At first, Winamax was proposing a fantasy football game. Few years later it moved on to be a skin for the ongame network. This experience as a poker room within an established network will make them realize the complexity of an online poker room software.

By having Patrick Bruel as their French ambassador while he was engaged in the most important tournaments around the world, Winamax image slowly started to build a solid community of players, also relying on their very active forum, tightly related to the room.

Winamax then began an independent poker room, having their own software while the french market was opening up during the summer of 2010. Built on solid foundations with a multi platform technology (AIR), the winamax software slowly went from "fair" to "excellent" and stays one of the two best poker soft existing today. Listening to the community, the technology behind their room and the experience learned from the Ongame network really contributed to this success.

The Winamax team is one of the best, but profiles are so different that each seem to be the right person at the right place. While away on tournaments, the team show a very solid bond and relations seem to overcome those of mere colleagues.

Today leader on the French market, Winamax is getting the results of hard work started years ago, through a marketing policy based on long term partnership, way before Poker regulations for different countries.

Furthermore, the constant upgrades to the software part of winamax (already excellent), coupled with a never stoping commercial activity, let us think that the room is well seated and the throne is not meant to pass to a heir anytime soon.

The soft was made public in May 2010. Built from scratch, it's strongly inspired by the Ongame Software. Although, Winamax software engineers only copied what players loved about Ongame (the general chat is a good example) and added a lot of missing features that players wanted or were felt needed to make the software experience even better.

Today, Winamax offers one of the best poker software in the world and has nothing to be shy about compared to other pioneers of the game. On the plus side, adoption of AIR as software development technology gave them a bit of headstart to offer a clean, stable poker room, on par on some aspects, way in advance for other.

Let's start this detailed test by winamax graphic side, we'll then move to the sounds and useability of the soft.

The graphics are sleek , soft to the eye and accurate. Even expanding the table for itto cover a 24-inch screen, no cards, buttons, characters or the table are pixelated .

• Players: nicknames and stacks amount are written between two segments of white space, on a rectangle without edge whose appearance resembles smoked glass; the space for the avatar runs transparent giving the impression that each player float over the table edge.

• Tables: there are 10 different themes of "room" and five carpet colors that can be chosen independently of one another; a big plus for visual comfort.

• Cards : Cards: 4 types are available (wam, wam 4 colors, (both simplified designs playing cards), classic, classic 4 colors): that's way enough, the key being to be able to play in 4 colors

• Chips : Bright colored, they pop out well enough

• The betting buttons: too archaic. Their design is, like the software, uncluttered, but the buttons lack delicacy, gentleness; a facelift is desirable to make them more pleasant.

• The other table buttons: in addition to several other identical buttons to betting buttons, there are at the top of the window, two sets of clickable icons as discreet and elegant; these ideograms successfully display a button easily attainable without polluting the field of vision; gray suits them.

• Resizing: The minimum size is about 430 * 350 square px on my 24-inch screen; the table can be extended to the entire screen, which provides a significant comfort when playing one tournament at a time.If the table keeps its proportions, the window in which the table is can be the shape you want it to be.

While you play, the graphics creates a sense of ethereal smoothness, like air. The aura that surrounds the player whose turn it is, besides his visual efficiency, give an almost religious atmosphere.

The cash game lobby is the colors of the room: crimson red, black and gray. Unfortunately, the information is written in white on a dark gray (or black), which is not the easiest on the eyes.

Red dots on the tables list (to indicate that a player of the team pro sits, or the table is a turbo table)anchor the overall appearance in the Winamax graphical identity.

The tournament lobby is of the same kind of the cash game. Against a background alternatively black and dark gray , information is written in white, yellow (lights tournaments) or orange (satellites). The information is carefully arranged by column (hour,name, game, buy-in, staffing, players and status), the column set containing, for short, the variant of the tournament, and colored ideogram (and readily understandable), where appropriate, its characteristics:

• 6 on blue background: 6-max

• 4 of cyan blue background 4-max

• 2 of cyan blue background heads up

• + Green background : rebuy

• T on a dark red background: turbo

• Half-T on a dark red background: semi-turbo

• S on royal blue background: shootout

• telephone network bars on night blue background Deepstack

• overlapping rectangles on green background Power: qualifier

• K on gray background: knockout

• funnel on purple background: Crazys

These ideograms are enough to soften the dull side of the lobby, but fail to give it a sufficient reading comfort.

The sounds heard playing on Winamax are:

• the sound of the distribution of a new hand: sliding noise, friction on fabric, rather mild; a sound for each card dealt

• the sound of a player who folds: the same sound as above, in a single copy

• the sound of a player who bets: it looks like noise that tokens dropped to the bottom a bag, or launched on a carpet would do.

• the sound that indicates that an action has to choose on a table: a velvety tone, almost tifled; discreet

• the sound that indicates that we have almost no time to act at a table, two successive beeps, the first acute, the second a little less; the same ilk as the beep sounds when you have an action make, velvety, almost suffocated

In short, sounds were studied and manage to not alter the comfort at the table. We have a soft spot for the beep that indicates that we have almost no more time: it is alarming without being strident.

By connecting the first time Winamax software, one is baffled by the clean appearance and compartmented information at our disposal. In clearly defined frames, each block information finds its place: chat, promo, menu, filters, etc.

And in three huge rectangles (red for the selected rectangle, pale gray and gradient for both others), the primary sort (that offered all rooms): CASH GAME TOURNAMENTS, SIT & GO. In capitals, more visible.

When starting an online poker software is we want to play ... poker. Winamax chose the fastest legal way to connect:

• Entering the e-mail address, password and date of birth: they all taking place in the same window.

• E-mail address and password are storable: we do not recommend, however, to activate the storing password option.

• Entering Date of birth: the keyboard smoothly move from day to month or year

• Validation use the enter key. Nice shortcut.

Of all software available on the French market, Winamax is the fastest on entering data necessary to identify the player when connecting.

After clicking on the Cash Game rectangle, four filters are available (in addition to threecheckable boxes: Hide empty tables, Hide full tables and My listings):

• Variations: No Limit Hold'em, Limit Hold'em, Pot Limit Omaha

• Size of blinds: a specific limit (€ 0.05 / € 0.10, for example), or 4 slices of predefined (Micro, Low, Medium or High)

• Number of table seats: Heads Up, Short Handed (3 or 5 seats table) or Full Ring

• Speed: Normal or Turbo

Simple filters, but who will give you a lot of games to play ! Winamax even propose table of 3 and 5 players, but no short handed 6 players game.

When the table you want to play is selected, the right part of the lobby displays, live, the seats of the players their respective stacks. The available seats are clickable, so that from the lobby, one click is enough to sit down.

The only downside of the cash game lobby is how much time an empty table remains apparent. This leads to having a large number of empty tables on some limits and variants.

5 filters are available, so one more than the cash game :

• Game : Hold'em, omaha, etc. (Every legal game in France)

• Buy-In : 0 - 5, 5-10, 10-20, 20-50 or "all buy ins.

• Seats : Seats per table : Heads up (2 seats) Short Handed : (3 to 6 players) Full ring (9 or 10 players) or "All tables"

• Tournament type : Classic, Qualifyer, Crazy, etc.

• Speed: Normal, semi turbo, turbo or all

However, it is not possible to filter rebuys tournament, freezeout tournaments, DeepStacks from each other. The set of filters is significant, but not everything is possible in the end.

Once the desired event is selected, the crucial information is available:

• In the list of tournaments: Tournament status (registration, opened, runing ...), enrollment and amount of the prize pool.

• In the rectangle to the top right of the lobby: start time for tournaments, buy-in (prize pool and rake); moreover, by clicking on "Info" at the top right of the rectangle, you have access without opening the tournament to more accurate information, such as level length,blind levels, the number of paid places, etc.)

In the rectangle to the right, one can directly registrater to the tournament in one click. If the satellites are programmed to the selected tournament, between the buttons "Register" and "Open", there is a "Quaify" button which, when pressed, displays a window showing the list of satellites for which you can register. And all this from the Tournament lobby main window.

The specific lobby of a tournament is the one that opens when you double-click on a tournament from the main lobby. Opens in a tab, thereby avoiding the multiplication of the windows in the taskbar (for Windows enthusiasts) this clean lobby displays:

• vital information : Prize pool, blinds and current levels ahead, time before the end of the late registration option or current level , number of remaining players, current duration of the tournament, time before the next break, average stack. Easily identifiable information and dynamic data updates in real time.

• in the lower two thirds of the window: Alternatively, starting stacks, duration of one level of blinds, players on the table, buy-in, etc. This information, primarily useful to know if you wish to register for a tournament, are also available from the main lobby by clicking on "Info" as shown in the previous section

• the list of seated players: updated near-live, is exhaustive, indicates for each player the amount of his stack

• The seat of a player at the table by clicking on a player is displayed on the right, you can see the names of its adversaries, and their respective stacks, and a button to display the full size table

The tournament Winamax lobby is the most ergonomic of the market. With tables miniatures updated live, the "own mini lobby" inlaid in the main lobby, which saves time and clicks to whoever wants to know more about a given tournament, the clarity of information display for a tournament, the shortcut to subscribe to a satellite, qualifying for a given tournament… Winamax made the couple "main lobby tournaments /specific lobby " close to perfection. If aesthetic efforts are possible, the ergonomists have produced outstanding work which it is hard to criticize anything.

NB tournaments breaks synchronization should be improved so that ALL Players have full 5 minutes break per hour. A coffee refill and a toilet break often takes more than 3 minutes.

In addition to global options (table color,card design, etc.), there is a ton of features just a click away from the game table.

Top left, 7 buttons allow you to act on various parameters:

• Notifications: as on any social network, recent celebrities connections, next regular tournaments hours are displayed. These elegant notifications appear like on an iPhone: top of the window during a configurable number of seconds also

• Home: To return to the main lobby

• Statistics: Displays the balance of your session in a new window: Current, globally or on a given table

• Hand histories: the history of the last hands played at your session or specifically to a given table; there, a Replay button allows you to review the scene in slow motion (or fast forward)

• Deposit: if you promptly need to redeposit money, this button will give you access to the deposit web window.

• Settings: to set some classic options (table color, cards, bottom) without having to return to the lobby

• "+1": To open a similar table; extremely practical in Sit & Go, to avoid back and forth between the lobby and the tournament window

Top right, two buttons allow you to:

• Change the arrangement of open tables: cascading, mosaic or pile them up.

• Hide the chat (attached by default to the right of the table): After masking it, it can be displayed "over" the table, on its right side, thus allowing without messing up the layout of the table, to look specifically on a particular phrase or the last hand played

That leaves us with the bottom of the window (which represents less than 15% of overall height), mainly dedicated to the bets made during a turn. This "window down" is thus divided the following way:

• The rebuy / Autorebuy button : on the far left, the button allows you to ... rebuy or automatically rebuy when you lose a few chips

• The three buttons "Fold", "X, XX € CALL" and "Y, YY RAISE €" respectively indexed F1, F2 and F3, they can perform the three main actions; by default, the RAISE button is calibrated at twice the amount of last bet (minraise)

• The betting cursor: moving it with the mouse, it allows you to choose the amount of his raise. By clicking on his right, the planned increases by half a blind (very convenient to adjust the sizing bet). Unfortunately, leaving the mouse clicked, the cursor does not move automatically. Also note that the cursor is not sensitive to mouse scrolling.

• The X3, X4, X5, POT and ALL IN buttons: they adjust the betting amount. Pressing Enter send the chips to the middle.

• The "time +" button: always visible, it can warn the software we have already decided to take our time to think without the need to wait for the call to order the painful tone.

• The Options and Leave buttonst: at the far right, they allow, among other things, to automatically leave the table at the next big blind.

On the multitabling side, Winamax still has work to do, especially for those who play at several sites: the active window does not appear in front of all other when an action is required and the player is looking at a table of another poker room.

There's nothint to say about software quality here. Even at rush hour, there's absolutely no lag whatsoever to observe on the site.

First to do so, Winamax made its software available for Windows, Mac, without downloading a soft and even on mobile. The room is the first availbale on Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

Such a mulitplicity of platforms is made possible by using the Adobe Air technology.

The main trackers that are Hold'em Manager and Poker Tracker work with Winamax.fr. It's also the case with Xeester, the new french tracker.

Before opening NL2 tables, Winamax was already proud of being the second biggest room in terms of players, in France. Since this opening, Winamax went on a whole new level and is now the biggest french room in terms of traffic.

In No Limit Hold'em, whatever the limit you're playing, there's a lot of player ready to chip in even though highest stakes tables are rarer, as on every other poker site. On limit hold'em though, the traffic is close to zero.

Even if Omaha see less players than Holdem, it's still very playable up to NL200, with a few table playing in short handed (5 players) and heads up.

From 0.5eurs to 500eurs, heads up or full ring, normal speed or turbo, double or nothing, there's always a bunch of sng tables ready to launch et there's close to no waiting time before starting a tournament. Sit n Go goes up to 30 players.

Every week, Winamax offers an impressive quantity of tournaments. The main ones are on Sunday.

• Sunday Suprise : 10eurs, 40K warranty and a gift (different every week) going to the winner. Between 4 and 5 thousand players are here every Sunday, and there's no overlay.

• Main Event : 150eurs, 100 000 eurs guarantee, the winner gets around 20K.

If tournaments played on Winamax are not the biggest, they're often shorter than others. The structure is indeed made so that winning players don't have to stay up all night. Even when it's the case, Winamax usually split the tournament on two days, allowing players to get a well diserved break. That being said, structures are in no way turbo or unbalanced.

That said, Winamax tournaments are well populated with a good prize pool and a structure a bit quicker than the rest.

As you could see on the freeroll calendar for Winamax, the room offers about 10 freerolls a day. Everyone of them is gifted with a prizepool going from 50eurs (11h) to 250(21h15) and registration open half an hour before the tournament starts to avoid ghost players.

With that many freerolls tournaments, there a real possibility of starting a bankroll from scratch, especially since on top of all those, there's the welcome freeroll and birthday freeroll, adding to your chances.

Of course you can also play in play money, with hundred of tables waiting for you.

In 2013, Winamax launched the Expresso tournament, a new way of playing holdem.

• Turbo SNG with 3 players

• Structure copying the « deglingos » SNG (500chips and 3 minutes rounds)

• buy in of 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100eurs

• A jackpot determining the prizepool, going from twice the buyin to 10000 times the buyin.

• Last but not least, a huge rake.

Expresso are a hit with casual players, with the possibility to win big with a little bet.

Winamax tourney have a standard rake of 10%. For cash game, Winamax have a no flop, no drop policy, meaning that when the hand doesn't go to the flop, no money is taken from the pot.

After the flop, the rake is 6.5% capped depending on the number of players in the hand. The cap is 1.50eurs on NL2 to NL 10 games, and can go up to 3eurs on games over the NL20 and over

Winamax has a live tournament circuit in France, called the Winamax Poker Tour. Proposing free satellite tournaments, it's one of the biggest amateur competition in the country. With 82 live qualification tournaments, one can win a sit for the final tournament held at the Clichy Montmartre club in Paris. This tournament can also be entered via a 550 buy in, but is of course free for the winners of the qualification round.

This circuit is a lot like Winamax, very close to casual and recreational players, allowing to play against big names of the poker scene with the dream of maybe hitting big someday.

Since 2013, the Winamax Poker Tour also offers a team competition, three players per team, and the prizepool is reduced from 500 000 to 100 000eurs.

For some years now, Winamax organize a very special tournament, the Winamax Poker Open in Dublin, self proclamed the funniest poker tournament of the year.

A main event is short handed (buy in 550eurs) with two day one and a re-entry made possible, and a lot of bonuses :

• First to bust gets a free ticket to the 300eurs side event

• The bubble boy gets an invitation for next year

• If you bust a a player from the Winamax Pro Team, you get an exclusive T shirt stating « I busted xxxx » and a 150 euro ticket to play the main event Winamax.

• If your four of a kind get beaten, you get a 300eurs ticket.

• Every straight flush using both of a player's hole cards gets a free invitation for next year.

• Top three players get an invitation for next year on top of the prizepool.

This tournament is the best representation of the Winamax spirit. Not expensive, playing with the pros, a lot of suprise gifts, in a good, relaxed mood.

Winamax is very present on television, radio or associated with events like the X-Games, the point is to make poker seems casual and fun.

• King 5 : One of the most important competition of the year, for pros and for casual players. The concept is to have a 100% free tournament, with players playing in team of five and distribute more than 200 000eurs in prizes and money, including a trip to las vegas with tickets for the Main Event for the winning team.

• Go Fast : a cash game with 6 players, ranging from NL2 to NL50. Once a player folds, the player get seated at another table to play the following round. That concept goes with a special race inspired backgroun and different radio stations going with visual and sounds alerts and animations.

• Balance Window : During a multi table cash game session, people like to know where they stand. Are they winning ? losing ? How much did they lose or win today ? With the statistics button on each table, you get to know exactly where you stand. It's kind of a « light » tracker for people not wanting to haslle themselves with a complete software suit for bankroll management

Outside the wire transfer and credit card deposit, Winamax accepts the following way of putting money in :

• Neteller

• Paypal

• Ticket Premium

• PaysafeCard

• Ukash

• Moneyclic

• Buyster

Winamax worked for a while on getting ready for the french market. Coming from very far, it's a real feat to be able to tackle the best and well established playing room on the market, ending today in the top 2 of the best poker soft in the world.