and above they seem as popular or moreso than the standard 10-seat tables.

No-limit hold 'em[]

Designation	Small blind	Large blind	Min buy-in (10 BB)	Max buy-in (100 BB)	Remarks
NL $10	5c	10c	$1	$10	extremely loose-aggressive, follow GSiH, play ultra-tight, size your initial raise to about 20xBB or more, with the intent of getting all-in preflop with a good hand, and you'll do great.
NL $25	12c	25c	$2.50	$25	rather more loose-passive than the $10 (based on small sample)
NL $50	25c	50c	$5	$50
NL $100	50c	$1	$10	$100
NL $200
NL $400
NL $600	$3	$6	$60	$600

Pot-limit hold 'em[]

PL $10
PL $50
PL $100 - sparse
PL $200 - sparse

Limit Omaha high[]

Everything above $3/6 seems quite sparse

$0.05/0.10
$0.25/0.50
$0.50/1 - sporadic
$1/2
$2/4
$3/6
$5/10
$10/20
$15/30
$30/60

Omaha hi-lo[]

These games can take a few minutes to get into; there's usually one $0.25/0.50 or $0.50/1 and one $1/2 or $2/4 going in North American evenings, but they're often full and can entail up to about a 15 minute wait.

$0.05/0.10
$0.25/0.50 - 7 or 8 to the flop
$0.50/1
$1/2
$2/4
$3/6 - only peak times
$5/10 - pretty full
$10/20 - sometimes in the North American evening
$15/30 - not often going
$30/60 - not often going

Seven-card stud[]

As of mid- to late 2005, Pacific stopped offering $0.05/0.10 and $0.25/0.50 stud high and stud 8/b.

Most up to $5/10 -- and at times up to $15/30 -- stay active in the North American evening.

$0.50/1
$1/2
$2/4
$3/6
$5/10
$10/20
$15/30

7-stud hi-lo[]

As of mid- to late 2005, Pacific stopped offering $0.05/0.10 and $0.25/0.50 stud high and stud 8/b.

$0.50/1
$1/2 - NA evening: often either the $1/2 or $2/4 goes
$2/4
$3/6
$5/10 - NA evening: sporadic
$10/20
$15/30

Sit-and-gos[]

Pacific offers the strangest array of instant tournament configurations known to man, including 2- and 4-table SnGs. Most of the NLHE tournaments fill within 5 minutes round the clock.

Buy-in	Vigorish	Pctg	NLHE	PLHE	LHE
$1	50c	50%	35 seats
$2	50c	25%	10, 20
$2.50	50c	20%	5, 40		5 seats
$4	50c	12.5%	10, 20
$5	50c	10%	10	6	10
$8	80c	10%	20
$10	50c	5%	Heads-up		Heads-up
$10	$1	10%	5 seats, 10, 42		6
$20	$2	10%	5
$30	$3	10%	Heads-up, 5, 10, 20	6	5
$50	$3	6%	Heads-up, 6		Heads-up
$100	$5	5%	Heads-up
$100	$9	9%	5
$200	$15	7.5%	5
$500	$20	4%	10
$750	$30	4%	5
$1000	$50	5%	5

Blinds for sit-and-gos (observed at $4 20-person sit-and-go)

10 minutes per level

Level	Small	Big blind
1	T10	T20
2	T15	T30
3	T25	T50
4	T50	T100
5	T75	T100
6	T100	T200
7	T150	T300
8	T200	T400
9	T250	T500

Multi-table tournaments[]

Pacific $50K[]

Pacific used to offer a $100K guaranteed tournament, but apparently they found $50K a more viable level to guarantee.

Other regular tournaments[]

This information may be out of date. Please feel free to edit it aggressively to make it more current.

(Some may not be regular - please delete date of observation once we know they're regular)

All times Eastern Daylight (UTC-4, in other words add four hours for UTC).

Tournament name	Day/time	Buyin	Vigorish	Game	Levels (min)	Typical enrollment	Comments
$500 Freeroll	Sunday 15:30	free	free	NLHE		2000 limit	Payouts: $25, $20, $15, $10, 5th-90th: $5.
$1000 Gtd	Sun and Tues 17:45; M, W, F 18:30 (Th, Sat: ???)	$1	none	NLHE	5	Around 1000
Fast $150 Gtd	Daily 20:15	$1	50c	NLHE	5

Fast $150 Gtd- Daily 20:15 - $1 + 50c buyin - 5 min levels

Broadway Special- Daily 14:15 - $2 + 50c buyin

$___ Guaranteed- Daily 04:00 - $2.50 + 25c buyin, 10 min levels

Amount guaranteed appears to vary, possibly by day of week - $840 on Sunday (Saturday night), $570 on Monday (Sunday night), $580 on Tuesday, $500 on Wednesday, others unknown. (All observed starting July 10)

$___ Guaranteed- Note: Limit HE - Daily 09:00 - $2.50 + 25c buyin

Fast $250 Gtd- Sunday 00:31 (observed July 9) $2.50 + 50c buyin, 5 min levels

Fast $250 Gtd- Note: PLHE - Daily 16:15 - $2.50 + 50c buyin, 5 min levels

Barn Burner - Sunday 11:30 - $3 + 60c, 8 min levels

$888 Gtd- Note: PLHE - Daily 19:15 - $4 + 50c buyin, 8 min levels - with 340 first pays $340, 2nd pays $204, 40th pays $6.80

$700 Guaranteed- Monday 23:15 - $5 + 50c buyin - 5 min levels

Fast $2,000 Guaranteed- Tuesday 17:01 - $5 + 50c buyin - 5 min levels

$3,000 Guaranteed- Wednesday 00:01 - $5 + 50c buyin - 5 min levels

General payout structure[]

The number of places paid is varied so that roughly 10% of the tournament finishes in the money, although the percentage of the field in the money obviously decreases somewhere above a field of 600.

Payouts:

Place	5 paid	20 paid	30 paid	40 paid	50 paid	60 paid	70 paid
Total entries	<50?	100-199?	200-299?	300-399?	400-499?	500-?	?-? (838, 1083)
1st	40%	30%	28%	25%	25%	23%	22%
2nd	24%	20%	18%	15%	15%	14%	12%
3rd	16%	10%	10%	9%	8%	7%	7%
4th	12%	7.5%	7.5%	7.5%	6%	6%	6%
5th	8%	6%	6%	6%	5%	5%	5%
6th		5%	5%	5%	4%	4%	4%
7th		4%	4%	4%	3%	3%	3%
8th		3%	3%	3%	2.5%	2.5%	2.5%
9th		2.5%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%
10th		2%	1.5%	1.5%	1.5%	1.5%	1.5%
11th - 20th		1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%
21st - 30th			0.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.7%
31st - 40th				0.5%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%
41st - 50th					0.5%	0.5%	0.5%
51st - 60th						0.4%	0.4%
61st - 70th							0.3%

Rake structure[]

See Pacific's site.

Cashouts[]

These are notoriously slow; a week's wait is not at all uncommon.

Discussion threads[]

Opinions on optimal strategy at Pacific Poker? (RGP)
Pacific Poker Article and Question (RGP) - speculating on how they attract so many awful players
More Pacific Poker payout problems
Pacific SnG gone crazy, Pacific bug census