Returning to Online Poker After 15 Years – What’s the Landscape Like Now?
Hey everyone,
after roughly 15 years away from the game, I’ve recently felt the itch to get back into online poker — and wow, the world seems to have changed a lot since I left. Sites I used to love, like Full Tilt, are obviously long gone, and PokerStars feels much smaller than it used to be. From what I can tell, GGPoker seems to be the biggest site for players here in Germany now.
One thing that surprised me: it looks like GGPoker isn’t supported by Holdem Manager or PokerTracker anymore, mainly because they don’t produce readable hand histories. If I’m going to study seriously again, I’d really like to track my hands — partly to document my progress, and partly so I can dig into leaks and do proper analysis.
So as a player in Germany in 2025, I’m wondering:
Which sites are currently considered the best in terms of player pool size, software quality, and tracker support? Ideally I’d like a site that has enough traffic for smaller tournaments as well as micro–midstakes NLHE cash games, and which still works with PokerTracker/HM (or whatever has replaced them nowadays).
I’d also love a quick overview of:
• Whether PT/HM are even the standard tools anymore — or if there’s a new go-to tracking/analysis software.
• What the current “best practice” is for learning modern GTO-based strategies for 6-max NLHE. Any training sites or tools you’d recommend?
• How you would approach re-entering the online poker scene after such a long break, especially given that GTO wasn’t nearly as developed back then.
• And generally, which sites are most accessible/optimal for EU-based players these days.
For context: I used to grind a lot of single-table tournaments up to $109, and played NLHE cash up to NL400.
Any advice, pointers, or rundowns of the current meta would be hugely appreciated. Super cool to see this forum is still alive after all these years. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Thanks in advance!
Jonoker
P.S.: If there is a better forum for this post, feel free to move 😀
1 Reply
Moin,
as a German you basically only have GG and Stars. Maybe some cryptobased sites like Coin Poker but I haven't checked them out.
Due to the new Glücksspielstaatsvertrag German players are capped to playing 4 tables. I play on GG with "my mothers account" and Stars with my own therefore I can play the sites simultaneously and play 8 tables at a time. If you use your real name for both accounts this will not be possible.
Only after playing for 4 hours on one site you are able to open the other and can then play.
Pokertracker 4/HM (and Hand2Note) are still the go to.
At PokerStars you can use your personal HUD while playing, this is not possible at GG.
But you can still import Hands from GG into PT4/HM/Hand2Note and analyze hands. For this you have to click on PokerCraft
Go to My Tournaments, mark the tournaments and download the Hand Histories
+ manually import into Pokertracker
For GTO Study the most advanced and popular is gtowizard but there are also others like gtobase
The pools in the micro and lowstakes are still very beatable. Most people are very nitty.
As you have realized PokerStars has become much smaller and Tournaments that had 100k$ guarantees a few years ago, nowadays have like 30k$ gtd.
But they try with having a lot of events like the Bounty Builder Series which starts on 16.11.2025, the tournaments in these events are quite good and have higher guarantees
To be honest due to the regulations for German players it's very hard to make money. Especially on PokerStars as they give 0% rakeback.
hope I could help a bit,
Good Luck to you
