As a semi-serious player who's played at in excess of 20 online sites, I think I've got a reasonable idea of what I like and don't like by now so I thought I'd throw out some reviews of some of the less well known sites I've played at, for anyone looking to diversify.

ROYAL VEGAS POKER

My experience:
Been playing here for about 2 months. Came in to look for another website offering loose PLO games, and stayed to crib the bonus and play a game or two of PLO and NL. I've played at other Prima skins and the Microgaming engine on Ladbrokes.com so I'm used to the set-up.

So far I have been marginally profitable at this site, having played NLHE (100 buyin) and PLO (50-200 buyins) as well as one short session of O8. I have played the SnGs and MTTs on other Microgaming sites but not RV.

Miscellaneous:
This site is probably among the top ten in terms of popularity, and is frequented by a mix of Europeans and Americans mostly. Cardroom manager is Lou Kreiger, who is the propotional muscle behind the site. It's part of the Prima network of online sites, which use the same software (the Microgaming engine).

Software:
The software on the prima sites is, in my view, on the poor side of average. Although the lobby and waiting lists work fine (you can join multiple WLs, WLs for non-full tables etc) they seem a little slow to update, and at times the average pots quoted seem ridiculously high (you can play on a table for half an hour without seeing a pot over $40, and then return to the lobby to discover it's still down as having a $35 AP). The tables are a little behind the times in terms of graphics, and the large size (including a spurious and overly intrusive chat window on the right hand side, which can't be closed) makes them difficult to multitable without overlapping.

The notes feature is reasonable, though nothing special. A nice new feature on the tables allows you to review the "history" of each player at the table (check/call/fold etc) by clicking on them, although how much use this will actually be in a live game situation is debatable. Stats are available on a tab for each session, giving you a nice way to check your showdown %s, preflop calling % etc.

One of the more annoying features is that the location of the check/call/raise buttons are slightly altered from what you'll be used to from other sites, making a mis-click more likely, and they appear in the centre of the table (which can obscure the pot). The slide bar for altering bet size at NL and PL games is frustratingly small and poorly designed, meaning that you need to reserve a good few seconds of thinking time for fiddling with it (although you can type in your desired amount, this does not change the amount that appears on the button you click to make a raise - this can be very confusing for a beginner at this site!). The amount of time giving for betting decisions is far too short, and with no all-in protection available this can be a major problem if your connection is slow. It also badly restricts thinking time.

The deal is fast, cards are large and easy to read, and the graphics and player names are bold enough to make the progression of the game clear.

One of my biggest gripes is that the windows do not automatically move to the front of your screen when it's your turn to act - this can lead to the betting being slow, and frequently means that I miss betting turns when I'm multitabling. You can opt to make an audible "ping" when it's your turn, however.

Support:

I found the online support to be a nice feature, with a representative usually available to talk to you via the cashier and lobby. How helpful they are is another matter, though I had no problems generally. Note that several people I know have had problems with the promptness of cashouts from this site, although as far as I know there are no horror stories other than the usual "I ordered my check and it took 2 months to arrive" stuff. RV are a big site and so are likely to be in business for the foreseeable future and are not likely to screw you over.

I have recently made a cashout to neteller, 3 days ago, and it has not been received yet. I usually give a few business days though, most sites with the exception of party take a while to process neteller withdrawls.

Bonuses/offers:

Freebies on RV are probably below average, but there's still some nice ones out there. The $50 deposit bonus is split into a $40 match bonus and a free $10 for signing up to the site. The free cash is nice if you are a new player unwilling to make a deposit, though my initial deposit of $500 got me the full bonus and plenty of BR with which to rapidly release it. The release time is (I think) something like 500 hands in which you contribute to the rake, for me that only took a few days. Bet365's is much quicker on the prima network.

They have been running a small rake rebate bonus over the Xmas period but that's now up. The usual plethora of freerolls and tourney bonuses is present and correct, though I am yet to experience any reload bonuses. This is not a great site to bonus whore on.

AFAIK, no frequent player point system is in operation. RV are a bit behind the market leaders in terms of bonuses and freebies.

Game availability/choice:

This is pretty good. They offer HE down to the micro limits and NL, with games within the pockets of most BTP players ($10 up to $200 buy-ins are well represented, with a few higher games). Usually there are at least 10 NL tables running at each level at peak times, making it one of the more popular sites for NL.

They also spread some nice PLO games (though table choice is fairly poor - there is rarely a full 10-handed 100 buyin game going on, for instance) which is what I mainly joined for. A recent software update has added PLO8. Stud is represented in the 7 card variety and unusually the old 5-card variant, tables for both are relatively well populated.

Tournaments here are good - although I am not aware of any rebuys, the MTTs and SnGs are well populated and run as smoothly as you would expect from a major site. You will almost always find an SnG being populated at levels $5 up to $30, but the higher level games $50 and above may take a bit longer. Multitabling outside peak times at the SnGs will be difficult.

Game/Player Quality:

This is probably where RV scores highest. The NL games up to 100 which I've played have been generally nice. Inclusion of flop %s and average pots on the lobby screen allows you to choose a nice loose game. Generally the money on RV seems to come from highly passive players - minimum raises are a preflop plague, and many flops will be seen 4 and 5 handed at the $100 buy-ins. There are few total fish or hyper-aggressives at this level, unlike at Party, but a skilled player can make good money against the fairly loose passive opponents that seem to populate a lot of the better tables. At the lower NL games, the standard of play drops off very badly and the 50 and 25 buyins are probably no better than standards found at Party, with good table selection. You will find the occasional maniac, but the overwhelming majority of players are your typical 30% VPIP weak passive types, which can make for fairly profitable games. In my limited experience, huge double-throughs are rare, but you will often find people with short stacks calling large raises on the flop with less than TPTK. Some tables will be tight-passive, so good selection is called for.

Above $100NL, the games look reasonable too, judging on the pot sizes and flop %s. Because a lot of Europeans frequent the site, the "peak" times are not so much better than off-peak to make playing off-peak unprofitable. As a European myself, this is a nice characteristic.

As for the other games offered, limit is probably nothing to write home about although average pots suggest it is on the slightly looser side of average. I would reckon there's little to tempt a limit player over, except for a change of scene or some quick bonus whoring.

Omaha high is fairly soft in all cases, though lack of games to select is far from ideal. The short handed games can be quite good, and a decent player can make money here, especially if you have the BR for $200 buyins and above.

I have limited experience at the O8 here, but the one $100PL table I played was loose and poor.

5-card stud is very easy to win at, you could free up the bonus and make a profit in this game very easily if you're a low limit (1/2 etc) player. This is probably worth doing.

SnGs are pretty weak in standard, same as MTTs. Above $30 the quality improves quite a lot. I would say the standard is similar, or slightly worse, than Stars, with the blind/stack ratios better than at Party, making it a decent site for SnG action.

OVERALL:

Royal Vegas is a reasonably decent site, probably at its best for mid-level NL ring and SnGs. Anyone who likes Prima will appreciate the larger number of tables available here, although it's not a site you simply MUST play, but worth a look. Bonuses are nothing special so unless you're a NL player who appreciates relatively weak passive games, or you simply want a decent site to fall back on if the tables are bad at your main choices, RV is not worth going out of your way to play on. Some issues have been raised regarding support/cashouts but as yet I've had no problems in this area.

Anyone anything to add?

Monk
xxxxx

I thought I'd take the opportunity of checking this site out with their free $10 sign up bonus. Just sat at a small NL cash table to see how the software ran and I must say I am very disappointed. The amount of times the table seemed to freeze and by the time it caught up my hand had been folded due to me timing out. I know it's not my connection because I have a reasonbly fast broadband connection that works very well at other places. This is where I think the bigger sites will always be more popular. Party Poker, UltimateBet, Poker Stars etc etc have never given me any of these problems. If I can turn this $10 into anything then I will continue to visit Royal Vegas but I wont be depositing of any of my own money until their software improves.

For what it's worth...
Not too much to add, however I too have had connection problems with RV and 7 Sultans. I cannot tell you guys how many times I was in the top 3 or so in several SnG's and was disconnected. It was impossible to log back in...Pretty damn frustrating, so just said to hell with it. The games did seem very soft, and POSSIBLY these problems have been improved on (My experience was about a year ago). I know for a fact that these problems were not on my end...Hope this helps...
Bobby